The Why Make? Project

I would like to introduce you to the Why Make Project. Why Make is an oral history project, podcast and multi media exploration produced by Robb Helmkamp and Erik Wolken that seeks to answer the the question what motivates craft artist what are their origins in becoming an artist and where do they find they find their inspiration. Both Robb and Erik are furniture makers and sculptors and sought to answer these question when they interviewed each on their iPhones three and a half years ago which lead to the idea for the Why Make Podcast and a inaugural trip Asheville to visit and record three artists in their studios. Why Make to date has now produced almost 50 episodes which along with its companion website www.why-make.com seeks to illuminate the creative life and inspiration of artists and answer the question why we make.

Why Make has also just produced our first short documentary on the ground breaking artist 

Tommy Simpson called Tommy Simpson: Living in a World I Created. Which can be viewed on our website or our Youtube channel. We are working on our first visual podcast for our Youtube channel of the wonderful conversation we had with the artist Wendy Maruyama which will be our 50'th episode. We are also making plans for our 5'th season of the Why Make? podcast looking for an institution  to host our podcast archives and dreaming up new ways to ask the question why we make and why it is important.

In short our fundraising goals our modest we only wish to cover the expenses for running our website, paying for our remote podcast platform(Squadcast) and travel expenses as we visit artists in their studios and present our project to craft schools and institutions. Why Make has always been a passion project and much like the work Erik and Robb do as artists is largely self funded but as we try to expand the Why Make idea we find it necessary to ask for a little helping hand, so please be our helping hand. As it is our tradition to end our podcast by saying Why Make we urge you whether you donate or not to continue making.

Thanks
Erik and Robb