Tomorrow
over at Gallivan Plaza, nestled in the midst of towering structures
and parking garages galore, we see a sight usually hidden from the
public. What's usually behind the blinds, kept indoors as a hobby,
what many conceal in dark unused rooms or next to the wash room in
the basement, will be on public display for all to see. What you may
ask? ...People getting their craft on!
--- The
first annual Craft Lake City kicks off at 2PM on Saturday, showcasing
everything from knitting to silk screen prints to jewelry and much
more I couldn't even begin to describe. Plus dozens of vendors,
street performers, and live music from the likes of Aye Aye, Tiny
Lights, Coyote Hoods and the long awaited end to the hiatus of
Subrosa. And its completely free. Gearing up for the event I wanted
to interview some crafters setting up shop at the event, and for
this one I got to chat with Leigh & Rachel Kade, creators of the
Grimmleigh's Fiends!
Rachel Kade & Leigh George
Kade
http://www.grimmleighsfiends.blogspot.com/
Gavin:
Hey guys, tell us a little about yourselves first off.
Leigh:
I was raised by a wild pack of hippies and now I’m a
painter/sculptor/illustrator/sci fi enthusiast/Geek Show Podcast
panelist with a "super secret dayjob" and a pretty cool
family.
Rachel: I like long walks on the beach and the
color puce. My turn-offs are brussel sprouts and tangled yarn. I
was raised by crazy Germans and I’m a yarn addict.
Gavin:
How did the two of you meet and eventually get married?
Rachel:
We’ve been married for going on 15 years (I always have to do the
math to remember.) And we met here in Salt Lake when Leigh was an
angry punk rock coffee shop employee and I was one of many little red
headed girls who hung out at said coffee shop.
Leigh:
She thought it was funny that I was so angry all the time, which made
her really, really appealing. She came in with her friends to drink
coffee and "study", and she had these cute glasses, sassy
hair, and hated Nirvana. I was pretty much lost from minute one. And
she had no problems with my erratic tendencies.
Gavin:
Leigh, you've been doing figures for a while, how did you get into
that?
Leigh: I started painting Dungeons & Dragons
miniatures in 1982, and that probably saved my life. A lot of kids in
the area of town I grew up in got into some pretty dangerous stuff,
and some didn’t make it through high school. I always loved
building models and dioramas of castles, so fantasy miniatures and
that whole world was really appealing to me, and it turns out I come
from a long line of model builders and tinkerers. Genetics are a
funny thing! I learned a lot of really great painting techniques in
White Dwarf Magazine in the late 80's and early 90's, and have
been able to paint miniatures professionally for the last ten years.
Last I checked, I was one of the 200 best on the planet, which gets
you pretty far on a waiting list at a restaurant.
Gavin:
Why choose to go into such detail as opposed to just painting
normally?
Leigh: My mom is a painter, and her work
always intimidated me. It was really scary trying to do any "real"
painting when you have a real painter in the house, but she couldn’t
paint small, so that allowed me to get my paint Jones in without
feeling inferior to her. Silly in hind sight, because I could have
learned a lot about traditional painting from her while I was growing
up.
Gavin: You also do custom action figures. How did
that start off and what have you created?
Leigh: I was
always getting grounded for cutting up and melting toys when I was a
kid. They didn’t make the Star Wars figures I wanted, so I was
going to make them myself. I realized that plastic got soft when it
was warm, so I tried melting a Han Solo figure’s face with a
lighter, thinking I could re-sculpt the plastic as it cooled. Oops. I
have ripped apart and re-sculpted hundreds of figures in my life, and
really rarely part with them. I just want to see how they work, how
to make molds, how to inject resin, you name it. Making dolls has
been a much safer, and less toxic, creative outlet.
Gavin:
Rachel, how did you take on crocheting and what kind of things do you
make?
Rachel: My mom taught me how to crochet when I
was about nine or so, and I did the typical pot-holder for Christmas
thing for a long time. I’ve always crocheted for gifts because I
find handmade gifts so much more personal. It also helps me relax and
focus and I love that I can crochet while we’re all watching the
boob-tube etc. It also helps me feel productive creatively which is
really important, if you, like me, suffer from "career
dissatisfaction". A few years ago, when Leigh’s dad got cancer
and went through chemo, I made him a hat to keep him warm. He got a
lot of compliments on it so I started making more of them and
donating some to cancer support groups in the area of Oregon we lived
in at the time. I started selling them and using them as a fundraiser
for the American Cancer Society too. I’m pretty much ALWAYS
crocheting something. Even in the car (NOT when I’m driving!) I got
interested in Amigurumi (that’s basically crocheting little dolls)
about six months ago when I started teaching MY nine year old daughter how
to crochet.
Gavin: Where did the idea for the
Grimmleigh's Fiends come from?
Leigh: I found a
stuffed Loch Ness Monster at a thrift store a little bit before
Rachel and I met, and I’ve been obsessed with them ever since. When
Rachel started making amigurumi doll bodies, a little bulb went off.
She’s spooky good with the yarn, and I always wanted to mess it
up.
Rachel: He begged me to make a body that he could
paint a face for... and the rest, as they say, is history. Our kids
give us tons of feedback and suggestions. We’ve been selling
artsy craftsy stuff online (Etsy) for a while now and we hadn’t
seen anything like what we’re doing so we figured what the heck...
it’s great because we’re using both of our talents/hobbies
together.
Gavin:
What's the process life for making one from idea to final
product?
Rachel: We never really know how they’ll
turn out until they’re done. I get inspired by the color of the
yarn (like I said, yarn addict) and try to "inspire" him
with new & fun body types. I don’t use a pattern so they’re
all slightly different... I basically whip up the body, stuff it, sew
a piece of cloth on it and then Leigh takes over from there. Their
personalities really come out when Leigh paints their faces. His
creepy-cute aesthetic is really appealing and I’m always surprised
by what he comes up with. And he has back stories for all of them
too... almost all of them have names and somewhat tragic lives that
he actually writes out for them.
Leigh: I get a bag
full of bodies, which is as fun as it sounds, trust me. I really have
no idea what is going to end up on the face until it’s almost done,
but the mystery is a good part of the fun. We’ve had a few requests
for customs of customer’s pets, which have been really challenging
for me, since they have to capture the pet’s likeness. I have to
rely on actual skill for those, instead of pure stream of
consciousness. Rachel really keeps me on my toes, too. Right when I
thought that I knew where we were headed, she handed me a crocheted
carrot.
Gavin: Why did you choose to do different ones
every time instead of mass produce the same one?
Leigh:
We love collecting things, and we love the idea of being collected.
Each Grimmleigh is original because it’s more fun for us that way,
and we feel like a lot more of our personalities come through in the
final product than it would if we tried to mass produce. That, and I
have this really successful auntie who is always trying to get us to
ship stuff to third world countries to cut down on cost and labor,
and that pisses me off. There is no creative process for me if
someone else is doing the creating!
Rachel: Like I
said, I don’t use a pattern, and I keep forgetting to write any of
them down, so I don’t think I could exactly duplicate one if I
wanted to!
Gavin:
What's been the reaction like to them as they've come out?
Rachel:
We love telling people that this is our hobby and what we do in our
free time. We get some funny looks. Our friends have been super
supportive... but my 85 year old Grandmother thinks there’s
something seriously wrong with both of us.
Leigh: I
always think we are being humored, but the last few projects have
floored people. First, it was Rachel with her hand-painted bottle cap
earrings. Then, I quit my radio job in Oregon to paint war-gaming
miniatures full time. When the first Grimmleigh’s were done, I
figured most of our support group would chalk it up as another of our
crazy ideas, but so far people have been really enthusiastic. Sales
have been steadily getting better, so I have to call it a success in
progress. Baby steps, right?
Gavin: Do you have plans
for different designs coming, or sticking to the ones you've got
right now?
Rachel: We both have a bit of un-diagnosed
ADD or something so we do get easily bored with doing the same things
over and over again. We brainstorm together a lot. Leigh will ask me
"Hey do you think you can do this?" and I’ll try to make
it... that’s how we started doing the Luchadores (Mexican
Wrestlers) We’ve just started a new line, "The Produce Of
Peril" - kind of a twisted Veggie Tales thing... and we’ve
been working on some designs for some elemental creatures as well as
the Cryptid Monsters.
Leigh: Neither one of us had any
idea that two of those were in the works a week ago. They just
gestated out of our heads, which is cool. By the time Craft Lake City
hits, we might already be figuring out how to introduce
cross-dressing marmots.
Gavin:
How did you get into Craft Lake City, and what are your thoughts on
being a part of the event?
Rachel: We are really
excited to be a part of the Craft Lake City Festival, especially on
the ground floor! We’ve never really "fit in" to the
traditional crafty scene with any of our work so it’s like Kismet
that an "alternative" or "rebel" fair will be
held in this fair city just in time for us to be a part of it. I’m
not sure how we actually got in, but I did know Angie Brown (the
editor of SLUG) when she was just a ‘tween so maybe there
was a nostalgia factor? (Totally kidding - I’m sure we got in
purely on the unbiased merits of our craft!)
Leigh:
It’s pretty sweet being in the first show. We’re pretty stoked to
see what the reaction to our work is outside of our sphere of
influence and Etsy!
Gavin: A bit local, what's your
take on our art scene, both good and bad?
Rachel:
Having grown up here in Salt Lake and then leaving for 15 years to
live in the middle-of- nowhere-Oregon... I’d have to say that SLC
has come a long way. I haven’t experienced too much of the "scene"
really but I’m excited that Craft Lake City is LOCAL ONLY! I
believe all of the artists are from the Wasatch Front. Not to
disparage artists from other areas like Colorado and California, but
I think it’s a shame when local artists can’t get into local
shows because of super-high booth overhead or competition from out of
town artists.
Leigh: This city has always had a thing
for scenes, hasn’t it? We had to go away for a while to notice it.
I’m not knocking anyone here, but there is an overwhelming aura of
uniformity here, and I think that when someone begins to express
themselves outside of the norm, there tends to be a lot of hushing
up. So, little Mr. Or Ms. Expression suppresses that, but you know
how well that goes. After a while, they meet up with a few other like
minded express-ees, and viola! A movement is born! SLC is amazing
that way, and we kind of have to thank the prominent establishment
for nurturing that.
Gavin:
Anything you believe could be done to make it more
prominent?
Rachel: Everyone should make an effort to
get out to the Gallery Strolls and support local galleries and fairs
like the one coming up. We all talk about shopping local in this
crappy economy and buying your holiday gifts & stuff like that
from local artists at fairs and Farmer’s Market, etc. is a perfect
way to stimulate the local economy. The more word of mouth there is
about local artists and the more successful events like this are...
the more there will be! And the more artists are out there actually
making even a little bit of money from their work, the more they will
be able to produce... it’s a big circle of art!
Leigh:
You don’t need to be a creator to support the local scene, but you
do need to be a part of it. Even if you don’t buy something from an
artist, you’d be amazed at how far a compliment goes. We get twenty
compliments for every sale on Etsy, but I love to hear it. It fires
me up!
Gavin: What can we expect from both of you the
rest of the year?
Rachel: We’ve got some great,
morbid ideas coming up for Halloween (pumpkins and skeletons and
zombies, oh my) and we’re hoping to get into some shops for the
winter holidays.
Leigh: I’m sure I will accidentally
light myself on fire at some point. Other than that, as Rachel goes,
so goes my nation. Yeah, I just quoted a werewolf from "Buffy."
Gavin:
Aside from the obvious, is there anything you'd like to plug or
promote?
Rachel: Etsy, and the handcraft movement in
general... buying local and buying handmade.
Leigh: I
agree... Etsy may not be local overall, but you would be amazed at
how many Utah crafters are selling there. You don’t even have to
leave your house to support some awesomely talented people! Oh, and
Kerry would kill me if I didn’t plug Geek Show Podcast. It’s new every
week, and I get to babble about whatever I want, so if you like the
stuff Rachel and I do, you can hear all about it on the podcast. And
keep reading this blog, right here, because Gavin has really been
pouring his heart and soul into making sure all of you know about a
ton of cool things that no one else is covering!