by newcomer Ben Parsons
Our annual BikeCraft Fair is a bazaar for local crafters to sell and showcase anything that they make by hand, in Portland, for and about bikes. Each year (we’re now on year five!) the fair gets bigger, with 40 vendors and hundreds of attendees crowding into our biggest space yet last December.
By popular request, we’ll be holding a full-sized BikeCraft this summer on the midway of the Multnomah County Bike Fair this June 27th from 2pm to 7pm.
We’ve had mini-BikeCrafts with a few vendors at MCBF before, but this is the first full-sized one. Look for a big row of crafters on the midway. We have a star lineup building of talented, creative, bike-loving crafters — including familiar faces and some exciting newcomers.
– Becca Bikes is bringing her bike-friendly t-shirt designs to BikeCraft for the first time this year. One shirt design, depicting love blossoming between a person on a bike and a person in a car, puts a whole new spin on sharing the road.
– Another new crafter who just contacted us is Mary Meier, who is launching MMM Werk, a new business modifying summer weight trousers for riding. Meier describes her work this way:
“I hunt down quality used pants and then modify them by shortening them, articulating the knee, installing an adjustable strap on the bottom of the leg and then finally adding 6″ of 3M super reflective fabric tape to the adjustable strap.”
We’ll have more new faces too, as well as a number of folks returning who you’ll remember from previous BikeCrafts. So far, here who’s signed on:
Megan Denton
– 1 by Liz – Popular clocks and magnets made from chain rings
– Megan Denton – handsewn u-lock holders and shoe straps
– Fun Reflector – reflective stickers for your bike and gear, with fun and fancy shapes
– Bike Cozy – “accessories for the practically fashionable rider”
– Tomas Quinones – duct tape handlebar bags (we profiled these back in March)
– Becky Morton – t-shirts and spokecards
– Ben Parsons – colorful screenprints showing bike scenes around Portland (photo at top of post)
– Upcycle 27 – Rebecca James makes clothes, patches, and prints with bike and DIY themes
– B Spoke Tailor – wool knickers and bike accessories
– Microcosm Publishing – bike-oriented books, zines, patches, stickers, and t-shirts
– CoG – a collective of artists who love bikes and make bike hats and bike related clothing and bike related art.
– bIKE pUNK – “Get off your gass and ride!” stickers, shirts, sweatshirts, patches
– CityBikes – Portland’s original cooperative, worker owned bike shop will be selling handmade bike buckets, saddles, t-shirts, stickers, and shirts
(Photo © J. Maus)
There’s going to be a lot more going on at MCBF than BikeCraft — clowns, jousting, contests of skill, the freakiest bikes you’ve ever seen, local bands, a kid fair, TriMet bus demonstrations, food vendors (some bike-powered), helmet giveaways, and many more booths and clubhouses on the midway.
Our hope is to make the fair a twice-yearly event from here on out, with one event in the summer and one before the holidays. Stay tuned for details on BikeCraft V this winter!
If you are based in Portland and make bike related crafts, art, fashion, jewelry, gear, etc by hand, and would like information about participating in summer BikeCraft as a vendor, get in touch with Elly (elly at bikeportland dot org) by June 11th.
Event details:
Summer BikeCraft at MCBF
When: June 27th, 2pm – 7pm
Where: Col. Summers Park, SE 20th & Belmont
Thanks for reading.
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Wow. That Ben Parsons is a talented guy. Love the colors and the scene.
Can’t wait for the fair.
FYI, it is not clear at this image size, but the front rider’s visor does say “BEER”.
🙁 I will be missing MCBF. 🙁
not to sound bitter, but… oh sweet. more artwork and product based on photos from my collection. whee! though i suppose the price of freely sharing information is watching other people make money off it.
Ben – Love the bikes and bridges. Great job.
Biannual – every other year
Semiannual – twice a year
Yikes. Thanks for catching that!
If anyone is interested i’ll ride there from wilsonville with them.. go for a shirt
🙂
Thanks,
Joe
love2bike.at.yahoo.
Elly, or anyone for that matter, could you send me or post the contact info for Mary Meier of MMM Werk. I went to her website but she has no contact information on it. I would greatly enjoy seeking her out for some work.
Thanks,
Jose
Joel, most serious photogs know how to watermark and otherwise secure their photos online so people cannot take them and sell or use them without proper credit and payment.
You should look into that so you don’t have to be bitter.
Hmmmm… it’s not clear to me from the referenced image that Joel would own copyright on that image. Did you take that one, Joel?
Anyway, yay BikeCraft! I’ll be there….
And if you’d like to get free beer and glory, please volunteer for the Bike Fair!
Contact anomalily AT gmail dot com to sign up for a shift.
kt #9 – im not a serious photog, and i dont watermark cause i want people to be able to view, and, yes, use, the images clearly. what i object to is not the use – im all for fair use, and im not really a big fan of copyright law as it currently stands – but the fact that virtually no one ever asks, informs, or thanks.
amanda #10 – i did not take the photo (i wasnt even born in 1955), but i own the original print. regardless of the technicalities of where copyright on the physical image stands, i believe the digital version of the image to be “mine”. but again, im not so much concerned with the intricacies of copyright law as i am with common courtesy.
ive had text and graphic material from my websites nicked and/or plagiarized by everyone from little graphic designers and home tshirt printers and bag makers to silk soy milk (they reprinted original text from my concise history of bike messengers on the back of a soy mily cartion) to a big muckity-muck at stussy (who cut-and-pasted my entire history of messenger bags into his own blog without credit or permission, passing it off as his own writing).
i 100% believe in the free distribution of information, but i also 100% believe in ASKING before reproduction for profit. am i a bit of an idealist for thinking i shouldnt have to attach some little logo to everything i show the world for people to understand this? absolutely.
for what its worth, stumptown printers DID ask, and theres a poster theyve made from my chainwheel image collection available at their website, a portion of the profits of which go to bike advocacy.
but lest i seem totally bitter or anything – this was kinda the last straw in a recent round of this stuff for me – i totally dig bens use of the image of those two riders, bourgeois and belotti, battling it out in the 1955 criterium des porteurs de journaux, on the cobbled outer avenues of paris.
Ben Parsons of Team Beer = amazing cross crusader, father, teammate, beer connoisseur and truly talented artist! Go Ben, you multitalented guy!
And Joel (above) – always- rules! A special Team Beer shout-out to you, sir!
I love this city, its artists and many talented souls.
You’re right, Joel — it’s always appropriate to ask before appropriating. And it’s even nicer to get a kickback when someone appropriates your work for sale. I’d definitely go after the big dogs for using your work. Historical photos are tough, though. It’s conceivable that there is another copy out there.
You’re providing a service for free and people are taking it for free. Always nice to ask, though, for sure…