Toronto Craft Alert

by Tara Bursey

The Regional Assembly of Text is a shop in Vancouver, British Columbia run by artists Rebecca Doren and Brandy Fedoriuk.  An homage to all things text-y, the Assembly sells handmade wares such as t-shirts, artist books, notebooks and journals, stationary and buttons, all off which combine a vintage aesthetic with a pointedly DIY approach.  The space also features awesome programming such as a monthly Letter Writing Club, as well as an in-house zine library and gallery.  I was lucky enough visit the shop last month, and spoke with Brandy and Rebecca about the shop, it’s wares, and their love of all things analog.

Can you talk a bit about the beginnings of the Regional Assembly of Text? Where did the idea for the shop come from, and how did you team up?
We met at the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in 1999. We started working together curating book shows out of our apartment and sharing tables at craft fairs. We had always talked about opening a space together. In 2003 we graduated and spent a couple of years of working for the man. That was enough to motivate us to open our own business, so we got serious and wrote a business plan. The store opened in 2005.

Many of the handmade items you sell at the Assembly seem to be inspired by mid-century print design and graphics. What sorts of things inspire your work, art-related and otherwise?
Our similar aesthetics is what drew us together. Our inspiration comes from the same places…old things and old books.

The lowercase reading room + gallery is a great compliment to the shop. Can you talk a bit about it and how it is run?
From a closet, to a storage room, to a gallery, to a reading room, the lowercase has come a long way. Basically we had boxes of zines and artist books under our beds collecting dust. Our friend Jo Cook also had an extensive collection. The lowercase reading room came out of the desire to get all the wonderful books we had been collecting for years out where people could appreciate them.

The Assembly hosts a monthly Letter Writing Club, an interesting idea considering how obsolete the written letter has become in favour of email and text messaging. Was that something you had in mind when you came up with the idea for the event?
Let’s be honest, no email, or text message can compare to a letter sent through the post. We take letter writing very seriously, the club provides people with a space and a time allocated just for the purpose of getting more letters in the mail, which hopefully results in getting some letters back.

What attracts you both to print-based media, book making and other lo-tech methods of making?
The easiest way to achieve the old aesthetic we both love is to use old methods of production. But really, we are shifting more and more towards the digital, and the new challenge is to make our design look old.

Do you have any advice for artists or craftspeople who are interested in exploring entrepreneurship?
We are so lucky to have each other, for motivation, inspiration and division of labour. Find a business partner. Write a business plan. Be realistic. Work hard. Be nice.

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Tara Bursey is an artist whose practice encompasses sculpture and installation, drawing, performance and craft.  In the past three years, she has exhibited extensively in a diverse range of venues, from window installations and telephone poles to the Textile Museum of Canada and the Ontario Crafts Council Gallery, as well as in group shows in Halifax, Edmonton and Copenhagen.  Tara’s most recent projects include organizing and curating The Portable Library Project and working as one-third of the Toronto Zine Library Collective.  She also makes zines, blogs, does album and poster art for her deadbeat friends in punk bands, and is currently teaching a man incarcerated in Angola, Louisiana how to draw through the mail.