meet: lisa butterworth

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of sitting down for coffee with Lisa Butterworth, associate editor of one of my favorite magazines, BUST. The main reason was to talk about the BUST Craftacular (which is this weekend!!!), but of course the conversation meandered as we discussed everything from feminism and domestic arts to our favorite places to eat in Brooklyn. Here's a snippet of our conversation for your reading pleasure. Don't forget to stop by the BUST craftacular this Sunday, December 14 at the Metropolitan Pavilion. EatMakeRead: How did you get to BUST magazine? Lisa Butterworth: I started full time about a year and a half ago. I've been freelancing for a couple years, but then about two years ago when I was in living in San Francisco I worked at a boring corporate job in HR and did all my freelance writing on the side. It came to the point where my job was killing me and I had to do something. I called BUST and asked if I could intern for a few months. I took a leave of absence from my job in San Francisco and came out an interned. The timing just kind of worked out. When the internship was up, an editor was leaving and Debbie (Stoller, Editor In Chief) suggested I'd be a good editor. I was excited but at the same time I still had an apartment and job in San Francisco, so they let me freelance part time from California. I did one issue like that and they hired me after that. EMR: Being a feminist and having a blog about the domestic arts has always been a little bit of a dilemma for me because I want to be progressive. I feel like a generation ago cooking was looked at as a chore but now I feel like my generation has reclaimed crafting and the art of making food. I think BUST has been really great at embracing that. How do you feel about crafting and women reclaiming these things? LB: Early feminist cut cooking off completely because they'd been oppressed by it for so long.  It's been long enough for our generation that we've never been oppressed by those chores and domesticity. Now we have to choice to choose it without feeling like it we're succumbing to anyone. Now I feel like its a choice and a lot of women are actually able to connect with older generations like our grandmothers in ways that they hadn't before. EMR: Do you craft? LB: I have lots of crafting plans but they don't come to fruition as often as I like. I like writing letters and making cards and care packages, but I'm not nearly as crafty as I'd like to be. EMR: Let's talk about the craftacular, I'm super excited about it! How long has in been going on? LB: This is the fourth year it's been going on. EMR: Has it been growing each year? LB: Definitely. The first year I went which was three years ago, it was in Brooklyn at the Warsaw and it was super crowded. Last year we moved it to the Metropolitan Pavillion and it was still crowded in the larger venue. EMR: This year the craftacular is going worldwide right? LB: Yeah, this is the first year it's going to be in London and LA. Thanks a million Lisa! BUST Craftacular Sunday December 14 2008 10am-7:30pm Metropolitan Pavilion 125 West 18th Street
Filed under events and meet by Kelly. . 1 Comments
  1. lisa Says:

    December 11th, 2008 at 11:52 pm

    it was a lovely chat…we’ll have to do it again! thanks for posting about the craftacular, see you sunday!

Leave a Reply