Handmade Twin Cities

Meet the roasters, brewers, potters, knitters, woodworkers, screen-printers, fashion designers, zine makers and other crafty folk driving our new artisan economy.

J.W. Hulme's "Legacy" bag.

Image credit: J.W. Hulme

Recommended by the Editor

Homegrown, Handcrafted Gifts from...the U of M?

By: Chris Clayton |   August 2011   |  From the print edition

Make sure to check out the profiles from "Handmade Twin Cities": high-end coffee brewers, handmade jewelry, handcrafted menswear, zine culture and even more craftspeople we love.

In 2011, everything is a talisman. Cupcakes, iPads, botanical shampoo—no commodity is immune to our weird affection (1). I’ve heard grown men spout lyric poetry for Greek yogurt, known sneaker freaks who sleep with their limited edition Air Jordans. Don Draper would view the over-fetishization of commercial goods as brand loyalty gone wild, an evolutionary victory for advertising. But 21st-century consumers know better. We’re more educated and self-aware than ever, and thus our relationship with our belongings has never been more complex. We have a vague notion that mass-produced goods are evil, yet we quietly high-five the Industrial Revolution for giving us our beloved cities, leisure time and disposable income with which to purchase fancy yogurt. We “buy local” but only when it suits our needs (that iPad of yours wasn’t grown on an organic egg farm in southern Minnesota, after all). Deep down, we suspect we let our stuff mean more than it does to distract ourselves from the fact that capitalism, at its core, is pretty freaky (2). Sigh.

Or maybe not (sigh, that is). The upside to all this neurotic stuff-love is that it’s renewed our interest in the quality, handcrafted thing. Because what’s more fetish-y than an object made with the finest materials by a skilled artisan? Fortunately for us, we’re in a craft renaissance led by microbrewers, ceramic artists, screen-printers, woodworkers and other handy-folk who honor quality over quantity, authenticity over, you know, shit made by robots. In his book Brew to Bikes (Ooligan Books, 2010), Charles Heying surmises that the rise of the contemporary craftsperson is a grassroots counterpoint to post-Fordism, the economic system du jour that’s outsourced American manufacturing to near-death. Heying, who teaches urban studies at Portland State University, writes of alternative “artisan economies” that build jobs and community and, ideally, teach us shallow fetishists to consume in more meaningful, sustainable ways.

Brew to Bikes’ case study is craft-crazed Portland, Oregon (3), but skilled makers are everywhere: rolling dough in Brooklyn bakeries (4), building custom cabinets in the Bay Area (5), selling jewelry and apparel through online marketplace Etsy. Ironically—and somewhat predictably—mass-producers are jumping on the artisanal bandwagon. Budweiser now brews craft-style “American Ale.” J. Crew sells handmade wares by outside brands. Flip through the retail giant’s recent catalogues and you’ll see Minnesota’s own Red Wing boots and Minnetonka Moccasins proudly displayed next to chinos made in China.

Durable footwear isn’t the only Minnesota export profiting from handmade mania. A recent visit to J.W. Hulme’s St. Paul workshop finds the 106-year-old bag-maker alive and stitching. Textile wizards—whose magic wands are sewing and embossing machines—assemble briefcases, luggage and other vintage-style pieces that the business titans of yesteryear would have drooled over. In an adjoining room, leather workers cut perfect lines in hides sourced from Midwest tanneries. The entire place smells like a well-oiled baseball glove.

“People buy our bags for the quality,” says J.W. Hulme communications director Megan Baxter over the rhythmic clicking of sewing machines, “but they’re also drawn to our story.” It’s easy to see why: Founded in 1905 by John W. Hulme and his brother, the company initially supplied canvas goods to the U.S. Army (its tents saw combat in both World Wars) and hunting bags to the Hemingway set. Entrepreneurs Chuck Bidwell and Jen Guarino bought the business in 2003 with hopes of rebuilding an aging brand that had spent recent decades contracting for high-end outfitters. Old Man Recession almost killed that plan, but a couple of angel investors later and J.W. Hulme was reborn as a sexy-rugged luxury label. The next time you’re in a Barneys store, check out the $450 J.W. Hulme “Legacy” handbag (pictured above)—worth every penny if you’re into that sort of thing.

Mythmaking is a craft in itself. Compelling biographies not only add allure to handmade merch, they open the door for consumer education. Stop by Harriet Brewing on Minnehaha Ave. in Minneapolis and Jason Sowards will tell how he quit his chemical engineering job to follow his dream of making Belgian beer (6). Then he’ll give you a master class on dubbel, tripel and saison. Indie art fairs like No Coast Craft-o-Rama and Art-a-Whirl encourage visitors to meet their makers, so to speak, to better understand and appreciate their work.

The American Craft Council—which moved to Minneapolis last year from its longtime New York City home—takes a more organized approach to preaching the handmade gospel. If you think “craft art” is popsicle-stick birdhouses, the Council’s annual spring show in St. Paul—featuring highbrow ceramics, fiber art and beyond—will set you straight. The ACC joins an army of area craft crusaders, including Northern Clay Center, Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Textile Center and Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD’s furniture design and print paper book programs are the only of their kind in the Midwest).

When asked about the Twin Cities’ flourishing craft scene, Trish Hoskins points to our roots as a cultural hub. “The arts here have not at all been elitist—making a distinction between fine art and craft,” says Hoskins, co-owner of Crafty Planet in Minneapolis, a one-stop shop for knitters, sewers and other DIY’ers. “I don’t know what to attribute that to—whether it is perhaps some Midwestern unpretentiousness and inclusiveness.”

Hoskins’ theory refers to craft art, but it holds up elsewhere: Rustica’s baguettes rival France’s finest, but you’d never know it given the Uptown bakery’s laidback vibe. At Kopplin’s in St. Paul, baristas sling world-class caffeine without ever uttering “notes of,” “mouth-feel” or other pretentious terms overused by oenophiles-turned-coffee snobs. One gets the feeling that artisan economies have very little to do with posturing and trend-mongering, and plenty to do with craftspeople simply following their

passion while happily profiting from the movement The New York Times Magazine coined “Handmade 2.0.”

Of course every economy, artisan industry included, has its share of fakes and snakes, not to mention varying degrees of quality (7). But the fact remains: There’s a goodly amount of enlightened purchasing going on right now, and whether that’s driven by a desire to connect to something other than the Internet or simply a thirst for well-made treasure doesn’t really matter. The important thing is that we’re exploring alternatives to the assembly line.

Handmade 2.0 could go Dodo tomorrow (we consumers are a fickle lot), but if it does, at least someday we can tell our grandchildren about the time we rode our custom bike down to the bar and drank microbrews while reading hand-bound zines by the light of organic candles blessed by virgins. Those were the good old days. 

1 - See also: the entire Trader Joe’s product line, vintage T-shirts, Volvo station wagons, Grain Belt Beer, Neapolitan pizza, vinyl records, glossy magazines (METRO’s subscription line: 800.637.0334) …

2 - Turns out Marx, Adorno and company—cultural theorists who’ve become fetish objects in their own right—were on to something.

3 - Home to a $90 million bike-building economy and more breweries than any other city in the country.

4 - I know a guy who once drove 2,000 miles from St. Paul to the Almondine Bakery in Park Slope, ate one of their beloved almond croissants, then turned around and drove home. True story.

5 - My friend Joel Solomonson turns wood into poetry in his Oakland studio. Conflict of interest schmonflict of interest—his custom furniture is amazing.

6 - A lot of Minnesota beer dorks are following their dreams these days: At least six microbreweries have started in and around the Twin Cities in the last decade: Surly, Lift Bridge, Flat Earth, Fulton, Brau Brothers, Harriet—we can’t keep up.

7 - See the desperate attempts by Bud and J. Crew to appear handmade while not actually being so. On the quality front, I’ve had artisanal ketchup that agrees with my politics but not my taste buds. In other words, just because something is lovingly crafted doesn’t mean it’s any good. I’m sticking with Heinz.