Continuing on with our next feature on The Foundry is Dave Sheffield’s Buffalo Bottle Craft. Dave takes discarded bottles and turns them into useful products such as drinking glasses, vases and candle votives. My wife recently bought me a six-pack of old, miniature Coke bottles that had been cut into a set of small drinking glasses. They were inexpensive, functional, attractive, and interesting conversation pieces. Apparently, you can also bring in your own bottles and have Dave turn them into functional or decorative pieces.
According to Megan McNally of Rusted Grain (learn more), “Dave is exactly the kind of guy we want to have working at The Foundry. His business combines found objects with a functional product, creating a niche market that adds to our local economy. His enthusiasm for sharing his craft parallels our mission of skills sharing, and already champions the idea of collaboration, having sought out help from the woodshop to create some of his corkboard pieces. The Foundry is about collaboration, incubating small businesses and sharing our creative, collective knowledge with others so that they may collaborate, incubate a business and then share their skills in the future. Our mission is to create a cyclical and reciprocal process that is constantly generating stable revenue for our members and at the same time providing opportunities to potential future members.”
I asked Megan what sort of artisans and craftspeople The Foundry was looking for in order to expand its horizons, and she shared the following criteria with me, along with a wish list:
At this point The Foundry is looking for:
-Additional artisans and tradespeople to rent spaces
-People who are willing to share skills and knowledge
-Folks wanting to invest in the other visions we have for the space (cafe, community kitchen, shared metal shop, etc) and they can do that through donating tools, donating their time, approaching us with a business plan for a specific space, etc.
-We are also looking for more woodshop members (that’s next on the list of BRO article series)
-More vendors for the 2nd saturday events (we have SO many during the summer that some people have to be outside!)
Next up: Members of the woodshop at The Foundry
Learn more about Rustic Grain and its partnership with ReUse Action
Learn more about The Foundry
Learn more about Net+Positive
The Foundry – Facebook
298 Northampton Street
Buffalo, NY 14208
Buffalo Bottle Craft: 716-998-2764