Extreme Craft

Enemy of the Swiffer

I lived in a mysteriously dust-free apartment a few years back. It was kind of a miracle--two years in the place, and barely any dust accumulated. I have since moved upstairs from that apartment, and sadly, the vacuum elves don't pay a visit. Bookcases and counters attract dust like Paris Hilton attracts Greek shipping magnates. Dust was on my mind this week after a thorough cleaning of my apartment (which is currently doubling as my ceramic studio, making it doubly dust-unfriendly). The internet provided some lovely synergy this week when I found the work of Maria a. Lopez, a Columbian artist who now calls Miami home. When she first arrived from Columbia, Maria cleaned houses (like many other Marias, she points out). In tribute to her former life (and the other Marias), she began coating doll houses with vacuum cleaner dust. The houses become eerie, otherworldly objects, with dust that began its life on the inside of a house migrating to outside, clinging like ivy. Her work made me think about the poor Nebraska settlers who built houses out of sod. They had to deal with DIRT floors. How do you even clean a dirt floor? You'd have to get down to the magma before you even get a shine.

LINK via BoingBoing

Naughty or Kneisel

Atlanta artist Leslie Kneisel is showing her beguiling embroidered drawings through December 3rd at the Romo Gallery. The drawings come in individual sculptural frames made out of upholstery material. They're very hard to define--fitting somewhere in the cracks between painting, drawing, embroidery, sculpture, and craft. Her themes from this show seem to revolve around the overlaps between arachnids and humans. Ladies and spiders (and ladyspiders) interact with the natural (and sensual) world. Rush down to Romo before it's all gone! Also, Check out her other current show at the Ruby Green Contemporary Art Center in Nashville.

LINK

Lady Sasquatch

As a straight, white male, it's tough writing about lesbians. It's gotten a bit easier now that some of the straight male world's affection has been diverted to the worship of twins (are lesbians even a little bit pissed off about that?). Craft is a natural proving ground for lesbians--sort of like black comedians negating the "N" word by subverting it, the ladies are proving that they, like Rosey Grier, are tough enough to kick craft in the ass. It's called confidence in your sexuality, my friends. Imagine my delight when I encountered the work of Allyson Mitchell, Queercraft diva of the funfur lady Sasquatch scene. In her recent show at the Paul Petro gallery in Toronto, Mitchell exhibited huge pin-ups of fun fur lady Sasquatches that subvert Playboy Centerfolds, turning them into expressions of feminine power...and fur.

I am interested in parody as a means to question some of the values that we hold as common sense - like women should have no body hair, small thin white bodies are the only ones that are sexy and that those bodies are constructed and reproduced solely for the pleasure of the heterosexual male gaze. Parodying such images (like those found in Playboy centerfolds) can make these worlds collide. Recontextualizing and refiguring the image of the female body can hold it up for the construct that it is. You want nature? I'll give you nature! Lady Sasquatch explores these associations and redresses the lack of representation of "different" bodies in popular culture.

Take a spin around her website to let her vast body of work sink in. Allyson Mitchell is an activist, artist, and filmmaker. Her work is ambitious, crafty, and dripping with her ascerbic wit. She is currently working on a PhD at York University in Toronto, as well as spreading the word about the growing "Deep Lez" movement. Now if only twins would take up knitting needles against their opressors, the world would be a better place.

LINK Thanks, Helena!

A thanksgiving treat from the

A thanksgiving treat from the one i'm most thankful for.

Where's me Jumper!

I don't know how this escaped my radar, but I just wanted to state for the record that I am happy to live in a world in which The Penguin Jumper Project is a smashing success. For those of you like me, who are out of the penguin sweater loop, the Penguin Jumper Project was created by the Tasmanian Conservation Trust to aid penguins who are the victim of oil spills. When an oil spill happens, the oil clogs the penguins' pores, cutting down on the waterproof/insulation qualities of their coat. Plus, when the penguin tries to groom themselves, the oil poisons them. Enter the clever people of the Tasmanian Conservancy. They put out a call for penguin sweaters, posted a pattern on their website, and were overwhelmed with responses. In short order, they gathered over 15,000 penguin sweaters. They got so many submissions, that they exceeded their own needs. You might want to keep their pattern handy in case the Exxon Valdez comes trawling in your neighborhood. If you're looking for someplace to put all of that love you were saving for the penguins, you should trawl the archives at craftivism.com. Betsy keeps track of the very best ways for Crafters to save the planet, and even themselves.

LINK

Martial Crafts

What's that old truism? If you had a roomfull of monkeys typing for eternity, one of them would eventually create Hamlet? That's how it feels sometimes watching crafts roll out. Enter Kathleen Azeez, author of "Action Karate Quilts", a self-published book that is THE DEFINITIVE manual on karate quilts:

The original karate pattern quilt, called “American Martial Arts Quilt”, was a gift I made for my son, when he earned his senior black belt using a flag motif to symbolize the name of the school. The quilt depicts the diversity of the school''s members of all ages, genders, and ethnic backgrounds. The belt colors progress from the beginning, which is white, to the end, which is black, with three additional master stars. That quilt won an Honorable Mention Award from the National Arts Program (NAP) in 2004 for Cape May County, New Jersey. My daughter also earned her junior black belt, which is the equivalent to her brother''s senior black belt without the training with weapons.

An idea as good as that becomes a life-changing obsession. It's no exaggeration to say that Kathy Azeez is the Martha Stewart of the Action Karate Quilt world. Order the book today, and bask in her glow. HI-YAAAAA!

LINK via BoingBoing via Hotsgusting

Married to it

Knitting: if you love it so much, why don't you marry it? The Cast Off Knitting Club in London came close to answering that question with an "all knitted" wedding. The cheeky kids at the knitting club put together a wedding, complete with woolen confetti, finger sandwiches, and a knitted top hat as a shoot for a their forthcoming book, "How to Knit your own Wedding". There was a ceremony, reception, and even a dance. I was trying to figure out what music they would play at the wedding...certainly something by The Nits...maybe something from mid-90's indie stalwarts, Wool...probably "Autumn Sweater" by Yo La Tengo...would it be pushing it to suggest something by Felt? Any other suggestions? If you're good...I'll post some photos in the coming day of a toilet paper wedding that took place over the weekend in Athens, Georgia.

LINK

Trading Spouses Bobblehead

By and large, I'm not much of a fan of reality television. I think that Trading Spouses is a particularly low, mean-spirited program that does a good job of making fun of soulless suburbanites and small-town folk through selective editing. Being mean-spirited myself, I'm totally hooked by the show. I joined the rest of the country in watching Marguerite Perrin, the self described "God-Warrior" have a meltdown on National television. My own mother wouldn't allow me to have a rubber snake when I was growing up because she thought it was a symbol of the devil (I had to sit out when they were making "God's Eyes" in Vacation Bible School), so she was a little bit sympathetic me. Now, a crafty real estate agent from Florida has put together a one-off Perrin bobblehead made of polymer clay. It actually has a button that you can press that plays some of her pearls of wisdom:

• I don't want someone with tainted... anything in beliefs, doing anything with my family!
• Darksided!
• Their entire house is darksided too!
• Everything's un-Godly!
• Gargoyles!... Psychics!
• Get the hell out of my house- in Jesus' name I pray!
• GET OUT!
• I give it up to God I'm a GOD WARRIOR!
• She's not a CHRISTIAN!
• She was tampering in darksided stuff!
• This is tainted- I don't want it. Whatever it is, it's tainted!
• I want nothing. I want my God and I want my family
• I want NO Money!

According to this article in the Los Angeles Times, Perrin is taking it all with a good dose of humor, and has even sent the artist an autographed 8x10 glossy. Bidding ends today! At the time of this writing, bidding is up to $850. Watch Goldenpalace.com swoop in and pay $10,000 for it. I REBUKE YOU, EXTREME CRAFTERS!

LINK via Shorty PJ's

Psychotic Reaction

I'm a huge fan of Rube Goldberg's contraptions that he created for his comics. I also spent a lot of time setting up dominos and card houses when I was growing up. Rube Goldberg has been on my mind since I saw the amazing Rube Goldberg Honda ad. The ad, entitled "cog" was a real-life Rube contraption, and reportedly took over 600 takes to perfect. Wouldn't it be amazing if an artist took some inspiration from Mr. Goldberg? Enter sculptor Arthur Ganson. He describes himself as a cross between a mechanical engineer and a choreographer, and creates intricate chain reactions driven by electric motors and other gizmos. Check out this Quicktime video of his "Machine with wishbone". Ganson eschews fancy silicon chips in favor of more mechanical means. This retrotechnological approach increases his "wonder" factor exponentially.

Every Friday after Thanksgiving (or FAT for short), Ganson hosts an event at the MIT museum where teams bring their own homebrewed chain reactions to combine with others into one massive "Mousetrap" styled reaction.

Your link in the chain reaction should be no wider that 2', no taller than 4', and no longer than 6', should use no chemicals (baking soda and vinegar OK), no plug-in electricity (batteries and low-power DC OK), or use more than a cup of water.

Your link must BEGIN and END by a string pull. Be sure that it takes no more force than the hanging weight of a golf ball moving 1" to start your link and ends by pulling a string AT LEAST 1" with enough force to lift a golf ball.

Your link must be repeatable.

Test your chain reaction before bringing it to the event.

Make your event last AT LEAST 30 seconds and end in LESS THAN three minutes. Give your audience time to enjoy your event, be it funny, playful, clever, whimsical, or elegant.

If you're looking for a great way to burn off those Thanksgiving calories, you could do a lot worse than playing MacGyver at the MIT museum.

LINK via Supernaturale

Posterity

Sometimes mystery jpegs land in your email inbox. Most of the time, they're probably only interesting to the one who sent them to you, but this time, my friend Henry found a beautiful piece of extreme craft. I can only guess that this person found their long-lost junior high notebook cover, and brought it to their local tattoo parlor for an exact reproduction. One can only hope that Katie Holmes has her back tattooed with several dozen scrawled versions of "Mrs. Katie Cruise".