Page 46 - Flathead Beacon // 2.24.16

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FEBRUARY 24, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
EVENTS 48 MOVIE REVIEWS 49 PAWS & CLAWS 52 Arts&Entertainment
I Make, Therefore I Am
Local makers showcase their
creativity, inventiveness, and make-it-yourself ethos at the third annual Mini Maker Faire
TBY CLARE MENZEL OF THE BEACON
he Kalispell Mini Maker Faire sits somewhere at the intersection between a craft fair and a sci- ence fair for techies, teachers, and tinkerers of
every stripe. On Feb. 27, at Flathead Valley Community College, more than 30 local makers will exhibit weav- ing and spinning, origami folding, fermentation, bicy- cle maintenance, metal art welding, solar energy, tiny houses, robot building, patenting – the list goes on.
Just about anything “made” belongs at the faire and, really, it’s because there’s hardly a creative or curious mind that doesn’t t the de nition of a “maker.” The idea of what a maker makes and what a maker is doesn’t have to be any more complicated – or any more speci c – than the basic word itself. As Make: magazine, the publica- tion founded in 2005 that inspired the agship Maker Faire in the San Francisco Bay Area and kicked o the wider Maker Movement, proclaims, “We are all makers.”
No one knows that better than Jeremy Ashby, a soft- ware developer at the National Flood Services in Kalis- pell, and an exhibitor at the Kalispell Mini Maker Faire three years running.
“There isn’t anything speci c [about being a maker,] it’s a self label, more of a spirit,” he said. “You don’t have to be a geek, I don’t call myself an artisan.”
The freedom from de ned boundaries touches on something important about the movement: Anyone can make anything. There’s no pigeonholing.
“I build things—not just any one thing,” Ashby said.
He welded a metal frame for his pickup adorned with Montana State University bobcats. And though “it’s the thing I’m most proud of,” he said, he also admitted,
Jeremy Ashby will be showing his work at the upcoming Kalispell Mini Maker Faire on Feb. 27. JUSTIN FRANZ | FLATHEAD BEACON
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business owners:
You don’t have to be located in Downtown Kalispell to support the heart of the community, but you CAN reap the bene ts of being a KDA member!
for more info, call or visit:
406-253-6923 DowntownKalispell.com
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downtown Kalispell
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