BmoreArt

When Alex and I walked into the dim front room of the shop, which was exploding with miscellany, two people sat on easy chairs chatting under a life-size, crocheted tree. It was very quiet, and I felt as if I was intruding on an intimate hangout. My self-consciousness was quickly assuaged when Bella, now the shopkeeper, warmly introduced herself and welcomed us to the space. 

She told us to look around, pick up whatever suited our fancy, craft to our heart’s content, and then pay what felt right at the end. “Think thrift store prices, before inflation,” she said, smiling. 

Alex and I walked around the room, stuffed to the gills with craft items, almost all of which are donated. At first glance, it felt like chaos, but I realized there is method there. One wall is filled with rolls of fabric, sorted by color. There is a sewing section, with drawers of different colored bobbins, baskets of needles, buttons. There are chests and cabinets everywhere, and everything is openable, holding an endless array of treasures.

With no clear vision, I collected objects that enchanted me, that I thought were pretty: a shimmery flower made of beads and sequins, lilac sewing thread, a bag of opalescent pink beads. I found a roll of blue cotton fabric decorated with little flowers and a thick lace edge.

Bundle in hand, I asked Bella if she preferred we paid for our chosen supplies before or after. She glanced up: “Hmm,” she said, “knowing how the creative process works: after.” I nodded. That felt right to me, too.

Aunt Hazel, Bella would later explain, was a fixture of her childhood, a great-great aunt she and her sibling heard about often from their mother, who is the true expert on Aunt Hazel (the person) and the technical owner of Aunt Hazel’s (the craft space). 

Bella never received news of her great-great aunt’s death, but calculates that she would be more than 100 years old if still living. According to the family legend, Aunt Hazel lived in a treehouse in wooded upstate New York and was believed to make magic by crafting whatever she needed from nothing, or from transforming one thing to another. She had lavender hair, made her own soap, and communicated with animals. When they were little, Bella said, “going to Aunt Hazel’s” was seen as a spooky punishment like, if you don’t clean your room, you’re going to Aunt Hazel’s. Now, though, there is reverence for the lore of Aunt Hazel’s magical, wonderful life.  

Just a few days before opening, and a few days before Halloween, Bella was at the craft space when an ethereal woman with an incredible drape-y outfit complete with a hand-made hat shaped like a leaf, appeared at the front door, stood for a while, and left. Potentially a visit from the ghost of Aunt Hazel, who is clearly more than a relative; rather, she is a family ethos, a duty. 

The rules Aunt Hazel wrote in her letter:

1. You cannot give it all away for free. You must charge people something because my prowess does not extend to BILL COLLECTORS (that’s why I live in the woods to begin with)… But don’t be a greedy capitalist. Be fair.

2. Magic math is the same as regular math, if you take away you must replace… you must REUSE/RECYCLE/REPURPOSE.

3. You must offer people a place to make their own magic or learn how from other people. Teamwork makes the dream work only if there’s a place to practice and play.

In addition to the shop’s “pay what you want” policy, Aunt Hazel’s offers differing levels of membership, from unlimited family packages to small monthly donations, all of which are designed around access and affordability for makers in the Baltimore community while keeping the space sustainable—and, most importantly, in compliance with Aunt Hazel’s rules. In addition to community craft hours, Aunt Hazel’s events calendar includes workshops for crochet and bookbinding, art therapy, crafting competitions, and more. 

I took my items to the crafting room, which was down a long hallway adorned with flyers for upcoming and past events as well as a collection of sewing machines labeled something like, “no idea if these work, try them out!”

The crafting room has a large center table and still more supplies, in addition to any tools one might need. I grabbed a glue gun from a basket of twenty glue guns and a stapler. Alex had decided to make a wind chime out of an old can and some metal sticks, so he picked up pliers and a hammer. It was funny, we decided, that on our first time there, even with everything all jumbled and in piles, it was fairly easy for us to figure out where things we needed were. There’s something intuitive about the organization at Aunt Hazel’s.

I set my supplies down on the table and did a lap around the crafting room, still unsure of what I would make, trying not to force it, to let the vision come to me.

A month or two before our trip to Aunt Hazel’s, I was at Target buying cat food and then, of course, browsing, when I found a really cute pin board in the home decor section. I’d been wanting something corkboard-esque for my office, a place to pin important notes, ideas, pretty things, etc. The Target pin board was fabric and pink and very, very cute, but also $35 and I’m not trying to support Target right now, anyway, and it seemed like something I could make myself. So, when, in the corner of the craft room at Aunt Hazel’s, I spied large rectangular sheets of some sort of thick corrugated plastic, I had a plan.

I was excited at how organically all of the items I’d collected came together for my pin board. I would cover the plastic with the cute blue fabric with the flowers, and use the lace strips as little corner bands. I needed something plush between the fabric and the board, something I could actually stick pins into, so I went back into the main room, where Bella, now solo, was hanging out. I quickly spied a large piece of rectangular plush fabric, like something that might be inserted into a cushion, and brought it back to the craft table, where my glue gun was hot and ready, plugged into one of the many extension cords placed around the table.

Enter the flow state: Alex and I barely spoke as I glued and stapled and he hammered and plied. Another couple came in to join the craft table, laden with delicious-smelling food—they’d brought burgers!—and their own embroidery supplies from home.

Seeing them eat, we realized then we were hungry for dinner: we’d been crafting for almost two hours. Community craft hours, as listed on Instagram, go until 8:30, and it was almost 7:30. This struck me: as a lifelong restaurant worker, often, when I go somewhere that is nearing close, I feel the anxiety of the almost-closing, the guilt of being someone to wait and clean up for. I looked nervously at the mess I’d made on the table and fought the urge to clean it. We still had time and I wasn’t finished with my board. I’d added the lace trim at the edges, burning my fingertips with my glue gun a dozen times. (Conveniently, a bucket of fresh glue sticks was just on the table at my disposal—I’d barely noticed that I kept grabbing them, so deep I was in the flow state). But I still wanted to sew on the pretty flower.

We got to know the new-arrival embroiderers, also first-timers to Aunt Hazel’s. They were Towson undergraduate students, a very sweet queer couple. Bella came in to visit us and we all chatted about our preferred mediums. I showed everyone my pin board, and people oohed and awed. Bella told us she was a classically-trained fine artist, but now dedicated much of her practice to graphic designing for Aunt Hazel’s promotional and website material. Her presence, standing at the door, was so warm and grounded, I felt in no way rushed or like I was doing something wrong or taking up too much space, all feelings I admittedly feel in many places outside my home.

The generosity around payment, around time, around cleanliness and order at Aunt Hazel’s, it’s a rarity not found in many public spaces. But Bella’s stolid presence made us all feel good, like she was genuinely happy to have us. “I’ll let you all get back to it,” she said, and went to sit under her tree.

By the end of our session at Aunt Hazel’s, Alex had completed his wind chime, and I’d completed my pin board, cuter and much more satisfying than buying the Target version. We tidied our station and went to the front to settle up. I asked Bella if there was a typical amount people paid, and she said it was truly up to us. We chose to do $30, $15 for each of us and our supplies, and she seemed genuinely pleased.

Whether one decides to pay a membership fee or just drop in, it’s clear that Bella and her Aunt Hazel’s family are trying to find ways to include everyone who wants to participate in any way they can, both in terms of their personal creative expression and in keeping Aunt Hazel’s open and thriving.

Spaces like these are part of the underground magic of Baltimore—where tapping into community is core, where beauty is found and made, where there are less rules and regulations and more wonder. Many thanks to Bella and Aunt Hazel for giving us a space to sit down, chat, and craft.