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!
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!
A Kraft Kontroversy has been raging for the past few days, and I've been remiss in weighing in on it. Felt Club Majordomo Jenny Ryan and her husband, noted cartoonist Johnny Ryan, collaborated on this, the most extreme anthropomorphized plushie that I've ever seen. After Mark Frauenfelder posted the 9-11 plushies on BoingBoing, their comments section exploded, with people lining up on both sides of a raging debate.
I've got a very low threshold for bullshitty, sentimental mementos of tragic (or even special) events. You can buy World Trade Center tire covers for your custom van for chrissake. After I got sick of Christopher Reeve being wheeled out to produce tears at one too many award shows, I made a rather nasty little ceramic pot embellished with Reeves, dressed as Superman in his wheelchair, as St. Christopher. I understand Jenny and Johnny's motivation, and I've got to take my hat off to a plushie that can make me feel this conflicted.
I suggest you work your way through the comments on Mark's post and decide for yourself.
At various times in my life, I have waxed and waned between slavering Andy Warhol fan and slight ambivelence (currently swinging back in the direction of slavering fanboy, but that's a long story). I'm certainly aware of Brigid Berlin's legacy to the artworld. As a part of Warhol's factory scene, Berlin was a provocateur and performance artist, and popped up regularly in the photos and films that churned out of the factory.
I didn't know that Berlin is still an accomplished artist, and that she has shifted her allegiance to the dark side....CRAFT! Her delightful needlepoint pillows are being shown at John McWhinnie in New York. Berlin eschews typical needlepoint subjects like flowers and samplers in favor of a topic that she knows much better: tabloid newspapers. Her tabloid subjects are fitting not only because her antics were tabloid fodder back in the day, but also because her father was Richard Berlin, who oversaw the Hearst media empire for most of his life.
The show will be on view between October 21st and November 22nd. See if you can ditch your security detail and the paparazzi to see this.
LINK via EscapetoNewYork
Hoorah! I'm off to Richmond, Virginia later this month to bring some Extreme Craft to the folks at Virginia Commonwealth. I just saw this great crafty project on BoingBoing--it's a banned books reading display at the Twin Hickory library in Glen Allen, Virginia. They're still taking volunteers:
This one goes out to all of the librarians in my life. Thank you for fighting the power! I wouldn't be half the self-absorbed dork I am now if I hadn't read Catcher in the Rye at a tender age.
LINK via BoingBoing
Oh the gorilla suit. Is there any accessory that a person can get more use out of? I got my first gorilla suit for my 30th birthday, and it started yielding benefits right away. I wore the gorilla suit to my favorite ice cream shop, and voila! a free banana ice cream cone materialized for me. I wore the gorilla suit to a rock show by the band Cursive that night, and was invited to both announce them and deliver a guest rap during their cover of "Jenny from the Block".
My favorite gorilla suit activity, though, was to put on the suit, then walk to my neighborhood supermarket to buy a banana. I can remember looking through the bananas one afternoon, when a little old lady on a rascal scooter rode up. I picked an especially nice bunch of bananas for her, and she thanked me kindly. There is no occasion that will not be enlivened by a gorilla suit.
It's great to know that there are other gorilla suit enthusiasts out there--chiefly John Young, who lives in the Philadelphia area. In October, he's hosting the gorilla suit workshop to end all gorilla suit workshops. If you've got mad skills--or simply a longing in your heart--for gorilla suit making, buy a ticket to West Chester, post haste. The workshop will cover everything from making a fetching fur suit to augmenting that suit with molded pieces for the mask and torso. Details are being worked out even as I type this, so visit gorillasuitworkshop.com and get in on the conversation.
LINK via BoingBoing
Extreme Craft Stickers are HERE! These lovely 4" round vinyl stickers are meant to last and last. Put 'em on your toolbox! Put 'em on your bumper! Put 'em on the oversized flask that you sneak into your knitting circle! I'm sending free stickers to the first 20 people who email me at garth at extremecraft.com. Drop me a line! Don't forget to include your mailing address!
Heart, Garth.
Heeyyyyyyyyyy! Extreme Craft is THREE YEARS OLD! Over the past three years, I brought you over 700 posts, took the Extreme Craft Roadshow around the country, and dived into all of the danger and trouble the craft world has to offer. I did all of this on the SAME CRAPPY DESIGN that I came up with on the bored afternoon that I conceived of Extreme Craft. I figured this was as good an excuse as any to upgrade the site and graphics. I'm debuting my new Extreme Craft logo and gradually working on the look and feel of the site. I'll keep tweaking, but any feedback would be much appreciated. In the next year, you can look forward to more Extreme Craft Roadshow stops, more in-depth craft profiles, my debut as the host of a yet unnamed DVD project, and even some sweet Extreme Craft SWAG! Until then, my friends.
CRAFT HARD!
Garth
Happy winter break, all of you educators out there! I'm about to hand in my final grades for the semester. Tonight, I'll be on a plane bound for Mexico, where I hope I'll be able to find some extreme craft to bring y'all. I'm taking a holiday vow not to emulate the Greek fellow in the (rather excellent) illustration above. Instead, I'll be working on my new mystery craft project. See you in Mexico!
