Nifer Fahrion is someone who doesn't mess around when she's interested in something.
Rather, she'll put her heart and soul into what she's doing, and she is well known in the San Francisco alternative arts scene for her involvement with one crazy, wonderful activity after another.
Last year, at Maker Faire 2006, Fahrion took a felting class, that is, lessons on how to craft things out of felt.
She fell in love with the medium.
In the succeeding months, Fahrion took to playing with felt on her own, and developed enough of a proficiency with the fabric that she decided to start a small business selling some of her creations.
Nifer Fahrion poses with her felt Flying Spaghetti Monster
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)Now, she is at this year's Maker Faire selling her wares, what she calls NifNaks. Among her whimsical goods are small Flying Spaghetti Monsters, little mushrooms and morels--which I have to say are among the cutest things I've ever seen--and all kinds of other silly items.
But I was just struck by the idea of someone taking an idea from last year's Maker Faire and turning it into a business that she effectively unveiled publicly at this year's event.
But given that it is Maker's Faire, and that this is thousands of people showing off their "maker" cred, I shouldn't be surprised. And in fact, there are no doubt many more such example.
Yay makers!
SAN MATEO, Calif.--I'm standing on the race track at the Power Tool Drag Races here at Maker Faire, and while I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get killed, I'm not certain.
That's largely because I'm surrounded by little racing machines adorned with what look like very, very sharp saw blades. I assume they will stay on the track as planned, but you never know.
A few years ago, I went to these races when they used to hold them in San Francisco and gasped along with several hundred other racing fans when one of the contestant machines veered off the track and shot a huge plume of flame directly at a San Francisco Chronicle photographer.
He told me later he got the shot. Anyway, here we are, and the flag girl is exhorting the racers to start their engines. They do, and in a puff of smoke, two high-speed machines shoot their way down the track, blades a-spinning. The crowd goes nuts. The tools speed their way to the end of the run, crash down into the provided garbage bins, and a cheer goes up.
Then they began the preparations to do it all again.
Happy happy, joy joy.
- prev
- 1
- next
