It’s My Party, and I’ll Craft if I Want To

On a warm September night, I sat at a crowded Greenpoint, Brooklyn spot and browsed the menu. It was a similar scene to many nights I’d had before, but this menu was different. Instead of a martini or a burger, there was a “collage buffet” and air-dry clay. At a simple wooden table across from a friend I hadn’t seen in nearly a year, I ordered a set of watercolors from a waiter. They were presented to me like a plated assortment of dips, with pigments ready to be wetted on a large dish and various-sized brushes wrapped in a napkin like clean utensils. As I began painting, my friend picked up a piece of the charcoal she ordered and began to sketch. “Did you know I almost went to art school?” She asked. I didn’t. We went on from there, sketching and painting for the next two hours as we caught up on the last 12 months of our lives.

This is a night at Happy Medium, an “art cafe” that offers classes and programming around arts and crafts activities, inviting attendees to develop new skills or revisit old creative pursuits. “Socialization culture, particularly for adults outside of school, has become really centered around eating and drinking,” says Tayler Carraway, a co-founder of Happy Medium. “I think we’ve been successful because we’ve provided another option for people to do something with their friends outside their house.”

Photo: Courtesy of Happy Medium

Seated across from one another, the tactile activities required us to be off our phones for the entire night, and we weren’t interrupted by ordering or consuming food and drink. It didn’t matter that my watercolors looked like the work of a four-year-old. In fact, the whole evening—aside from the hipster aesthetics and Greenpoint crowd—felt like an adult playdate: two friends hanging out and doing crafts, like it used to be when we were kids.

Happy Medium is just one of a variety of spaces that have popped up since Covid that offer individuals a place to gather, learn, and participate in small craft projects in a low-stress and no-commitment way. According to a report from Eventbrite, in 2024, craft workshop events soared with a 44% rise in crochet events and 34% in jewelry-making. General interest in collage, crafting, and pottery-making events has also increased.

“Can I just say: the Brooklyn man loves to be a woodworker right now,” Isabelle Rieken says. She’s only half-kidding, and as part of the duo behind NY-based Craft Society, she would know. She’s observed as young women (and men) join the Craft Society’s programming of lessons in net bag weaving and mulberry paper-lamp making, hosted at small boutiques and restaurants. Craft Society provides an alternative space for gathering, hosting anyone from craft-curious individuals to couples on their third dates. “People love to chat at these, which is awesome,” says the other Craft Society co-founder, Noa Mellul. “Once they’re in the zone, they’re all getting to know each other, talking to their neighbors, and exchanging Instagrams at the end… People get to make new friends.”