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All about the Crafters' Guild

All about the Crafters' Guild
Matt and I processing a sapling we harvested to turn into tokens

Hey all! Really starting to feel like spring might be showing up for real. Here's the news from the Commons this week:

Coming up this month:

  • Friday, April 10th, 12-1pm - Dance for Democracy at the Weathervane! Bring your signs, visit with your neighbors, and dance the stress right out of your body.
  • Tuesday, April 14th, 5-7pm - Common Ground is hosting a discussion at the White Lake Community Library! This month: "AI" is all over the media and business worlds, but how does it actually work? Nathan Fry is a senior software engineer who specializes in machine learning algorithms. He'll explain the many different technologies that get grouped together under the "AI" umbrella, how Large Language Models (chatbots) are able to generate their realistic-looking answers, and why it's so easy for them to get things wrong.
  • Thursday, April 16th, 11am-1pm - Open Studio time at the Nuveen Art Center! Get to know other local artists while you work on whatever you'd like.
  • Friday, April 17th, 12-1pm - Dance for Democracy at the Weathervane! Bring your signs, visit with your neighbors, and dance the stress right out of your body.
  • Friday, April 24th, 12-1pm - Dance for Democracy at the Weathervane! Bring your signs, visit with your neighbors, and dance the stress right out of your body.
  • Saturday, April 25 12-4 - Earth Day Lakeshore in Grand Haven - Gather for the Green March at noon (Ottawa Co. Courthouse Parking Lot) bring signs/banners to walk/bike the route. 1-4pm is an indoor fair and outdoor electric vehicle expo at the First Presbyterian Church Grand Haven.
  • Sunday, April 26, 1-4pm - Trash Bash, a community wide clean-up! Meet at the Chamber of Commerce (124 W. Hanson St. in Whitehall) at 1pm for brief instructions. All ages and group sizes are welcome. Dress for the weather and task (long sleeve shirt, sunscreen, gloves, hats, etc.) Trash bags supplied.

This Week in Nature:

Spring continues to creep in bit by bit! Here are some daffodils getting ready to bloom.

And here are some garlic sprouts starting to come up in the garden.

Here's a deciduous bush (not sure on ID) getting its first spring leaves.

There's still not a ton of wild food available, but dandelion greens are probably only a week or two away, and violets should be along soon after that. Nate and I have been trying to take a daily plant walk with a camera, so hopefully we'll be able to keep you posted.

This week's projects

Matt, Mickkayla and I got out into the woods on Sunday to get some video of the sapling harvesting process. Treespeaker is full of young, skinny trees that are never going to be able to thrive in their current locations. This baby maple was growing directly into the limb of a large oak, so it was a perfect candidate for harvesting. The branches will get turned into biochar, and the trunk will get turned into Hour Tokens. The video will be available soon over on our Facebook page, so give us a follow if you haven't already.

Meanwhile, in indoor projects, I've been working on the first full round of token painting kits. I made some prototypes a couple of weeks ago, and handed then off to some of our token artists for testing. Feedback was good, so I went ahead and started making a couple of dozen more.

They're made entirely from reclaimed fabric, and hold between 10 and 16 markers depending on the size of the kit. The body for this one started life as a cloth napkin, the labels were quilting scraps I got from a friend, and the tie strings were originally seams in an old shirt I was cutting up. (I'm especially proud of realizing that I could use the seams as ribbon. Up until now I've been composting or biocharring those.)

I've still got about a dozen to go, but once they're all finished I'll be dropping some off at the Art Center along with some blank tokens, so that people can easily pick them up and give them a try. I've also been recording the whole process with a head-mounted GoPro, so if I ever get time to sit down and edit the footage we'll be able to put that on the PeerTube server.

This Week's Guild: Crafters!

Last week, we went over the basic concept of the guilds, and how we're planning to use them to make it easier for folks to get involved. This week, we're going to focus in on the Crafters' Guild, and hopefully flesh out the guilds concept a little more along the way.

Who we are:

  • Members of Montague Commoners who like making things, learning how to make things, and teaching other people how to make things.

We think everyone should have:

  • Access to goods designed to meet local needs with local materials, by local crafters who can customize and repair their work.
  • The opportunity to learn new skills through hands-on lessons from experienced crafters.
  • The opportunity to pass along the skills they've learned and the knowledge they've gained to future generations.

So we take responsibility for:

  • Using materials from the local waste stream to make useful and beautiful handmade goods.
  • Supplying the Shopkeepers' Guild with goods to sell in the store.
  • Hosting the crafting station at the Artisan Market and teaching visitors about our projects.
  • Making things the other guilds need for their projects.

We frequently work with:

  • The Shopkeepers' Guild, on making goods for the store.
  • The Salvagers' Guild, on pulling potential crafting materials out of the waste stream.
  • The Thrifters' Guild, on finding non-salvaged materials and equipment second-hand.
  • The Videographers' and Archivists Guilds, on documenting our techniques and projects.
  • The Printers' Guild, on stitching zines and folding brochures.
  • The Organizers' Guild, on making signs, props, and decorations for events.

We're looking for people who want to:

  • Help us make stuff.
  • Help us document our techniques.
  • Help host the Artisan Market crafting station.

Skills we can teach:

  • Basically all the handcrafts. There might be a few holes here and there (I don't know that we've got anyone who does bobbin lace or woven basketry yet) but if there's a craft you've been wanting to learn, we can probably teach you.
  • How to add pockets to just about anything.

Our long-term dreams include:

  • A permanent co-operative crafting space where we can share tools and equipment and make use of each other's scraps.
  • A shared materials stash that members can use for projects.
  • Gradual acquisition of every plastic yard sign in northern Muskegon County.

If any of that sounds interesting to you, reply to this email with your name, email address, and phone number, and we'll get in touch once we start getting organized.

Recommendation Corner

Inversion by Aric McBay is a sci-fi novel set in a pocket universe, where groups of nomads live collectively and giant unstoppable walls of fire periodically renew the natural world. I've been listening to the audiobook as I work on the token painting kits, and I'm quite enjoying it so far.

This week's nails tokens

I didn't get a chance to do my nails this week, so instead I present a collection of tokens by our youngest artist so far! She didn't know she wasn't supposed to color over the denomination and logo markings, but she was extremely diligent about adding detail until she'd spent the full 15/30 minutes on each token, and her mom and I were able to get the stamp impressions readable again with a little extra marker work.

Take some time this week to explore your yard and see what's sprouting! If I don't see you at the protest tomorrow or Nate's AI presentation on Tuesday, I'll see you back here next week.