Renegade Craft Fair
Brooklyn Pop-Ups

2015-BK-pops-eflyerThe Kindcraft visited Renegade Craft Fair‘s new summertime series of pop-ups in Brooklyn on June 13th, 2015. Each Saturday throughout the month ceramists, textile artists, jewelers, and various makers showcase their work side-by-side with the ever-popular Smorgasburg food festal at the East River State Park along the Williamsburg waterfront.

Highlights from our visit included a chat about indigo and natural dyeing techniques with Beth McTear of Honest Alchemy, seeing Jessie Lazar‘s ceramics, and meeting interior designer Hana Getache of Bolé Road who works with handwoven Ethiopian textiles.


ABJ Glassworks

ABJ Glassworks is the creation Ashley Bram-Johnson who first worked with glass in high school and only returned to the medium in 2011 after earning her Masters in Anthropology in England. Her small Pennsylvania-based company uses lead-free silver alloy solder and environmentally friendly stained glass techniques.

Bolé Road Textiles

Brooklyn-based interior designer Hana Getachew sources textiles from her homeland of Ethiopia to create her collection for Bolé Road Textiles. Her pillows and throws are handwoven by skilled artisans using Ethiopian cotton. The Kindcraft appreciates Hana’s ethical philosophy – which supports the continuation of the traditional art of weaving – while creating high-quality product with a modern design aesthetic.

Cuyo by Tamika Rivera

Artist Tamika Rivera creates wearable sculptures from found pieces of textiles gathered while traveling between California and New York mixed with global fabrics. Tamika works under the name Cuyo (light) and actively encourages healing through creativity.

Honest Alchemy

Beth McTear is a textile designer working with natural dyes in her home studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her environmentally conscious range of accessories and textiles are made from 100% natural fibers and plant-based pigments with a special focus on natural indigo dye. We compared notes on using the ferrous vat versus the Thai process featured in our report Indigo from Plant to Paste. 

J. Topolski

Inspired by animals from the forest to the sea, New York City-based jeweler Jenny Topolski makes nature-themed pieces like skeleton-etched necklaces. She also creates jewelry from real bees that are collected by beekeepers, which she then encases with eco-friendly resin. Half of the profit of certain J. Topolski products go to Urban Utopia Wildlife Rehab.

Jessie Lazar

Brooklyn-based artist Jessie Lazar loves working with her hands and is drawn to malleable materials like clay and metal which can be shaped into hard permanent pieces. She showcased ceramics at the Renegade pop-ups featuring bowls, tea sets, and whimsical wind chimes.

Printed Wild

The French American designer behind Printed Wild looks to the natural world for inspiration for her wild motifs. She uses screenprinting and block printing techniques to transfer her designs to fabric, leather, and glass and makes her range of accessories by hand. Eva Calonder has lived all over the world and recently settled in Washington DC.

Rustic Loom

Rustic Loom works with nonprofit organizations and small workshops – specifically in India and Ghana – to create a small range of products crafted from ethically-produced global textiles. Founder and Brooklyn resident, Rebecca Miller, is a textile designer who has traveled widely and studied traditional cloth in Ghana.

Sarah K. Benning

After completing her fiber and materials studies at the Art Institute of Chicago, Sarah K. Benning began creating contemporary embroidery from her home in Upstate New York. She first draws her designs and then uses colorful embroidery thread to make playful hoop art wall hangings and stationary.

Read The Kindcraft’s related reports: Highlights from Renegade Brooklyn from Sepetmeber of 2014, and our London Materials Focus from last November, 2014.

There are two more Renegade Craft Fair pop-ups happening this month in Brooklyn on June 20th and 27th. Renegade New York will be held September 11 – 13th at the Brooklyn Expo Center, and November 14th and 15th at the Metropolitan Pavilion. View the full schedule of future Renegade Craft Fairs from Portland to London here.