This Week in the Mercury

Shaking Behind the Scenes

News

Shaking Behind the Scenes

City Quake Tour Dances Around Fears Over Portland's Harbor Wall—and Bridges


Here's What You Missed

Music

Here's What You Missed

A Brief History of Cafeteria Dance Fever



  |  

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Crafty / Books The Regretsy Interview Uncut

Posted by Marjorie Skinner on Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 11:15 AM

A teeny, tiny version of my interview with April Winchell, creator of Regretsy.com, is out in the new issue of the paper this week, but IMHO, the full-length online version is worth checking out. Winchell has some surprisingly great perspectives on what the Regretsy site's purpose is (which she goes into in Regretsy the book, from which she is reading at 2 pm Saturday at Powell's).

I try really hard to choose people who I think are asking for it in some way or another. It either has to be really overpriced, really pretentious, [or] really basically in love with itself. I think just the fact that people are selling it gives me a lot of permission. It's not like I'm going into people's homes and taking pictures of things. I make it a practice to never make fun of children and never make fun of anybody who's mentally challenged or never make fun of somebody who's blind or anything like that. And you know, I like to say that if you look at someone's views on an object—because there's a counter on every Etsy object that shows you how many times people have looked at it—I like to say that every single person who's looked at it is someone who didn't like it enough to buy it, so you're being judged all the time. That's what shopping is. Shopping is looking at objects and saying, "I like this well enough to spend my money on it, or I don't." So I don't feel bad for not liking something you've made, just like I don't feel bad for not liking a movie or not liking a book. Another thing people have said to me: "I don't have an issue with the fact that you don't like something, but you shouldn't be telling people about it." Or, "You can not like something, but you should only tell your spouse." Or "It's okay not to like it, but you shouldn't tell a stranger." People have lots of ways of justifying their negative reactions to things. I think it's worse to feel reflexively positive and encourage people you know are really not good at something. I think you should feel worse for that. And I see a lot of that.

It's an interesting coincidence that she's in town the same weekend as a major craft summit, and I'd recommend anyone who's going supplement their crafty weekend by checking out her appearance.

 

Comments (4) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment
1
Frankly, she's probably helped a lot of these people's sales. Ironically spent money counts just the same as non-ironic...
Posted by Commenty Colin on June 17, 2010 at 11:27 AM · Report
2
The lack of actual content and originality here is perhaps the real irony....I could have my 11yr nephew spout off what she said verbatim-is any of this truly eye opening for anyone and if so how clueless are they? Just curious.
Posted by The Showstopper on June 17, 2010 at 12:09 PM · Report
3
@ showstopper, that's like all those morons in the modern art wing of any museum who say "my kid could have done that."

Lots of people coulda done lotsa stuff - but they didn't. Someone actually has to conceive and execute ideas, and the bare fact that what they do captures the popular imagination pretty much proves on its own that it was a worthy concept/execution.

I could paint a Van Gogh by numbers, but that doesn't mean that Van Gogh sucks, or that I'm as creative as he is, or that because it's mindless reproduction, people are wrong to appreciate either version.

REGRETSY IS VAN GOGH. YOUR NEPHEW IS ME.
Posted by Commenty Colin on June 17, 2010 at 1:46 PM · Report
4
Anyone who wants to hit up both (hint ot the mystery destination there) AND the craft museum by bike for Pedalpalooza should check out the Fucking Whimsical Regretsy Ride
http://www.shift2bikes.org/cal/viewpp2010.…
Posted by mokie on June 17, 2010 at 10:20 PM · Report

Add a comment

Our Friends

Our Enemies

/images/adoftheweek.gif

ad of the day

The Handyman Pro - Your Honey-Do Specialist
Don’t let our name fool you. The Handyman Pro, LLC is a repair and remodel service provider with over 25-years experience. We cover all aspects of construction and repairs for residential and commercial clients.go


post an ad

All contents © Index Newspapers, LLC

115 SW Ash St. Suite 600
Portland, OR 97204

Contact Info | Privacy Policy | Production Guidelines | Terms of Use