See New York, Make Art A Visit to Etsy Open Lab Night

It is a Monday evening in New York and I find myself on the subway heading to Brooklyn. The car is filled with young people with laptops and messenger bags heading home from work. They don’t look like they work in offices but the occasional building pass gives them away. At DeKalb Avenue I get off the train and walk over to Gold Street to the Clock Tower Building.

 I’ve spent the last few days in galleries and Museums looking at art. I am literally itching to create some myself, except that I didn’t happen to bring any supplies in my small suitcase. Lucky for me there is the Etsy Lab’s open house. Every Monday night 4-8 and the first Sunday of the month 2-6 you can use their equipment and make stuff and meet people.

The Etsy Lab is an offshoot of the Etsy an “online shopping bazaar Etsy, a very much for-profit entity that bills itself as 'your place to buy & sell all things handmade'” (Rob Walker New York Times Magazine 12-17-07). Located at their headquarters in the Clock Tower Building (325 Gold Street) the open lab takes place in and around all of their offices. Etsy has taken over most of the sixth floor and filled it with various offices and studio space.

I am buzzed into a very industrial looking building and take the elevator to the sixth floor. Inside the office there is an Etsy local sellers meeting. Beyond that there are people working on various projects talking and occasionally running across the room to find some supplies.

They are in the middle of dismantling a half pipe to make room for more desks. They explain to me that they aren’t too upset that it’s being dismantled since they just got a shuffle board table. At two and a half years Etsy has grown from three guys at a dining room table to a staff of 55. It is a busy place, not only does everyone talk to you but there is the feeling that you might be hanging out with friends in someone’s apartment (or in my case the art room after school in high school).

I am here to make something, so after getting the grand tour I get started. I’m going simple, a little wall hanging made of fabric scraps, and there are lots of leftovers from people’s screen printing projects, so I mix and match until I’m happy with my nine little squares.

There is a table full of sewing machines to use as well as other tables for other projects.  For the more ambitious, or local person, they could bring their own silk screen and use their very cool silk screening set up. Or if you have the urge to do a little jewelry making there is a fully loaded jeweler’s bench; just bring your own piece of silver or what ever you are going to work with.

As I sew I talk with two women who met while doing a bird count in some years before. A staff member stops by to see what people are working on and we talk a while about Etsy and how she got involved. In general it is a low key relaxed evening, a good way to take a break in the middle of a New York City trip without going home.