I've been married to my wife for 2 1/2 years now, and she only just told me that pancake dinners on Fat Tuesday are some sort of Episcopalian tradition. Needless to say, we rocked the pancakes last night. Apparently, I somehow missed the memo about "Nannerpus", a decidedly low-tech marketing mascot for Denny's that debuted during the Superbowl this year. The internets got the memo, though, and the kids have been busy mixing Nannerpus' 17-second commercial with everything from Christian Bale's screaming rant to hallucinogenic techno. Some enterprising young technophile managed to grab www.nannerpus.com to create a portal for all things Nannerpus. Are you behind the times? Better catch up!
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February 2009
February 26, 2009
February 24, 2009
Mardi Gras Whirled
Happy Fat Tuesday, everybody! I'm stuck in Humboldt County for Mardi Gras, which isn't a bad thing--there's a massive hippie samba troupe up here that helps salve the pain. I wanted to help you celebrate Mardi Gras by posting some (admittedly blurry) pictures that I took with my iPhone during a drip to Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World in New Orleans last October.
Flickr photo of Roller Derby at Mardi Gras World by mellinnis
If you've never been there, Mardi Gras world is worth the trip. Just take the Algiers ferry and walk a few blocks to their warehouses. Blaine Kern is the most venerable creator of Mardi Gras floats and props in Louisiana. The lion's share of floats are born and bred under one roof, and you can visit them year-round. If you're lucky, you can even catch some Roller Derby action (see above).
Touring Mardi Gras world is like touring the recesses of the American psyche. Half-forgotten images from popular culture mingle with all manner of masked and beaded figures. Gigantic foam Hannibal Lecter figures live right next to monsters from Where the Wild Things Are and a Mr. Potato Head dressed up as a nurse. Immaculately made Pixar characters rub elbows with "Rock 'em Sock 'em" Robots and papier mache heads of Salvador Dali, Eddie Murphy and Richard Nixon.
The best part of Mardi Gras world is getting to see how the floats are created. It certainly isn't the most environmentally sustainable process, to say the least. Sheets of foam are individually cut, stacked and glued together with industrial-grade adhesives. Then, sculptors jump in with electric carving knives (think Thanksgiving) to sculpt the figures. After the figures have been sculpted, legions of airbrushers finish the job, with buttery, realistic paint jobs. The unfinished foam pieces you see above were just waiting to be carved into figures from the Halo video game.
Your visit to Mardi Gras world wouldn't be complete without a visit to their theater, where you can watch a documentary (narrated by Harry Connick Jr., natch). After the documentary, you're allowed to try on their collection of Mardi Gras capes, masks, papier mache heads and headdresses. The photo session is, of course, accompanied by a delicious piece of King Cake and a cup of coffee. After you're energized by your snack, you're allowed to explore the museum to your heart's content. I'm not telling you what I had to do to get the beads I'm wearing.
Rescued by Wanderers
Crap! I can't remember who forwarded this Etsy seller to me, but my eternal thanks go out them. Etsy is full of so many weird personalities, and kyecrow is one of the weirdest and most amazing. If you need a furry, amorphous Rainbow Brite sweater, you can buy one from her and be sure that your money is going to the only animal rescue camel caravan on Etsy. You read that right.
Kyecrow and her partner, Gill have been wandering around Australia by camel caravan for the past three years with over 40 rescued animals in their gang. They've got plenty of camels, as well as a donkey, goats, birds, guinea pigs and much more. They're looking for a permanent home, and maybe your purchase of a jumper or hat can help give them one. You can find out more about their roving family at www.animalrescuecamelcaravan.com. What kind of camel yields that amazing rainbow yarn?
The Pusher
I don't even need to tell you how extremely awesome this "Childbirth Education" doll from Etsy seller CozyColeman is. The central word in this piece is education.....if Sarah Palin had given one of these to Bristol instead of a gift certificate to her favorite promise ring jeweler, Alaska might have one less tiny resident.
Order one for the teen-ager in your life today!
February 16, 2009
Dairy King
I'm sitting on the couch doing what I do most evenings, which is sort through images for 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse. I thought I'd share this amazing find with you. Artist Jeff Johnson of Poughkeepsie, NY made this FREAKIN' AMAZING working malt machine out of old stove legs, a dentist's drill and some sewing machine parts. Hit the showers, McGyver......there's a new sheriff in town. I'm off to Poughkeepsie for a malt!
February 15, 2009
Shack Chic
I'm always interested in "homemade" homes, slapped together from whatever materials are at hand. Last year, I wrote about the work of my colleague at College of the Redwoods, Cindy Hooper, who made a fabulous video about dwellings in Tijuana called Hecho a Mano. While I was posting the pictures of the ice furniture, I remembered that I've been meaning to put up a post about my friend Cory Treadway's amazing photographs of ice fishing huts on Lake Champlain in upstate New York.
Cory's photos show the delicious handmade-ness of the fishing shacks, which can range from strictly utilitarian to pretty goddamn luxurious. Her photographs pull off the rare feat of documenting these improvisational structures while shoring them up with her amazing eye for composition. There's something very domestic about a bunch of grizzled ice-fishermen setting up house on top of a frozen lake. It's no wonder they don't want to leave when the lake starts melting (as we learned recently with the Lake Erie incident).
I think I need some hot chocolate.
Cold Design
Stranded ice fishermen have been giving the world of snow and ice a bad name recently, so in steps MFA student Hongtao Zhou, to make everything right. His Ice & Snow Furniture Raised From Lake Mendota actually uses ice to fight the notion that design should be cold and unyielding. The ultimate in sustainability, Zhou's furniture will simply return from whence it came (once the thaw comes to Madison in...say...June).
February 13, 2009
Blasted Plate!
Cat Merrick is a designer who lives in Brooklyn. Like Sarah Cihat, she's out to rehabilitate the dishware of America, one plate at at a time. Instead of spraying new glaze over thrift store plates, she takes a reductive approach. As far as I can tell, Ms. Merrick is splattering some kind of varnish or resist over the existing plates, then sandblasting the everloving shit out of them. After the sandblasting, she adds a new dinner-safe glaze over the top, and voila! Instant entropy! Your Grandma's blue-and-white china will never be the same.
Craft that Bombs
Britain's Telegraph newspaper has delivered a SHOCKING exposé of the seedy underbelly of the craft graffiti subculture. Extreme Craft's been following these degenerates like Knitta Please! for years now, but they've finally broken through into the mainstream. For the record, here is their take on the ur-moment of knit graffiti's birth:
The craze is thought to have been dreamed up by clothes shop owner Magda Sayeg, 35, from Texas in the US.
She set up the website Knitta Please, which started off as a group for frustrated knitters who didn't know what to do with their half-finished jumpers and scarfs and so started putting them over door handles.
The craze quickly took off with Mrs Sayeg's most outlandish project being the bus.
"I was sat in my shop one afternoon and decided to do something to brighten up the place," she said.
"I looked at the door handle and decided to knit a small cosy for it.
"It drew a lot of attention after I put it on the door with people asking what it was all about.
"I called a friend later that night and explained an idea to her about using old knitting to graffiti things in the street.
"She had started knitting a baby blanket so gave it to me so I could wrap it around a 'stop' sign just outside my window.
"There was such a reaction to it. People were stopping their cars, scratching their heads and taking photographs.
"That is when I realised that I wanted to do more so set up the group."
The "Raised in Craftivity" show at the Wignall Museum in Rancho Cucamonga sports some pretty great (albeit sanctioned) examples of knit graffiti outside of the museum. Young minds are being warped. If the knitting vandals could actually knit with SILLY STRING, that would take things back to their spray can roots.
LINK thanks Gretchen!
February 10, 2009
Happy Birthday, Extreme Craft
Extreme Craft officially turned FOUR YEARS OLD yesterday. I celebrated by bringing the Roadshow to the great folks at the Wignall Museum in Rancho Cucamonga, in conjunction with their awe-inspiring "Raised in Craftivity" show curated by Maria Buszek. This was one of my favorite versions of the lecture--I got to talk about Ronald Reagan's GOLD IRON in neighboring Ontario, as well as some well-received newcomers to the Roadshow.
This marks the 899th post on Extreme Craft. I'm excited about all of the things I've been saving up to share with you....there are some doozies. I just got back from a great symposium on Creative Reuse at the Museum of Art and Design in New York, and I'm still trying to unpack what I learned there. You'll find out about it when I get back to Eureka and deliver the long-awaited 900th Extreme Craft post.
I'm in Los Angeles today, where I'll have the pleasure of finally seeing the hyperbolic crochet reef by the Institute for Figuring at Track 16.
Until then. Thanks for four great years, and I look forward to many more. Apologies to Inner Child Crochet for swiping their crochet birthday cake above. You can find the pattern HERE.
"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.
