West Coast Craft is ‘not a craft fair’

Want to give your loved ones something unique or handmade: a ceramic bowl, a textile wall hanging, or a one-of-a-kind pair of earrings?

You have plenty of options at the craft fairs taking place across the Southland this month: Renegade, Unique LA., Craft Contemporary’s holiday marketplaces, and the very popular Echo Park Craft Fair.

These are all showcases for the growing maker movement.

But now there is a newcomer to the scene: West Coast Craft, a curated show founded in San Francisco that takes place December 7 and 8 at ROW DTLA.

What sets her show apart, in the view of co-founder and creative director Paulina Nassar, is the emphasis on “the aesthetics of the counterculture that are so important" on the West Coast and the fact that the products and objects she selects are at the intersection of art, craft and design, such as Mucho painted clothing by Coachella Valley’s Sofia Enriquez; art pieces made of different colored woods by Aleksandra Zee or clothing by Gentle Thrills, the Los Angeles based brand that turns craft into performance by live-airbrushing tees in front of buyers.

DnA talks to Nassar about the brands on display, the connection of West Coast Craft to the celebrated California design shows created by Eudora Moore from the mid-1950s to mid-1970s; and why she asked reporters in the past to not call the show a “craft fair.”