Cirque du Soleil wasn’t the only circus act in town last night — Iconocraft had all the makings of a 3-ring circus plus carnie sideshow.
When I volunteered I really had no idea what I was getting into since I hadn’t been to the previous Iconocraft show. Seems that wouldn’t have helped anyway as the first Iconocraft was more of a traditional craft show where crafters paid for table space and buyers wandered through.
Last night the organizers tried something different: a blend of hands-on tutorial sessions, demonstrations, and, live performance art. CRAZY. They also crammed in bar service, high-end cupcakes, and two DJs. Oh, and my station, the free-for-all craft-what-you-can station that turned out to be wildly popular.
I have to say something about the performance art because it was crazy-indulgent-in-your-face-capital-P-capital-A Performace Art. Urbanheart Live are a crew of performers who put a lot of work into the spectacles they create; last evening’s show, performed in three acts, involved three performers on stage, one narrator, and one DJ providing a constant stream of ambient techno. The show involved paint that was splashed, sprayed, and dripped over three large canvases and the other performers as a story unfolded. I couldn’t pay full attention but it was certainly never dull. It definitely fit the bill as the centre stage/big top act in the crafty circus. In its final act, the stage looked like this:
I spoke on-and-off through the night with one of the organizers, Missie Peters (whose tweet I so innocently answered, getting roped into the whole affair) about what could be done better next time but didn’t get into too much detail; I expect I will be more involved next year. My biggest beef is the location. The Victoria Event Centre is a multi-purpose location but best suited for theatre/music/cabaret style shows; having tables still set out in front of the stage meant that the actual crafting was segregated and made navigating somewhat of a challenge for much of the night.
Focusing more narrowly on “my” table, as soon as I got there and saw the supplies I noticed a problem: stacks of fabric and no needles or thread. I fixed that issue by heading around the corner to the dollar store to grab some sewing kits. There were, at least, plenty of scissors, but only one glue gun and a handful of glue sticks that had a habit of rolling off the table throughout the evening. If I had my way, I’d have had a few baskets and some tool-caddies to contain some of the craftsplosion. In the end though, plenty of people made pins, hair clips, collages, pillow covers, and more.
Through it all I made sure everyone who needed the glue gun got a turn; I kept unearthing scissors as they got buried and helped with treasure hunts for red feathers, black buttons, just the right piece of fabric and whatever else was needed.
One of the crafters asked me if I minded “telling everyone my table was free” (the other hands-on crafts cost from $1 to $10 in tokens, to cover supply cost) — I told her no, it never even crossed my mind! I realized at that moment that between my Creative Miscellany background (i.e. working with repurposed materials in almost every craft medium) plus my FrugalVictoria background (i.e., well, being frugal and finding uses for everything) I was pretty much the best possible person to run that table.
It was fun to spend the evening encouraging people to “embrace their inner preschooler” and to just dig in and make something — even if it was just destined to exist for a brief time. I made my own things, too, of course: a little bug made of pipe cleaners, a hair-clip with a blue fabric flower, and a collage that I threw together at the end of the evening using the scraps from everyone-else’s projects.
Sounds like quite the unique event.