Fiber

Many wearables artists wear their merchandise and change regularly during show hours. Sometimes the switching of jackets or shawls was going on at such a pace that I couldn’t tell for a moment who was the customer and who the maker.

Randall Darwall, who weaves complex plaids with a luxurious feel and makes garments with partner Brian Murphy, was no exception. He made his own fashion show with vivid shirts. It was also fascinating to watch the two men pair scarves with jackets, not trying to match but to slightly shift the color conversation.

Okay, so I’m a late convert. I’ve been hearing about the indie craft fairs for a long time, and for at least a year I’ve been saying, privately and publicly, that I welcomed a phenomenon that made craft affordable by committing to the commercial models of internet sales and the outdoor fair. Such fairs have never vanished, not even from New York City, but they have now found forceful advocates in a younger contingent of makers. At last I managed to get to the Renegade Fair in Brooklyn’s McCarren Park last weekend. It was not exactly what I imagined, though.

Testimonial banquets are a clichéd form: the rubber-chicken circuit. They’re also full of happy talk that has to be approached with some measure of skepticism. Given those stereotypes, perhaps I can be forgiven for first having thought I’d pass on the Creative Capital lunch, and more so because this granting organization specializes in performing arts, film/video, innovative literature and emerging fields as well as visual arts, under which heading craft presumably fits. But how relevant would it be?