What Beer Can Hats Mean to Me - A Philosophy of Art & Craft

 What Beer Can Hats Mean to Me - A Philosophy of Art & Craft

Why I Love Beer Can Hats - My Art/Craft Philosophy

The Queen of Beer Can Hats

If you've been paying attention at all, you may have noticed I take beer can hats more seriously than most people. Haha I laughed just writing that. It's true!! After I put out my big 3 part series, it hit me. I am a huge dork about Beer Can Hats! 

I finally took the time to really explore the beer can hat stuff out on the internet, and you know I am reinforced. There is almost literally nothing good, as far as patterns and tutorials go. So it also underscored the dork realization, I am probably the most enthusiastic Beer Can Hat maker out here, and definitely the most creative Beer Can Hat tutorial maker. So great for me! But also what a fucking nerd. Haha.

Hey, here is the video I made of this post. I crochet a whole beer can hat while discussing these points:

Video: Why I 💜 Beer Can Hats | My Art/Craft Philosophy + Crochet Time

The Proper Artistic Respect

The point is, people in general don't have the proper creative respect for beer can hats. I knew it, but also I can forget because I love and respect them so much. But I do realize it's an acquired taste, for a certain type of person. And that's mostly why I decided to begin with Beer Can Hat tutorials on my youtube channel. 

If anything summarizes my creative personality and philosophies... it's the Beer Can Hat.  Here's what I mean: 

 

1. Beer and Crochet. Hello? 

This seems pretty obvious to me. I love crochet, I love beer. Working them together is just perfect and fun. Am I wrong?? I mean it's the best kind of mixed media! I love yarn and metals of course always. But also, showing off my crochet skills with beer cans in the middle of a party is cool as shit in my book. Which is how I started making beer can hats, if you missed that. I was a crochet crackhead, a college art student, and I would take gift beers to parties, then make a hat throughout the evening for the host/birthday boy/whatever. I made a tiny promo video about it here. But anyone I know who crochets and drinks beer, thinks the combo is awesome. Without fail.

 

2. I do not believe in the hierarchy of art and craft. 

I have a great rant I wrote about this here. But basically, I don't believe that some art media are above others in some mysterious list of What Is Art etc. Bleh just writing that makes me feel kind of gross. You might not know this about me, but I have a formal fine arts background, have been a crafter all my life, and ran a craft clothing business traveling to craft shows for many years. So my opinion is completely informed:  

All creative work has value, and there is room in the art and craft world for everyone. Does that sound radical and wild? If so, you might be a "Fine Artist". Doh. Only relatively recently did I learn not all artists agree with me on this point. Such a bummer.

So starting with Beer Can Hats, and knowing how "real artists" and the gen public feels about them... I'm getting your attention, while weeding out the riffraff. 

I'm making a statement about what art and craft mean to me. 

A creative handmade item that comes from your heart can be called whatever you want to call it. I think these hat designs are creative and well crafted. They're definitely original and from my own imagination. I've spent most of my life learning the craft of crochet, applying it creatively to tons of artwork, including "fine art" media. Idk. Seems pretty artistic by my definitions. 

But the riffraff may think differently, and so the filter is working!

Maybe most of all Beer Can Hats have a sense of humor and fun. Let's not take our artistic selves too seriously mkay? My biggest motto about art and life... It's supposed to be fun, not perfect. 

Creativity is one of the top Art requirements in my book.  Get weird, enjoy. That's why the 70s crafts appeal to me so much, it was such a fertile time of creativity!

 

3. I want to draw the right people to my clubhouse.  

I keep saying it, and I really am starting a clubhouse here. So starting with Beer Can Hats is a big signal to the weird crafters out there. I want to meet those folks who love creative crochet, weird vintage design, and the idea of mixing them both with beer. To me, it doesn't get better. C'mon!

So I though, of all the things I do, Beer Can Hats are good representation of who I am. Idgaf what's popular or high on the list of WhAt iS ArT. I know what's awesome. And if you're reading this, you do too. I want to hang out with you, come over and join me on my youtube channel! Or start commenting here. ha my poor little invisible blog. Such a trooper! 

 

4. It's So Much Fun

As I contemplated what types of tutorials I would put on my new channel, I had lots of options and ideas. But the more I thought about Beer Can Hats, the more fun it sounded to me. The more ideas I had, the more excited I became. And that's really the bottom line. I'm here to have fun, to do the creative crafts I enjoy, and to share what excites me as an artsy out-of-the-box weirdo. 

So that's what I plan to do. 

100% Bekki, the Bohemian Mermaid. Cool af baby. Let's have some fun.