Hit up our first Maker Faire yesterday at the Travis County Fairgrounds. Honestly, I think $25 is too much to charge for the experience, especially when there are so many folks with good things to sell…but there was a lot of fun stuff to see, and the weather was great.

My favorite thing was probably the Cyclecide — it’s basically a bunch of guitars tuned to different chords, and as the kids pedaled, the machine would strum a really peaceful and trippy chord progression.

This was a robot that looked really menacing, but just shot ping pong balls out into the barn.

Then we visited our friends at Bleep Labs and Curtis got to play with some Thingamagoops. Adam also introduced me to Will, the cartoonist behind Goopymart.

Here I am, hooked up to the Brain Machine.

Some woodcuts by the Amazing Handcock Brothers.

Great view of downtown from the fairgrounds.

A handful of buttons Meg picked up throughout the day.

The ridiculousness of Automusik.

I can’t really remember where I picked this up–I think it was at the booth of a printmaker…but there were some really cool icons in here. Go over to Green Map to check them out.

And I didn’t get a shot of the watermelon catapult, but I took notes.

See all my photos from Maker Faire on Flickr.

My wife loves to sew and she’s quite the craft-blog connoisseur, so this afternoon she dragged me over to the first Austin CRAFT Magazine Release Party for a little bit. Amazingly, I wasn’t the only guy there. I sat and doodled and ate cupcakes and watched everybody crafting, and it got me thinking about do-it-yourself, and how our generation as a whole is becoming more interested in making things. (Witness Maker Faire.)

I also started thinking about artists who not only make their art, they TEACH others how to make art. This, in a way, not only makes them even more beloved to their pre-existing fans, it also makes them new fans, and new patrons: when you teach someone how to make a certain type of art, you are, in effect, generating more interest for your art form, and creating more consumers for it.

But even more important, you’re welcoming people into a club. “You too can make art! It helps your soul grow! Join us!”

“The market for something to believe in is infinite.”

Not only that: the market for a club to belong to is infinite.