Renegade Fair
September 16th, 2007 ryanThis weekend I found myself in Chicago’s Wicker Park for the Renegade Craft Fair.
While a lot of the vendors had your clever-t-shirts and whatnot, the fair itself exists to promote the handmade crafts of resourceful entrepreneurial artists. I had heard about it via some Chicago related website and had marked my calendar to go. I brought my camera along and a few photos are out and about should your interest dictate.
Most of the pics are of the squid or octopus nature, big surprise.
The fair was packed to the gills with hipsters, their bikes, and their dogs. There was a lot of cool stuff and attendance seemed high enough to make the trip of each of the independent artists worthwhile. I must have seen a hundred Chrome messenger bags on the backs of many of the ink-adorned folks that were perusing the goods, which was expected and kind of cool. I’m well beyond the whole ‘having something just to be different’ mentality and it’s always interesting to attend events such as these with a few like-minded individuals. It’s all about the ratio, and akin to the ‘cons I frequent you have your percentage of everything from crazy cos players to genuinely righteous attendees.
It was a good time. I even picked up a shirt from the SquidFire guys.
While visiting a friend of years past I was exposed to the lovely artwork of one Catia Cheien, who my buddy was there to assist.
Allow me to preface my opinion of her work, which I found to be delightful, with the fact that I am not an artist nor do I know a damn thing about it other than what I like and do not. Any unintentional slandering is just that, unintentional. Perhaps the best description of her work is Edward Gorey meets the watercolors of Dave McKean. The above pictured is waiting to be framed, and you should tell your friends about her. Lots.