This Week on Murketing.com: Three Q&As with Austin Craft Mafia co-founders

Beginning today: Three Q&As in three days with three founders of the Austin Craft Mafia.

This is partly a tie-in to Buying In: The book is officially published tomorrow, and the Austin Craft Mafia is an important part of one of the closing chapters. While Buying In is not really about the DIY/craft movement (see this Time Magazine review for a good snapshot of the book in general), the final section offers some forward-looking explorations of where our relationship with branded and material culture is going — and where we might make it go. The craft scene plays into that in one chapter, and in the course of that chapter I tell a bit of the story of the ACM.

I thought it would be kind of cool, then, to give a kind of instant update of three figures whose stories are partly told in the book: After all, a book is a static object, and things can change between when it’s written and when it’s read. But here I have the more real-time Murketing.com at my disposal, and happily for me ACM co-founders Jennifer Perkins, Tina Sparkles, and Jenny Hart were all willing to take time from extremely busy schedules to play along with this stunt.

I should mention here that the Austin Craft Mafia has nine formal members altogether. The ones I don’t know, but who each have great stories of their own (it’s hard to deal with nine people in one chapter), are: Susann Keohane of All Dressed up and Shy; Vickie Howell (more here); Hope Perkins of Hot Pink Pistol; Karly Hand of Identity Crisis Clothing; Jenifer Nakatsu Arntson of JNA Designs/Arntson Designs; and Jesse Kelly-Landes.

Learn more about the Austin Craft Mafia at their site (or, of course, in the book).

First up is Jennifer Perkins. That Q&A will post in a matter of moments.

Tina Sparkles is Tuesday; Jenny Hart Wednesday.