sea-side pea-town.

we woke up today at deb and alec's lovely home (totally cluttered by our presence) and got ourselves down to craftland at a very reasonable hour in the late morning. i love both our weekend home and the shop/gallery we were spending the day in. craftland was born as an annual pop-up shop in december that recently made the transition to a year-round shop and gallery in downtown providence. the annual show still goes on - the shop and gallery are stripped of moving walls and the conversion takes place. even though i have had my stuff in the show for the past couple of years, i have not been through providence since 2008. i could hardly believe this when we figured it out. so this trip marks my first visit to the year-round shop and gallery.

even though i was supposed to spend the day seated at my trunk show station, i found endless excuses to get up and wander around. the ladies at craftland have done an excellent job at selecting the stock (the collection being curated mostly by jen corace). there is a lot of stuff here that i haven't seen elsewhere - risd must be turning out a lot of impressive print makers, for instance - or the local community just found itself here. even the items from artists i see in many shops are selected with a very specific care towards a cohesive collection. this has always been clear in the button packs and singles ordered from me. they always go for very unique and deliberate combinations of stuff that i don't usually think of. craftland feels totally its own. and it's huge by indie craft shop standards. huge.

you can click on photos to find out more about the pieces. hopefully, deb and the craftlanders will help me fill in the blanks about pieces i took poor notes on.

there was also a show in the gallery that i was pretty enamoured with. curated by liz sheehan, it focuses on souvenirs (one of many themes of mine). i especially liked the wooden pennants and tiny polaroid dioramas by james milostan for the paul bunyan fine art project. the preservation of this sort of mythology is a real soft spot for me. i also have to find out more about brooklyn rehab - the banner under which alyssa zygmunt made those pigeon feather specimens and accompanying bed bugs (not pictured).

so long, craftland. we will be back. oh, we will be back.