Craft2.0 Interview 2013

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From the Craft2.0 blog.

Tell us what you make.  Eco-friendly, colour-averse jewellery and accessories and homewares that are laser cut from salvaged materials. I also sew screen printed bibs. 

What element of your craft do you feel most passionate about?  My philosophy of environmental responsibility is integral to all of my making endeavours. I always look for scrap materials to work with.

Cutting from scraps

What makes you different from other makers? i.e: Your focus on detail or your wide variety of procucts; your skill-set or materials; your love of colour or use of a monochromatic palate. Expand and tell us a little more.  Everything I create involves in its process a step of digital fabrication, mostly in form of laser cutting, but even my printing screens are made digitally. In that way I consider myself more of a designer than a crafter, even though I assemble all products myself.  Much of my focus is on creating memorable, quirky human and animal characters. The whimsical and slightly macabre aesthetic reflects the characters’ tongue in cheek personalities.  The very limited colour palette is a Chromatophobic signature. The red, black and white often attract people wearing those colours.

Psychotic Santa assembly

Why do you craft or create and how does this affect your lifestyle?  Whenever I need something, anything; my first thought is “how do I make it”. Often it takes me a while to work out that it’s a lot more cost effective to buy the item in question, but not before the design cogs in my brain hyperactively spring into motion. This maker attitude underpins everything I do and the way I view the world.

How does your creative process start and where does it end? What detours happen along the way?

There’s no start and no clear finish. My creative process is like a spider web: both functionally, in the way ideas are captured and digested and aesthetically as the spooky factor in my work.

Inspiration doodling

How has running your own business changed you? What is something you've learned along the way that has helped you in particular?  Even though it’s a miniature scale enterprise, I put a lot of effort into thorough record keeping of all production and stock. That way I don’t have to rummage through everything to determine whether an item is available. 

Flatpack polyprop tabletop trees

Tea or Coffee? Both, though coffee if I’m out.

The Jam Jar Interview

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Snoork is grinning from the front page of the Jam Jar magazine

Snoork drooling in the middle

Chromatophobic is the feature of their latest post with photos of Waffle, bibs, earrings and cufflinks.  Thanks, Jam Jar!

How to Make a Dick of Yourself

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As the saying goes, it's better to stay silent and be throught a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

Buuuut, I don't seem to learn.  So I put my hand up to be interviewed on Makertorium TV.  Somehow I didn't register the "TV" part of it and assumed that the whole thing would be recorded in writing and make its way into the bowels of the internet to stay mostly unread and grow pixel mould.  Then I realised that my voice would get recorded and made an expression that looked like my face was trying to eat itself.  I was once interviewed by Radio NZ and sounded like a moron there.  For some reason all my friends always sound very accomplished and knowledgeable about their interview topic, and I come across like a half-baked idiot with hedgehogs in my mouth. Maybe I shouldn't talk?

Seconds before MsBehaviour started asking me questions, it dawned on me that there was a camera involved.  I asked for a paper bag to put over my head, but there wasn't one available.  It was too late to sulk, but not too late to get an irksome flashback.

I once got shoved in front of a news crew to give an opinion about something unmemorable.  I was walking down the street, minding my own business, when I bumped into a friend; and as we walked along talking, we saw some dudes with a news camera.  I quickly started turning to make an avoidance detour, but my limelight loving friend grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the reporter.  We got asked some pointless questions, which my companion responded to with gusto.  I came up with some ridiculously banal reply, thinking that there was no way they would put such crap on TV, and I'd be off the hook.  I shoud have known better.  I came across like a freshly lobotomised institution escapee.

The Makertorium inverview was a live stream, and while I zealously blabbered on about something that sounded meaningful to me at the time, I kept thinking how MsBehaviour's eyes were an insane hue of blue, and that I really should have found myself a paper bag.

Craft2.0 May 2013 interview

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May designers: Meet Chromatophobic

What is your name?  Yana / Chromatophobic

What do you make?  Eco-friendly, colour-averse jewellery and accessories that are laser cut from salvaged materials.

How did you get into your craft?  I’ve been a maker for as long as I remember, despite my kindergarten teachers yelling at me to play with dolls, instead of making cars from twigs and pine cones. Chromatophobic started while I was working as a workshop technician at design school and was given a free reign over the laser cutter, so I could turn my years of doodled characters into physical objects.

What are your favourite tools and materials?  I owe much to a computer and a laser cutter, but I wouldn’t get far without my array of black pens and sketch book. I enjoy working with felt, polypropylene, plywood and stainless steel. Each material has its peculiar fun challenges.

Work in progress

How are you inspired?  I think at the moment, it’s the crazy faces that my daughter pulls as she experiments with her expressions. She manages to contort her face into a multitude of grimaces in a matter of moments, and that inspired me to doodle a few monsters. Fortunately they bear no resemblance to the child.

Inspiration face

Describe your workspace. How does it contribute to your creativity?  My workspace generally takes over most of the house, as it goes where I go to keep up with the best light in the available space; and now the small child who races around on all fours and has to be caged when I use a soldering iron. I keep everything organised and labelled in draws and boxes because I like working in a tidy environment.

Characters

What is some customer feedback you've kept close to heart?  I’ve had a few gleeful emails from people who’ve photographed their Chromatophobic purchases in use, and I’m keen for more examples!

Why buy handmade?  “Handmade” is probably a bit of a fallacy. Nearly everything is handmade to some extent. In the context of this fair, handmade means that you can be confident that the blood, sweat and tears that went into the items on sale, did so with love and informed consent.


What advice would you offer to other crafters/artists just starting out?  Keep a record of your process and design evolution. It’s uplifting to see how crap your designs were at the beginning.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?  Buried under a pile of Grimlies on my lounge floor.

National Radio

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There was a reporter from National Radio at the October Craft2.0 doing a story called "Craft Fair" for This Way Up.