On the highs and lows of glittery crafts.

“The company’s looming revenue problems—and its sinking stock price—­affected Stewart’s mood, and the mood was infectious. The creative rank and file at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia were a mix of proud elitists and wild enthusiasts, prone to almost ecstatic fervor about such matters as glitter and hole punches. They lived for Martha’s approval, and at her best, she could be inspiring. But Stewart was also famous for her drive-bys. A group of stylists and art directors might spend a week away on a shoot, only to have Stewart dismiss their labor with a belittling remark. ‘Martha would say, ‘Ugh, why are there bananas there? I hate ­bananas,’ ’ says someone who edited food stories. ‘There’s a list of things she loathes.’ At times, the offices resembled a shelter for battered crafters. ‘That women’s bathroom,’ the editor adds, ‘there are women in there crying literally all day long.’”
–from “The Comeback that Wasn’t,” a fantastic article about Martha Stewart by Benjamin Wallace in New York magazine, which you can read here.

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