There’s a Craft Guerilla on the loose!

07. Jun, 2010

In East London a beast is stirring... Craft Guerilla is rearing its beautifully hand stitched head, and is on the hunt for new members. I caught up with Deborah Daniel to find out how you can get involved, and how they are making craft accessible for the masses!

What is Craft Guerrilla?

It's an art and craft collective set up by working designer makers/artists for other professional creatives to work with each other and with the general public. By hosting craft markets,events, diy craft nights and workshops we hope to make the public more aware of the merit of hand made goods, the exploitation in mass production and the worth and wealth of such skills.

How did you come up with the name?

It was thanks to Danielle La Valle really. We were looking for a name and we were talking about craft armies and she made a remark that it could be like a Guerrilla. So Craft Guerrilla was born!

What inspired you to create Craft Guerrilla?

Basically it was through frustration. Frustration that there were people out there organising other creatives without any dynamic or knowledge. I didn't want to be represented by a clueless people that discovered knitting while pregnant and took it one step further by organising a few women from play group to hold craft fairs. That's got it's own value and I'm not knocking it but in order to make a living from your craft you have to sell and price your work realistically. It's fine to have it as a hobby but please don't undersell your work or it devalues every other makers efforts.

Also there wasn't any physical place where other like minded folk could work together,collaborate, share and pass on skills. That prompted us to do the DIY craft nights.

what would you say to someone who is thinking of becoming a member, or coming along to an event?

Events are open to everyone and usually free to get in. We do charge for craft packs but that's to cover material costs and what you get is on hand tuition and at the end of it something you've made and a skill you can reuse over and over again. To become a member you'll need to have worked with us on at least two occasions and in return you get a direct image link on our website, take advantage of our promo and media contacts and cheaper stall rates. With time we hope to offer more to our members.

What are your plans for the future?

We're getting our 4th army at the end of the month so a craft takeover of the world would be great but it's all about networking and spreading the net further so we can all take advantage of the web traffic and general interest. We're quite aware that by selling craft in such high quantities we're also creating another form of consumerism so to balance it out we try to use recycled and locally sourced materials and to teach people to be a bit more self suficiente. Working with people that use upcycling and recycling materials is something we'd be interested in doing more of in the future and getting it out there into the wider public arena.

Otherwise a nice space for workshops would help so we can start making some money. We are self funded and all 3 core members have jobs to survive and fund this project. It's a necessary evil and we've managed to keep going for 2 years now on a shoe string budget so a little bit of funding wouldn't be turned down.

We have a few interesting bits coming up but they're top secret.We're busy... lots of festivals, events and a guest area at the Knitting & Stitching shows in the UK so... Who knows what we're doing next but I hope it's interesting. It has been so far!