Are laser engraved items considered handmade when registering for craft shows?

[Lisabeth Shaffer]

I use keychains, coasters and other premade products, but then I engrave my designs on them. I would like to register for craft shows as handmade as opposed to commercial products. I believe this is correct, but was hoping to get some feedback from someone with this experience.

Thank you in advance.

Lisabeth

[David Somers]

Lisabeth,

It depends on the show and their rules. I have been to some where a laser engraved item was OK, but a laser made item was not. For example....a bowl turned on a wood lathe by hand, but with a laser engraved rim pattern was OK in one show, but a CNC made bowl, or a laser cut coaster was not. In another show a laser cut coaster or a laser cut jigsaw puzzle was not OK. Depends on their individual rules. Most times, if you are getting your info on shows from a subscription service you can get those rules. Often though, a short search will get you to the shows web site where they will define their rules. Expect something that is juried or approved by a committee to be stricter than other shows.

If you do go the subscription service route, admittedly handy at least for the first year to identify all the shows in the nation, you need to spend some time learning what their terms mean. Kind of like interpreting Real Estate listings. You learn that "cute fixer upper" implies you may want to be a licensed contractor if you buy it. Once you have that down their descriptions make sense. Also, if you use a service they normally list the expected income for a booth in a given booth. Be wary of that until you know what the show is like. The highest income producing show I checked out happened to be filled with absolute schlock of the cheapest kind. Folks were spending money like they had presses, but what they were buying would have made a dollar store look high end. It was eye opening. I learned a lot that summer just checking out shows to learn what they really were offering. Good chance to talk to the booth owners too. Very helpful.

[Mike Null]

Dave has said it pretty well. Generally speaking laser or machine engraved items are not considered hand made and if the shows are juried you can be sure they won't be accepted.

My DIL makes costume jewelry by hand and does fairly well at craft shows but it's easier on ETSY.

[Mike Troncalli]

Agreed,

Dave pretty much said it.. I spent almost 3 years doing craft / art shows. Some of them were VERY strict and others could care less. You can always say "Artfully designed and enhanced consumer products"

My favorite commercial was "can't remember the company name" some product that they had basically just assembled and sold as a finished product. Their slogan was that their product was made with "GLOBALLY ACQUIRED PARTS"... Short for Made in China...

[Kev Williams]

There's hand-made, and then there's "hand" made... seems the actual distinction in my mind would be whether electricity was used to help make it.. ie: sewing machine, a power drill, an electric sander, a laser engraver...?

There used to be a guy (may still be), a mountain man in southern Utah who makes very nice cedar chests using no electric tools. He works and sells from a covered wagon.

Now, THOSE are "hand" made!

I don't know anything about craft shows or their rules, but just as fodder for friendly debate with those in charge, I would argue the point that if crafts that were made with the help of sewing machines and such are allowed, then so should crafts made with the help of a laser engraver. It's just another tool...

[Jeff Belany]

What bugs me is that some people consider anything lasered as 'not art', without even considering what went in to it and how it was made. They defend this by saying it was made by a machine. BUT, the accept photography -- and what is a camera except a optical machine? Any what about processing the film and darkroom work? Machines used to do this? Of course! Even digital photography has more than one very sophisticated machine to create a print. But nothing out of the laser is considered "Art". Don't get it. Art Snubs, that's all they are.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Samuel Espy]

Jeff, art snobs disallowing laser-engraved art while allowing photography is an inconsistency I have noted also. I certainly support treating photography as art. But discluding high-quality laser engraved work I agree is just snobbish. Part of it is also ignorance regarding what all goes into the process of creating high-quality engravings.

[David Somers]

I could see some grousing about laser or CNC made pieces if the source files were purchased from a company that designs and resells the files for you to use. You buy the file, run it through the laser or CNC and voila! Hard to call that hand made or art though.

But if you designed the work and the laser or CNC is the media you used to produce it then I don't see the difference between that and say a painter selling Giclee prints of his work at a juried fair. And in most cases, so long as the original is on display the juried events I have been to have allowed this. In those cases I could also take a turned wood piece and sell it, and I could use various duplication techniques like templates to create copies to sell, and I could even use a lathe duplicator device and those seem to be accepted. I fail to understand that. I have not run into a juried event that would not accept something turned on a lathe so far either. But I have not explored all that far.

Anyway....Lisabeth, consider using a service for a year (festivalnet.com or craftmasternews.com are two examples) and get a really good feel for what is happening in the area you want to work in, and get the needed details on fairs you are interested in, or network with your artist buds and locate likely fairs. Call their contacts or check their web sites and ask bluntly about your products. If they wont accept them ask what would be needed to make them OK for their event? And, by all means, before you invest $$ in a booth go check the event out and see what is going on. What kinds of vendors are there and in what numbers? Watch booths for a while and see what is selling and what is not moving. Look at the clients and the range of booths. And, also important, check the design of the booths. Watch them and see what works and what does not in terms of attracting people, facility a flow of viewers while giving you time to talk to folks, and where issues of shop lifting seem to crop up. Talk to folks. I have found most vendors to be very helpful. Pinterest can help with designs if you do a search on "craft booth designs". There are blogs and web services that offer advice on booths, but they generally charge a subscription fee.

Lastly, do a dry run with your canopy and booth design at home. And make sure your canopy is weighed down adequately. I checked out a fair 2 seasons ago in Gig Harbor, WA. Quite a nice venue. We had a wind storm kick up and canopies were flying. A number of us spent the bulk of the day rushing to canopies that were lifting and holding them down while the vendors found ways to weight them adequately. It was quite the scene. Vendors who had their items on panels attached to the legs of their canopies were especially vulnerable to the wind. Nice looking displays, until they starting moving down the street with a lovely rolling motion. We all made a lot of friends that day.

Mike's comment about Etsy being easier is a very good one. No travel, no booth fees, no state taxes to worry about, no shop lifting, etc. But, a few well chosen fairs could be a lot of fun and a nice way to connect with the people likely to buy your stuff. That by itself could make a few fairs a very worthwhile effort regardless of your earnings. You can learn a lot.

Dave

[Braden Todd]

To give you an idea of how picky some stores and events are, I was told a few years ago that my sandblasted art was not handmade enough for a shop here in Colorado. The reason was because I didn't make the glass I engraved on!

Then I was really curious if all the painters made their own canvases from scratch too!

[Matt McCoy]

This is a good thread and appreciate the topic. I move in these circles and have had a lot of discussion with folks way more clever and talented than I am. I've considered both sides of the coin and have come to the conclusion that a laser is just a tool, like anything else, and really depends on the person using it to create interesting things. Of course, I might be biased.

I do think if you're considering engraving such things as key fobs and coasters, you might consider taking the time to make the pieces to engrave your artwork on. This tends to be more appealing to those that shop at handmade markets anyway and you'll have the satisfaction of making your own products.

Interestingly (maybe not), I've read that all baskets are handmade. The author wrote that there are no machines that can make baskets and must all be woven and assembled by a person with his or her hands. China became the manufacturer to the world because of plentiful (read: cheap) labor, not because of its amazing factory technology or machines, so this stands to reason. By the criteria of some picky markets, a basket from the dollar store would be acceptable as handmade, while something that took hours to make in a shop with a laser would not. Go figure.

I really like the points about giclee prints, photos, lithographs, fabric, etc.

Good luck.