Q and I got ourselves purposely lost (I am very bad with maps) around my neighborhood a weekend ago and ended up at this refurbished house called 10A Alabama that was tucked down the road in between a construction site and a tiny hotel.
They were holding an arts and crafts fair there that day, as they do around 4 times a year, and it was a refreshing change from the bright lights and corporate packaging of the city. Across the threshold that had a teacup engraved onto the driveway and unlit light bulbs hung in a line like Christmas lights, it was intimate and warm. Tables stacked with chalkboard notebooks and rubbercut prints were flush beside shelves full of hand-stitched dolls and cabana pillows and vintage suitcases held solid perfumes in every childhood scent imaginable. The crafters, who looked amazingly the part (it’s in the way they move their hands), were standing along the hallways instead of sitting hidden behind their wares and talking to visitors like old friends. I have never seen so much inspired art in my life. To be honest, I have never felt so insecure about my own art as I was in that house.
We ended up walking around the entire place twice: once, quickly, like a child and the second time like a woman lengthening the hours in bed between dusk and dawn. I wanted to touch everything and I mostly did.
I discovered washi tapes back during my trip to Japan with my baby sister and I’ve been using them to hold up postcards and tape down pesky book corners since. I wanted every pattern and was holding onto so many of these at a time that Q laughed and said I looked like he would in an ice cream store, which is to say that I looked like I was going crazy. I finally chose white daisies on a yellow field (top row, leftmost) and pink ones on blue (3rd row, 3rd from the left). Get some for yourself via heykessy.com.
These handstamped postcards were displayed right by the entrance and were missed the first time around because it was all magnet to people’s Norths and completely hidden behind a sea of bodies. During the second go-around and when Q had calmed my heart enough not to take in all of the art in one breath, I snuck my hand in in between a girl and a boy and found that the cards were made by the people behind Craft MNL. I’ve been playing with the idea of joining one of their workshops for awhile now and that was all the convincing I needed.
Cue in, handmade rubber stamps by the Rubber Ducky Stamp Company;
these adorable owls by the quiet Job of Una Toys;
and a butter, sugar, and lemon crepe that was as delicate and well-thought-out as all of the art today and it was a weekend of beauty.
paradepaper 