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Arts and crafts can be fun on the side or a full-time job
Photo by Erin FredrichsTribune
Tribune
Mickey Tracy adjusts the lighting for her husband's art at the Rio Grande Arts and Crafts Festival's Christmas show at Expo New Mexico. Her husband, John, paints and she mattes and frames his work. From their home in Oklahoma, they travel to about 20 shows a year. "We've been doing this for 39 years," Tracy said. "We have a good good time and have made some very dear friends. There are very good people in this art business."
Photo by Erin FredrichsTribune
Tribune
Sharon Carlson folds a tie-dyed wrap inside her booth at the Rio Grande Arts and Crafts Festival's Christmas show. She has been selling her colorful clothing at craft fairs in New Mexico and Colorado for 13 years. "I do it to support my children, Terrapin and Cassiopeia," she said. "And there was a niche in Albuquerque for tie-dye, and I filled it."
Crafts and hobbies
Size: The industry grew in the United States to $29 billion in 2002.
General crafts: Accounted for 43 percent of the dollars spent.
Needlecrafts: Accounted for 29 percent.
Painting, finishing and floral crafts: Accounted for about 28 percent of sales.
Consumers: The number of Americans engaged in crafts and hobbies grew from 58 percent in 2001 to 60 percent in 2002.
Behind the crafts: Only 15 percent of crafters sell their items for profit. A majority of crafters, 79 percent, complete projects as gifts.
Source: Hobby Industry Association's "2002 Nationwide Craft & Hobby Consumer Usage and Purchases Study."
Jim Fallier's commute to work can be as short as a few feet and as long as 594 miles.
The Wichita, Kan., resident has supported himself and his family with his paintings for 40 years. And if he has to drive all the way to Albuquerque several times a year to sell his wares, so be it.
"It's worth every mile," Fallier said. "It's my living. It's what I do."
Fallier started fresh out of the Colorado Institute of Art in Denver as a card designer and art director at American Greetings in Cleveland.
But a love of horses led him to painting horse portraits and full-time work in his home studio in 1967.
Fallier was most recently showing his talent - his paintings sell for a couple hundred dollars and more - at the Rio Grande Arts and Crafts Festivals Christmas show. He also travels to Albuquerque during balloon fiesta time to participate in the festival's October event.
"I've raised three kids doing what I love to do," Fallier said. "I could wait for three to four people to come to my studio in my home versus having 30,000 to 40,000 people look at (my paintings) a year" at shows like those in Albuquerque.
Fallier is a rare breed, however. According to the Hobby Industry Association, only 15 percent of crafters sell their handiwork. Many of these folks travel hundreds of miles all over the country to make their living. Albuquerque is a popular destination for many of them.
Another 79 percent of crafters and hobbyists use their projects purely as gifts.
For Philip Green, a Sandia Park artist and potter, making ceramic clocks is "more of a hobby."
The retired satellite engineer uses Raku, an ancient firing method that produces unpredictable color on ceramic surfaces. His clocks sell for as little as $26 to as much as $695.
Green's work is in several galleries around the state, and he also travels to arts and crafts shows around the West.
At a recent crafts event in Vail, Colo., Green sold his most expensive clock.
"It's in Palm Springs in an orthopedic surgeon's winter home," Green said.
Norman Aufrichtig, a Taos artist, doesn't travel too far outside New Mexico's borders.
He has been doing pottery work full time since 1970. He uses the pots he makes to arrange flowers in an art called Ikebana.
"We just do fairs around the state," he said. The former Connecticut store owner won't give specifics, but he says he's raised his children on his craft.
"I'm all right," Aufrichtig said. "I'm doing fine."
For other crafters, Christmas is a particularly good time to sell their wares.
Sharyn and Tom Burns of Albuquerque showcase Sharyn's hand-made Santas, snowmen and angels.
Whatever money they make off Sharyn's sewing talent goes toward two lights in their lives: their grandchildren.
Sharyn Burns is a full-time nurse, and her husband oversees their booth at crafts fairs.
Sharyn Burns "has a unique talent for sewing," Tom said with pride. "It's a paying hobby.
"We have two grandboys," he said. "This is extra money we use on them."
