meet the maker behind feminist small-biz community, girl gang craft

Phoebe Sherman is the founder of Girl Gang Craft – a femme-forward community for creatives that hosts craft fairs in the United States. Through Girl Gang Craft, Phoebe also offers classes and courses, sells feminist apparel, and hosts a business-y podcast (scroll down to tune in!). We had a chinwag with Phoebe at Adobe MAX 2024 to find out how she does it all.

What led to your decision to empower a community of femme, non-binary and trans folk? From the beginning, I wanted to be femme-forward. Around the 2016 US election, I created a uterus pin, and that was sort of my first foray into selling feminist art. I was also a Feminist Studies major and Art major back in the day. I really want to empower folks who have been historically and systemically marginalised to make money doing what they love.

Why do you focus on craft as opposed to other mediums? I think ‘craft’ is historically a marginalised term that’s generally reserved for women. But craft was my first access into monetising my art. Craft fairs in the Bay Area in California, where I'm from, were sort of the first spaces where we could sell our work. So we keep the focus on craft, but our community is made up of product-based businesses and service-based businesses. We have a lot of folks who are healers and witches, as I live in Salem, Massachusetts, and we're a very witchy community. We also have fitness professionals and graphic designers as well, so we're pretty all-encompassing. But our events do tend to attract a lot of craft-based designers, ceramicists, jewellers – folks like that who sell their work.

There's a big difference between running a business and running events. How did you learn to run markets? I just did it, and we figured it out – we're still figuring it out! Our first craft fair was like 15 of us at my friend's cafe in Oakland, and those were just people who I had met at other craft fairs. That event went really well, and so we expanded. It's a wild industry – there are permits, and you have to deal with the police and the fire department, and figure out how to try and sell alcohol, and things always happen. Just this week, I got a note that we had been double booked in an event space. So it’s always trial and error, and always making sure that our vendors feel safe, that they feel taken care of, that attendees have fun, that we can get people there, and that it's successful for everyone who participates.

Roughly how many attendees and vendors do you host now? All of our spaces are different. Our original fair is in Oakland, California, and we have about 100 vendors. For Christmas, we have about 3000 attendees. It varies depending on the size of the space, and also how long we've been around in that city. I moved to Salem, Massachusetts, a few years ago, and we’ve expanded on the east coast as well.

What's the local crafty community like in Salem? It's very creative. It fosters a small-business environment because of the tourists. I call it Witch Vegas because there’s always a bunch of drunk witches around town. Salem’s a 40,000-person town, and we have a million-plus visitors. But it's fun, it's wild, and it is cool that we have new people coming into town every day. It really creates a good environment for folks to sell their work and reach new audiences.

You run your business out of home. How does that work? I have contractors who work for me part time, and they are located globally at this point. Everyone has different roles, and we communicate through communication programs. I believe in a very collaborative, transparent, kind and intentional environment. We've created a really beautiful team.

You've got your own business, but you're also helping other people run their businesses and opening them up to whole new communities. How do you balance that workload without getting burnt out? That's the question! Every day is different. I really try to prioritise movement, feeding myself, hanging out with my dog and my husband, and finding the tools that are going to help me streamline my workflows and communication. I schedule my calendar to make space for things and I trust my team. I think a lot of people don't even set aside the time to think about how they're taking care of themselves. I mean, it's a privilege to take time out to think about those things, right? Because if you're balancing multiple jobs, you don't even have time to think about how stressed out you are.

What’s next for you? We are looking at potentially expanding to new cities next year. Immediately what's next is we're going into the holiday season, and we have our five holiday craft fairs across the US. We are also looking into how we can best serve our community in terms of classes and courses, and really focusing on brand partnerships.

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