Meet the Maker | Little-Feral

May 25, 2017 0 Comments

M E E T   T H E  M A K E R

K A Y S I E  C O N D R O N | L I T T L E – F E R A L

Last week, we had our Macrame Wall Hanging workshop, where Kaysie Condron taught all our creativity seekers not only how to make beautiful décor for their homes but the importance of finding the time to learn something new.  Everyone left with their beautiful and unique macrame wall hangings and the knowledge to make more anytime they please. We also had the honor of interviewing the creator, teacher, and talented artist behind the macramé machine, Little-Feral. So keep scrolling for more about Kaysie and Little-Feral.

Kaysie Condron dabbled in many different mediums of art before stumbling upon macrame. For most of her adult life she managed bars, which is an artistic medium in itself! But she believed that illustrating was her true passion.  She drew faces and even created logos, but it always considered it more of a hobby.  Drawing was terrifying for her and she wanted to find a medium that was a little more forgiving.  After seeing some macrame wall hangings her sister had found she had realized that those were the same knots she used in her hemp necklace making days in high school.  So, she decided to try macrame.  With macrame she found her more forgiving medium where she was allowed to make mistakes and found the relief she needed from drawing. 

The name Little-Feral ties in to the letting go aspect of her artistic view.  For awhile, Kaysie was bar managing and running her company at the same time.  She had been thinking of maybe quitting and fully committing to her art.  One night, she was jolted awake in the middle of the night with a feeling she could no longer ignore.  At four in the morning, she told her boyfriend at the time that she needed to fully commit to her art and explained her whole plan of starting her own business.  During the same time, she found a post from Rachel Howe, an artist and spiritual advisor, that gave a little synopsis of what was going on in the sky.  This is something that that she never really cared about before, but living in the West Coast has made her believe in it a little more.  Rachel said that the moon is showing signs that it was the right to jump on an opportunity.  Kaysie was convinced that the moon was telling her to do this. So, she needed the perfect name to start her business.  Kaysie was reading a book one day about Virginia Woolf and how she was going a little feral in her writing.  She remembers saying to herself, “I am going a little feral with this." Everything clicked.

P A S S I O N

Macrame is just a step in many; her ultimate passion is art. The more she workshops she leads, the more she realizes that teaching and helping people find a medium is also her passion. “There are so many people in my workshops who will just be so frustrated… to see those people flourish is becoming more my passion.  I love doing it myself, but being able to share it is the second amazing thing I get to do.”  She says that she had a difficult time finding her outlet, so to help people find theirs is really awesome.

Her relationship with macrame was not love at first sight.  Macrame is not a medium that can be controlled and perfect.  After realizing that she couldn’t always control where a creation lead and finally began listening to the rope, she finally found her niche. She started to tie like crazy, throwing colors in with no vision.  "I was afraid of mistakes… but the worst case scenarios with macramé is that you untie it.  My mistakes are happy accidents and where some of my favorite stuff comes from, for sure.”

I N S P I R A T I O N

There are times when she doesn’t want to work, but she’ll take a walk in the woods with her dog and inspiration will hit her.  Bartending also tends to get her creative juices flowing.  It is a comfortable space where she will often come up with her best ideas. Australia is another place that inspires her; there, people are not afraid to get wacky.  The contemporary fiber artist, Sheila Hicks, also sparks her inspiration. “She’s bad ass.”

Other artists inspire her most of all.  Artists that do something similar to her or extremely different are inspiring in their own way.  “There is a lot of really awesome people in Portland making really cool shit and there is definitely that sort of culture.”

C U R R E N T  P R O J E C T S

Kaysie’s currently biggest project is Ink and Drink in Portland. Collaborating with other illustrators, she calls her community to come together to get thier creative juices flowing and create some art. And the sketches from Ink and Drink are being sold to help raise money for different causes and organizations around her town. “Trying to find a way to promote community, especially right now with everything that is going on in the world, is super important to me.”  She would also like to focus on installations, expanding into macrame clothing, and getting a little weirder.

             

 

S H O P  N O W

S H O P  W O M E N

S H O P  M E N

S H O P  H O M E

 

Photography by Rosalie Andrea
Written by Bree Castillo

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