A Crafty Questionnaire: Liesel Rabussay

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Liesel Rabussay is the eponymous art photography shop of one up-and-coming D.C.-born, Brooklyn-bred Etsyian.

“School was never my thing,” Liesel says, and the way her attention quickly wavers when my headphone wires slip out of my pocket and dangle before her, I can see how a traditional three-Rs education might not have been her thing. “The only thing that kept me from dropping out were the art classes. I was headed down a dark path. Who knows where I would've ended up if I hadn't discovered visual art." Her eyes wander once more, and I assume she is lost in reminiscence until I see her eyes have locked on a little tumbleweed of fluff and dust that has collected under a chair leg.

A quick snap of my fingers and she's back to the conversation at hand.


"I find inspiration all over the place. Every little corner of the house changes every single day. Sometimes the corner will not have a beam of sunlight in it and it's completely boring, but then other times - all of a sudden the corner will be soaked in sunlight, warm sunlight that makes me want to curl up and sleep and sleep until the sunlight goes away again and then I move on, inspired to create."

"I settled on photography because I like to really be in this moment right now, and of all the visual art I've worked in photography best captures that. Also, I don't have opposable thumbs, and with my camera on a tripod I just have to push one button."

"I've struggled with addiction," her eyes go a bit glassy, and though she does not say it I know she lost at least one year of artistic production due to her catnip dependency. "And again, art was my way out. It really has been my salvation."

I ask if this relationship with art inspired her shop's unique payment terms - Liesel does not accept cash for her art, but insists on being paid in fish. She responds a bit testily, "I'm a little tired of being asked about that. NEXT QUESTION."

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1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?

A can of salmon. An open can! That is on the floor!

2. What is your greatest fear?

Laser pointers.

3. Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Princess Leia

4. Which living person do you most admire?

Dalton Rooney, who feeds me several times a day and sometimes gives me anti-hairball treats.

5. Do you have a theme song, and what is it?

"Tradition," from "Fiddler on the Roof."

6. What is the trait you most like in yourself?

My fluffiness.

7. What is the trait you most like in others?

Warmth.

8. What is your greatest extravagance?

I live extremely frugally.

9. When and where were you happiest?

When I am eating fish.

10. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I am perfect. I would change nothing.

11. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Surviving in a world run by idiots.


12. If you were to be reincarnated as a person, animal, or thing, what do you think you would be?

I have already achieved the highest state of being. I should hope to repeat it.

13. What is your most treasured possession?

My little red mousie.

14. Which talent or skill would you most like to have?

I have all the skills I require: excellent balance, a great voice, and incredible flexibility. There really is no improving me.

15. Who are your heroes in real life?

I am my own hero. For I am the most fantastic.

16. What is it the one thing you dislike the most?

When I am being petted the wrong way.

17. What is your motto?

"Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow."

18. Who are your favorite artists?

I admit to loving House of Mouse. Also Cézanne was pretty good.

19. Is there any invention you wish you had thought of?

The can opener.

20. What's the first thing you remember making?

When I was still finding my medium I dabbled in loomless weaving. It just got too distracting.





MaryAnne, Wabisabi Brooklyn

Despite ‘Regret,’ U.S. to Pour money into Etsy shops

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WASHINGTON - The government put itself four-square into the country’s online handmade retail business Tuesday, resorting to what President Obama conceded was the unwelcome choice of massive government investments in Etsy shops in order to continue to make good design, clever non-mass-market goods, and really nice smelling soaps available on a wide scale.

The president said the decision to pour money into the nation’s Etsy shops— a kind of federal intervention not seen since the Depression era — was “not intended to take over the free market for handmade goods."

Said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: “We regret having to take these actions. This is not what we ever wanted to do — but it is what we must do to restore confidence to our online handmade retail system.”

At a news conference last month, Obama defended his administration’s increasingly aggressive market interventions to deal with the biggest upheavals on Wall Street in seven decades.

“I’m sure there are some of my friends out there saying, I thought this guy was a market guy; what happened to him?,” he said. “Well, my first instinct wasn’t to lay out a huge government plan. My first instinct was to let the market work until I realized how significant this problem had become.”

Said Geithner: “Government owning a stake in any private U.S. company is objectionable to most Americans — me included. Yet the alternative of leaving businesses and consumers without access to truly excellent handmade goods is totally unacceptable.”

One thousand major Etsy shops will participate initially, including all of Etsy’s top sellers. The first Etsy shop to take advantage of the new program was the {New New}'s very own May Luk Ceramics, whose CEO announced Tuesday that she would sell $3 billion in bespoke ceramic gifts to the Treasury.
Some of Etsy’s top sellers had to be pressured to participate by Geithner, who wanted healthy institutions that did not necessarily need capital from the government to go first as a way of removing any stigma that might be associated with Etsy shops getting bailouts.

It was the latest in a long series of moves taken by the administration and the Federal Reserve over the past several weeks to prop up a weakening online handmade retail industry. The economic picture in the United States had been darkening for months, but the slump took on new urgency — and had greater global repercussions — amid record-setting selloffs on Gold Street and enactment of a $700 billion bailout bill.

Under the new multifaceted stabilization program described Tuesday, the government will initially buy stocks in major Etsy retailers. When handmade goods markets stabilize and recover, the Etsy shops are expected to buy the stock back from the government, Obama said in brief remarks from the White House Rose Garden.

“These efforts are designed to directly benefit the American people by stabilizing the Etsy retailer system and helping the economy recover,” he said.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke welcomed all the new steps and made clear that policymakers would continue to take actions as needed to battle the crisis.

The move, in effect a partial nationalization of Etsy shops, does put the United States in the awkward position of owning shares in institutions it also regulates. The shares purchased by the government will be nonvoting ones.

“The government’s role will be limited and temporary,” Obama pledged. “These measures are not intended to take over the free handmade online market but to preserve it.”

He said these steps and other related actions echoed similar bold moves made overseas in an effort to prevent a global recession. Obama said that by restoring confidence in the system handmade online retail, the hope is to “return our economy back to the road of growth and prosperity.”

-MaryAnne
wabisabibrooklyn.etsy.com