Renegade Craft Fair/Brooklyn Love

Renegade! (and also: "A bird is about to shit on my face!)

After 5 dreary and rainy weekdays, the sun finally came out over New York City, and we got a much needed taste of perfect early summer weather. An estimated 75,000+ people crawled out of their hovels in throngs and descended on McCarren Park this weekend for the Brooklyn edition of the Renegade Craft Fair, in order to peruse the handmade wares of more than 300 artists (and also maybe play some handball, do some beatbox dancing, run laps, have bbqs, and take their parrots for bike rides.)


A quick and dirty way to display: rubber bands keep the piles from mixing and blowing away- and makes for a quick and painless setup/takedown

BBH has done a handful of streetfairs, and after dabbling in a few cities outside of the Asheville area, we've found that keeping it local is the only way to make it profitable. However when Kyle of Power & Light Press asked if I'd be interested in prolonging my NYC business trip by two weeks to share a tent with her at Renegade, I decided it would be worth the trip. I was interested how well we would fair in the hippest sector of New York City.

As it turns out, Brooklyn is hot for BBH. Our tent was never empty, people would read a few of our funniest greetings posted at the front of the tent and decided they wanted to read every last one of what we had in stock. The table stayed crowded around all sides pretty much the entire show.


The ugliest business sign in all of Renegade land. Proof positive that presentation don't mean shit.

Renegade is the equivalent to an outdoor Etsy, showcasing a diversity of handmade arts, and being a juried event, there was an abundance of exciting and unique artistry to blow your cash on. I found alot of artists worth mentioning, so let's get to it. I'll list their company name, their own description of their work (when possible), and the products that got my attention.

Fuzzy-Ink
Fuzzy Ink is dedicated to the loving production of mustache clad apparel. Armed with a unique sense of style and an under-appreciated sense of humor, we work frantically to bring the freshest designs to the unkempt mustache kingdom. Each shirt, from the custom stamped tag to the artwork, is designed and hand printed in our underground lair. Additionally, we are committed to making and selling only clothing that we would proudly sport ourselves.


I had to get this shirt for myself.


Hee hee. Identity Crisis.

Folded Pigs
I like the idea of surprising your dinner guest as they chow down on their delicious meal with a plate full cockroaches. You can check out Folded Pigs etsy site here.

For the dinner guests you love to hate. Bon Appetit!

Seattle Show Posters
Their name says everything you need to know except that their posters are screenprinted. I love their work.




Ryan Berkley Illustration
I spent more money in this booth than any other. Here's Ryan Berkley's etsy profile:

I'm a comics inspired gentleman surrounded by toys and Chewbacca masks. I like drawing sharks and animals and creatures and mustaches and superheroes. Sometimes I combine all of them - sometimes they are on their own - it really depends on my mood.

And here are the prints I bought for my home.





Final Approach
we are a young couple from east tennessee with a passion for design and an eye for the unconventional. we stand by our products and insure the highest quality of work. we specialize in custom painted vintage suitcases and are tinkering in found item home decor.

It appears they've taken their etsy shop down while they deal with renegade, but check back. They have alot of nice product:




Seibei
At first, SEIBEI was just an expensive hobby. I’d always enjoyed drawing stupid cartoons to make my friends laugh and making presents for people, and t-shirts seemed like the best medium to do both of those things on a larger scale. I want people to lighten up, and take it easy. I want to make the world a safer and more enjoyable place for everything I’ve ever been called growing up – weirdos, spazzes, dumbasses, and everyone else.


Word?

Basho
Basho Apparel is a small design studio in based in Yellow Springs, OH. Paul Baker, artist and owner, hand prints each and every shirt.

These are friends of my friend John Davis who has been calling Yellow Springs home base for the last few years. Basho's etsy shop is also down this week (dag everyone! Renegade was only a weekend long!) but if you like the shirts featured in the above link, be sure to visit sometime soon.




Tugboat Print Shop
Tugboat is a collective of printers from Pittsburgh who make amazing woodblock prints.



A woodblock on display in the Tugboat tent. This particular artist has an impressive menagerie of animal prints.

THANK YOU BROOKLYN!
Brooklyn gave BBH some mad love, and we are flattered. It was by far the funnest event I've attended to promote the business, and something we hope will become a part of our regular curiculum. We've already signed up for the Chicago event coming this September. See you there!


We ended the day sitting on the banks of the East River and watched Manhattan descend into twilight.