Rochester Mini Maker Faire Review

Rochester Mini Maker Faire took place at the Rochester Convention Center on Saturday, November 22.  I had a blast being a maker on exhibit there!  I would recommend it to any artist/maker/creator for next year!  I found it very well organized, and attendance was great.  It was a wonderful opportunity to share my work, and make connections I never would have made if I was sitting at home carving stamps in my basement.


I created a series of stamps that I called "Godzilla's Monster Melee." I wanted to make a series of stamps in homage of the giant monsters from japanese films that I grew up loving as a kid.  The stamps would be used to stamp on blank postcards that attendees could save as a free curio, or send to a friend.

I wanted the monsters to have  local focus.  What better way than to imagine the monsters had come to Rochester, and were battling it out in the Rochester skyline.  I carved the familiar buildings like the Xerox, Bausch & Lomb, and Times Square buildings.  I also carved the Anthony/Douglas bridge.  To my surprise one of the bridge designers (Howard Ressel) attended the Maker Faire and I got to meet him, and make a couple more stamps of our amazing bridge for him.  What an honor!

I chose a host of the kaiju monsters.  Of course, the King of Monsters himself, Godzilla was star. But I also tried to hit some of this allies, like Mothra and Jet Jaguar.  I did Gamera also (who is not technically in the TOHO Godzilla pantheon) so you could set up a dream style match with the giant turtle vs. some of Godzilla's most famous opponents.  To face off against Godzilla or his allies were Gigan, Rodan, Hedorah (Smog Monster), and the MUTO from the newest Godzilla film from 2014.  In the near future I plan to add Mechagodzilla, King Kong and Ghidorah, but didn't have time to get them ready for the Make Faire.

Since carving these stamps I have fallen back in love with this genre and am gobbling up all the old DVDs I can find of these films. An honored guest I also got to meet was Prof. Joanne Bernardi. She teaches a film studies course at the the University of Rochester called "Atomic Creatures."  It focuses on this genre of films, and students watch and study films like Rodan, Gojira, and King Kong.  Her family attended the Faire and made several postcards.  I hope I can take her course in the future and really immerse myself further in the genre.


If you missed the Rochester Mini Maker Faire, stay tuned.  The Monster Melee will likely make a return in 2015 at other events.  For more pictures from this event, check out my Flickr album.

* Godzilla is a licensed trademark of the TOHO Co., so sorry I can't make any of these stamps or postcards for sale.