Are You a Maker? There's a Fair for You

Today everyone knows someone who tinkers, snips, hammers, shapes or fuses something together in a small workshop. If you're a maker yourself, maybe you're making jewelry or personalized stationery for a wedding; maybe you're building furniture from reclaimed barn wood or crafting remote-controlled drones from spare computer parts. If your hobby entails creating something tangible with your hands, then you're a maker.

If you're not currently a maker, maybe you're interested in becoming one. That's where a maker fair can come in handy.

Maker fairs are where you can check out different ways people make things, from musical instruments to vast landscapes made entirely from masking tape, as seen here — artist Danny Scheible created more than 80,000 individual masking tape sculptures for 2012's Maker Faire Bay Area in San Francisco.

Maker Faire is perhaps the biggest and baddest of the maker events, with about half a dozen main fairs and more than a 100 mini versions around the world.

The 2013 World Maker Faire will be held in New York City on September 21 and 22. Maker Fair Rome will be held October 3 to 6.

Photo by Mark Madeo


Art cars are popular at maker fairs, especially Maker Faire Bay Area, where this metal serpent car prowled the landscape in 2013. Many of the art cars shown at this event were built for the Burning Man festival, which is a maker event in itself and in 2013 runs from August 26 to September 2 in Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

Photo by Becca Henry


Here's a collection of Teddy Ruxpin animatronic teddy bears from the 1980s that maker Sean Hathaway repurposed with Arduino open-source electronics as part of an art installation called "TED (Transformations, Emotional Deconstruction)". It was showcased at Maker Faire Bay Area in 2013.

Photo by Becca Henry


From August 16 through September 15, 2013, Hand-Eye Supply, a Portland, Oregon, store that caters to a broad scope of makers, will host a pop-up shop and maker event in Los Angeles at Space 15 Twenty, a 2,000-square-foot space run by Urban Outfitters.

In addition to Hand-Eye Supply products for sale, there will be film screenings and workshops about making, including a two-day woodworking event with Offerman Woodshop, which is owned by Parks and Recreation actor Nick Offerman.

Offerman Woodshop (the crew is shown here) will present two workshops: one on September 14 about how to turn a chunk of tree into a lamp; the other on September 15, on how to craft a wood tree swing.


Also at the pop-up event, on September 6 Craft in America Study Center will screen the "Process" episode of its PBS series about what makes a person choose a career in craft in the digital age.


Anything cut using computerized numerical controllers (CNCs) is popular at maker fairs.

Maker Rob Bell created all the parts needed for his Zomes (shown here at Maker Faire Bay Area in 2012) on CNC machines. He can calculate all the required geometry and have parts sent to a CNC in your area so you can make your own.

Find a 2013 fair:

OC Mini Maker Faire (Irvine, California): August 17
Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire: August 18
Calgary Mini Maker Faire (Canada): September 14
Portland Mini Maker Faire (Oregon): September 14 and 15
Nashville Mini Maker Faire: September 21
Toronto Mini Maker Faire: September 21 and 22
World Maker Faire New York (New York City): September 21 and 22

Find a fair around the world

Tell us: What do you make?

Photo by Mark Madeo

URL: Are You a Maker? There's a Fair for You http://www.decor-ideas.org/cases-view-id-21138.html