The Crafter’s Library

Andrew ‘AJ’ Rawls ’12 offers a community space for makers and dreamers

by Isabella Venegas '27

After several years working in hospitality and tourism in Washington, D.C. — with a one-year detour to the Central Pacific, where he ran a teen center for the children of service members and contractors on the Marshall Islands’ U.S. Army Garrison Kwajalein Atoll — AJ Rawls reached a crossroads. It was 2020, and that crossroads was COVID.

“I ended up bouncing around between family and when I decided to go ahead and no longer be the millennial in his mom’s basement, I was looking at places I wanted to live,” Rawls says. “I had some friends that were moving back to California. My best friend was in New York and she wanted to move to Santa Barbara, so she sort of convinced me — like, ‘OK, twist my arm to go back to one of my favorite cities in America.’”

He just had to figure out what he would do there. As he reflected on his time in the Marshall Islands, a lightbulb flickered. The teen center he ran was stocked with crafting materials and art supplies, and offered classes on how to use them. Could something like that work in Santa Barbara?

“I kept thinking how cool it would be if there was a place like that for adults, especially for the adults that did the types of crafting that I did, which didn’t really seem to exist,” he says. “I got really into sewing — that was sort of my gateway into the craftworld — and I kept looking around like, ‘Are there places I can go around and borrow a sewing machine or do I have to have my own setup?’

“Most crafting hobbies are very expensive, especially if you’re just trying to figure out if it’s something you want to do or not,” Rawls adds. “So I decided if I want this, I can’t be alone in this idea, and that is what inspired me to start The Crafter’s Library.”

By the spring of 2021, the business was opening its doors, with the motto that “anyone can craft,” welcoming makers and makers-in-training for classes, parties and private events. It’s the city’s only coworking space for crafters.

“I knew the culture of Santa Barbara. I had connections at UCSB. I knew the crafting nature of the town with the Art Walk every Sunday on Cabrillo Boulevard, all of the art galleries, the 1st Thursday art walks and all of that,” Rawls says. “So I thought that a creative coworking space would probably do well in this community. Here we are four years later, doing well!”