Tell us a bit about yourself name, location,
affiliations, personal stuff.
my name is katie henry, but some folks call me hank. i grew up in a very tiny town in the middle of nowhere in very south jersey, but have lived in philadelphia for almost nine years now. i really like dance movies and cucumber sandwiches and books and i have a little dog named frances houseman (baby's real name in dirty dancing). about five years ago, i stumbled upon my roommate's vintage singer sewing machine, and i have not stopped stitching since. i am self-taught, which makes for some interesting creations and sometimes very involved processes.
Apart from creating things, what do you do?
well, i try to make time to eat, sleep and breathe. but right now i mostly just create. madebyhank is my full time job, which is incredibly exciting, but a ton of work! i also make sewn drawings inspired by vintage photographs and have shown them in a few galleries around philadelphia.
What first made you want to become an artist?
i am still not quite comforatable calling my self an artist. to me, i am just a girl who likes to sew (and sew and sew and sew...).
but i suppose i have always been a maker of things. i grew up surrounded by creative people. my mother was/is very creative and was always getting into something new. she owned and operated a small homemade chocolate shop when i was younger, and when she wasn't making fudge or wedding cakes, she was teaching herself anything from working with stained glass to foot reflexology to sculpting. my aunt made handmade porcelain dolls, and my grandmother would crochet intricate little dresses for even the smallest of them. even my stepfather who was actually a policeman would spend hours in his woodshop creating intricate little masterpieces of some kind.
i was always thinking up some weird project or another as far back as i can remember. anything from friendship bracelets to dioramas to video book reports (as in ten-year-old nerdy me acting out each character on video tape), the list goes on. it just wasn't until recently that i started taking my making a bit more seriously.
Please describe your creative process how, when, materials, etc.
TORNADO would be a good word to describe my process, because that is often what my work area resembles after a day of making. i suppose it all starts with materials. i spend hours scouring thrift stores, vintage shops, fabric warehouses, all sorts of places to find my fabrics and things. i use mainly vintage and repurposed fabrics in my bags and many of them have repurposed leather belts as straps. i try to use/re-use as many materials that already exist as possible, because there are so many new things in this world already.
What handmade possession do you most cherish?
a few years back, i made a pact with a friend of mine that we would each send the other a piece of mail every day for one month. i am a bit of a jerk, so i only ended up sending things about five days that month, but he followed though by filling my mailbox with the prettiest drawings and notes everyday. i still look through this little collection of mail sometimes when i am feeling down and they make me happy again and again.
Name your top five books, movies, songs/musical groups, and web sites besides Etsy.
books:
white teeth (zadie smith)
to kill a mockingbird (harper lee)
savage girls and wild boys: the history of feral children (michael newton)
the world and other places (jeanette winterson)
bread and jam for frances (russell hoban)
movies:
dirty dancing
savannah smiles
rize
billy elliott
jack the bear
songs/ music:
MARY WELLS
wu-tang forever (the whole album)
cryin' in the rain (carole king)
crimson and clover (tommy james and the shondells)
the black album (metallica)
webistes:
mdominguezjr.com (he takes all of my photos)
swiss-miss
thisamericanlife.org
smosch.com
blog.lenacorwin.com
What advice would you give to artists who are new to Etsy?
i am still learning as i go and am not sure i am in the position to give advice quite yet, but i would say to be patient, take good photos and write detailed descriptions, and practice good communication. this is where my ten years spent working as a waitress and a nanny come in very handy.
What are your favorite features on Etsy? What new features would you like to see?
i have to say, i really like the favorites tool. i like being able to keep track of all the wonderful things i find on etsy. i also have found so many great purchases by snooping through other folks' favorites.
i think it would be incredibly helpful if the conversations could be a bit more organized.
How do you promote your work?
the internet has been very good to madebyhank. words like 'flickr', 'blog', and 'etsy', etc. were not even in my vocabulary two years ago, and now they are a huge part of my life and work. etsy is absolutely fantastic and if we lived in the same city and i had a few more hours in each day, i would bake everyone who runs the site a pie. i do try to keep up with my blog and upload new photos to flickr to keep folks updated and give glimpses into my process/progress, but mostly etsy is set up in a way that has allowed very great people to magically find my little shop, and for this i am very grateful.
In ten years I'd like to be...
still sewing and still loving it. but maybe sewing someplace a little closer to the beach. |
