The Bearded Tit: A New And Hopefully Quite Good Handmade Market. Hopefully, says Becci @TheBeardedTit …
Oh, hello. I’m Becci. I’m an artist living in Leeds and a few months ago I decided to try to create a new handmade market. It’s called The Bearded Tit and has been designed to restore the hole created in my heart from the unpredictability of contemporary ‘craft fairs’.
Before I even started taking the idea of designing a fair seriously, I undertook a bit of research. One artist said: “Markets are a too crafty … it certainly isn’t something I want to associate with my work”, which is very sad. If they’re done right, craft fairs should act as a massive celebration of creativity. The feeling you get from walking past stall after stall of funny, intricate or just plain awesome things should give you head tingles; make you want to do something. You should get excited, but often people don’t.
Craft markets are pitched as a way for people to get away from the ‘mass produced tat’ on the shelves, but that’s only possible if you don’t put tat on display. I bloody love art, and craft. I love people who try to make things, regardless of how successful it ends up being. I can’t ‘craft’ for shit, in the original sense of the word. I can’t sew and I’ve got atrocious attention to detail for someone who claims to be an artist. But I love craft all the same and craft fairs just very rarely seem to get me excited in the way that I get if I browse online shops like Etsy for just a few minutes.
That isn’t because the talent isn’t there, it’s because it isn’t on show. There’s often very little curating involved in craft fairs. A lot of them, sadly, are used to create a quick bit of cash out of an empty town hall and so they just end up being shit, outdated and deflating. I really, really wanted to create a market that celebrated local, irritatingly talented people who make absolutely stunning and varied products. I wanted it to act almost as a festival of the arts, with live art, animations projected on to walls as people browse, and live music into the night after the artists pack up. I wanted it to be hectic. Fun. As if you’d just sort of plonked a bit of the internet in a room for people to walk through. A celebration of the indie artist and the internet culture that enables them to showcase their work.
I had no idea at the amount of interest we’d get when I first turned to the internet. We’ve ended up with an awesome collection of artists. From moderately offensive cushion covers to recycled silver jewellery, and fine art prints of women with lion heads. There’s tons of awesome stuff, all of which inspire me and will hopefully inspire those who pop by.
For those interested, near by or willing to travel, The Bearded Tit Market will be making its debut on Saturday the 15th of November, in Crowd of Favours, Leeds.
