Today, we opened our
mosaic store on
Etsy, an online retailer specializing in handmade crafts.
I learned about Etsy from a recent
article in the San Francisco Chronicle. Although we will always maintain our own
mosaic artist store on the ExactMosaic website, it's great having a centralized marketplace to display our handmade mosaics. Also, I found the emergence of Etsy fascinating on a few levels.
First, the concept is extremely novel and it features the best aspects of the Web 2.0 phenomenon. It's leveraging a huge untapped pool of user generated content: namely the craft wares and handmade products of artisans. Spend any amount of time in San Francisco's Mission District and you'll realize that there is no shortage of cutting edge artisans, from high-cache professionals to starving students and part-time hobbyists. The Etsy website has an impressive 3-dimensional interface for browsing the myriad craft-wares. Like the USS Enterprise zooming across the stars, you can fly TOWARDS AND PAST the product pictures in high-speed viewing. I can't help thinking that this is what the future of virtual shopping is going to feel like. My only criticism would be how surprisingly unremarkable the Etsy logo and home page is.
My second observation was that, as noted by the SF Chronicle, Etsy follows on a "craft renaissance among people in their 20s and 30s". As a
millennial I noticed many of my generation have taken professional jobs in urban centers where they spend their weekends at downtown farmers markets and street fairs. While enjoying the weekend weather, they are buying handmade products...and their baby boomer parents are right there with them. I don't want to over analyze it, but I do think the increased demand reflects some desire (from both generations) to have one-of-a-kind items that allow them to break free from an urban/mass-produced/IKEA environment. What's surprising is that some millennials are joining (and some are even leading) the ranks of the craft making community. Alan and I are not the only twentysomethings in the mix. In fact, last week, I was perusing one of my girlfriend's fashion rags and discovered that Taylor Mosher, one of my college dormmates from Pepperdine, had launched
ARCHANGEL a line of silver sterling jewelery for men in partnership with Brody Jenner (of MTV's The Hills). It looks like the line was picked up by LisaKline, so they must be doing well.
Finally, I can't help putting on my "venture capital hat" (please don't fall asleep on me) and noting that Etsy is doing very well. Accel Partners just funded a $23 million Series-C with a $90 million post-money valuation. Sales were $27 million in 2007 generated from a nominal ~$0.20 list fee and 3.5% of any item sold. Not a bad value proposition for any artist when the alternative is to set up your own online store which 1) won't generate as much traffic as a centralized marketplace and 2)is technically very challenging to do for the non-programmer.
-Nick
Labels: crafts, Etsy, millennials, mosaics
We recently received a commission to do a mosaic of the Virgin of Guadalupe (also known in Spanish as "Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe" or "La Virgen Morena"). The Virgin of Guadalupe is the image that miraculously formed on the cloth of Saint Juan Diego from the residue of Castillian roses that he had collected. This is an important religious symbol in Hispanic culture and we hope this mosaic will be a wonderful tribute to this sacred image. I can't help but to point out the parallels between the mosaic and the cloth of Saint Juan. On both, the image of the Virgin Mary is formed using random natural materials. In Saint Juan's cloth, it is the natural pigments from the roses that were divinely arranged to create the image. In the case of our mosaic, we are using the natural veining within marble to re-create the image. The mosaic is to be installed in a fountain. I'm looking forward to getting you images of the installed mosaic soon. 
