December 2006, Story by Cooper Levy-Baker

Adrien Lucas and Cemantha Crain, seated after sundown in the caged lanai behind Crain's home, run through items on their printed meeting agenda. A bottle of neon-orange Gatorade and a bag of Terra Red Bliss potato chips crowd the table, already littered with paperwork and pens.

Lucas looks as if she jogged over for the meeting, wearing running sneakers and stretchy black pants, her hair pulled back tight. Crain sports navy jeans, a black sleeveless T-shirt and a lime bandana.

Discussing the niggling details of the arts and crafts fair they are organizing, the two hash out potential advertisers, on-site security and swag bags. They pore over booth schematics, debate the value of fair T-shirts and examine the $4,957 budget. They fret about the sound system over at the Municipal Auditorium. They trade stories about how they're spreading word of the event.

Oh, and they need to decide: Yuengling or Pabst.

"We can switch to Pabst," Crain suggests. "It's five bucks cheaper per keg." Lucas nods enthusiastically, puffing on a borrowed Gauloises Light. "That's 50 bucks," Crain says. "That's two more ads." Pabst wins.

Atomic Holiday Bazaar is a craft fair. With beer.

The world of alternative crafting -- or "anti-craft" as Lucas dubs it -- has popped up all over the media map in recent years.

The Style Channel hosted the short-lived Craft Corner Death Match, on which contestants were challenged, for example, to make jewelry out of soap and string. The magazine Make launched Craft, a sub-publication originally planned as a one-off special issue that quickly grew into a regular quarterly. Debbie Stoller, editor of the feminist magazine Bust, authored the book Stitch 'n Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook in 2004. Two follow-ups are already out.

And in the ultimate tip-off that a trend has made it to the big time, some in the know worry that alt-crafting has already sold out. A post on the fashion blog Anti-Factory reads: "I'm just generally annoyed with alot of 'crafts' these days. Alot of the stuff people are making just seems so wasteful and useless."

 Such misgivings about the popularization of crafting don't sound far from underground rock fans complaining that their latest fave has just signed to a major label, and that subversive, DIY, starve-the-corporation mentality is a common streak in the alt-crafting world. The mischievousness is even obvious in the aesthetics of the pieces. The crafters -- mostly women, it's worth noting -- often appropriate the style and iconography of 1940s and '50s housewives, twisting that period's kitsch into saucy irony. It's not a stretch to suggest a parallel with the way punk rock updated the simple beat of early rock 'n' roll as a rebellion against contemporary malaise.

Even the fact that these "modern-day punk hippies" (Lucas's phrase) are choosing to crochet and knit and hem is revealing. They're taking back domestic arts that were once foisted upon women and owning them.

For Michelle Triecca, who transfers photographs to T-shirts and sells them under the name Mo T's Photo Tees, the contrast between the scene she left in San Diego and the one she's struggling to help build in Naples is stark. "In San Diego, it's just really well known," she says. "Everyone's pretty savvy with the indie craft movement." She settled in Naples, where her parents live, only after she and some friends were evicted from their home out west after failing to come up with rent.

She's found a small but burgeoning circle of similarly minded crafters and even a friendly boutique in her new hometown. Triecca plugged into Atomic after she read a magazine article about Lucas and dropped her an e-mail.

She originally came just to save up enough cash to return to San Diego, but with her success, she's rethinking her plan. "I love San Diego. ... but I'm here now, and I feel like a pioneer," she says. "I feel like I've inspired a lot of people."

 Alison Odowksi, who grew up in Brandon, felt a similar disconnect between the vibrant craft community she was part of in Portland, Ore. and the one that awaited her when she returned to Tampa Bay. Forced to move back because of a lump in her breast, Odowski couldn't find any local fairs -- aside from county ones -- at which she could sell her postcards, magnets and pins. Wanting to get one going, she logged on to etsy.com.

The site is one of the centers of the handmade movement, where crafters can sell their wares and snatch up others'. Even more valuable for Odowksi's purposes was Etsy's Geolocator function. Click on it, and you're presented with a map of the world. Pinpoint your location and detailed info on nearby artisans pops up. With connections established via Etsy, Odowski kicked off the monthly fair Crafting Out Loud at a coffee shop back in June. The events proved so popular that the group now holds a second monthly event at Tampa's New World Brewery.

The success of Crafting Out Loud shows that although southwest Florida may lack venues, plenty of crafters call the area home. It's just a matter of finding each other.

In putting together Atomic, Lucas and Crain also exploited the connective possibilities of the Internet. "MySpace has been invaluable for getting vendors," Lucas says. Originally, the two had hoped for 40 vendors. Now, Atomic is "bursting at the seams," with more than 50.

And with each vendor comes a built-in crowd for the bazaar. "All the local vendors are dragging their friends to this shit," Lucas says, reassuring Crain at tonight's meeting that attendance will match their expectations.

The two have been holding planning sessions just like this one for six or so months, coordinating all the details in the time away from their daily work. Lucas is an assistant to the CEO at Planned Parenthood, while Crain handles marketing for Admiral Travel Gallery on Palm Avenue.

The original spark of inspiration for Atomic may have come last fall, when Lucas visited the Stitch Fashion Show and Guerilla Craft Bazaar in Austin, Texas. But the event is really rooted in Veronica Tart. Crain and two friends began the local network of artsy, anti-establishment businesswomen in May 2005. The group planned to produce something called a "twilight market" and flirted with the idea of setting up a cooperative booth at last fall's Rosemary Rising, but that narrow concept quickly "mushroomed." "It was strong enough to be its own thing," Crain says.

 But that meant work. While the Internet made finding vendors and promoting the show less time-consuming, old-fashioned hoofing-it still came into play. Lucas accosted passersby with postcards any time she could, even while browsing the Dollar Tree, targeting those whose clothes indicated they might be into the fair. Her hours of experience canvassing door-to-door for her pro-choice, feminist politician mother while growing up in Ohio came in handy.

All that time spent promoting and planning Atomic begs the question: Why? With full-time jobs, with their own independent projects, with special DVD editions of Valley Girl waiting to be watched, why are Lucas and Crain sitting at a table discussing the city's insurance requirements?

"Most of us have day jobs," Lucas explains, "but most of us want to quit our day jobs." That dream -- supporting yourself doing what you love -- is pervasive in the alt-crafting world, and to create a vibrant community where that level of success is possible requires showcases like Atomic.

For Lucas and Crain, if such a community does become a Suncoast reality, the ramifications are huge. "I think that the way you spend money is a very political act," Crain comments. Spending your buck at Wal-Mart may not seem consequential, but in a sense you're voting: Voting for depressed overseas wages, for the commodification of American cities, for conformity. Spend your buck on handmade items, and you're voting for the decency of the worker, for thriving local culture, for creativity.

"It is up to us to create our own little community," Crain stresses.

You could argue that alt-crafting just fights consumerism with consumerism. But despite being burned out on the glitzy parade of American politics, Lucas, Crain and their cohorts may be helping further a wiser, more organic vision of capitalism that seems to be flourishing right now. Home cooks snap up locally grown, ecologically sustainable vegetables and humanely treated beef. Indie rock fans celebrate mom-and-pop labels and bands that press their own record sleeves. DIY home and car repair have flourished for decades.

"We are a society so technologically connected, we are missing, we are longing for, that manual connection," says Laura Daniel Gale, who owns everything but the girl, one of the few local boutiques featuring local crafters. She points out that the people in the alt-crafting age demographic -- their 20s and 30s -- have lived their entire lives in a high-tech age.

But that "manual connection" is also a human one. And forget all the theorizing: At its core, Atomic is a blast. "It's so fun to get to throw a party in my own style," Crain exclaims.

That style explains the rock bands, the roller derby team and, oh yeah, the beer. Even though having alcohol at the city-owned auditorium means more security and more insurance, Lucas and Crain are convinced that the kegs of Pabst are worth the headache. "It's going to make everyone happier," Lucas says, deadpan.