ReadyMade: Instructions for everyday life

Last fall, when I was with American Craft, I started working with the good people at Socrates Sculpture Park, R 20th Century Gallery and the Noguchi Museum to put together the first ever Makers Market in New York City. Well, after many months of planning the event finally happened this past weekend and it was something special in many ways.

Putting together an event of any kind is just like throwing a party (which of course is an event of sorts so shouldn’t come as a surprise)—you spend the hours and minutes leading up to it wondering if anyone will come. This particular anxiety was compounded with the planning of the Makers Market due to the fact that the venue (Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, New York) is outside and the weather leading up to the weekend had been nothing short of awful for the past month all over the east coast. So, I spent much of the day, Friday, June 26th staring out the window and cloud watching, hoping for the puffy white ones as opposed to the ominous gray ones.

Gray was the order of the day, however, until around 4:45 when miraculously things started to clear up. “Amazing,” I thought, “it’s going to clear up just in time for the opening night party!” I ran out of our New York offices in midtown Manhattan in full sunshine and into Grand Central to catch the train out to Long Island City. As my wife, Heather and I approached the stop for Socrates things drastically changed. Not only had the gray returned but incredible (though depressing, given the circumstances) thunder, lighting and rain had come with it. And I’m not talking your run of the mill thunder, lighting and rain. I’m talking unbelievable downpours and crackling lightning with thunderous, you guessed it, thunder.

We got off the train and quickly saw there was no way we were going to be able to walk the 10 blocks to the park so we camped out under an awning and waited the storm out. While we were o.k., we cringed imagining what was happening at the park which sits right on the East River. Makers Market consisted of three tents full of ceramicists (like Sanam Emami), glass artists (like Esque Studios, whose work is shown below)

bicycle makers (like Circle A Cycles – check them out for a nice lil’ recap too), motorcycle makers (like Walt Siegl – Amazing!), woodworkers (like Platform), felters (like Hope Ginsburg, whose work is shown below)

furniture makers and smaller manufacturers (like Atlas Industries and Teroforma, whose booth is shown below)

and jewelers (like Satomi Kawakita and Eric Silva). The good folks from St. Germain were out there with a full bar set up not under any tent at all! Watching the storm from under the relative safety of our awning on Broadway and 30th in Queens, we could only imagine the worst.

As the storm cleared after a good 45 minutes, we made our way down to Socrates (shown below on a brighter day).

Amazingly enough, though everyone looked frazzled (”I thought we were going to die!” is a phrase I heard more than once) everyone had wide smiles on their faces and the comradery built from having survived a mighty storm (relatively) intact was infectious. People clutched their St. Germain Cocktails and happily walked amongst the puddles and amazing wares chatting each other up like nothing had happened. Though the electricity in the tents had to be killed for obvious reasons, candles were lit and all who braved the great outdoors despite the weather reports were rewarded with not only a unique experience (to say the least) but a new group of friends.

Though the saying “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” definitely holds true and this was no exception, I’m happy to report that Saturday and Sunday were beautiful and we pulled over 4,000 people through the doors over the weekend. While I wish I could share some photos with you from Friday night’s stormy activities, I wasn’t on the ball enough to snap some shots. Saturday and Sunday proved much better for photography anyway and the folks at Otto snapped some good shots (including the ones seen here) and wrote a great recap as well. We just talked today about the second Makers Market in 2010 and we are all looking forward to getting to work on it soon! Till then, take care and remember, if lighting strikes, don’t lay down!