Extreme Craft

Craftive Audience

Hooray!  Maria Elena Buszek created a mini-site for the Raised in Craftivity exhibition at Rockhurst University.  As usual, her curating and writing are spot-on, and she has brought together a group of artists who share her worldview about craft.  The participating artists include Bren Ahearn, Jon Bonser, Elaine Bradford, Orly Cogan, Maggy Rozycki Hiltner, Garth Johnson, Claire Joyce, Kate Kretz, Allyson Mitchell, Heather Nameth-Bren, Morgan Price, Karen Reimer, Ben Schachter, DeAnna Skedel, and Laura Splan.  Many of whom have appeared in this very weblog.  My wife Claire and I are pleased to be in such amazing company.  The range of attitudes about craft in this show reflects attitudes that can be found in the art world--from rah-rah cheerleading to a standoffish distance, messy and codependent relationships with craft are on display.

In Michel Gondry’s 2006 film, Science of Sleep, the director’s alter-ego Stéphane summarizes his attraction to the female protagonist Stéphanie when he says: “She makes things with her hands. It’s as if her synapses were connected directly to her fingers.” Like Stéphane and Stéphanie falling in love as they play with Stéphanie’s cloth and yarn sculptures, audiences have fallen in love with Gondry’s works through his spectacular manipulation of these very “low-tech” materials in films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and music videos for artists such as Björk and the White Stripes, which present worlds where teddy bears come to life and musicians play knitted instruments. The work on display in Raised in Craftivity suggests that it is unsurprising that such old-fashioned, handmade images and objects should resonate with artists and audiences in our hi-tech world: in today’s “information age” the sensuous, tactile “information” of craft media speaks, as Stéphane does, of a direct connection to humanity that is perhaps endangered, or at the very least being rapidly reconfigured in our technologically-saturated, twenty-first century lives.

If you missed the opening, you can still catch the show, which is on display through September 29th at Rockhurst University in Kansas City.

LINK

Electric Youth

I created a category on Extreme Craft some time back called "Mancraft".  Pittsburgh-based artist Ben Schachter is a perfect spokesmodel for the category.  His work takes banal objects--often with a craft or domestic function, then recreates the object using electrical components like conduit, plugs and cable ties.  The above piece, "Industrial Folk" is not just a recreation of a rug, but a recreation of an iconic rug.  Instant familiarity is key to not only the understanding of the piece, but also the shock (groan.... pun intended) when the viewer goes in for a closer look.  The reverse is also true--because the functionality of the electrical components are being turned on their head, their creative use elicits a double-take.

Schachter is a part of the exhibition "Raised in Craftivity" at Rockhurst University in Kansas City.  The show, curated by Maria Buszek, opens TONIGHT and runs through September 29th.  Full Discosure:  I have a couple of pieces in the show...but that shouldn't keep you away!

LINK to Ben's website LINK to Raised in Craftivity

Bacon!

  Bacon! 
  Originally uploaded by Mrs. Minch

Thanks for putting a picture of me up on FLICKR, Mrs. Minch!  Over the summer, my lovely wife Claire and I hosted the craft workshops at the Indie Craft Experience event in Atlanta.  We decided to forgo the normal glue stick craft workshops and make a BACON COSTUME instead!  Now, Neatorama put the picture on their website, and bacon fans of Extreme Craft are streaming in from all bacon-loving parts of the globe.

Mad props have to go out to Humuhumu at junkyardclubhouse.com, who originated this particular bacon costume.

Unfortunate Ghost

Halloween season is almost here.  The season seems to last longer and longer each year, but you won't find me complaining.  I spotted this unfortunate ghost at a TJ Maxx store in Costa Mesa.  I would hate to be haunted by a sperm ghost....it seems to be out to avenge its billion brothers that never got a chance to..."prove themselves".  Enough said.

Just the FAC's, Ma'am

I don't post obituaries on Extreme Craft very often, and I hadn't planned on eulogizing Tony Wilson, majordomo of Factory Records, who brought us New Order, Joy Division and Happy Mondays, not to mention many other artists who are central to the life of pasty music geeks everywhere.  Wilson may have spent money like a drunken sailor at a Make-A-Wish Foundation event, but his design sensibility, realized by graphic designer Peter Saville, permeated every aspect of his business.

Wilson gave a Factory catalog number to nearly every bit of ephemera surrounding the label, including a nightclub, a poster and a radio promo.  For a pretty great view of the Factory empire, check out the film 24 Hour Party People, starring Steve Coogan.  Wilson's untimely death from cancer was no exception to this rule.  The final Factory release was Factory 501, Wilson's own coffin.   That's called consistency, my friends.

via Electric Roulette

The Ugly Organ

Uberorgan
Originally uploaded by aarmono

Tim Hawkinson is the very definition of Extreme Craft. He's a first-rate blue chip sculptor with an unshakeable love of humble materials. Hawkinson has always pursued his favorite subject--the human body--with scientific determination. His 2006 retrospective at the Whitney Museum was a wunderkammer of crackpot contraptions and eye-popping explorations of anatomy. Looming over the entire exhibition was his Uberorgan, a working player piano/organ made out of cast off plastic and other parts that puns on its name by looking for all the world like an otherworldly bodily organ system. There is a delicious homemade quality to all of Hawkinson's work--it's the kind of stuff that the lovechild of Leonardo da Vinci and MacGyver would make in his wet dreams.

You have a few scant days to visit Hawkinson's current exhibition at the Getty in Los Angeles before it closes. The show consists of a small room containing very witty new work including a Leviathan made out of figures in a rowing galley, a diminutive but ingenious bat made out of twist ties and plastic garbage bags and a photomontage of a chimera octopus with tentacles containing human lips. Joining the new work in the Getty's main entry hall is the west coast debut of Uberorgan. The organ performs its five minutes of material every hour on the hour, wheezing and creeking in living surround sound. I was honored to get to hear the uberorgan in person. If you have a way to get to the Getty Center before the show ends next week, do yourself a favor and see this work.

LINK

Like a Velvet Margarita Cast in Queso

100 x 100 size looks like a rollercoaster
Originally uploaded by agent lover

After a busy first week teaching classes, the wife and I headed into Los Angeles for a day of exploration. We hit the Getty for some Tim Hawkinson lovin' (more on that later), then met some friends at the Velvet Margarita nightclub and restaurant in Hollywood for some drinks and food. The Velvet Margarita is a sybaritic Latin Liberace celebration of all things "Queso". Flocked wallpaper and black velvet paintings mix random bits of Mexicaniana, including black velvet sombreros and some mucho creepy animated marionettes.

Aside from the stiff drinks, the black velvet paintings get my vote for best reason to visit. Near the bar, you'll see some dia de los muertes mash-up velvet paintings of Elvis, Che Guevara, Frida and Pancho Villa as skeletons. You can also thrill to their collection of Latin American icons, such as Fantasy Island's Hervé Villechaize and Eric Estrada from C.H.I.P.S. As you walk back to the bathroom, niches contain black velvet portraits of other celebrities, including a very fetching rendition of a Mexican Johnny Cash flipping the bird. The food was just okay, but I'd give the overall experience two thumbs up. Two velvety thumbs up.

LINK