Collective Buzz: How To Form A Craft Collective

A while back we were approached about presenting something at the 'Craft and the New Economy' Symposium which is put on by the Ontario Crafts Council. We were super honoured, and jumped at the opportunity, but it wasn't until we sat down to plan our workshop that we realized how nervous we all were! We very quickly figured out what we could talk about ('How To Form A Craft Collective'), but who was going to say what? Who would go first? "Are you nervous? Because I'm so nervous!"...

Well, it came and went, and we did just fine! We had a great turnout at our workshop, and we walked our attendees through an English Paper Piecing tutorial as we went through what we consider the five key steps to starting a craft collective in your own community.

Step 1: Find a group of like-minded people.

This might be a group of friends that you already have, or it might mean that you need to get creative! Put up posters, join/start a knit night, look for local craft blogs...do whatever you need to do to find
some people who are just as passionate about this idea as you are.

Step 2. Create a vision for your group.

Every craft collective will have it's own unique identity. For us, we were looking to connect with like-minded people and participate in skill-sharing and large-scale craft projects. For you it may be something very different. When you meet with your collective be sure to share the things you are excited about, because you never know what might come of it!

Step 3. Delegate tasks.

For the Beehive, the tasks 'fell' pretty naturally. Each of us volunteered for certain tasks, based on our interest and schedules, and the tasks that were left over seemed to naturally fall into place as well. It's important in a collective, where no one is in charge or specifically taking the lead, that you're very aware of sharing the load. One thing we've all appreciated about the Beehive is that there is an honesty and graciousness about what each of us can take on a different points throughout the year.

Step 4. Get busy!

Do the things that you want to do! There was a reason you started this collective - now, get to it! Host a craft fair, share your skills, start a garden, put on a workshop, create a collective art piece...there are so many different things you can do with your group!

Step 5. Share the love.

If you're part of a craft collective, there are lots of people who want to hear about it! Start a website, create a blog, share pictures, put together tutorials...there is so much to learn and so much we can all be inspired by.



Those five steps pretty much sum up our process, which we would all say has been a great success! We've got some exciting projects on the go, one of which we'll be looking for help with soon! You'll hear about it here in the next few weeks...

If you have a collective of your own, we'd love to hear your story! Or maybe you're thinking of starting one and you have some questions about our journey. Just leave your comments and questions below or send an email to beehivecraftcollective@gmail.com, and we'll be happy to give some more insight. Thanks for reading!

Collective Buzz at Craft and the New Economy Symposium

Us!

The Beehive is big on sharing skills, knowledge, and inspiration. This orientation is a driving force in all of our activities, which are collective endeavours that draw on our individual strengths and backgrounds. We also try to reach out to the community around us to participate in our projects (see Knit Night on the Brain), provide us with space to make stuff (thank you Kieran & The Brain!), and teach us skills that will help us on the path to self-sufficiency.

So when the Ontario Crafts Council approached us about presenting an interactive activity at their upcoming symposium, Craft and the New Economy, we were pretty stoked on this opportunity. We knew we wanted to present a collective making activity, and reflecting on what we had to offer as a group, we decided that we could also share our experience in making a collective.

If you plan to attend the Symposium on March 10, 2012 (which is highly recommended if you are interested in issues in contemporary craft), we invite you to sign up in the morning for Collective Buzz, which will take place at the reception following the Symposium from 6-8pm. Here you'll hear about how the Beehive was formed, how to start a collective in your own community, and we'll provide you with supplies and instructions for making English paper-pieced fabric hexagons. If this is is ringing a bell, Hollie mentioned it in the last post which also hinted enigmatically about the installation proposal we submitted for this year's Supercrawl. Here is another clue about where we are headed with this project: you can hold on to your hexagons made during this session, or you can leave them with us to be included in the installation.

We're excited to share our know-how and learn from Symposium-goers as well. See you there!

Beehive Workshop: Soap Making with Imke

A couple weeks ago Hollie mentioned that her new friend, Imke, was visiting from Germany and was an experienced soap maker. She wondered if we'd be interested in doing a soap making workshop with her before she headed back home. Yes, please! We gathered the list of ingredients and supplies and met last week to make two kinds of soap, one for hair and the other for the body.

The first one we made was a body soap made of olive oil, hemp oil, and crushed bay leaves. Each ingredient was carefully measured on a digital scale. To each soap we added Lye, which had to be mixed outside since it will burn the skin upon contact. Note the gloves and goggles. Scary stuff.

We used stacked paper cups as our molds so we could easily divide the soaps up amongst the group, although she also recommended silicone muffin tins as molds. We put a layer of newsprint in between the cups to insulate them and keep the soap warm while it hardened overnight.

The second soap we made was beer hair soap. Yes, beer! Flat beer is good for your hair. The protein in the hops and malt help repair the hair and give it a beautiful shine. This soap was made using frozen beer, olive oil, castor oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, and rosemary oil. It smelt a little funny at first but the addition of the rosemary oil made it smell so good.

We each took one bar of each soap home. Once they were hardened the following day they were removed from the molds and now have to sit for 6-8 weeks before they are ready to be used. The website she referenced for these soap recipes was in German, but she did suggest bramble berry as a good reference site if you are interested in trying your hand at soap making too.


Thank you Imke for taking the time to teach us the process of this lovely craft. And a special thank you to Keiran for letting us use his spacious kitchen for the workshop.