artists, inventors, musicians, mechanics, and active participants in same event space, intermingling with each other and crossbreeding new ideas. There is something for absolutely everyone. If gadgets are your fancy, you can watch robot wars, model warship battles, rocket launching competitions, or try your hand at welding, test paper airplanes in a wind tube, deconstruct mechanical toys, test ride a silly looking vehicle, or jump into a live-action video game played on court where you wear electronic hats. If you have a knack for fabric, you need look no further than the SWAP-O-RAMA, a large hall filled with tables of clothes, fabric, ribbon, felt and fun sewing machines, felting machines, and silk screening stations. You can take home anything you create for free. At the end of the day, local designers showcase clothes created on site from scraps and recycled clothing articles. Then, between exhibit halls, the fair grounds are filled with performance stages, giant sculptures, miniature golf games, and other attractions. There is so much to see it, it could take weeks to try every hands-on table. Mark your calender and buy ticket far in advance. Otherwise, the line at the gate could take few hours. Event traffic alone caused a jam on Highway 101.The popularity of the event is certainly encouraging. In world where the hand production of physical objects is rarely central to worklife, it is exiciting to see that making things is regaining popularity and prestige. Everyday we're surrounded by mass produced goods, often devoid of personal significance. Most of the goods we buy are manufactured half way around the world by people we will never see, and through processes we neither witness or understand. We have little to no connection to way in which it things are put together, the origin of the parts, the place of the contruction, or human lives involved.
We may prize a cheap chair for IKEA or a shirt from Gap for the great deal we found and the amount of money we saved, or because they fit a style we would like to emulate, or because of their inherent functionality. However, due to the low price and the source, we can often replace it with an identical copy. It's not inherently unique and special.
The Maker Faire offers an entirely different way of relating objects, while promoting creativity, innovation, community building, sustainability, dexterity, and PLAY!!! It is so refreshing to see thousands of people interacting with eachother with curiosity, enthusiasm, and pure joy. Closeted craftspeople get their moment in the spotlight to shine and share in open and free flowing environment. Ahh, heaven!!!
Rachel tries a machine that attaches raw wool to fabric with a set of 5 or 6 plunging needles and no thread.
R2D2 shows off
A lobster clock?See the rest of the photos at:
