Good Morning all y'all.. Welcome to KosKraft, Issue7.
This Group is for all those creative kossack artisans, plying away at their benches. If you make things, please join, and maybe give us a look at your work. Maybe you turn a bowl or two, once in awhile, or make up okra angel dolls (oh wait until I find those pics!). We don't need a full blown Art Studio's worth of work, we just like to glimpse a little about the craftsperson and the things that magically get made.
Well, I've had the busiest month or so. It hasn't been like that in years.
But every Craftsman knows what that means...oops there's that other shoe dropping. Really, I wouldn't wish the life of an Artisan on anyone. Sure, there's a few that go from rags to riches, but for the most part, it's more like a roller coaster, with a lot of long downhill runs. When you make money, it goes to a new motor for the stitcher, or to stock back up on basics. Charge what things are worth, you get little business. Give it away, and you go broke. The business part of being a Maker just doesn't coincide with being the artist! Some people can do it all. They wear ten different hats at once, from web designer to tax preparer. In the craft community, I know very few of them that do that well. But there sure are a helluva lot of us trying. There's more and more people giving up looking for work, and are creating new jobs for themselves. We can't all get them rich rewarding Big Box Greeter jobs.
In Issue1, I told you how I got started. I was only 22, a College grad, world traveling, drugged out long haired hippie. There was no work for the likes of me. Same as today, nothing changes, just a few interruptions between then and now...lol. The South might be the last bastion of us longhairs. It's still okay to have a ponytail and a beard here.
But the people I've met through this line of work! When I think on it all, I remember the things I made, every piece, but the People, they were the amazing part. Even now, I keep meeting and working with new friends. There's the Laser guy, he etches out some pretty special work. I just make what I'm told for him. There's Tim, my main supplier of Leather and stuff. We kind of started out the same way, an amazing man. I still get emails from the son of a man I used to buy leather from in Boston, in the 70's! I get mail from around the world. The Asian and Baltic worlds have really picked up on crafting Leather.
HyperTufa Sidenote: A few of you took some interest in the tufa stuff we made, and "Good news everyone!", I found the pix. I'll sprinkle them in here and there.
This is one of the simpler worlds my wife created in a hypertufa container. You see the fisherman on the edge of the water, under a tree. You would not believe how and where we found the little figurines for these projects. There is just one small family in China making these. Finding them was an adventure.
Note the marked price. This was 10 years ago, and flea market pricing. We sold many to Garden Centers, etc. The full retail prices went into the hundreds for the larger and more complicated ones.
This was a special request to make a hypertufa base for a statue.
Well, that's all for now...
All Kossack Artisans are welcome to join the group, just send me a PM.
In the meantime, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the KosKatalog. They do yeoman's work in there, and it's about as close to supporting "local" as you can get on the intertubes.
Another crafty place to hang around...
WAYWO
my links:
Rocky River Leather Co.
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