Reflections from a Craft Fair
Well… it happened. I participated in my first ever craft fair, this one held by The North Church in Mounds View. It was a well attended large church Christmas holiday bazaar. I centered all my initial turning work on making items for inventory for this show, as we designed this show to be our “test case” to see if we like selling our wares “live” or not. Months of preparation went into the planning for this show - I researched articles on set up and display, craft show etiquette, and what’s popular. I build a nice “knock-down”/easy to assemble shelving unit to give more display space and outfitted it with lighting which really set my display apart. I researched and both “Square” terminals to help in collecting money (credit cards, etc.). I had business cards printed up. I engraved a nice large sign with my logo. I even went so far to order a logo-based ink stamp which we then adorned gift bags, tags, etc., to round out the customer experience.
I loved it. The beauty and pleasure of “hawking your personal wares” is daunting and demanding. I have a degree in marketing, but that was for corporate sales, not on my things. There is a ton of pressure to reduce your sales prices to drive volume but the “werks” created have intrinsic and economic value to them. You want to be able to converse with everyone who comes to your table set up and just can’t.
The highlight of the 2 day event came for me each time a person rounded the corner and looked at my booth, I saw their eyes light up, and watched them mouth “Wow” (or something like it) which was a true blessing to me as a seller. It’s amazing to think that none of HAPDesignwerks bowls and other woodturned items even existing prior to July of this year (4 months ago). That’s a personal accomplishment.
I had set a sales goal for the event and achieved that goal which was refreshing to accomplish. In the end, I sold about 30% of my inventory - not bad for my first art show attempt. I received a ton of support from my LinkedIn community once I announced my participation in the fair. Today, I created an Etsy site for my remaining inventory. Not bad for a 65-year old retiree who is not a techie!
Hopefully each item will find its way to a home where it can be treasured, displayed, or used as an item of beauty which shows the richness of God’s glorious design in his creation.
Increments…
While traveling in northern WI, home of the historic lumber baron country, we stayed at a family member’s cabin in Polk County. While navigating the GPS around the county, we encountered street after street with designations like “¼ Street” or (220 ½ Avenue). And not just a few – many of them – 23 ¾, 48 5/8, etc – over and over. In one sense, it was funny to see, but from another sense, it got me thinking.
In real life, measurements serve a huge purpose. Take, for example, food preparation. This culinary art uses both the general/approximate and the precise. My wife’s grandmother baked in approximates – she just “knew” how much flour to add, what a “pinch of salt” really meant. In fact, my wife’s aunts once chronicled Grandma Molly’s baking recipes by asking her to bake and then following her around the kitchen with measuring cups for every ingredient to ensure wholesome tastiness for generations to come. But this also showed that a skilled crafter (a baker, for example) can live with approximates that come close to precision for things that don’t require precision down to the thousandths.
To be precise is a good thing in most of life. This is critical in the certain parts of woodworking and metalworking. To create a tenon of 1 ½ inches and to cut a mortise less than the tenon’s length will simply not work. Approximates are not tolerable. A box with sides of ever so slightly different lengths will NOT be square or true.
I have recently delved into the world of CNC woodworking with a Shaper Origin – a handheld CNC router. It has tolerances of preciseness to the thousandths of an inch using a proprietary series of “domino-like” tape/images. Never before have I been able to create hand works with such precision. Inlays and onlays can be adjusted/trimmed to fit within a micro-hair difference. Joinery has never been easier (once you figure out how to operate the equipment).
Back to my Polk County, WI illustration – does it really help navigate farmland and forests to know that between 20th Avenue and 22nd Avenue can be 21st Avenue just as well as 20 5/8th’s Avenue or 21 ½ Avenue? The irony is - the bigger the scale (as in rural highways), the more exactness is less than helpful.
In woodworking, a woodworker has two paths they can use – the precise and the general. Most of the time, we work in with world of the precise, but for design’s sake, we also live in the dynamic tension of the general. For example, is precision really needed when the wood’s grain or composition may suggest a looser design? Yes, a chair needs to sit squarely on the floor, a drawer needs to be square to work properly, and we should use the tools to achieve this, but consider the other road - a tabletop of 4/4 lumber planed down to a perfect “natural” thickness (rather than ½” or ¾”) to “optically fit” to its’ apron, spreader and legs can be a work of visual beauty and enjoyment.
Let us all walk these 2 paths – use the tools that can give us the preciseness we need when it is critical, but sometimes we need to walk a different path – a pathway where the “general/approximate” gives us a created piece of beauty and function.
Shavings… a beginning “werk”
All woodworking projects begin with an idea… and … well, yes wood, and they hopefully end with a finished project that enhances the life of at least two people: (1) the woodworker (for the joy of knowing they’ve created a well-made, handcrafted, well-designed piece of work), and the user/recipient (maybe it’s an enhanced living space, perhaps it’s something made easier to use, more beautiful, more unique or something that defines “this is who I am” ). Joy is found in many ways. However, there is also a third recipient of joy in this space, and that is of God being glorified in the use of His creation for works of wood that hopefully embody truth, beauty, and goodness.
That’s why I created HAP Designwerks - to give people joy and a sense of enhanced well-being. I chose the name of the firm to include a non-traditional term, “werks,” versus the more traditional term - works. This use of the term werks is by design, as while all woodworking projects are technically “works”, but they are not always “werks.” The term “werks” has historically been defined as something that connotes “achievement, expression of approval or praise.” It is that combination of solid design + achieving a praiseful response from the user that this company is formed.
At its core, I envision that HAP Designwerks will exist to design both production “werks” available to the general public and bespoke (custom) “werks” for our customers that wish for something made just for them. It will strive to offer products and services that will “enhance our living.”
I pledge myself to three main goals for each and every product that we offer or make for someone:
Good design
Solid construction for long-lasting life
Functionality for the user
Like all new things, it will start small, and by God’s grace, may it be used to serve others.