Extreme Craft

Big Yellow Victorian Houses For Me and You

At 9:00 AM today, Claire and I officially became homeowners.  The limits of my handiness will be sorely tested.  Our new house was built in 1905, and while it has had plenty of updates, we're going to have plenty of fun challenges.  The house itself is a piece of extreme craft, though.  Rather than being framed in wood and finished with plaster, and other cheap materials, this baby is made of SOLID, OLD GROWTH REDWOOD. 

It's made out of gigantic beams that are covered with redwood planks both for the interior and exterior.  It's going to be an interesting process learning how to care for a house like this, but we're up for the challenge.  I'm thankful to live in a place like Eureka, where it's possible to buy an old house dripping with character that is also in great shape.  We'll be documenting our progress in a new blog that I will be able to reveal to you soon.  Stay tuned.

Magna Cart-a

Yesterday on a whim, I Tivo-ed the documentary "Carts of Darkness", which has been playing on Sundance.  The film was directed by Murray Siple, a snowboarder-turned filmmaker who was surprised to find out about a group of homeless Canadian men who make their living recycling bottles, but spice things up by racing their shopping cart down the hills of North Vancouver.

I'm a big fan of documentaries, and this one is bursting with personality and invention.  The race sequences capture the adrenaline-fueled thrill of putting one's life in the hands of something as unstable as a shopping cart.  The movie's main subject, Al, is a force of nature to say the least.  Fans of "Trailer Park Boys" will recognize more than a little "Ricky" in him.

Al is a compelling figure.  My favorite moment in the documentary was when he takes the filmmaker to a bunch of stores to analyze the carts.  It was inspiring to see his connoisseurship of something as common and utilitarian as shopping carts was as intense as any designer or collector.  

Siple also examines Al's lifestyle within the larger world of "mainstream" bottle collectors.  The whole film is an empathetic treatment of a subculture within a subculture that is invisible to most of us.  Freedom isn't free...it comes with a ten cent deposit. 

LINK

Exhibitionism

Underwear is unquestionably an art form,but Belgian artist Jan Bucquoy has taken them to the next level.  Bucquoy recently opened a museum that sports dainties from public figures, ranging from Michael Jackson to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose Y-fronts serve as a Napoleon-style hat on his portrait.  Bucquoy's museum both celebrates and mocks celebrity culture by showing that beneath their clothes, everybody is just a person wearing underthings.

"If I had portrayed Hitler in his underpants there would not have been a war. I think in this way you can contribute to a better world," Bucquoy told Reuters on Friday.

"If you are scared of someone, just imagine them in their underpants. The hierarchy will fall and you will see that this is a guy like any other. We are all equal, all brothers."

Bucquoy's ultimate "get" for the museum is a pair of the Pope's underthings.  I wonder if the Pope has his underwear made by the same group of little old ladies in Poland who make his lace vestments and altar cloths.....

LINK

Fashion Forward!

Why is this gentleman not my Yoda?  I should be carrying him through the swamps of Dagoba on my shoulders!

LINK thanks Dennis!

(Better) Home For Wayward Girls

The summer is drawing to a close.  As great as it's been, with my trip to China, buying an awesome house and having time to decompress, I think I'm actually ready to shake the summer fog from my brain and get back to teaching.  I've been neglecting my Extreme Craft duties as well.  I'm always reminded of this when I check up on sites like what not to crochet, and one of my new favorites, Badder Homes and Gardens.  

Badder Homes and Gardens is maintained by Nikki, Krista and Sarah, three whip-smart Texas gals whose motto is "even cynical bitches want their homes to look pretty".  They've got a great collective eye for clever art and design, and a knack for describing beauty with bathroom humor, which is no easy feat. 

LINK

Sticky Situation

Thanks to all of the Extreme Craft supporters out there who ordered up some of our fresh batch of stickers!  In particular, many thanks to Stephanie Meissner, American Craft Magazine's summer editorial intern, who festooned her computer with exploded Extreme Craft stickers.

If you'd like some stickers, it's not too late!  Just send your mailing address to garth (at) extremecraft dot com, and I'll send some your way.

One Tolkien Over The Line

My last Craigslist post yielded some interesting feedback...but none as interesting as the link my pal Henry sent me to itemnotasdescribed.com, a repository for all of those puzzling free Craigslist postings in the world.  According to the site, these postings are (mostly) born of optimism and generosity.  Surely SOMEONE can use that broken garden gnome or algae-filled broken hot tub.  Other posts are clearly just people trying to trick somebody into hauling away their junk that would be too expensive to send to the landfill.

The little gem pictured above is something else entirely....a papier mache boot with a detailed map of middle earth painstakingly painted on it.  Of course it's from San Francisco:

Handpainted Middle Earth map on papier mache boot, circa 1979. I’d like this to go to a teacher or someone who will use it for educational purposes, perhaps a library or non-profit that encourages reading.

Itemnotasdescribed.com breaks down the post almost word-by-word in an attempt to figure out the motivations of somebody who has kept an item like this around since 1979.  I think most Extreme Craft readers would hold this dear in hopes that it would someday guide them to the fires of Mordor.

LINK thanks Henry!

Boa

How much do I love living in Humboldt County?  This little gem popped up on Craigslist this morning.  Here's a LINK to the original ad if anybody wants to take them up on their offer.

Verklimt

I don't know how extreme this is, but I've been fascinated with the ads Ehrman tapestry have been running in the New York times.  They're hawking Gustav Klimt needlepoint pillow kits like the one above.  It seems to me that these Klimt pillows hit the sweet spot that exists between luxury and the virtue of handiwork without having to enter the world of country craft.

Are the ladies of the upper West Side sitting at home, weathering out the recession by taking up needlepoint?

 

This is made all the more interesting because the person designing the needlepoint Klimts is mosaic artist Candace Bahouth, who is herself able to walk an interesting tightrope between excess and good taste (not that the two are antithetical).  The above disco ball shoe mosaic sums it all up.

What's my point?  I don't know.  I'm interested in the similarities between youth craft culture and this form of luxury craft.  It's interesting that it's lucrative enough to warrant a full-page ad in the New York Times magazine.  It's interesting that an American mosaic artist is churning out Austrian needlepoint patterns for a British tapestry company. 

Could they at least have worked in some shiny gold embroidery floss?

LINK

Hooked on Smacksy

As I made my usual blog rounds this morning, I was ultra-pleasantly surprised to see that I got some link love from one of my favorite blogs, Smacksy.  As a person who is planning on bringing humans into the world in the not-so-distant future, I anxiously check Lisa Page Rosenberg's blog for daily stories about her family that alternately make me want to knock my wife up right away...or reach for the birth control, often within the same post.

I've known the Rosenbergs for quite a while--Claire and I got to hang out with Lisa, Jeff and Bob a lot when we lived in Southern California, and we miss the heck out of them now that we're in the great green North.  Their son Bob, like most children, is in full control of his destiny and desires.  Smacksy chronicles his unique worldview...including his adorable obsession with the 2009 Grammy Awards.  It doesn't really matter if you know the Rosenbergs, or how you feel about kids--Lisa's writing is some of the funniest, most humane stuff out there.  Thanks for thinking of Extreme Craft, Lisa!  For the rest of you, add Smacksy to your blog rounds.

LINK