Needle Felt Strawberry leaves

I haven't been up to a ton of crafty stuff in the last couple of weeks, largely because I went down to a huge Society for Creative Anachronism event in Arizona called Estrella War. It is a week long event with fighting, arts and crafts activities, camping, socializing, shopping, and generally lots of fun. While I was there I did get a little crafting in. I made a set of needle felted strawberry leaves and a set of strawberry leaves with flowers to augment the coronets of some friends. The strawberry leaves represent being a duke and duchess. Since my friends haven't had time to get new coronets made or their current ones altered, I made the strawberry leaves as a quick fix to signify their new ranks. They turned out super cute!

What's different about VandyCraft?

A lot of craft blogs (and craft books) seem obsessed with re-using hideous 70's and 80's prints into ugly tote bags. I might be being a little mean here, but a lot of stuff out there just doesn't appeal to me. I do believe there is a place for diversity in craft, but it isn't all necessarily for me. So I'm making a craft bog to reflect my aesthetic, 'cause I can. :-)

Doing anything can be a valuable release, something fun and productive to pass the time, make one feel useful, or simply to do when one is feeling stressed out and needs to do something. I do like to make things with a purpose however, something someone will love. For me crafting is a fun and creative way to escape from working on specific fine art projects and commissions. A way to let the creative juices flow without worrying about having the product be professional enough or fit in with my current body of work.

Which brings us around to the art vs. craft debate. Ick. I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that I think there are some very artificial distinctions between arts and crafts. I am a firm believer in functional art, I think a lot of craft media can be "art," that art should generally have good craftsmanship, but that craft and art are not synonyms. There can be an object / project that embodies art and craft, but that pieces should be evaluated on a piece by piece basis. Craft and functional art are wonderful in that they make art accessible to everyone, and useful in our homes and everyday lives. In this day of disposable mass-produced goods I like to make my own well-made goods an buy unique and well-crafted items by local artisans whenever possible. I like to feel that my money (what there is of it) is going to support something I believe in and a purchasing something that will make me happy every time I use it and that will hopefully have some staying power.

Oh, and the pix? Just to color up my little rant there is a needle felted 3 eyed fish (probably one of the most trendy/ugly/striking color combos I've needle felted), and a recent commission I completed for some medieval style glasses.

I too need a craft blog!

If only to save space on my other blog. I already have a livejournal account where I keeps friends updated about my doings. And I have medieval glass, a blog dedicated to medieval glass and stuff that relates to it. However more non-medieval glass stuff is creeping into that blog and I would like to keep it centered around fine art, glass, and history. So here is my outlet for crafty goodness! I can't promise to update all the time, but I am going to try for once per week. Some things may be cross posted from medieval glass, but I will also try to limit that.

For my first post, here is a sample of crafty goodness. This is my Elder God, made in time to show at Orycon in November. I only recently uploaded his images to flickr. Gotta love cute and fuzzy Cthulhu! He is needle felted around a pipe cleaners and had poseable tentacles, wings, arms, and legs.