Graffiti the Ghost

D'yer Mak'er Faire

This past weekend I was a volunteer re-fashionista at Make magazine's Maker Faire in San Mateo. While the bulk of the Faire consisted of more techy or "build-y" projects, like a giant electric giraffe or the Neverwas Haul, I worked at the Swap-o-rama-rama, where people brought bags of clothes to donate, grabbed other people's castoffs, then came to the likes of me for assistance in re-constructing them into renewed wearables.

It turned out to be quite inspiring. Our area was packed with a steady flow of people all day, with at least a hundred people in the room at any given time. People were genuinely excited about the things they making and some had really clever ideas about how to refashion the pieces they'd picked up at the swap. I assisted everyone from an asshole 5-year-old whose mother needed to tell her "NO" a little more frequently, to a guy who had come down from Vancouver just for the Faire, to a shy tween girl who was afraid to use a sewing machine by herself, to a woman who had never sewed before and stuck with me all day learning how to make a skirt. She came back the next day to show me another one she had made at night after she went home from the Faire.

I spent Sunday morning reconstructing an XL Maker Faire 2006 t-shirt. And hey, look who turned up on the Maker Faire blog!

I didn't have a ton of time to see the rest of the Faire, but what I did see was very cool and very inspiring. It was also nice to see some of my favorite Burning Man projects (such as the aforementioned giraffe & Neverwas Haul) not covered in playa dust for once. You could easily spend the entire weekend there, and I highly suggest that everyone check it out at least one day next year.

posted by stefbot @ 4:19 PM