Extreme Craft

The Handmade's Tale

Thursday, April 2nd is coming up soon!  My fine institution, College of the Redwoods, is sponsoring not one, but TWO screenings of Handmade Nation at the Accident Gallery in Eureka.  We just added a second screening due to the brewing excitement.  Filmmaker Faythe Levine will be in attendance at both screenings.  The making of Handmade Nation was a long and crazy ride involving 19,000 miles of travel on the highways and byways of D.I.Y. America.

I'm incredibly excited to see the final product.  After the Eureka screenings, I'll be driving Faythe up to the screenings in Portland at the Museum of Contemporary Craft.  Extreme Craft will be representing at a free 2 pm Saturday afternoon panel, where I'll be chatting with Susan Beal (West Coast Crafty, Susanstars), Jill Bliss (Blissen), Kate Bingaman-Burt (Obsessive Consumption), Betsy Greer (Craftivism) and Faythe Levine (Handmade Nation) on a panel moderated by Museum of Contemporary Craft curator Namita WIggers.

See you at the screenings....when I'm not there, you'll probably find me at Voodoo Doughnut!

Doggie Treat

While I was checking out what else was happening in Atlanta during my visit this weekend, I ran into this cake on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website.  It was created for Elton John's birthday by Karen Portaleo at the Highland Bakery.  I miss driving down Peachtree and pointing out his penthouse apartment to guests.  I miss the Highland Bakery more. 

LINK

XC Returns to the ATL

Hey close personal friends of Extreme Craft in the ATL!  I'm rolling into town on Thursday for a few days of peach-y craft debauchery.  The good folks in the ceramics department at Georgia State are sponsoring the Extreme Craft Roadshow on Thursday night, August 26th in room 339 of the Art and Humanities Building.  The lecture is free and open to the public.

 
I'm also mega-pleased to be attending the release party of ReConstruct, a DVD produced by Atlanta's Eyekiss films featuring the mega-crafty Jeanee Ledoux, and co-hosted by yours truly.  The DVD features ten different eco-friendly home decor projects that you can do with inexpensive thrifted and recycled materials.  The genius of having this thing on DVD is that if I can muddle my way through these projects, you can certainly rock them with no problem.

The release party is at Young Blood Gallery on Friday, August 27th from 8-11 pm.  You'll be able to take a sneak peek at the DVD while being showered with free drinks, snacks from Woodfire Grill and Mattycakes, plus DOORPRIZES!  In addition to fabulous prizes from ReConstruct friends, I'll be giving away a paintball-decorated plate to a lucky attendee.  See you there, ATLiens!  All thanks to Eyekiss, Jeanee and the Indie Craft Experience for putting this great event together.

LINK

Lynch Mob

There's a great, gaping hole in my knowledge of pop culture.  It's called "Twin Peaks".  The year that Twin Peaks hit television, I was a high school exchange student in Rheinbach, Germany.  I spent the year watching German soap operas (and when I was fortunate, racy late-night movies on RTL Plus).  While I was eating plum cake, the country I left behind was toasting each other with damn fine coffee and cherry pie, while dissecting the finer points of the Log Lady and speculating about Laura Palmer's killer. 

My dear wife made educating me about Twin Peaks a priority when we got married, so I've seen about half of the first season.  I have a feeling that the weird, poofy early-nineties vibe of Twin Peaks only serves to highlight its otherness.  You can celebrate the otherness of Twin Peaks by patronizing thegreatnorthern's Etsy shop, which is dedicated to all things Twin Peaks.  How can you spend another day without a Twin Peaks charm bracelet, some Laura Palmer earrings or a cherry pie cross stitch?

As a recently minted resident of the Pacific Northwest, I feel it's my sacred duty.  Whenever I grab a little extra time, I'll finish the first season!

LINK thanks Kate!

Really, Rosie?

Craft is so totally IN this season.  Paris Hilton is hawking her line of craft products, every journalist is falling over themselves to write about thrifty crafters in desperate economic times...but one thing remains constant:  Rosie O'Donnell is the real thing.  I've written about Rosie's Flickr postings before--they're an unvarnished look into her...um..."studio practice".  She's a prolific collage artist.  I recognize in her a streak of manic craftiness a mile wide.

Of course Rosie has an Etsy shop.  Why didn't I think to look before?  Of course she's harnessing the power of her craft insanity for the forces of good...namely "Rosie's Broadway Kids", her charity that shows poor children a way out of poverty through JAZZ HANDS.

Seriously.  You need a Bic decorated station wagon.

LINK thanks Danielle!

Engrish as She is Spoke

Slowly, slowly, Extreme Craft will be recovering from my neglecting it in favor of 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse.  I thought this bit of Engrish would be just the thing to kick things off again.  Anybody who's ever been to most embroidery shows knows what this person is talking about.

LINK thanks Welles!

Last Call!!!!!

Are you one of the people who snoozed on the deadline for "1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse"?  After months of cataloging the many thousands of files that were submitted, I wanted to give you one last chance.  I'm accepting entries for the book through Friday, March 13th (yes....Friday the 13th).  I'm getting close to 1,000 images that I really love, but I would especially like to have more images in the paper, interiors/environments and mancraft/geekcraft categories. 

Feel free to submit in any category, though, and feel free to submit as many photos as you'd like.  Remember, I'm looking for an image size of at least 1450x1700 pixels.  Make sure you upload (or fax) a signed Grant of Rights form and upload an image list with the title and materials of each piece.

Check out some of the excellent projects that I've recently selected.  Clockwise from the upper left:  Judy Titche, Rezoom, Your Secret Admiral, Becky Stern, Tinkerbots, Alicia L. Woods and Raul Siro Ferreira.

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