My love for science and all things geeky often bubbles to the surface here at Extreme Craft, so I feel totally great about showing Emily from The Floss Box's awesome new DNA embroidery pattern. Why embroider the tired old days of the week on another set of underwear when you can cover them with the building blocks of life? If Bill Clinton had been wearing his DNA underpants that fateful day, Monica's little blue dress may have been spared the indignity.
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March 2008
March 28, 2008
March 27, 2008
Wood Eye? Wood Eye?
There are very few artists in this world that I would lay a Jerry MacGuire-esque "You Complete Me" line on, but Wisconsin-based sculptor Michael Rea is one of them. Somehow, when I became aware of his work, it was like a long lost Michael Rea-shaped puzzle piece was put back in its proper place. Holy crap! Have you seen his work? Have you been holding out on me all this time?
MIchael Rea is the real deal. He creates elaborately carved and constructed wooden sculptures based on his obsessions....movies, weapons, space and rocknroll. Each piece is better than the one that came before it--witness the above piece, a wood and fur Manet tableau that sometimes contains a real-life pretty lady. How in the world can one human being be this productive? I would suspect the answer lies in being stuck for half the year in the tundra that is Wisconsin, but that's another story.
If Martin Puryear had grown up on a diet of nothing but Star Wars and Kiss albums, I suspect the result would be similar to Michael Rea. Fecal Face has an incredible interview with him posted on their site. Rea comes off very similar to his work--a perfect mixture of humor, earnestness, enthusiasm and sarcasm. His demeanor is every bit as perfectly crafted as his work. The Contemporary Art Center of Virginia will be putting on a new Rea exhibition entitled "Wood I, Could I?" in April. I remember a weird childhood pull-toy that was made out of wood...some kind of crazy anteater beast on uneven wheels. Michael Rea evokes a similar wonder at the limitless possibilities that old fashioned wood carving and joinery holds. What will he dream into wood next?
March 26, 2008
Flush With Ideas
Spring is in the air! The dogwoods are blooming down Georgia way, and grad students are preparing for their thesis shows. University of Georgia grad student Euni Figi has had a busy couple of years. One of her "greatest hits" is the "Blush-n-Flush" toilet tissue wedding gown. You can purchase one of your very own via Slop Art. Also, she'll be showing her "rice apron", a domestic accouterement filled with 100 pounds of rice. Euni's work explores the worlds of costume, history, identity, but always with a humorous twist. The MFA show opens at the Georgia Museum of Art this weekend, and will be up through April 27th.
One Big Con!
Craft Con 2008 is coming right up! Today (March 26th) is the last day for registration. If you're serious about this craft thing, get yourself up to San Francisco April 4-6th. Attendees will get to party and mingle, as well as hash over pressing issues, share business and organization tips, and network, network, network. Extreme Craft will try to add some levity to the proceedings....I'll be presenting the Extreme Craft roadshow on Saturday after lunch. I'm kind of nervous....this will be the smartest, toughest audience that I've yet faced.
San Francisco is a perfect place for this year's conference. In addition to all of the crafty awesomeness, you'll be dropped into the maw of the Bay Area art scene. The Museum of Craft and Folk art is currently showing "The Fabric of Cultures: Fashion, Identity, Globalization". Also, the Yerba Buena Center will be showing "The Way That We Rhyme: Women, Art & Politics" featuring Stephanie Syjuco's Counterfeit Crochet Project.
Get your CRAFT CON on!
March 25, 2008
Counter(feit) Intelligence
It's been several years since Stephanie Syjuco conceived of the Counterfeit Crochet Project. For the uninitiated, the project encourages crocheters to create ersatz designer handbags in their own funky styles. From Burberry and Chanel to Yves Saint-Laurent, people all over the world ponied up, concocting bags that trade artisanal cowhide stitching for genuine gee-whiz crocheted innovation. The entire project struck a nerve, and is now bearing fruit in a big way.
The Counterfeit Crochet project explores the underground economy of counterfeit sweatshops and seedy flea markets, but does so with an empowering twist. Rather than participate in the vacuous and resource-sucking world of runway fashion or the sweatshoppy world of knockoffs, Makers have been sharing patterns and ideas, then creating Frankenstein crochet handbags that they can use proudly.
Through it all, Syjuco has been documenting the creations and rolling out exhibits all over the world. The Counterfeit Crochet project is opening at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center as a part of The Way We Rhyme: Women, Art and Politics. To celebrate, Stephanie cooked up a new website for Counterfeit Crochet, as well as a new studio blog, the Autonomous Manufacturing Zone. She's also part of a panel discussion at the Commonwealth Club tonight called The Political is Personal: Contemporary Women Artists and Political Expression.
In the meantime, get out your crochet gear and pay a visit to the new Counterfeit Crochet website. You can now download Stephanie's instructions for making your own Chanel Purse!
Road Hard
Wow! Extreme Craft lectures and events have been snowballing this spring. I'll have the good fortune of speaking at great places like Santa Barbara City College, Portland City College and Craft Congress this spring. Extreme Craft is also sponsoring a booth at Maker Faire in San Mateo that will let attendees make their own "Zen Paintball Paintings". To celebrate all of these, I put up a SCHEDULE on the front page of Extreme Craft. Here's the story so far. I don't have times and places for all of these yet, but if you want more information, just email me at garth(at)extremecraft.com.
Saturday, April 5th
San Francisco, California
CRAFT CONGRESS
Wednesday, April 23rd
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara City College
Department of Art
Saturday & Sunday May 3-4
"Zen Paintball Painting"
San Mateo, CA
Maker Faire
Thursday, May 15
Artist Lecture - Garth Johnson
Portland, OR
ArtBeat
Saturday, May 31
Gallery Lecture
Milwaukee, WI
Woodland Pattern Book Center
Sunday, June 1
"Decal-o-Mania" Workshop
Milwaukee, WI
Woodland Pattern Book Center
March 24, 2008
Niece-ster
Woo hoo! I'm back from Pittsburgh, which was awesome by the way. It's Spring Break, and my new niece, Violet came to visit! Yesterday was Easter, and Claire made her some bunny ears that were perfect for a stroll along the beach. You go, girl!
March 19, 2008
Craftpocalypse Now
Holy shit, y'all! The Craftpocalypse is here. There's nothing I like more than a good debate, and there's a doozy swirling around the craft world right now. It all started with a talk at the SNAG conference in Savannah with Andrew Wagner of American Craft Magazine and writer/artist Bruce Metcalf. Metcalf comes from an older generation of "studio craft artists" that has suddenly sat bolt-upright at the realization that there is a new generation of crafters taking over. A whole generation is busy convening conferences that try to get to the bottom of the alt-craft phenomenon.
Metcalf's comments at the conference, while not a blanket condemnation of alt-craft, is more of an achingly unhip attempt at defining it. just reading Annie from imogene.org's account of Metcalf's portion of the speech made me vaguely uncomfortable...sort of like when my parents (well my mother anyway) talks about sex. Andrew weighed in....then Bruce Metcalf weighed in...and before you could say "felted cat toys'', most of the luminaries of the alt-craft world weighed in too! Tsia Carson, Sabrina Gschwandtner, Faythe Levine and a bunch of other folks have been hashing out the argument.
So HAVE A LOOK at the discussion and weigh in. I've been subjected to Metcalf's rantings before, so I had to scratch at the old scabs he left me with at last year's NCECA conference. Speaking of which, I'm off to NCECA in Pittsburgh tomorrow! Why don't discussions like this happen at NCECA? Because people at NCECA are too busy sitting around bitching about the "art world" passing them by. If I have to hear one more panel where a bunch of otherwise interesting people sit around whining that there is no valid writing and criticism in the ceramic world, I'm gonna scream.
I've said it before....ceramic artists all want to exhibit their windchimes and travel mugs at the town gazebo craft fair, then cry foul that the Whitney isn't swooping down to give them a retrospective. There are plenty of great ceramic artists who are making a dent outside of ceramic circles, but the common denominator is that THEY'RE EXHIBITING OUTSIDE OF CERAMIC CIRCLES! So. If you see me at the bracing panel discussion on deflocculants or maple syrup raku firing, gimme a nudge and say hi. I'll have a new Extreme Craft sticker for you!
March 18, 2008
Hello, Dolly!
It's a rare occurrence for anything to cross my desk that leaves me utterly speechless. I honestly don't have any frame of reference for this. I guess I'm glad that I live in a world where an artist can make something like this and put it up on eBay:
Up for auction is sweet loving Jerome. He's trying to win back Natalie's heart with flowers, wine, chocolates and a romantic video. Not to mention the love letter in his hand. His head, hands and boots are all made of Sculpy clay and baked accordingly, as well as the chocolates, wine bottle, video and the buttons on his shirt. His hair was created using raw black wool from local sheep. Shirt and jeans are cotton and hand made also. No molds were used to make any part of this doll. Chair is cardboard constructed and covered in a flag patterned cotton material. His body is posable because he has a felt covered wire frame, but he seem comfortable sitting. Eyes and face as well as hands and boots are all hand painted. There is velcro on the seat to keep him from sliding. He measures 13 3/4 inches tall standing and 10 1/4 inches sitting. Chair is 4 1/2 inches wide by 5 inches high.
Start your bidding! You only have until March 19th to redeem Jerome's self esteem to give him the self-confidence to enable him to fight for Natalie's heart!
LINK thanks, Javier!
March 13, 2008
Destroy my Sweater?
Speaking of public art, Knit graffiti isn't just for the shadowy yarn anarchists of Knitta anymore. The town of Yellow Springs, Ohio has gone cuckoo for adorning their trees with yarn. Residents of the town have embraced knit graffiti in a big way, covering the town's "knitknot" tree in knit panels filled with in-jokes and family artifacts. Things in Yellow Springs aren't all peaches and cream, though:
The tree is vulnerable to the raised legs of passing pooches. Because of that, the panels of yarn don't extend all the way to ground level.
As the panels spread up the trunk, the knitters had to follow, first standing on a chair, then a three-step ladder, a 6-foot ladder and finally an 8-foot ladder. They finally decided they had gone high enough after someone suggested scaffolding and village officials began to worry about someone falling.
Today it's scaffolding, tomorrow a scissor lift....pretty soon the bulk of the town's budget is going to be sunk into tree cozies. Garbage pick-up will be abandoned, the streets will crack into rubble and all landscaping will ceased. The trees will look beautiful, though! The cozies are set to come down on Arbor Day, but now residents of the town aren't so sure. The cozies are so well-liked that residents will certainly be fighting city hall to keep them up.
LINK thanks, Jennifer!
"Orientation" - New Work From China
- This body of work was created during a Summer 2010 residency at the Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China. These porcelain vessels explore traditional Chinese iconography as refracted through a decidedly Western point of view.
