For artsy families, there’s a weekend utopia which exists as an annual retreat and also as a promotional event series in partnership with select brands. Artist, designer and consultant Karen Kimmel is the force behind Crafting Community, where fun, color and creativity makes for immersive design experiences that are geared toward the family unit where they can play and grow together. Los Angeles-based Kimmel founded her own studio in 2007, offering a variety of creative consulting and marketing services in a genre that she calls corporate artistry, applying her design minded eye to a wide range of private and corporate brands such as Splendid, Nike, Target and Ella Moss in efforts to celebrate store openings and foster meaningful engagement between the brand and their target customers.
Some of the Crafting Community events are held at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, where as many as 150 families partake in new experiences in art designed to stimulate creative thinking and empower the children. Some of the coolest names in LA design headline these events where Kimmel, along with her partners Stacy Bernstein and Tait Chatman Alvarez, connect discerning families- dynamic in their own world, and are key influencers and trendsetters- with innovative brands that include American Apparel, Converse, Dylan’s Candy Bar, One Kings Lane, Sprinkles, Smartwater, and Harper Collins. Early risers embrace the day with yoga on the lawn, and structured leisure begins after breakfast with morning craft workshops- where Splendid fabric and wooden beads become necklaces- as well as skateboarding workshops and numerous activities like underwater photography, while nighttime calls for family taco night, movies alfresco, fireside s’mores and desert disco…dancing to we are family no doubt. www.craftingcommunity.com www.karenkimmel.com
