CRAFT LAKE CITY TEAM

Executive Director’s Welcome Letter

Welcome to the Virtual 12th Annual Craft Lake City® DIY Festival® Presented by Harmons! 

Photo Credit: Jessica Bundy

As I look back at the past 11 years of Craft Lake City, I never could have predicted that we would be switching all of our programs and events to an entirely virtual setting. I am humbled by the fact that numerous volunteers, donors, grantors, sponsors, artisans, performers and, of course, attendees continue to support Craft Lake City’s vision, especially as we have transitioned to this new, innovative format.

In 2009, I launched the first Annual Craft Lake City DIY Festival as a small, but mighty, one-day event with 72 local artisans, eight local performers and four local-food purveyors. It was the first all-local event of its kind with 2,000 attendees held at the Gallivan Center in Downtown Salt Lake City. It quickly became apparent that this event could play a significant role in growing and elevating Utah’s creative culture. 

From the expansion of a one-day event to a three-day DIY-filled extravaganza, our growth in science, technology, engineering and mathematics via our Google Fiber STEM building and the enhancement of our Diversity and Inclusion Scholarship programs, we continually strive to be a better organization for our community.

Each year has brought significant growth and change to the organization, and 2020 is no exception. Just as we were getting cozy in our new Annual Craft Lake City DIY Festival home at the Utah State Fairpark, COVID-19 tested our wits. However, we saw this as an opportunity to be more creative and innovative than ever before. Rather than fully canceling the DIY Festival and all of our annual programming due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to take the virtual world by storm. 

We’ve launched a new virtual artisan workshop program complete with deliverable workshop kits that include all of the project materials to create at home. We’ve developed a series of free STEM Kids workshops to assist elementary educators as they convert their classrooms into digital learning environments. We’ve launched the Craft Lake City Academy, a series of professional development workshops designed to educate and support local makers as they build creative businesses. And most importantly, we’ve renvision what our Annual Craft Lake City DIY Festival could look and feel like. 

We are excited to celebrate our creative community with you this weekend! Pick an avatar or build your own and jump in one of our virtual reality galleries. We can’t wait to connect with you in our new, digital DIY virtual world! 

We believe in sustaining and improving upon our growth, celebrating Utah’s creative community, fostering community inclusion, supporting and elevating local makers, and inspiring folks to seek out their own avenues of creative fulfillment, appreciation or entrepreneurship.  

We hope your virtual festival experience will inspire you to believe that anything is possible with a bit of imagination, innovation and support from your community. Thank you for being a part of Craft Lake City’s community support system. We would not be who we are today without you.

I look forward to seeing you all “face-to-face” inside the buildings of the Virtual DIY Festival.

We are Builders. We are Dreamers. We are Digital Pioneers. We are Craft Lake City. 

Best,
Angela H. Brown
Executive Director