I describe my design style as earthy chic with a rustic glamorous vibe. I am naturally drawn to very raw stones and I think that is attributed to the fact that my husband and I have a daughter, Mo, who graduated with a Geology degree. We were always collecting rocks when she was growing up! She gave me the love of "earthy" gems and each piece of jewelry that I make comes with the history and metaphysical properties of the elements used in the design. 

Megan, my oldest daughter, is my source of all things "color" and texture! She is a self-taught, and very accomplished acrylic artist, who paints with an extremely cheerful and vibrant style. She pushes me to get out of my comfort zone by mixing metals, textures and colors together in ways that I would not have thought of on my own. 

I'm certainly inspired by my family, but nature also gives me a boost to the creative process. Whether I'm on a walk with my dog, or a marathon course with Megan (we've completed 7), I find ideas and think about new designs. I want each piece to be meaningful. For example, I've just recently produced some hammered metal necklaces called "Stepping Stones" that were inspired by polished river rocks along a mountain stream. The name Stepping Stones" can symbolize a way to move forward, or heal, or reach our goals. I like to solder three beads onto the metal cutout to represent mind, body and spirit, but some people have customized them for number of children, anniversary dates, numerology, and so on.

I've also started hammering some new rings in Brass, Copper, and Sterling Silver. They are a wide band with a simple, yet dramatic, diagonal cutout and they are named "Pathway" rings. Megan and I were on a marathon course in Couer d'Alene, Idaho when we started talking about letting go of control and letting the path choose us, instead of the other way around. I think a lot of people can relate to jewelry with meaning. It makes a piece very special and can be a fantastic gift for someone. 

You can find other examples of my work on my website at www.StorytellingStrands.com and there is a link to my Etsy shop on that site, as well. Not everything is listed because I'd rather spend time making things that I can show at events like the Jackalope Art Fair!!!

Shop Storytelling Strands at Jackalope Art & Craft Fair on July 25th & 26th at EXDO Event Center.

How would you describe your style?  Are there any artists / designers that you particularly look up to?
Illustrative and boldly minimal.  Salvador Dali has always been an inspiration. More recent ones include Frank Kozik, Coop and Tara McPherson.

What do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own?
We try to keep a consistent point of view with creative choices. The subject matter usually tells its own little story, so I let it. 

What sorts of things inspire you?  
The vanishing world of our youth and the promises it held. Inspiration comes through in all sorts of ways...books, music, movies and the world around us.

When do you feel the most creative? 
Usually starting at about 10 pm.

What is your creative process like?
We start with sketches in pencil on a notepad or sketch paper, then refine the ideas in about three more stages of drawing. When all the mistakes possible have been made and fixed, we ink the drawing. Then scan the drawing into photoshop and clean it up for printing.

What's the coolest artistic tip you've ever received?
Pay attention to proportion, contrast and variation of line weight. These fundamentals give support to all your following choices.

Fix your drawing problems before you turn them into painting problems.

Where can we learn more about you?
Countercouturedesign.com

Shop Counter Couture at Jackalope Art & Craft Fair on July 25th & 26th at EXDO Event Center.

How would you describe your style?  Are there any artists / designers that you particularly look up to?
I would say my work is a rustic, modern combination. 

What sort of things inspire you?  Where do you look for inspiration?
I am inspired by my every day, my life! I have the opportunity to experience so many people, places, ideas, and adventures, all of which I completely adore. With in each of those I find unique inspirations. 

When do you feel the most creative?
Ahh... in the mountains. Smile.

What is your creative process like?
My process starts with a 14ft. piece of wood and ends up with a handful of smaller pieces of art work. Creating the original paintings, grinding and sanding the wood, cutting it all up and transferring my paintings involves a lot of hands on kind of love. By the end of the entire process it most definitely feels like a very unique and custom piece of art. I love every step!

What's the coolest artistic tip you've ever received?
Enjoy the process of what you do most. 

Where can we learn more about you?
http://www.sage8studio.com
www.facebook.com/sage8studio
www.instagram.com/sage8studio

Shop Sage 8 Studio at Jackalope Art & Craft Fair on July 25th & 26th at EXDO Event Center.

How would you describe your style?  Are there any artists / designers that you particularly look up to?
Contemporary style, vintage construction. Our style really comes from the artistic side of our personalities. I'm an artist by trade, so I always match our fabrics based on a lot of color theory and pattern complements. Chris is a ceramicist, so he's always striving for better construction and paying attention to those little tiny details.

We combine the two to make an incredibly unique, but contemporary fashioned product.  Our favorite aspect, however, is our vintage construction. We make everything on a pair of 1950s Singer Featherweight sewing machines that were hand-me-downs from my great-grandmother. Beyond that, we spent an entire year studying tie making, making sure we do it how old world tailors do. Of course we add a bit of our own personality, but we like to think we combine the old and the new world of men's accessories.

As far as inspiration goes, I've been really drawn to the craft movement, not even just with clothing, but everywhere. There's a rebirth and renaissance of everything from food and liquor to painting and clothing. I've drawn inspiration from local companies like
Leopold Bros to other accessory companies like Shwood Eyewear.

What do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own?
It has to be the machines. They each weigh around 11 lbs and are probably some of the smallest machines anyone has ever seen. They're old, but they're little workhorses. Our primary machine made it through hundreds of hours of work before it needed any maintenance. People always ask why we still use them because newer machines are so much easier and faster. I just tell them that that's all I've ever known. We take pride in the fact that that's all we use.

When do you feel the most creative?
Whenever Chris and I start looking for materials or go fabric shopping, we start to get a lot of ideas. Looking at different patterns and colors gives us that little spark we need to make something new. We also like to go around to different thrift shops and vintage stores in town and get inspiration. We see how older things were made and we get a lot of ideas for how to incorporate their design into what we already make. We actually modeled our tie packaging on an old '40s tie that we found in a vintage store down on Broadway.

What is your creative process like?
The entire process is pretty methodical and detailed. To make a tie, there are five essential steps: cutting, stitching, forming, hand sewing, and, what we like to call, 'the details.' We try to work in waves for larger orders, doing one step at a time, but if we need to work fast, we'll do an assembly line style process. I'll cut and then Chris will stitch, so on and so forth. We end up getting a good enough groove that we can knock out a lot of product in a pretty small amount of time. After that, we package everything in our hand cut packaging that we make and design in house.

When we're working, we'll either watch a cooking show marathon or listen to hours of stand-up comedy, coupled with what we call 'tie beers.'  If we have a late night of working, we'll get a six pack and just enjoy it while we work together. We've been best friends since we were five years old, so it reminds us that we're not just working, but we're hanging out and having fun too.

What's the coolest artistic tip you've ever received?
My lithography professor in college always had a mantra that I loved: "I look good. I feel good. I am successful." It isn't exactly an artistic tip, but what it told me was to make sure I'm in the right mood to start working and creating. Whenever I paint or draw, I always have music on that I can zone out to. The same is true for Chris and I when we work.

As any artist knows it is very easy to look at your own work and only see the flaws, while others either don't notice them or even think they add something to the piece. Sometimes little imperfections can be what attract you to an object; you might be looking through a stack
of identical shirts and you end up choosing the one with a random extra strip
of color.

We have a desire to be unique and different which is part of why handmade products are so popular. In an episode of *Parks and Recreation*, Ron Swanson is making wooden chairs and abruptly smashes one because, "It was too perfect. It looked machine-made." We're both perfectionists so Chris likes to reference this any time we find a defect, because otherwise we would obsess over it.

Where can we learn more about you?
You can learn more about our work and our story on our website at himclothing.com.

Shop HIM Clothing at Jackalope Art & Craft Fair on July 25th & 26th at EXDO Event Center.

What do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own? 

We craft an old-fashioned style jerky in a range of flavor profiles updated to the contemporary palette. The authentic style comes from our simple process which highlights traditional cooking methods and the handmade touch in every step. The handmade component of our process allows us to focus on quality, consistency, and character. We constantly explore new spices and marinades from around the world and love to test new flavor profiles.

What sort of things inspire you?  Where do you look for inspiration?

I think a lot about tradition, history, and heritage. They are the cornerstones of our business, but they also hold personal significance for me as I continue the legacy of our family business as the fourth generation. To find inspiration, I often look to what those have done before me. Wether it’s the boldness of my great grandfather, work ethic of my grandfather, or foresight and vision of my dad, I can usually find inspiration for the future by looking to the past. 

What is your creative process like?

We take great pride in our process. It is testament to our tradition. We have purposely retained the handmade element in each step of our process. It is our way of preserving tradition, remembering our history, and ensuring the highest quality product. Simply put, things are done better by hand. 

What's the coolest artistic tip you've ever received?

One of my dad’s favorite sayings is that you can’t be all things to all people and I think he’s exactly right. We create a product that we like to eat and that we believe in. If people share that vision and taste, then great, if not, no worries. But we can’t compromise what we do to follow trends and fads. At the end of the day we answer to nobody but ourselves. 

Where can we learn more about you?  

Visit our website at peopleschoicebeefjerky.com to learn more about our story and see all our meaty products. 

How would you describe your style?
Playful. Mostly cute colorful cartoon animals, with a little bit of realism here and there.
 

Are there any artists / designers that you particularly look up to?
Beastlies, Ursula Vernon, and basically anyone who can do hand drawn animation.

What sort of things inspire you?
Cartoons and animals of course
 

Where do you look for inspiration?
The Zoo, art stores, Disneyland, animated movies.

What is your creative process like?
Doodling random things that pop into our heads. Then taking our favorites and making vector art out of them. Once we feel a design is finished we break it into pieces that can be cut from felt and sewn together for the final product.

Where can we learn more about you?
Squshies.net and instagram @squshies and @projectdinosaur

SHOP Squshies at our upcoming Jackalope Art & Craft Fair at Central Park in Pasadena CA on April 25th & 26th from 11:00am to 6:00pm.

How would you describe your style?  Are there any artists / designers that you particularly look up to? 
I think the work I make reflects the edgy forward thinking of the west coast combined with a quirky sensibility that I attribute to my Dutch roots. I am a huge fan of Dutch Design, which often imbues the practical with humor and a frankness that is refreshing.

I came to ceramics after a life of making and a crafts background but not having ever studied it.  My dad was and is a ceramicist and until just recently, all I knew I learned from just being around him.  Previously (and still!), I made mostly larger scale sculptural and wall pieces and still the things I make are very much inspired by sculpture. I think of them as sculptures to wear or sculptures to live with.   Brancusi brings me to tears. Cy Twombly, Calder, the Bauhaus and particularly the textiles, Eva Hesse, and as of late, I have been really into Sonia Delauney.  Everyone is suddenly into the Memphis Group and I cannot deny an affection for them, Ettore Sottsass is genius. 

What do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own? 
I don’t take myself too seriously!  There are way too many things happening in our world that bring me down and I want to make pieces that bring some brevity to the world. 

I strive to make pieces that provide a little lightness, make you smile, there's always a little humor or a wink involved.  The pieces I make are unique & clearly handmade to combat our world of mass-produced sameness.

What sort of things inspire you?  Where do you look for inspiration?
Being in LA for 11 years now I draw a lot of my inspiration by these sprawling urban mongrel; from the street signs, to graffiti on the stairs and walls in my hood, to the architecture and our dessert foliage. I particularly love the patterns that emerge after the graffiti has been painted over as the colors never match exactly.  If I am in a rut, I return to my books, I have an extensive collection of “art books” that range from Andy Goldsworthy to Vik Muniz, to of course, Ken Price.

I also listen to a lot of podcasts such as 99% Invisible, RadioLab, Ted Talks, and Marc Maron.  I dream of becoming interesting enough to be on Marc Maron’s podcast!  Words become very physical to me, I seem to see and think in shapes and forms.

What is your creative process like? 
I learn through making and may make a quick sketch; I often dive right in to build.  I actually see this as a shortcoming and wish I focused on process more but as I work full time, studio time is nights and weekends.  I always reserve time to make new ideas and to play.  My happiest discoveries is when something goes wrong but then you realize it is actually better than you intended and it pushes you into new territory

What's the coolest artistic tip you've ever received?
“Don’t get married until you are a famous artist!” followed by, “If you are a famous artist, why get married?”.  He also included in this list of do’s and don’ts “Don’t make political art”.  This came from an early and very dear to me instructor that I adored whom also never followed his own advice.

Where can we learn more about you?
www.nicolavruwink.com
www.bevruwink.com
​IG @nicolavruwink

SHOP Bevruwink at our upcoming Jackalope Art & Craft Fair at Central Park in Pasadena CA on April 25th & 26th from 11:00am to 6:00pm.

How do you describe your style?  What are your inspirations? 
I am a toy maker of handcrafted stuffed animals made of repurposed materials (felted sweaters) and organic fillings.  I strip down my plush designs to their essential forms-employing a limited amount of moves to render each animal's essential characteristics so I’d describe my style as “upcyled” minimalism.

I often catch a glimpse of a face in the folds of fabric and then the rest follows. Having been trained as an architect (I have a Master's of Architecture degree), I am attracted to simple sculptural forms and clean lines, but I enjoy the oddities too. Inspiration comes from all around -nature, architecture, fashion design, fine art and an occasional misshapen vegetable.

What makes your products unique? 
All my designs are from my own patterns.  I do study classic stuffed animal patterns, but I incorporate ways to use the material in unique ways.  Since everything is made of repurposed sweaters there are always odd details that I can incorporate.  For the larger pieces, I like to provide the provenance of the material. In other words, you’ll see that your squirrel was formerly a Banana Republic turtleneck.  I’ll use the existing seams to highlight muscle structure of the creature. The cuffs often are used for the snails—the ribbing adds a flourish to their shells. Sweater sleeves are reserved for my elephants and piglets—as rolling the material makes their trunks and snouts. The variety of the raw materials (felted repurposed wool and cashmere sweaters) presents constant challenges and changes in the outcome. This means that every animal is truly unique.  I can cut out a dozen rhinoceros and they will all be slightly different due to how the material stretches once I add the unbleached cotton stuffing.  I really never know exactly how they’ll turn out.  I embrace the happy accidents working somewhere in the grey zone between toy maker and sculptor.

I sew all the animals in my home studio using my 1970's Riccar sewing machine.  What started as handmade baby gifts fro friends and family  has blossomed into a small business that compliments my other work in residential design. 

Materials
Repurposed wool and cashmere sweaters, organic cotton stuffing, Ingeo fibers, wool felt, scraps of suede and leather

Where to find out more
www.zazufaurelosangeles.com
www.zfla.etsy.com
​instagram:  @zazufaurelosangeles

SHOP Zazu Faure at our upcoming Jackalope Art & Craft Fair at Central Park in Pasadena CA on April 25th & 26th from 11:00am to 6:00pm.

Describe your style: 
I am a simple and non complicated person ( at least I think I am ) and I wanted BALM ME to reflect that too. It's simple and to the point. You know what you are putting on your body and you can actually read the ingredients without stumbling over the words. Phen-oxy-ethanol.....what the?????

What sort of things inspire you? or where do you look for inspiration?
I am inspired by so many independent makers out there. Its hard to pinpoint one. But I like clean looks. I really love that the independent movement is growing everyday and I think its important that we keep this going. I am truly inspired everyday by the creativity I am seeing. Thanks to instagram and etsy for being my window of inspiration. 

When do you feel the most creative? 
This is going to sound funny but I find to be most creative sitting in my car. Preferably in traffic. It took me a really long time to learn how to be patient while driving. Especially on the streets of Los Angeles. But when it happens, which is every other day for me. I will turn on mellow music and get in the creative zone. I keep my phone on the hands free holder and press siri to record my notes. Some of my favorite ideas came from sitting in my car going two miles an hour on the 101. 

Where can you learn more about me?
You can check out BALMME.COM or Instagram @balm_me_lip_balm
I post daily affirmations on my website. You know why not? Everyone deserves a pick me up or some feel good words every once in awhile. :) 

News to be on the lookout for: 
I will be launching new product and will be selling for the first time at Jackalope. Not only will I be selling natural and organic lip balm, I will be selling Mens solid cologne, womens solid perfume, and hand salve. 

SHOP Balm Me at our upcoming Jackalope Art & Craft Fair at Central Park in Pasadena CA on April 25th & 26th from 11:00am to 6:00pm.

How would you describe your style?  Are there any artists / designers that you particularly look up to?
Our style is modern minimal and responsible rebellious. We make architecturally inspired, versatile silhouettes that work for today’s fast-moving lifestyle. Our brand revolves around salvage material and thoughtful process, making product that balances elegance with environmental integrity.

What do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own? 
We have a unique relationship as best friend and business partners, each with different backgrounds and expertise. We both quit corporate industry jobs to work towards environmental change at something we believe is the future of design and production. Working with salvage materials is not easy, and our various experience in architecture, material development, detailing, and high design allows us to transform these materials through a complex process of research, testing, prototyping, and problem solving until we reach the perfect balance of construction and design.

We handcraft everything in our small studio, and know what it takes to make something long-lasting, strong and useful.

Every sheet of filter cloth that we get is unique, dyed to a particular color by the beer during its life in the big brewery.  We sort material on a gradient from lightest coppery tones to a deep patina of dark grey. Beer Brindle means that the cloth has been dyed naturally by hops and barley during first life manufacturing. 

What sort of things inspire you?  Where do you look for inspiration?
We are constantly exploring Los Angeles, inspired by the incredible natural landscape that surrounds us, and also by the history, culture and industry of the city. In the mountains and beaches around LA, we camp, hike, rock climb and swim. We spend time at our local library. We take Rewilder field trips to places as varied as the Puente Hills Material Recovery Facility (to see how our trash is processed), the Gentle Barn (to commune with animals), and the Craft and Folk Art Museum (to learn weaving skills).

Our name is inspired by the rewilding of the wolves in Yellowstone National Park (wolves were reintroduced into the ecosystem in 1995 after being killed off 70 years earlier). The results were dramatic, starting a cascade of growth and change that brought back many animals, regenerated plant life, and even stabilized the riverbanks.  This amazing transformation inspired us to take the name Rewilder and begin our own transformation, giving strong, valuable materials a second life. 

When do you feel the most creative?
We work most creatively during those instrumental phases of development, when we find a new material to explore from design concept to physical experiment. Working with salvage materials takes many failures before finally finding the right design details, and we have piles of failed tests in sewing, cutting, and painting – each one teaching us something new. We also work creatively on limited edition pieces that allow us to test details at a small scale. The creative meetings for these projects have no boundaries, and often our wildest ideas will become seeds for other projects. We use our creativity to keep moving forward, designing toward an overall shift in the way things are designed and made.

What is your creative process like?
Everything at Rewilder is under one roof. We design, sew, paint, silkscreen, brainstorm and collaborate in our small Hollywood studio. We are simultaneously filling orders and drafting new patterns. Everything is hand crafted here, which allows us to have creative control over the entire process and end product.

 What's the coolest artistic tip you've ever received?
Jenny:  Try anything. We learn everything about our materials from the process of experimentation, and the inevitable failures that come from testing. Even when our ideas don’t work, we will discover something valuable and interesting from the process.  

Lisa:  Spend time with your materials. Working with one material over time makes you an expert, which gives you the ability to be truly creative.

and

Ask for honest critique.  Our long term success comes from honestly understanding our strengths and weaknesses.

Where can we learn more about you?  
Rewilder.com

SHOP Rewilder at our upcoming Jackalope Art & Craft Fair at Central Park in Pasadena CA on April 25th & 26th from 11:00am to 6:00pm.