Craft Dealer

It started with the small stuff: "Come on over and we will do some scrap booking pages, I have all the supplies, you don't need anything, really."

I arrive, bright-eyed and nervous. I see a portable machine that cuts paper, glue that comes in dots, and paper as far as the eye can see...arranged by color, by season, by thickness. I look around at a beautiful studio and think "I can do art here." And thus it begins.....

The wily craft dealer will create something each week that looks effortless and seamless in her hands. She will pick up a new craft, crocheting, by watching scratchy you-tube videos and encourage you to try it. You will want to stab yourself in the eye with a crochet needle after one night of knotted yarn and expletives. Yet, you still go back for more because you have become a friend of a craft dealer. The gateway projects are mini-albums, embellishments, and, cards. You think to yourself, "I could go a little harder, and a little bigger, and use sharper tools."

Then come the die-cut machines (see above pumpkin faces which were all done by the dealer); the intricate dimensions needed to put a photo album inside an Altoid mint box; and the obsessive need to save old jeans, old labels, old sticks, old keys, and old books. Especially the old books. There is no such thing as trash anymore, everything can be re purposed. The craft dealer only smiles when you bemoan your fate, "I see Art everywhere."

It has been about 5 years and this week, I spent 5 hours, with some help, creating the featured Halloween treat bags that my children's friends will rip into and toss away like the impermanent containers they are. Suddenly it hits me like a cut, my friend is not a craft dealer at all, she is a Zen master. I should have known.