There’s an Audience for Everything: Mourning the End of Regretsy.com and Celebrating What It Taught Me.

4/20/2019 by Luann Udell
This post is by Luann Udell, regular contributing author for FineArtViews. She’s blogged since 2002 about the business side–and the spiritual inside–of art. She says, “I share my experiences so you won’t have to make ALL the same mistakes I did….”  For ten years, Luann also wrote a column (“Craft Matters”) for The Crafts Report magazine (a monthly business resource for the crafts professional) where she explored the funnier side of her life in craft. She’s a double-juried member of the prestigious League of New Hampshire Craftsmen (fiber & art jewelry). Her work has appeared in books, magazines, and newspapers across the country and she is a published writer.

It may take time to find your audience, but it’s out there somewhere!

Years ago, I came across a bizarre and funny website called Regretsy.com. Don’t bother looking for it, it’s long gone. And I still miss it today.

The author, the multi-facetted and multi-talented April Winchell, created the site, inspired by (duh) Etsy.

She regularly researched the popular handmade/vintage website looking for the most awful creations she could find, and reposted them with a snarky description. The site’s tagine was, “Handmade? It looks like you made it with your feet.”

You can see at least one sample of her posts here.

The site is long gone, but she compiled her fan favorites into a book  that you can buy online. More affordable options here.

Here’s the book blurb on Amazon:

“A chicken poncho. A painting of a corn dog. A clock made out of an old “mostly clean” cheese grater. All this and more await you in the pages of Regretsy, a veritable sideshow of handcrafts gone wrong. Based on the eponymous hit blog and arranged in categories such as Décor, Pet Humiliation, and Christmas, Regretsy.”

I miss Regretsy for several reasons.

One, it was simply hilarious. Winchell found the most bizarre examples of bad aesthetics, poor quality, obnoxious, revolting, weird handmade items I’ve ever seen, and encapsulated them with funny captions and faux descriptions.

Two, it proved there’s nothing you can’t find on Etsy, or the internet.

Three, though she openly made fun of the creations (and by extension, the creators who thought they were making something wonderful), almost every single person whose work was featured in her blog actually saw their sales increase. I’m sure at first there was some humiliation or hurt about their work being presented so….um…honestly. But they all wrote back to Winchell, thanking her for the increased visibility she gave them. Their sales soared as visitors raced to see the actual listing and descriptions, and many people bought those items.

What could have been hurtful and harmful carried a gift for these wacky, out-of-the-box-and-the-entire-ballpark makers.

But the fourth reason is today’s insight:

There is an audience for everything.

You just have to find it.

Regretsy drew so much success to these clueless makers, that eventually some makers actually intentionally made faux crap handmade work, hoping to be featured in her blog. But Winchell was wise to them, as this article (with a sample post) in The New Yorker Magazine, “Embracing the Culture of Fail” so eloquently states:

“… as a result, some try to drum up items to tempt Winchell’s eye. Winchell is rarely fooled: ‘I’ve seen a lot of pieces that have been created to get my attention (readers call it “Regretsy bait”). Generally speaking, the stuff that’s intentionally trying to get on Regretsy is just trying a little too hard. The real stuff has an earnestness about it that’s very hard to replicate.’”

Do you see it? That last sentence?

The real stuff has an earnestness about it that’s very hard to replicate….

Do you see how powerful it is, for artists of all kinds?

Even bad work has an audience. But it still has to have its own integrity, reflecting the true spirit of its maker.

Why is making the work that matters to us is so vitally important now?

At some point in our creative path, we’ve all fallen victim to believing other people are “doing it better”. When someone else’s work is selling fast, we tend to look at what they’re doing, and try it ourselves.

The first person to paint shoes, or rusty trucks, or a vineyard, the innovators, probably had some success with that subject. So did the early adaptors.

But as trends catch on, and everyone jumps on that boat, it can be much, much harder to stand out from the crowd, especially if the artist doesn’t have a cohesive body of work, a style and process that makes them unique.

There are not only trends in subject matter, but trends in media and materials, and technique.

The trick is to give our work the “touch” that only we can give it, that ‘earnestness’ Winchell quickly came to recognize, even within all the trashy creations she curated. And there are many ways to do that.

We can treat the popular subject in an entirely new manner, with our unique style.

We can skip over making what everybody else is making.

We can do it cheaper, of course, and that may bring us some success.

-We can use different media, we can make it smaller, or more colorful, or heck, not use color at all. In fact, I love how this artist, Diana Majumdar, paints scenes that remind me of the beauty to be found in the gray, dull season of winter, encouraging us to look beyond the drab and discover the miraculous. It’s not how Californians experience winter. But it’s definitely the winters I’ve lived for most of my life, and I find her work hauntingly beautiful in its own quiet way.

But here’s the easier—and deeper—way (which, by the way, is also the heart of Majumdar’s work):

Do the work you truly love, using the subjects you really care about, with the medium and techniques that feel “right to you. Create powerful titles that connect emotionally with viewers, and do it all in the way that is unique to you.

 And then go find your audience

 Yes, it’s time-consuming. Yes, it can be hard….although with the internet, and the ability for someone on the other side of the planet to see our work, today, it’s not as hard as it used to be. And yes, it can feel pretty random.

But someone, somewhere in the world, will feel the authenticity of what we do.

Someone will see our work, read our words, hear our song, and it will raise their hearts, just as the actual making of it raises ours.

Don’t give up. This is your own precious and amazing life. Share what you’ve learned, what you care about, what you believe in, and why.

Be your authentic self in the world. Because you are the only “you” there is, or ever will be.

————————————