Maker Faire Mare Island 2023 Part 1

Boy, this has been one heck of a ride, and we are absolutely here for it!! The last time a large Maker Faire like this happened was in 2019 and we were here at the 'Worlds Maker Faire Bay Area". IT was announced a few months after at that time that the Maker Faires and the magazine would be coming to an end. Thankfully, a few intrepid folks would bring the ship back to port a little bit later and the Maker Faire rose again! Myself (Nic O'Neill) and Lindsey Johnson and Ronda Brewer (all previous attendees to the Maker Faire) also decided to return. This time instead of cramming everything, and all of the tens of thousands of people into one week, the event organizers opted to split the event into two consecutive weekends.

Day one started off with a 'school day' on Friday. Where bus loads of kids from nearby schools took a field trip to soak in the plethora of creative types. Kids of all ages came to the Fortuna Found booth to build a kite, for many of them it was their first kite! Day Two and Three were filled with the general public and crazier than we were prepared for!!

We had a wonderful time with all of the creative kids jumping in with both feet to make their own kite. They would start out with using a die cutter to cut a piece of tyvek into the kite shape. From there they would move on to coloring and adding their own artwork to the kite.

Watching the wide array of designs and artwork flourishing on each kite was really inspiring. One of the beautiful things to witness was these creators that were not bound by convention, or the ways that things should be done. They just drew, colored, sketched, and let their creativity flow. For any of the more seasoned kitemakers out there, maybe there is a lesson we can take from this free form artistry.

After finishing the artwork, the new kitemakers would move on to piecing together their kite.

We will be publishing more later about all of the other wonderful things happening at the Maker Faire... but for now... we still have to get to the event site and finish up the first weekend!! Only to return next weekend!!