Extreme Craft

EXTREME CRAFT HAS MOVED!

2006-09-28T13:08:00.000-04:00

Extreme Craft has MOVED! Click here to visit us at our new digs on Typepad.. Remember, you can always bookmark us directly at www.extremecraft.com.

Baby Toupee is Here to Stay!

2006-09-27T10:16:00.000-04:00

Baby Toupee
Originally uploaded by Extreme Craft.

The democrats and republicans in Washington are sparring over the intellegence report that was released yesterday that concludes the war in Iraq has increased terrorist threats rather than decreasing them. Our president pulled his usual trick and put his hands over his ear and started yelling "blah blahblahblah ican'thearyou", calling the notion "naive".

You know what? I'm still proud to live in a country that can produce anything as amazing as THE BABY TOUPEE. Somehow, seeing a well-coiffed baby swaggering confidently into the future is reassuring to me. Suri Cruise is firmly on the baby toupee train (obviously!), so what's your problem?

LINK via boingboing

The Devil is in the Details

2006-09-26T15:17:00.000-04:00

Fallen Angels
Originally uploaded by Extreme Craft.

Kansas City is one crafty-ass place! On Thursday, I got to spend quality time drooling over the Nelson-Atkins' collections of European decorative art, including one of the biggest collections of English ceramics that I have seen. It goes without saying that their Asian collection is amazing, but I was unprepared for how much great European stuff they had.

My favorite piece, pictured here, is an 8" ivory carving from Italy of some badass Angels chucking a bunch of devils out of heaven. The figures all interlock in three dimensions, forming a sort of open spong patterns made of the "little devils". I must have spent 20 minutes marvelling at the detail, as well as the wicked imagination of the artist. The next time you're wandering around the Nelson-Atkins, keep a sharp eye, because this one is tiny, and easy to miss.

Neural Fibers

2006-09-25T17:01:00.000-04:00

Sometimes it seems like the whole world has been knitted. When I'm bouncing around the internet, I often feel like that scene from the film version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where the characters suddenly find themselves (and their surroundings) knitted. A wedding has been knitted, so has a coral bed, and cactus garden. Practically the entire human body has been knitted, notably hearts, embryos, and the entire digestive system. I can envision a dystopian knitted future where outlaws with reverse knitting needles create simulated "un-knit" objects as we used to know them.

Until that time, we can watch this Blade Runner scenario unfold bit by bit, taking notice when things like the Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art. The MOSAFBA is the brainchild (sorry, couldn't help myself) of William Harbaugh, a rogue economics professor at the University of Oregon. The museum's collection currently features three quilts with functional images from PET and fMRI scanning, a knitted brain, and two fabric pieces interpreting single neuron recording. Are you a maker of scientifically accurate fabric brain art? Make like the goddamned Bee Girl in that Blind Melon video, and get together with your own kind by emailing Mr. Harbaugh.

Link thanks, Clifton!

Agrifolk Follow-Up

2006-09-21T10:17:00.000-04:00

Identification
Originally uploaded by Extreme Craft.

I just got an email from Jonathon Keats, conceptual artist and art farmer about the Agrifolk project. He provided these statistics:

In all, eighty-one drawings were culled over a three-day period. An impressive forty-seven of the fifty trees produced at least one artwork, the exceptions being W, GG, and II. The most prolific were A and V, which each produced four works, though only one drawing by each will be included in the Soho Myriad exhibition. In fact, while seven artists produced three images, no artist will have more than two pictures in the show. (The thirty selected drawings showcase the work of twenty-two artists.) Deserving special mention are G, M, R, and HH, which will each have the distinction of exhibiting the twoworks that they created, and PP, J, Q, and SS, which will be represented in the show by two of their three works.

Hotrod Casket

2006-09-20T14:38:00.000-04:00

Hotrod Casket
Originally uploaded by Extreme Craft.

This is a photo of James D. Calabrese's "hotrod" casket, complete with exhaust, a license plate, and cheesy flaming Chevy decal. Couldn't somebody spring for some decent pinstriping? Still, you've got to give it up to a brother who knows how to go out in style. Photo by Leonard Ortiz of the Orange County Register.

"PINE"tings

2006-09-20T13:13:00.000-04:00

Last month, Extreme Craft promised you an insider's look at a BRAND NEW art movement. That day has arrived, ladies and gentlemen. I had the pleasure of receiving a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the creation of the AGRIFOLK ART movement on Sunday in Cumming, Georgia. Agrifolk Art is the brainchild of conceptual artist Jonathon Keats (who is well known for such projects as copyrighting his mind and trying to create God in a test tube). While at a residency in Maine, Keats began thinking about the swaying trees outside of his windows, eventually bringing a small tree inside his studio to further study it. It turned out that bringing the tree inside wasn't very effective (or healthy for the tree), but Jonathon kept thinking about the trees, and eventually contacted Andrew Dietz, an Atlanta-based art writer and entrepreneur. Dietz' most recent book, The Last Folk Hero, delved into issues of exploitation and authenticity in the Folk Art world, which meshed nicely with the project that Keats was hatching in his (trademarked) brain.

Keats and Dietz were not farmers, but with a bit of searching on the internet, found a tree farm in Cumming, which is about 30 miles North of Atlanta. Their new artists would be uncorrupted by art world machinations: 50 Leland Cypress trees, chosen for their resilience and flexibility. Last Saturday, Keats and Dietz put the artists to work, first labeling them individually, then setting up 50 easels and pads. The artists were provided with a variety of artistic implements such as pencils, oil pastels, and vine charcoal. By the time we visited, they had been working for nearly 36 hours without a break. The trees produced their art without a single complaint, fueled by periodic waterings and doses of Miracle-Gro.

Mr. Keats is confident that the quality of this artwork will be evident to all. "This isn't just about artistic integrity," he says. "Non-sentience is often looked down upon by our culture, obsessed with SAT scores and IQ tests. Yet plants negotiate complex ecosystems that biologists struggle to comprehend. Their art is a byproduct of the intelligence, and the creativity, of their interaction with the environment."

Asked if this has made him rethink his own art, Mr. Keats grows pensive. "My projects often depend on complex processes such as radiotelescopy and genetic engineering. I'd have saved myself a lot of work had I known that the basic ingredients of artistic originality were water and sunlight."

Naturally, I had a lot of questions about Agrifolk, ranging from curiosity about their process to the vagaries of the Agrifolk art market. My hosts were accomodating, going as far as to demonstrate their scrupulous process for "culling" the finished artwork. Keats, dressed in his best gentleman farmer three-piece suit, roamed the tree farm with a clipboard, observing the progress that each artist had made. When it was determined that a piece was finished, the writing instrument was gently picked up, and the pad of paper removed from the easel. On his clipboard, Keats jotted down the artist's identification, along with other relevant information, and carried the piece back to the picnic table they were using. The piece was then stamped for authenticity, verified by Jonathon, and stored with the rest.

I asked Jonathon how he knew when the drawings were complete. He answered that an ideal completed drawing was based on the range of gesture expressed by the tree. When he felt that the tree had fully expressed the gesture that they were communicating, the drawing was finished. Endless scribbling of the same gesture was seen as overkill. Dietz and Keats were unsentimental about their charges, conscious of the degree to which they were exploiting them versus the level of reward given to them. They harbored no illusions about redemption that the trees could face through their art--particularly talented trees weren't going to be relocated to a pasture somewhere; the trees are all destined for Atlanta living rooms during the next holiday season. Keats did express the thought, however, that they were providing these trees with a death sentence hanging over them with an opportunity to express themselves before they themselves are "culled" and covered in tinsel and garlands.

I also asked about the "target market" for this artwork. Folk art is a highly stratified world, with the bottom rung occupied by work sold in hardware stores, back yards, and flea markets. Selling to this audience generally requires a homespun, folksy approach, preferably with a degree of humor. My friend Nick suggested the artworks be called "PINE-tings", which would be a great way to get the fleamarketeers on board. Keats and Dietz are firing their shot across the bow of the gallery world, aiming directly at high-end collectors. Collectors of folk art value the "story" of the artist above almost all else. If an artist is illiterate and lives at the bottom of a well, their work is pure gold. If they are handicapped and also make angels? That's a money train that's just never going to stop. Keats and Dietz are providing all of the essential components of folk art: a great story and indisputable authenticity.

All of this comes down to the artwork. Is it worth a damn? Would you hang it above your couch? I would have to answer with a qualified "yes". Dietz and Keats could have given their artists brushes and bright colors, which would make for art every bit as compelling as something a Thai elephant could produce. Instead, they provided the trees with pencils, oil pastels, and vine charcoal, allowing them to express a more subtle range of work. Most of the work is produced with a soft pencil, showing a range of gesture and markmaking. White space is highly valued, with the trees intensively working small portions of the paper. This is not work to hang above your couch--the work that I observed was very subtle, providing an opportunity for contemplation.

Your chance to get in on the ground floor of Agrifolk is coming up. Can you say that you have a matchbook or coaster from the Cabaret Voltaire? Do you have one of Warhol's first Campbell's Soup paintings? Probably not. Soho Myriad Gallery in Atlanta will exhibit the finest works October 14th and 15th. They will also be screening a documentary about the project by director Edwin Moore. Keats and Dietz will be on hand to meet the public, but unfortunately for us, the trees will be happily biding their time at their farm in Cumming. I wonder if I might be able to put my favorite tree artist in my living room this Christmas. Remember. You heard it on Extreme Craft first.

LINK to my Agrifolk Flickr set

Kansas City, Here I Come!

2006-09-19T15:26:00.000-04:00

This Thursday, September 21st, I will be delivering a lecture at the Kansas City Art Institute as part of their "It's Only Natural" visiting artist series. I'll be showing some slides of my own work and lecturing about my codependent relationship with Craft. I'll also be playing show'n'tell, going through some rapid-fire slides representing some of the greatest artists that have appeared on Extreme Craft. I promise you, it will not be dull. Put down that barbecued rib, and get your ass down to Vanderslice Hall on the KCAI campus. 7pm sharp. You would never guess from the site, but I love to talk. If you'd like the Extreme Craft Roadshow to visit your town or campus, drop me a line. Thanks to Matt Takach, who designed this swell poster!

LINK

After the Ball

2006-09-19T11:14:00.000-04:00

I'm one of those dorks who slowly opens gifts, carefully peeling the tape off and saving the wrapping paper. I do this in part because I love surprises, and it's fun for me to prolong the suspense of opening a package. Some people do this because they are cheap bastards who save wrapping paper for another day, but I can't remember the last time I actually saved the paper for later. Mainly, I'm carefull with the paper because I realize that nothing is as sad as the wadded up remains of a party--crumpled wrapping paper, stretched-out ribbons, swept-up confetti mingling with dust bunnies, and the last few slices of horrible white cake with too much frosting that live in the office break room until some kind soul has mercy on it and puts it to rest.

I have a feeling that Miami-based artist Frances Trombly feels my sorrow as well. Trombly ratchets up the melancholy of abandoned party favors with her lovingly crafted sculptures. Her installations are filled with spent decorations (like the congratulations banner above) that are painstakingly created using knitting, hand-weaving, cross stitch, and more. When shown in a spare, white gallery, the human-scale objects appear to be even more alone. Upon closer inspection, the objects cast off their pathetic auras, revealing themselves to be crafted luxury items. Check out her (warning--annoying Flash) website, which is chock-a-block with examples of her work. Get your party started!

LINK thanks, Clifton

King of Pain

2006-09-15T11:57:00.000-04:00

Kathy King's ceramic work is exhausting. For the last ten years she has been tirelessly probing at every raw nerve that relationships and self-analysis expose. Kathy (or at least her alter-ego) stars in all of the work, which is all functional in some way or another, which makes her some long-lost love child of R. Crumb and Bernard Leach. Functional ceramic vessels with illustrated narratives have a rich history dating back to the Greeks and beyond. A functional pot provides a 3-dimensional canvas that can be made into a narrative, like a comic strip. Kathy takes this connection and runs with it, adding in extra layers of having the vessels comment upon their function and the role of the user. Her first full-blown masterpiece was her graduate thesis show at the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1997.

Many ceramic geeks have seen this slice of genius in books and magazines. The show consisted of a bed, which was completely covered in illustrated tiles commenting on birth control options from a woman's perspective. The headboard contained four vessels to contain the birth control options, including a condom jar, a jar for birth control pills (showing a woman on all fours, hunting for an impossible-to-find-when-dropped pill), and a hilarious butter dish to contain a diaphragm. The diaphragm container is illustrated with a picture of Kathy rowing in a diaphragm, navigating a sea of sperm. The headboard shows a nude couple rushing toward each other, while the footboard shows Kathy-as-devil girl, wishing the occupant of the bed good luck. The exhibition also had a woman's night stand, which contained a bunch of containers for real and fanciful cosmetics and beauty aid, each elaborately illustrated with narratives related to the products, including pimple cream and breast enlargement elixir.

Atlantans, rejoice! Kathy is part of a 4-person show (with Janis Mars Wunderlich, Jenny Mendes, and Krista Grecco) at the Signature Gallery called "Intimate Rituals of Daily Life". Kathy's new work delves deeper into gender and relationship issues. Her new work features plenty of worms, which seem to stand in for the little devils that sit on a cartoon character's shoulder, little voices of self-doubt. Characters put on masks during first dates, share their baggage, and gender confusion. There are also symbolic vessels, such as these "birdhouses", which serve as reliquaries for tiny hearts and homes.

Kathy is one of those rare artists (even rarer in the craft world) who ruthlessly air their dirty laundry in their own work. Her pots take on a life of their own, offering up plenty of food for thought when they are used (and her work always begs to be used). Each of her works is like a miniature stage set in which the vessels serve as the actor and the end user winds up being the director. The next time you reach for your salt and pepper shakers, imagine serving up your salt and pepper with a theatrical pair of Kathy King salt shakers, complete with psychodrama. Wouldn't it be nice?

LINK to Signature show

Quilting Under the Pressure

2006-09-12T14:48:00.000-04:00

Kate from Obsessive Consumptionjust sent me this image by Icelandic artist Siggi Eggertsson. I nearly melted with joy when I clicked the link, and the closer I looked, the more I loved it. Siggi Eggertsson is a young graphic designer with a flair for the geometric and obsessive. He created this quilt, which contains at least 10,000 pieces and measures nearly 6.5 feet by 8 feet. The colors and patterns used in the piece recall paintings of the Pattern and Decoration Movement, yet also stays true to its digital roots. The patterns, motifs, and iconography that are used all reflect the artist's own childhood memories. Visually, the quilt hews to colors that are familiar to the viewers and makers of quilts, which becomes jarring when the icons of Michael Jordan and the German Shepherds are introduced.

As I combed through Eggertsson's site for other clues to the origin of this work, I was delighted to find a clever, multi-disciplinary mind at work. Not only has he developed his own personal geometric style, he has put that style to work in a variety of contexts. Most intriguingly, he took advantage of the portability of laptop computers, and began drawing outdoor landscapes as he saw them, a la impressionist painters. Other print work includes typography, calendars, and illustration, all fairly bursting with creative energy. Quilting is reportedly a passion for Eggertson, so I'm crossing my fingers for more masterpieces.

LINK thanks, Kate!

Cardboard Stormtroopers Unmasked!

2006-09-11T17:09:00.000-04:00

I'm so happy! I got a reply to the video that I posted on Youtube from one of the cardboard stormtroopers....in fact, it was the ringleader of the Stormtroopers. Extreme Craft readers will be glad to know that the corrugated chappie was none other than Atlanta's beloved pirate, Cap'N Drew! Apparently, Drew has dabbled in cardboard robotics before. You can check out some robot and pirate hijinks at his website. Piratepalooza, Atlanta's premiere pirate-themed pub crawl is coming up on Saturday, Septembarrrrrrh 16th, so be sure to stretch out your rum ration until then. In addition to more information about cardboard robots, the website also has information on Drew's cardboard underwear and the props he made for movies like Dumb and Dumberer. Extreme.

The Mad Scientist of Sleep

2006-09-08T15:09:00.000-04:00

Michel Gondry revolutionized the medium of music video with the incredible clips he made for Bjork, Beck, The Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, and a bunch of other lucky musicians. One of the great things about his aesthetic is that it is decidedly low tech. Whenever possible, Gondry likes to use old school camera tricks and the judicious use of stop animation rather than slick CGI effects. I think I'm one of the only humans who loved his wacky 2001 movie Human Nature. This movie began his collaboration with Charlie Kaufman, who wrote Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. This collaboration came to fruition with the colossal, stupendiferous Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Gondry's new movie finds him Kaufmanless, but I have a feeling that's not going to matter. Gondry's fevered imagination will be put through its paces on The Science of Sleep, which lists its opening date as September 22nd.

I won't go into any of the wacky particulars of the film beyond the basic premise of being based on Gondry's dreamlife. The lo-fi aesthetic is taken to a new level in this movie, with dream sequences constructed out of construction paper, felt, and other craft materials. The film stills that I have seen scream "EXTREME CRAFT", as does the website. The Science of Sleep website is a marvel of design. I'm usually a huge humbug on the subject of Flash websites, but this one translates the craft-y feel of the movie, with an oversized cursor, scrawled text, and an all-around considerate interface. Within the website is a mini-application that lets you make your own stop-animated movies with the virtual objects they provide. It's easily possible to lose an afternoon communing with the site.

Also, check out Salon.com's recent conversation with Gondry. The sillyhead behind the microphone forgets to turn on the machine for the first seven minutes, but catching up to the conversation only serves the keep the listener on their toes. When the movie finally opens (I'm not counting on September 22nd for Atlanta), I'll be first in line. In the meantime, I'll be working on my stop-animation opus on the website.

Church Sign Generator

2006-09-06T10:03:00.000-04:00

Church Sign Generator
Originally uploaded by Extreme Craft.

One of the benefits of living in the South is the profusion of sloganeering on signs. The two places that have the best slogans are churches...and strip clubs. I actually think strip clubs have the upper hand, with slogans like "FIRE SALE--ALL OUR CLOTHES MUST GO". The church around the corner from my house has been stuck on "SIGN BROKEN--MESSAGE INSIDE" for much too long. If you aren't fortunate enough to live in Dixie, the CHURCH SIGN GENERATOR could come in handy. Simply enter the text you'd like to see, and VOILA! Now, if they'd ony make a strip club sign generator, my life would be completely complete.

Cardboard Stormtrooper Video

2006-09-05T20:00:00.000-04:00

My friend Paula shot this video of the cardboard Stormtroopers in action. They really bring it! You can tell by the way they lumber down the street that they know they are the most badass dudes in the parade. Thanks, Paula!

Cardboard Stormtroopers!

2006-09-05T15:21:00.000-04:00

Aside from sticking my nose in a book during Labor Day weekend, Claire and I made our annual pilgrimage to the DragonCon Stormtrooper Parade. This year,
around 950 costumed revellers participated, marching in different groups representing superheroes, Harry Potter, Buffy, Star Trek (special kudos to the Klingon wandering around with a cardboard sign reading "Series Canceled, Please Help"), and of course, Star Wars. The Extreme Craft award for Extreme Craftiness goes out to the Stormtroopers pictured above, who prove that you don't need a fancy PVC costume to rock dragon con--all you need is heart. The parade marshal this year was, inexplicably, Mickey Rooney (did he have a cameo on Battlestar Gallactica or something?). I can't wait to see what DragonCon dishes out next year.

Handwork

2006-09-05T11:39:00.000-04:00

In honor of Labor Day, I settled down with a book on the Arts and Crafts Movement to do some brushing up. To understand the potential held by the current wave of craft mania, I believe that it helps to study previous craft movements. The Grandaddy of them all is the Arts and Crafts movement, which didn't really take hold in America until the early 20th Century. It was amazing to read about how serious the movement was taken by academics, politicians, and rabble-rousers. At the turn of the century, the University of Chicago was the preeminent institution for social theory, most of which leaned waaaaaaaay to the left. Arts and Crafts were seen as an antidote to the Industrial Revolution's assembly line mentality, and offered creative control and a measure of dignity to workers.

Although it left an amazing legacy including Stickley furniture, Rookwood pottery, and architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, the Arts and Crafts movement failed because it couldn't reconcile the theoretical with prevailing market forces. Many of the major proponents of the movement, both in England and America, were wealthy people who made (or inherited fortunes) based on industrialism. Fast forward 100 years and compare the size and scope of corporate influence on modern society. The study of craft is limited mainly to "Decorative" art history, and it is unimaginable that craft would be studied in any institution as a force for change.

After a century which saw the fortunes of craft and handiwork wax and wane, it would seem like we are in quite a valley--schools are increasingly grooming students as information workers, with blue collar work carrying the stigma of being "so last century". Shop and vocational technology programs are being purged, home economics classes are pragmatic rather than analytical, stressing concrete skills and not problem solving. Matthew B. Crawford's article "Shop Class as Soulcraft" in the current issue of the New Atlantis has made a huge splash, defending Shop Class as a fundamental human skill. The rising fortunes of the DIY movement prove that there is a human instinct to understand and tinker with one's surroundings, and technology is being rejiggered as much as machines. Even though institutions are supporting it less and less, a generation of Americans is waking up to the possibilities of working with their own two hands.

In honor of Labor Day, think hard about your own family history and inclinations. There's a reason why humans are inclined to craft. Acknowledge your crafty forbears, and spread the wealth by offering the things your own hands have learned to others.

Sock the Monkey!

2006-08-31T10:37:00.000-04:00

Sock Monkey Dress
Originally uploaded by Extreme Craft.

Last night, Claire and I discovered the joys of watching Project Runway at Mary's, one of Atlanta's finest gay bars. My curiosity was piqued after reading an article in our weekly magazine describing it as the "gay superbowl". I can happily report that it didn't disappoint. Around a hundred patrons tossed back $3 well drinks and took their gloves off when it came to comments, many of which were saved for the commercial breaks, when they would turn down the sound and pass the house microphone around the room. After the show (and the thunderous applause at Angela's departure), there was a screening of a rough cut for a new television show from Kyle, who brought us the documentary Stories from the Road: Following PJ Harvey. In the new TV segment, he crashed the Project Runway show at fashion week, stalking the casts of both seasons until he met Daniel V.

This i s all a pretty roundabout way of telling you about a dress I saw on the internet today made out of SOCK MONKEYS! It's being shown among the other craft items at the Minnesota State Fair. Let's hope that next year the maker will decide to make a dress out of the flayed skin of Garrison Keillor. Keep rubbing that lotion on your skin before your radio show, buddy boy!

LINK via BoingBoing

Hello, Is It Me You're Looking For?

2006-08-29T12:01:00.000-04:00

Portland, Portland, Portland. In addition to the beguiling Voodoo Doughnut, Portland, Oregon truly reigns as the current craft capitol of America. With craft insitutions like SuperCrafty, Craftypod, The 24 Hour Church of Elvis and a flourishing branch of the Church of Craft, Portland is as crafty as it gets. Add to the mix Helloindie, a relatively new eZine that bills itself as "The ezine of the DIY craft scene". I'm firmly on board with their newest release, issue #3, which features Mark Newport (genius knitter of superhero wear). There is also an interview with leah Kramer of craftster.org. zip on over to Helloindie and put your name on their mailing list. As a reward, they will grace your inbox with their brand of crafty love. LINK via Supernaturale

Am I the Only One Seeing This?

2006-08-29T11:05:00.000-04:00

I've always been a big fan of B3TA's Phallic Logo Awards, an amazing collection of hilarious inadvertently phallic logos. Graphic designers can be incredibly sneaky, or they can be incredibly clueless. Turnabout is fair play. You all know that Extreme Craft is all about the laaaaaaaadiez, recent comments nonwithstanding. I am pleased to share the American Museum of Ceramic Art's fantastic vagina-centric logo with all of you. HOLY SHIT! I think I saw this exact diagram in Sex Ed class when I was in sixth grade. Mad props to the museum's graphic designer for adding some subversion to a normally male-dominated world. Take that, all of you macho potters!

LINK to AMOCA

Threat Level: PINK

2006-08-28T14:52:00.000-04:00

Live in Seattle? Not planning on spending your weekend removing mold from your grout or looking at virtual craft items? You can view some very real Extreme Craft in person at the Bumbershoot festival. Curator Yoko Ott has put together an awe-inspiring show featuring several artists that have been profiled before on this website, including Theresa Honeywell (she of knit motorcycle fame), Charles Krafft, and Orly Cogan. Entitled Softly Threatening: Artwork of the Modern Domestic, the show takes its name literally, exhibiting everything from machine guns to candy and bridal registry flatware, all re-imagined as artistic metaphors for domesticity. Ott presents a wide variety of processes and products in the exhibit. Elizabeth Jameson works with fondant icing, crystallized sugar, and other compelling materials in her larger-than-life sculptures that take on the stullifying expectations and isolation of domesticity. Brett Alexander embroiders text onto uniforms and other ready-made knitted materials, playing with gender roles and queer identity.

Orly Cogan is exhibiting more of her marvelous work that pairs her with an array of unwitting collaborators as she alters and embroiders found textiles. The piece that sounds like the most ambitious of the lot is Mandy Greer's Small But Mighty Wandering Pearl, an installation featuring a life size (and exquisitely crafted) disemboweled stag, whose entrails spread throughout the gallery, covering hundreds of feet. The stag is hand stitched from various linens, and features a set of oversized antlers covered in hundreds of pearls. The goriness of the scene is reportedly transcended by the fabulousness of the spectacle--guts come together to form interesting constellations, such as a chandelier that hangs from the ceiling. Have I convinced you to drop your grout-cleaning toothbrush and head down to Bumbershoot yet? I thought as much.

LINK

Craft Transcends Meatspace

2006-08-24T12:29:00.000-04:00

Those of you who live in Seattle are probably totally jaded about the annual Bumbershoot festival, an annual orgy of music, art, and culture. You had probably planned on spending Labor Day at home cleaning the bits of mold from the grout in your shower (or maintaining a Charles Bukowski-style blind drunk blackout), but a quick glance at the arts schedule could make you change your mind. This year's arts festival jumps astride the stallion that is D.I.Y. craft and holds on for dear life. There will be tours, demonstrations and lectures galore, as well as some fantastic exhibitions, including Pixel Dolls, Meatspace, and Everything all at Once, which is an exhibition of a virtual exhibition created in Second Life, which is a virtual online world. Curator Michael Van Horn set up a virtual 16 acre island in Second Life where artists could create games, sculpture, installation, architecture, design, audio and video. The gallery will be filled with projections and monitors where viewers can explore the virtual worlds, as well as real honest-to-god artwork made by real honest-to-god artists in response to Second Life. I've written about "machinima" and "virtual" craft before, and I really wish that I could experience this exhibition for myself, but maybe I'll do the chic thing and send my avatar instead.

LINK

Vincent Van Stop

2006-08-24T11:38:00.000-04:00

I love you, Spencer!

The Recovery of Roy

2006-08-22T10:59:00.000-04:00

If you look at the artwork of Chris
Roberts-Antieau in passing, or through squinted eyes, you might just walk
on by. Her work is slick and friendly--images that would be at home in your
Mother's sewing room predominate. There are plenty of pictures of pets and other
animals, mermaids, and domestic activities like working in the flower garden.
I encountered her work at FolkFest last weekend, and I'm glad that I took a
moment to look deeper. Roberts-Antieu used to create "wearable art",
embellished garments that sold in pricy boutiques and stores like Neiman marcus.
The burdens of conducting a staff of fifteen and scrambling to fill orders burnt
her out quickly, so she turned to creating large scale fabric art. First of
all, her work is exactingly crafted. Roberts-Antieu hunts for unusual fabrics,
then uses applique and machine stitching to compose her pieces, finishing them
up with hand embroidery. The machine stitching forms unwavering borders between
the pieces of fabric, creating a very graphic comic book effect.

The comic metaphor is apt, because she crams many of her pieces with wry, funny
details, as in The
Magic of Interpretive Dance, which shows a variety of adults lost in spastic
reverie. Pop culture moments don't escape her grasp either, as in Oprah's
Big Audience Giveaway, where a larger-than-life Oprah presides, preacher-like,
over a flock of adherents who lift their hands to the sky in excitement. Characters
in the paintings are often grappling with relationships with friends and significant
others, and mirror our emotional lives as much as they do pop culture. In the
painting Bad
Habits, figures grapple not only with habits like smoking and procrastination,
but they are shown grappling with the social effects of those habits on the
people that they love. In Tangled
Leashes, a group of dog walkers struggle to untangle their canine counterparts
and Roberts-Antieu delights in creating a variety of interactions worthy of
Leonardo's Last Supper.

Far and away, though, is my favorite piece, The
Recovery of Roy, a deliciously nasty piece that depicts the mauling of the
Roy (of Siegfried and Roy) by his white tiger. This piece actually becomes a
narrative broken into panels like a comic book, with the first panel showing
Roy in the jaws of a tiger, spilling the drinks of a terrified lady with a beehive
hairdo in the audience. Roy is then carried away on a stretcher, then shown
recovering with a concerned nation wishing him well. Finally, Siegfried and
Roy make peace with the errant tiger as the sun shines down on them (and their
mullets). There is a fantastic economy in the way emotions and interactions
are crammed into the cartoon-like figures. I got to view the Siegfried and Roy
piece in person at FolkFest, and I spent a lot of time marvelling at all of
the love and delight that have been snuck into the pieces. There are details
like hand-painted frames and hand embroidered embellishments that take the work
to the next level. She'll be showing
her work at craft-related events in St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Washington
D.C. this year, but maybe it's time for the art world to start perking up their
ears. LINK

Mel in a Handbasket

2006-08-21T15:30:00.000-04:00

Mel Gibson Folk Art
Originally uploaded by Extreme Craft.

This weekend, I attended Atlanta's annual "FolkFest". It's becoming an annual act of self-flaggelation where I wade through a sea of insufferable art in quest of the few treasures that are on view. It was interesting to watch the resale dealers trying to snatch up undervalued pieces to sell later at higher prices. Just like shopping at Whole Foods, in folk art, the story is everything. If you can tell your public that a piece of art was made by a poor illiterate Alabaman, you'll do well. If that illiterate Alabaman happened to be blind, so much the better. Say that blind illiterate Alabaman happened to be trapped at the bottom of a well, making art with his own feces....well that'd be a license to print money.

One notable quality that folk artists all seem to share is opportunism. You can't blame artists for knowing where their bread is buttered--it's the reason there are a bazillion photographers out there making money from taking pictures of puppies and kitties, but sometimes it gets a bit overwhelming. Above is a picture of a Mel Gibson piece on an old board that didn't even have time for the varnish to dry before it was whisked off to FolkFest. By the end of the show, though, it hadn't sold, and the $450 price tag was thoughtfully lowered to $150. I guess the artist figured that by the time next year's show rolled around, it would be worthless.

There is plenty of money to be made by memorializing people and events. When buying art, people tend to stay within their comfort zones and buy art that has a connection with something else they like. Hell, I'll cop to buying a portrait of Luther Vandross by an amazing autistic artist shortly after Luther's death. At FolkFest, I saw pieces commemorating such incongruous figures as bass player Jaco Pastorius and the mauling of Roy from Siegfred and Roy. If I had piles of cash, I would've bought the Roy piece in a heartbeat. I'm going to try to find a picture of it to post here, in fact.

The most striking thing at FolkFest is that commerce is never far from the viewer's mind. For an event that holds "authenticity" as its core belief, it immediately becomes apparent that credibility and authenticity are such ephemeral subjects that it's impossible to sort things out. Therein lies the fun, though. I'll keep coming back to FolkFest because it makes me think....I just wish a few more people buying crayon Elvis portraits would wrestle with the demons that I do when they whip out their wallet. After all, you can't say "folk" without saying "faux" at the same time.