Womencrafts Endures—and Inspires

Lesbian-owned and operated since 1976, with a mission to promote the work of female artisans, authors, and musicians, Womencrafts is one of Provincetown’s oldest shops and one of only thirteen remaining feminist bookstores in the country.

Michelle Axelson began working at Womencrafts in 2011, and bought it from its original owners in 2015, continuing the vision of a feminist safe space welcoming to all. But in 2021—still in the partial-lockdown phase of the pandemic—the building owners said they were ready to sell and offered Axelson the right of first refusal (of the entire building, that was a requirement) before listing it. “The number was daunting,” Axelson confesses. “I couldn’t bear the idea of losing this quirky little space. It was breaking my heart.”

It wasn’t just the shop she stood to lose; Axelson and her girlfriend, Erin Splaine, also rented the apartment above it. They secured a personal mortgage for their living space, but in the time available it was impossible to secure a commercial mortgage for the main floor and basement. “I had watched small businesses get saved during the pandemic through the generosity of this community,” she says. “And I knew there was a queer and women’s interest in preserving this space. So I sucked up my pride and my ego and started a GoFundMe campaign. People like Judy Gold and Cris Williamson made videos in support, and we passed the $200,000 goal in 15 days. The majority of the donations were under $100. The response was overwhelming.”

Overwhelming, perhaps, but still not enough; the bank told them they needed to secure private loans. “I just didn’t have the language for this kind of thing,” says Axelson. “I didn’t know how to talk about it. These are vulnerable things, delicate things that women aren’t trained to talk about. I had to go around and ask male business owners how they’d done it.” 

One day, Axelson was sitting on the stoop in front of Womencrafts “feeling deflated,” as she recounts it, when two women on scooters stopped and asked if she needed anything else; they had already contributed $15,000 through the GoFundMe effort. “I said, do you honestly want to know?” remembers Axelson. “They said, yes, that’s why we asked. So I told them we still needed $350,000 to save the building. They said okay.”

Besides these “lifechanging women on Vespas,” who were Melissa Moore and Janet Kosloff, two other women, Barbara Clarke and Joy McNulty, extended private loans. All of these women had already successfully negotiated the business world: Kosloff had recently sold her company InCrowd, while Moore is the chief medical officer at Moderna; Clarke is a national leader in funding women-led businesses and most recently the new owner of the Provincetown Bookshop, while McNulty has owned the Lobster Pot restaurant since 1979.

“Private loans are what made this possible,” says Axelson. “We weren’t able to convince the bank; it took women who understood how other women started businesses, to make this happen.” She cites McNulty in particular: “Joy shepherded us through the process with her knowledge, experience, and kindness. We see a lot of male privilege, male power, and male money. Women who have money just aren’t as visible.”

The support Axelson has from Splaine has also made all the difference. “Being in partnership while navigating hard people and systems made it doable, and that was very new for me. Neither of us would be able to own this building without the other. And certainly not without our community.” 

She learned a lot in the process. “This experience brought me up against the harsh reality faced by people who don’t have generational wealth, who need an access point.” One of those harsh realities is the irony that servicing the various loans, including her own mortgage, will ultimately cost Axelson less than she was paying in rent, both personally and for the shop. “That’s the way the system works,” she says. “It’s taught me that poor people stay poor. Poor people can’t have things. Once I had access to assets, things opened up for me.”

She plans to put that access to good use. “I’ve actually never lived with confidence,” she says. But the stability of a permanent home and a loving supportive relationship have made all the difference. “I’m going into the season this year with gratitude and celebration. I bought my inventory earlier than ever before, because I know I’ll be here to sell it. Covid taught me that I’m not in charge, and that’s okay. I feel it’s going to be a joyful summer.” Many of the people who helped in myriad ways haven’t returned to town since Axelson bought the building, and she’s looking forward to sharing the good news with them in person.

Her emphasis now is on the role of Womencrafts as a community gathering place and force for change. “We’re the gateway to the gallery district,” Axelson says. “We’re going to be having Friday night feminist readings on the stoop, taking up the tradition begun by Kate Clinton at Spiritus and continued by Deb Nadolney at AMP. We’re going to have more author’s events in the shop. But mostly I see it as a hub for activism. We have access all summer to people from all over the country. We have a responsibility to use our political privilege here in Provincetown, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to interact with people from other states.”

Axelson looks forward to maintaining a space that allows this dialogue to happen. “Owning the building is a solid foundation,” she says. “It’s enshrining and cementing the 47 years we’ve been here, and now we can go forward with abundance instead of fear. It puts us in a better position to work for other things and other people.”

She identifies two key issues as foci for the coming season: access to abortion and the movement against the trans community (the latter ranging from drag violence to the availability of gender-affirming healthcare). “This summer’s t-shirt says Dykes for Queens,” says Axelson. “This is a time to ask for support for women and trans sisters. We want to be an ally in the true sense of the word. To be part of a whole community that connects together, instead of being in silos designed by letters. There is an activist belief that those who are the most underrepresented deserve to have voices. For us, this grows organically out of our years of advocacy by and for women—what we’re seeing today are issues of hate. We are all targets. We have to support each other.”

And a great place to start is at Womencrafts.

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Her emphasis now is on the role of Womencrafts as a community gathering place and force for change. “We’re the gateway to the gallery district,” Axelson says. “We’re going to be having Friday night feminist readings on the stoop, taking up the tradition begun by Kate Clinton at Spiritus and continued by Deb Nadolney at AMP. We’re going to have more author’s events in the shop. But mostly I see it as a hub for activism. We have access all summer to people from all over the country. We have a responsibility to use our political privilege here in Provincetown, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to interact with people from other states.”

Axelson looks forward to maintaining a space that allows this dialogue to happen. “Owning the building is a solid foundation,” she says. “It’s enshrining and cementing the 47 years we’ve been here, and now we can go forward with abundance instead of fear. It puts us in a better position to work for other things and other people.”

She identifies two key issues as foci for the coming season: access to abortion and the movement against the trans community (the latter ranging from drag violence to the availability of gender-affirming healthcare). “This summer’s t-shirt says Dykes for Queens,” says Axelson. “This is a time to ask for support for women and trans sisters. We want to be an ally in the true sense of the word. To be part of a whole community that connects together, instead of being in silos designed by letters. There is an activist belief that those who are the most underrepresented deserve to have voices. For us, this grows organically out of our years of advocacy by and for women—what we’re seeing today are issues of hate. We are all targets. We have to support each other.”

And a great place to start is at Womencrafts.