In terms of participating in internet commerce, I’m something of a Luddite. I have only purchased four items on Amazon ever and I’ve never participated in a single eBay auction. But my life as an online consumer is about to change dramatically now that I know about Etsy.com. The website is a showcase for handmade goods of every sort — paintings, paper goods, clothing, candles, crochet and knitted items, jewelry housewares and all manner of useful eye-candy. Etsy’s explicit mission is “to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers.” The point, they say, is to build a new economy and make it possible to “Buy, Live and Sell Handmade.”

Perhaps the most dazzling feature of Etsy’s super-intuitive site design is the Geolocator, which lets you shop for local handmade goods. At present, there are a total of 66 Birminghamians hawking their wares, including Veronique Vanblaere, Kate Merritt Davis and Weekly contributing artist Daisy Winfrey (Bonus! here’s an awesome song titled “I’m Callin’ Daisy” by the blues legend Brownie McGhee!).

A lot of the local artists on Etsy are also on the awesome local artist marketplace run by the Cultural Alliance of Greater Birmingham. The purpose of Ask Artie is to create connections between individual artists and arts professionals, arts/cultural organizations, venues and galleries plus a wide variety of resources and services of interest to the cultural sector.

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