Recently, I was asked to contribute a monthly column on the craft industry to ArtsHub, the online portal for jobs in the creative sector.  Last week, my first column was published.  It’s about Craft Hatch, the monthly market for student and emerging designers in Melbourne.  Below is the text.

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There’s a new market in town. It’s called Craft Hatch, and it’s the brainchild of Craft Victoria, the peak body for craft professionals in Victoria. Since 1970 when it was first established as the Craft Association of Victoria, “Craft Vic” has provided a platform for jewellery makers, potters, textile artists and a variety of other makers and designers.

Craft Hatch is held on the second Saturday of the month (except for Easter, when it’s the first Saturday) at the Melbourne City Library at 253 Flinders Lane from 11am to 4pm.  There are 12 stalls each month. Stalls for the March and April markets have already been filled, though it might be worth a call to Craft Victoria to confirm this. Craft Victoria is now taking expressions of interest for stalls in the May, June and July markets. Many of the stallholders on the day I went were graduates of RMIT and Box Hill TAFE, and the products they were selling included homewares, jewellery, accessories, stationery, furniture and clothing.

On the day I visited, things were a little quiet. This was probably due to the hour – still pre-lunch, prime coffee drinking time – and maybe also the day, Valentine’s Day. The stalls were set out in the long, narrow atrium at the top of the stairs where the piano sits, and in a second, more spacious area at the front of the building overlooking Flinders Lane.

I spoke to a couple of stallholders. Tamara Same and Rochelle Woods were sharing a stall, each showing their handcrafted jewellery. Tamara, a graduate of Monash University in Fine Arts, was showing chain necklaces made from thin plastic tubing stuffed with wool and silk, as well as a range of sterling silver jewellery. Lots of her work, she said, “refers back to textiles”, and she’d taught herself to crochet during her studies so she could explore such possibilities as crochet “dipped in porcelain”, and what happens when silver meets fabric.  What happened in one case was on display: a necklace whose silver disc had been pressed, when molten, against crocheted fabric. The result was a pleasantly organic shape suggesting the cross-section of an ancient tree.

Rochelle, in her final year of Fine Arts at RMIT, is working in precious metals including sterling silver, and most recently, gold. She is particularly interested in the process of “fusing”, combining two different metals in the one piece without the assistance of an alloy like solder. Both Tamara and Rochelle were selling their work at Craft Hatch for the first time. For Tamara, selling her work at the market is a good opportunity to get “exposure” and “instant feedback”. It’s also “good to be able to sell your work rather than have someone else sell it”, and “to have a chat about your work”, she said.

Another stallholder, Catherine (Cat) Preston, a graduate of Box Hill TAFE, thought the market offered a great chance “to get your name out there”. Her teachers, she said, had explained that “often people won’t buy on the spot, that they’ll want to get to know you first and then they may buy”. It was also a good opportunity, she said, to “get to know the questions people might ask” and to see what “people relate to”.

Sometime in the future Craft Victoria may need to reconsider the venue for Craft Hatch. Not having all the stalls in one room reduces the effect of vitality and exuberance you might expect in an event for student and emerging designers. As does the quiet and reverent air. When the older lady with long white hair, the classically trained pianist who sometimes busks outside in Flinders Lane on a keyboard, took up her other regular gig on the piano it was a relief. It’s a great, central location, but City Library probably isn’t the best fit for the longer term.

Craft Hatch offers student and emerging designers a solid new forum for testing their designs, interacting with potential customers and understanding their appeal. It offers customers the opportunity to buy innovative, handmade products direct from the designer, and is a welcome addition to Melbourne’s craft scene.

Future dates for Craft Hatch at City Library are:

• 14 March
• 4 April
• 9 May
• 13 June
• 11 July.

For enquiries, ring Craft Victoria on (03) 9650 7775, or email market@craftvic.asn.au.

Image: courtesy of Susan Connor at Hey Susy.