PATCHWORK IS TODAY, RAIN OR SHINE—PLEASE DON’T BE A WUSS
By Dave Wielenga
The Patchwork Indie Art and Crafts Festival returns to Marine Stadium today—rain or shine, as the event’s organizers and vendors kept emphasizing Saturday on Facebook. Sorry, but going out in a cold rain to do holiday shopping from open-air market stalls is not something I “Like.”
And did I detect a change in the implication of Saturday’s rain-or-shine reminders as Patchwork’s artists and crafters considered the growing but unfestive prospects of a wet-and-windy Sunday: a low turnout, a thin profit and a risk of damaged merchandise? I think so. Early in the day the “rain-or-shines” came across like thoughtful and chipper advisories for planning-to-attendees who might not know if bad weather could cancel Patchwork. But by late Saturday night, I swear the mention of Patchwork’s rain-or-shine policy somehow felt a little ominous, as if it was sort of a value system, and that to-show-or-not-to-show today just might be a question of wussiness.
Or maybe that was a carryover from my own experience a few hours before with my girlfriend’s reaction—definitive, lightly browned with disgust—when I used the words “rain” and “Patchwork” within a span of 20 minutes.
But I like Patchwork—everybody does, except possibly Larry Goodhue—and by that I mean I like every damn thing about it, beginning with:
One of its creators, Delilah Snell, has become a sorta-friend of mine since I met her when she started dating this guy I used to work with.
It’s other creator, Nicole Stevenson, I got to know last May when she was a guest on Greater Long Beach Radio because Delilah was busy.
All the other creative people in the nearly 100 booths, who make and sell clothing for men, women and kids, accessories, home goods like art, pottery and glassware, pet items, jewelry, soaps, candles and other bath-and-body items, craft kits and patterns, knit and crochet items, stationary and paper goods, plushies, purses, handbags and gourmet chocolate with sea salt on it. Among the faces in the crowd:
twig and willow: Clothing, jewelry, accessories, apothecary—all of it either comfy-chic, special or unique and sometimes all three. They’ve got a whole store of this stuff at 3740 4th St. in Long Beach.
C Salt Gourmet: The premier artisanal chocolatier in Long Beach. Yes, it all has sea salt on it—including the butter caramels, of course, which make their debut today.
russell & salguero: cards, cards, cards, both custom-made and unique ready-made, created by a husband-and-wife team out of shared interests in design and everyday things that make people smile.
Yellow 108: Sustainable hats and accessories created according to this equation: salvaged=saved.
Caposhi: Stajia, an admitted fiber addict and thrift-store junkie, makes hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind fiber jewelry.
Oh! And music! Love that!
Fingerprints presents the music, and it’s good.
11:30 – 12:30 DJ Oldboy
1:00 – 1:45 Brook Lee Catastrophe
2:00 – 2:30 Matteran Ghost
2:30 – 3:00 Tess Shapiro
3:15 – 3:45 Jenny Stockdale
I’ll just like it all a helluva lot more if it doesn’t rain.
PATCHWORK INDIE ARTS AND CRAFTS FESTIVAL MARINE STADIUM, 5255 PAOLI WAY LONG BEACH 90803 PATCHWORKSHOW.COM FREE
10 Comments
Perhaps the best minds of this generation should stop making macaroni candles and opening ETSY accounts food truck services, making ends meet with odd jobs…
and START asking when and why their own government assisted businesses and the financial industry in dismantling our economy, outsourcing jobs and our 410 K plans and affordable health care.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving
hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry
fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the
starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the
supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of
cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels
staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkan-
sas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes
on the windows of the skull,” Allen Ginsberg
Oh I should mention that the same generation Ginsberg is talking about F*cked you over.
“But I like Patchwork…everybody does. except possibility-Larry Goodhue”
So says the good,for misinformed DW.
There are a considerable number of reasoned minds-solid citizens all who
share my views on the, non boating,non coastal dependent de facto
flea market.
It is particular offense in the summer when it impairs,as it does boating
activity.
Its very presence is one of the contributing factors why Long Beach is
unable to attract major upscale retail.None of the major retailers Long
Beach so coverts and yearrs wants their brand attached to what is
is becoming the Flea Market Capitol of California!!!!
One would think that an alert journalist would have noticed the absence
of advertising by any such major retailers in out local papers—even
his former PT.
Fact is :such flea markets are a detriment fo the City–as are those who
ushered such in.Clearly the City would be better off were both elements
to depart.Gardena would be a better fit.
A subject the the good DW might like to turn his-usually-bright mind(though
as alluded to above–in the instant case the–the wattage was cranked up to
its usual rightness) to the $94 million Alamitos Bay Marina Re Build Plan–the one the City Auditor and independent auditor found to be–UNBONDABLE!!!!
Among the more interesting(though not suprising) items was the view by an
Officer of the Court employed by the State of California=that there is corruption and collusion between Long Beach City Council and the Office of
City Attorney.
At the highest levels of the Federal Government serious questions are now
under review relative to police records of those so central to the debacle which traces to the judgment os those so embracing and or ignoring such
conduct,
The Press Telegram’s Doug Krikorian wrote a series of sold articles
chronicling the run up to the dabacle. Perhaps Dave might take up the
banner-to see who is convicted and sentenced first-or at the very least
dispatched to Coventry.(Though they might find refuge in North Dakota’s
current record setting hiring boom-the likes of which the country has not
seen in circa 100 years: ie–Mc Donalds staring salary $18.00 per hour!!!
Truck Drivers $30-50 per hour; Cities are negging for administrators.
Cost of living and housing–way-way=way way–less than LB or most
Cities in Country(Google North Dakota Oo;Boom;Check WSJ:NYT:NBC
sires for story about 55,000 jobs going begging—across the full specturm
of jobs.
Dave, I still am going to have nightmares tonight about the macaroni candles about which you were waxing poetic.
Janis, within your comment about my waxing poetic about the macaroni candles, the the true poetry is that the macaroni candles are, indeed, made of wax.
I , for one, love the macaroni candles. If you’d like to visit them on a daily basis or check out one of their other super-cute designs, Doly’s Delectable’s on Broadway near LB Blvd also has them available.
Two corrections in my last post:
l.The referenced wattage was NOT cranked up to is usual brightness.
2,The referenced corruption and collusion between City Council and
City Attorney’s Office–opioned by an Officer of the Court employed by
State of California–came to light,not in the City Auditor’s report=rather
in yet another review–now before the State Attorney General.
Two corrections in my last post:
l.The referenced wattage was NOT cranked up to is usual brightness.
2,The referenced corruption and collusion between City Council and
City Attorney’s Office–opined by an Officer of the Court employed by
State of California–came to light,not in the City Auditor’s report=rather
in yet another review–now before the State Attorney General.
Janine, I first tried to like the macaroni candle in a sort of “”Ceci n’est pas une pasta” sort of way but the object fell short.
I get the “super-cute” in “Hello Kitty”, Jeff Koons balloon dogs and admire the opposite in Yoshitomo Nara, love the existential humor in Snoopy and the peanuts gang… but not the fake pasta candles.
Perhaps I”m missing the point, is it better when you watch the fake imagery of pasta burn and melt into just wax?
“There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Now I just can’t get rid of the idea that the mysterious Dave W lives in a brilliant house with all sort of super-cute chotskies laying about, hundreds of beany babies, figurine candles around his tub, bunny rabbit slippers, non-ugly dolls, a stack of romance novels, an unfinished beading project, a subscription to Martha Stewart’s magazine, an Etsy acoount, who would of guessed?