Avenue Magazine Edmonton

Posted by Omar Mouallem in on Dec 8 2009 17:49

Two years ago, on a Sunday morning, I peeled myself off a friend's couch after a night on Whyte Ave, and set out on a journey to retrieve my car, parked on Gateway Boulevard. I was disheartened to find a fresh parking ticket wedged under my wipers (it was way past 9 a.m.). But seeing as how I was already in violation, and therefore pretty much own that expired metre for the rest of the a.m., I decided to follow the nearby crowd into the Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre, home of the first ever Royal Bison Craft & Art Fair.

I've never been to a craft fair, and as far as I knew, it was something you did in between checking your diabetes and attending bridge club. But being in no hurry, I paid my toonie (the exact amount that would have saved me the $50 parking violation), bought a coffee at the food bar and stepped into my new hobby, which is buying the artful hobbies of others.

Without sounding like a morning zoo DJ, this isn't your granny's craft fair. Royal Bison, created by illustrator and artist Raymond Biesinger, is a place where the cool kids hang. At this fair, vendors sell irreverent paintings, playing cards with artful prints and landscape paintings retrofitted with destructive robots and Super Mario. Or, for the trendiest granny of all, knitted burgers by Paz Y Flamenco.

On my first trip to Royal Bison, I left happily with a pair of cufflinks made from antique typewriter keys, as featured in Avenue's September 2008 Cool Hunter. In fact, if you follow the magazine monthly, you'll see that other items from local craftspeople have appeared in the pages, such as Sarah Jackson's children's book about whimsical jars of jam and clutch purses made from vintage books. 

Best of all, Royal Bison exhibitors are all local, and, interestingly, mostly hip 20-somethings - definitely not the type you'd expect to be cooped up at home over the weekend making funky jewellery. It's as if all this time the house next door to my paranoid parents, which they swore was a meth lab, was actually headquarters to a silver button-ring operation.

But it's not just the hipness of the Royal Bison - or the "Bize," as I imagine somebody at the Black Dog has nicknamed it - that has me going to every Edmonton craft show I can; it's the quality of the items themselves.

When people think of homemade, they usually think of something shoddily made or sloppily presented. Or something so completely ubiquitous - like Christmas nutcrackers - that not even the blood, sweat and tears can make it worth buying at four times the London Drugs-price.

But the artisans at Royal Bison and other Edmonton craft shows, such as last month's Pizzazz! or this weekend's The Handmade Mafia, are also true entrepreneurs who have perfected their packaging and promotions, delivered something unique and honed their crafts (pun intended).

The most recent Royal Bison show was two weekends ago, and it was the busiest one yet. Over 2,100 people attended to peruse from over 70 vendors, which is about how many people's shoes I think I spilled my coffee on squeezing my way through the isles of booths. Although the next show isn't until May, you can find many of the Royal Bison vendors at The Handmade Mafia (December 12 at Orange Hall) and Make It! Edmonton (December 11 to 13 at The Alberta Aviation Museum).

I'll see you there: I'll be the one outside, illegally parked, or inside, apologizing profusely for the coffee on your pant cuffs.