For
each of these women, making a living from craft seemed inevitable. "I
was always crafty and into making handmade gifts," says Perkins,
who sells her line of molded resin accessories through her site, NaughtySecretaryClub.com. "My
mother, who also doubles as my patron saint of craftiness, recommended
I try playing with resin. I started selling the bracelets on Tina
[Lockwood]'s Web site [www.sparklecraft.com]
first, then eventually decided to start selling the bracelets on
my webzine. One thing led to another, and eventually demand got so
high I had to choose between my day job as a secretary and full-time
jewelry designer. Sitting at home in pajamas making jewelry sure
as hell beats answering phones and filing papers."
The
Internet offered an ideal outlet for a beginning entrepreneur, and
not just because of the dress code. "There's no overhead," says
Perkins. "If it doesn't go well, you're out $9 in Web hosting." Each
of these women taught herself Web design, and serves as designer,
manufacturer, sales rep, tech support, accountant, and mail clerk
for her company. And although these ladies sell wholesale as well
(many mafia members' work can be found at Creatures in Austin), the
majority of their business is online.
"I can get 500 hits a day to my Web site,"
says Jenny Hart of SublimeStitching.com.
"I'm not going to get 500 customers a day looking at my stuff in
a store. I see wholesale as exposure. Someone may see my product in
a store, not purchase it, but then later go online and order it. Plus,
I've got worldwide access and can sell to anyone, 24 hours a day, anywhere
on the planet."
When The Wall Street Journal reported
last year on the trend of small, independent designers selling direct
to the consumer via the Web, three of the five businesses profiled were
owned by Austin artists. Yet when Jenny Hart and Tina Lockwood first
started swapping tips and ideas on the craft-centered Web message board
at GetCrafty.com,
they didn't realize that they shared a city as well as a passion for
craft.
"Jenny just contacted me over e-mail," says
Lockwood, "and said, 'Hey I'm in Austin, too, I have a business,
and do you want to get together and have coffee and talk shop?' I agreed
and asked if she wouldn't mind if I brought Jennifer [Perkins, of Naughty
Secretary Club] along, so the three of us met and it was so fun and
so inspiring to talk to other business owners. We decided to make it
a regular thing."
The regular thing became the Babes in Business Bonanza,
a monthly support group for women who own a business or are looking
to start one. "Designing is the fun part," says Jen Nakatsu
Arnston, of JNADesigns.com,
an Austin Craft Mafia company and a member of Babes in Business. "To
keep that going, you make investments in time, work, money to buy materials
and equipment, etc. It is immensely helpful to have a network of peers
you can relate to who support each other, bounce ideas off each other,
and that you respect."
Last year, after the WSJ article, Lockwood, Perkins,
and Hart realized they needed to bring their real-world connections
online. Inviting five other Babes in Business companies to join them,
they launched the AustinCraftMafia.com site in September. Drawing its
name from a reference to their businesses in Inga Muscio's feminist
reference book Cunt, the ladies like the gangland connotations.
"We're a family," says Kristin Adkins of RubyGoesRetro.com.
"We're tight-knit and we support each other."
Supporting one another's businesses also means promoting
one another's products. "I keep a box of business cards, stickers,
and buttons [promoting the other designers], and throw some in with
every order," says Hart. "And if one of us got press, we made
sure that we said 'Do you know about so and so,' which is antithetical
to the typical model of business, which we wanted to go against. We
said 'Let's not be in competition, let's boost each other,' and it has
worked very well."
It has worked so well that the Mafia have just inducted
a 10th member, Hope Perkins, Jennifer's sister and proprietrix of HotPinkPistol.com.
They've also been approached about doing a show for the DIY channel,
part of HGTV. In January, they hope to have a formal launch party, and
to open up the group to other independent, online Austin businesses
that are majority handmade. And in the meantime, they're using the membership
dues to purchase collective advertising space in print publications
like Bust and Venus, space they'd never be able to afford
on their own.
The Austin Craft Mafia aren't the only retailers who
have seen the power that local collaboration can have online. Rebecca
Pearcy of Queen Bee Creations has been selling her handcrafted vinyl
bags through BuyOlympia.com since programmers Pat Castaldo and Aaron
Berg started the site in 2000.
"I love the cross-pollination that happens on the
site," says Pearcy. "A customer logs on because they've heard
about Queen Bee, and in the process, they discover all these other amazing
artists and craftspeople. It's a cooperative feeling, and I love working
with Pat and Aaron."
Organizations like The Church of Craft (www.churchofcraft.org)
and Stitch 'n' Bitch (www.rubygoesretro.com/stitchnbitch.html)
have used the organizational power of the Internet to update the quilting
bee and the sewing circle, making the solo act of crafting a social
occasion by promoting meetings in coffee shops around the country. Like
Babes in Business and the Austin Craft Mafia, these craft groups are
aimed at sharing knowledge, teaching skills, and supporting new work.
