The Unveiling!

So despite the overwhelming votes for the name ‘SocioCraft’ for a podcast, I decided to go with Craft Culture. Here’s why: while I enjoy the similarity to ‘sociopath’ and the connation it brings, it might turn some people off. Since this podcast is a look at the culture and community surrounding crafting I wanted something that would be more indicative of the content. That said, I totally have plans for a project using ‘SocioCraft’.

So! Let me tell you about the podcast! I am super excited about it. Here’s what I envision it as being (eventually.): a place to discuss the sociological, anthropological and cultural implications of the art of handcrafting. Major themes I’m looking at include

• how specific crafts benefit society as a whole or at the very least the person doing them.
• subgenres or trends within a given craft and how that impacts the craft at large
• concepts and misconceptions that shape public opinion of people who craft (example: The Granny Knitter Theory)
• the importance of crafting in general but also in specific crafts

It’s not just a knitting podcast. I want to talk about all kinds different crafts. I want to interview people who do those crafts, sell those crafts (or supplies for them), write about them, dream about them, however they’re involved I want to talk to them. Just listening to me talk the whole time will get pretty boring pretty quick so I want to have an ‘exploding co-host’ where someone new co-hosts with me and we talk about topics related to the craft they participate in. In addition to the Exploding Co-host, I will also be posing questions each podcast to the listeners and you can comment by sending me an email (if you want it to be private) to craftculturepodcast@gmail.com or by posting a comment on the podcast blog: http://craftculture.podbean.com/.

I posted the first podcast last night as a test run, which you can listen to online at the link above. I’ve set up an iTunes feed for it and it’s currently being reviewed so as soon as it’s available that way I’ll let you guys know. The audio on this one isn’t fantastic because I was doing it all by myself and I couldn’t get my mic to work on my good computer so I had to use a different computer and the audio settings were wonky and blah blah blah. Long story short; there’s some fuzz and static in the background and I apologize. The good news is I think I know why it did that and how to fix it AND next time I’ll have Mike, the love of my life and the smartest boy on the planet, help me get everything situated properly.

If you want to talk to me about what it is you do, please please please let me know and we’ll get something coordinated to be able to do that. I’m going to try to figure out how to record conversations in Skype so that we can do the rotating interviews/co-host thing via Skype and make it pretty easy (and free hopefully). If you already know how to do this AND you want to be on my podcast, even better! Get in touch with me ASAP and tell me how to do that! You can email the podcast directly at craftculturepodcast@gmail.com or get in touch with me in the usual way; daniella@danido.com.

Here’s the podcast in case you guys want to listen to it without opening another window: