The lantern festival was lovely. My friend and I went out for delicious Ethiopian food, then walked around Trout Lake Park, watching the lanterns, the fireworks, the fire dancers on stilts, the little girls dressed up as fairies and the hippie lady who couldn't stop praising the beet lantern. Here are some photos for you.
And last but not least - a mother and child encounter the Goat Man!
One of the best events of the year in Vancouver happens this weekend. The Illuminares Lantern Procession lights up the night at Trout Lake Park on Saturday.
Here's how it works: A bunch of people make some lanterns, go out to a park and mill around.
But here's what really happens: You get insipired. You craft it up and you get paper mache' goop all over the floor or get rice paper stuck all over your hands. You rush around looking for a lighter to illuminate your lantern candle with. Then you go outside on a beautiful summer night and wander around gazing at other people's creations, becoming even more inspired and awestruck and happy. You say, "Oooh! Look at that one!" about a kazillion times. You watch the fire dancers and think how amazing they are, and maybe you should take that hoola hooping class after all. (The actual fire part can wait though.) You leave thinking that Vancouver is full of beautiful, talented, creative people, and here they all were, all in one park on one night, milling around.
If that sounds good to you, you should be there. Here are the deets:
Ahh, summer. Hang out at the beach, fly a kite, take a few pictures. After a day like that, the best I come home with is sandy feet and sunburnt shoulders. But not these people.
Check out this flickr set by Lenny & Meriel. They've created dozens of beautiful large-scale art using just the beach, a kite and a camera. Oh, and a rake.
By raking the sand into huge zen-garden style patterns, then somehow attaching a camera to a kite, they've taken some really gorgeous shots. They also have another great set on kite aerial photography - plus here's a whole flickr group on the subject. Who knew?
I realize now that I have never mentioned to you before now my love of Cabinet.
Cabinet is possibly my favourite magazine. It contends with Readymade, which I also love.
Each themed issue of Cabinet is filled with unusual information on a range of ecclectic topics. You can open it to any page and learn something new - and something you probably would've never thought of learning about. After reading it, I want to tell people about these amazing new things I've read about. The latest issue covers topics including early scientific debate about jellyfish (which you can read online here), a guy who tried to put LED lights on pigeons when they fly at night (turns out the don't fly at night), electrical transformers that were built to look like houses, and an article on the colour yellow by Nato Thompson - one of the most well-written, whimsical and enjoyable pieces of commentary I've read in a long time.
Here's an article on the Cabinet site with a craft bent (pardon the pun). Oregon-based Richard Reames shapes living trees into furniture and sculpture - something called "arborsculpture" - the art of shaping tree trunks to create art and functional items through bending, grafting, pruning, and multiple planting. Not to be confused with bonsai (miniturizing trees) or topiary (the shaping of foliage), arborsculpture is the method by which Reames managed to grow living structures that range from the more mundane (if you can even call it that) - like chairs, benches - to the spectacular - like a tree whose trunk turns into a peace sign part way up, a 30-foot poplar tree trunk that splits into a spiral then reunites, and an oak tree with a spiral staircase growing in it. He's working on growing a house. Read the full story here and visit Richard Reames' site here.
Here's a nice roundup article in Slate on blogs about street fashion.
These blogs are great - as inspiration for sewing patterns and fabric combos, as well as inspiration for dressing up. It also just makes for great people watching.
A few of the best links:
Hel Looks (Helsinki)
Stilin Berlin (Berlin)
Face Hunter (Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen and beyond)
Sthlmstil (Stockholm)
Also, the Japanese street fashion flickr group in endlessly fascinating.
Digital painting takes on a whole new meaning with artists moving the screen onto canvas.
French artist Valery Grancher reproduces screenshots of websites in watercolour. His paintings cover many sites like Yahoo! and Hotmail, plus a whole series on the many faces of Google.
In a similar vein, Indianapolis-based Gautam Rao makes oil paintings of Mac OSX interfaces, blogger password protection keywords and more.
It's interesting that both painters have a fairly naive/interpretive style, rather than a realistic one. I wonder how "realistic" the painting style could be for these kinds of works before it loses the point of the art. I mean, if you did a vector-based, digitally created rendition of a computer screen, could anyone tell the difference between the artwork and the real thing? Though that would be an interesting experiment and statement in itself... hmm...
(Links via Drawn!)
There'a a new crafty store opening in Vancouver's gastown today: Gilbert & Gilbert. (Great name - though awfully close to Bristish artists Gilbert & George. I wonder if that's intentional?)
If you're in town, check out the festivities. Looks like fun - and a cute store, too. On their site, they say they'll be selling clothes, buttons, books and zines - open only on Saturdays. Here's the pitch:
Gilbert & Gilbert
a new shop in Gastown
open every Saturday 11-7
305 Cambie at Cordova
www.gilbertandgilbert.ca
OPENING JULY 22ND | 11AM to 7PM
come by for drinks, DJs and THE WEATHER! (at 3PM)
Those embattled Scott sisters, Alanna & Lauren have decided to go into
business together. Well, not 'business' exactly: every Saturday they will open their studio to the public as Gilbert & Gilbert. This 'shop' will feature a variety of creations by the duo, many of them hand printed or hand sewn, some conceptual and others not, but all things they hope you'll want to put on your self, in your home, or in your hands. The pair's work, while primarily created individually and of different impulses, draws from similar aesthetic territory. Their vast collection of shared experiences, from occupying a common womb to attending the same art school, influence their work in different ways, while ultimately tying them together in others. Strong enough to stand on its own, the sisters' individual work compliments each other side by side in the shop. They can be found at 305 Cambie St., second floor, otherwise known as the corner of Cambie & Cordova, from 11am to 7pm every Saturday. Tell your friends!
It's not like I've ever been there, but Wilco (whom I adore) and flavorpill sure make Chicago seem like a darn fab place. Here are a few crafty goings-on in the windy city this month:
Stephanie Dotson has an installation on now at the Three Walls Gallery called Spool. She makes big, fantastic, layered, swirly, drippy montages with paper and vinyl and felt and vellum and silkscreening and paint and macramé and more. The results are gorgeous. (The drawings and other works on her site are also awesome and well worth a look.)
Ben Potter has an exhibit on at the NavtaSchulz Gallery. For his show, Kindling, he uses blue plastic bags to create images from nature, done in a style that reminds me of Chinese paper cuts.
The Skestos Gabriele Gallery is celebrating its first anniversary with a collection of works made on - or out of - paper. My favourite in the show is Chris Natrop, who makes gigantic hanging paper cuts that are simply stunning. (You must absolutely check out Chris Natrop's site, where I spent a great deal of time umming and awwing about which images to highlight in this post.) Also appealing is the work of Shinique Smith, who makes collage looks good. (I have many resolved, vaguely squeamish feelings about collage in general. What can I say? Bed skirts and table lamps are also on that list. Strange but true.)
So, if you can, go go to Chicago. And let me know how it is.
Get out your purses and wallets, folks, it's the prettiest fabric ever, by designer Orla Kiely. However, it's also some of the most expensive... you can buy it for roughly $70/metre (and that's me doing the British pounds to Canadian dollars conversion in my head). Oy! But ooh, such nice patterns. [Links via Print & Pattern.]
There's a nice round-up story on the new craft movement in today's Globe and Mail.
. . . . .
The new church of craft
Is it art or handicraft? The sweetly ironic work of today's young crafters is claiming fresh aesthetic territory
TIM MCKEOUGH
So you're sitting around the cottage and it's raining cats and dogs. You get out your craft supplies. What are you going to make? A Popsicle-stick house? No way. You'll crochet a striped cozy for your iPod or snip your empty pop cans into cool cuff bracelets.
While it's no secret that knitting has dominated the DIY world for the past few years, there's now an explosion of interest in all forms of craft, from felting to printmaking, all with a distinctly ironic edge.
Nowhere was the trend more apparent than at the recent Renegade Craft Fair (http://www.renegadecraft.com) held in Brooklyn, the new hotbed of North American hipsterism. Two hundred counterculture crafters from across the continent came together to present a stunningly diverse collection of goods.
Montreal's Red Rooster (http://www.redroostercraft.etsy.com) showed off its bird and lion-themed tote bags made from vintage and recycled fabrics. My Paper Crane (http://www.mypapercrane.com) came from small-town Pennsylvania with a family of food-inspired stuffed toys (golden toast was happy; burnt toast was sad). Brooklyn's Perch (http://www.perchdesign.net) presented handmade ceramic birdfeeders, but it also showed salt and pepper shakers shaped like bird feet, for feeding humans.
"People have preconceived notions about what a craft fair is going to be like," says sewing enthusiast Kathleen Habbley, who founded the fair with jewellery designer Sue Blatt in Chicago in 2003 (this year's Chicago edition is scheduled for Sept. 16-17). "And then they come here and it's just totally different."
One of the first pioneers of the alt craft show is Leah Buckareff of Toronto's Coldsnap Bindery (http://www.coldsnapbindery.com), who started the Pedal to Metal shows in 2002. Buckareff makes handcrafted journals and also manages the Toronto section of the popular Church of Craft website.
"It's really growing," she says of the number of people now heeding the call. And part of that growth is fuelled by the explosion of the on-line craft community. Event listings, tips and tricks are traded regularly on websites such as http://www.craftser.org, http://www.getcrafty.com, http://www.supernaturale.com, and http://www.churchofcraft.org. And for the truly prolific, finished products are sold through websites like http://www.etsy.com and http://www.cutxpaste.com.
Nathalie-Roze Fischer, another passionate Toronto crafter, has just opened the boutique Nathalie-Roze & Co. to sell the work of about 70 different practitioners (including herself), and to offer workshops on everything from sewing to soap-making (1015 Queen St. E., 416-792-1699, nathalie-roze.com).
At a time when many consumers are looking for an alternative to impersonal, mass-produced objects, crafting is turning out to be a good business.
Dana De Kuyper of Montreal, for instance, has attracted plenty of curious shoppers with her collection of Damned Dollies (http://www.damneddollies.com). Plush, aggressive-looking figures that might share DNA with zombies, these one-of-a-kind dolls take the notion of cute in an entirely new direction.
"Some people actually get kind of scared," De Kuyper says. "But usually people are excited and laugh a lot. They say, 'That one looks like me,' or 'That one looks like my friend.' "
Although she started making dolls as a hobby five years ago, they received such a positive response that she eventually gave up her day job to focus on them full-time.
The sheer creativity of products now being churned out has even led some to question whether crafters aren't crossing into the more rarefied disciplines of art and design.
It's a question that will be underlined during the first Modern Art Design Exhibit (MADE), to be held tomorrow at Toronto's Gladstone Hotel (modernartdesignexhibit.com). It will feature designers who are making objects with a new sense of artistry.
Montreal's Serigraphie Cinqunquatre (http://www.cinqunquatre.com), run by Jason Cantoro and Alice Jarry, typifies the contemporary artist-maker philosophy. With a studio that produces show posters and cover art for bands, Cantoro and Jarry also create moody screen prints (most recently with sea creature and animal themes) as their more creative outlet, and sell them at craft fairs.
Neither of them is interested in debating the difference between art and craft; they attend events like the Renegade Craft Fair to be with like-minded people.
"It's more like art," Cantoro says about the pair's work. "But we're not afraid of interacting with real people. The galleries are kind of an alien environment for us. We don't mind saying we're doing a [craft] sale instead of an art show."
Lacking the patience for pretense, today's crafters just want to take creativity into their own hands.
. . . . .
Ever wonder why an English rooster says "cockle doodle doo" but a French rooster says "cocorico"?
Bzzzpeek is a site that collects onomatopoeia from around the world. Anyone is welcome to submit recordings making the sounds for animals and vehicles as you would in your language. Some of the results are pretty funny, also because many of the recordings seems to be made by little kids.
As Linds and I are very much in Vacation Mode, we decided that putting our feet up and eating popcorn was in order. We set sail to see summer blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.
The movie, as you probably know, pits Johnny Depp against an undead captain with a squid for a head. Quite the rivalry.
So, in the spirit of this swashbucking conflict (and just because I've now shifted into Fighting Mode), I suggest you engage in a craft combat:
In the first corner, we have a knitted Johnny Depp!
And in the second corner: octopus chandeliers!
Who would you side with?
This is it. Italy VS France. Any bets?
Here are a few World Cup themed crafts, in case watching the big screen isn't exciting enough for you.
Join the World Cup knit-a-thon. (Ok, you're a little late for this one.)
How to knit a soccer ball.
How to create a customized soccer scarf.
Build your own paper model of a soccer stadium.
Witness the the world's longest football scarf: 12.5 km long and knitted by more than 1,000 people.
Knit a complete set of soccer team jerseys for penguins.
Go France! Go Italy! Go Craft!
Listen to CBC Radio One today at 4pm. Socket, which aims to "throw together some of Canada's young, sub-radar artists in a half-hour radio show", is interviewing artist (and friend) Sonny Assu about the cereal boxes he made with a First Nations spin: Treaty Flakes, Bannock Pops, Salmon Loops...
The show also covers Colwyn Griffith, who builds landmarks out of snack foods: igloos out of marshmallows, the Great Wall of China out of rice crispie squares, wheat elevators out of wafers...
Yum.
Today is the first time in a year that Alex Martin that will change her clothes.
Since July 7, 2005, Alex has been wearing the same dress, which she designed and made herself. The Brown Dress project began as a statement. In her own words:
In this performance, I intend to reject our sweat-shop-supporting economy of over-consumption, and the bill of goods that has been sold, especially to women, about what makes a person good, attractive and interesting. Clothes are certainly part of this image, and the expectation is immense. The economic resources required to regularly purchase newly-manufactured clothing in retail stores are staggering – a hundred dollars for one new shirt?
It's a pretty amazing project, not one that I'd be able to do. It takes a lot of dedication to stand up (and dress up) for what you believe in every single day.
Visit the Brown Dress site for Alex's journal, photos from the year, and a downloadable pattern of the infamous dress.
I haven't been posting recently since I've been sick and blah blah blah excuses blah blah blah, and Linds hasn't been posting because she's been busy and blah blah blah excuses blah blah blah. No more!
Not only are we back on the blog, Linds and I are now in the same city for a couple of weeks! Besides catching up, wandering around, eating and lounging - on the crafty side, we went to Vancouver's awesomest fabric/notions/Hallowe'en store, Dressew, where Linds stocked up on zippers and buttons. We also went to Ruby Dog's Art House on Main Street, which is AMAZING. I can't believe I've never been there before. Ruby Dog's sells everything you would ever want and then some: vintage labels from tinned vegetables, letraset galore, pages out of old books, matchbook covers, pipettes... I bought some vintage cigar bands, ceramic hot and cold faucet handles, and fifteen one-centimetre tall black plastic poodles - all PTBC (Project To Be Confirmed). Linds bought too much to even list - though she can't really be blamed as I kept acting as her personal shopper, finding more stuff for her to buy (and pack into her already jam-packed suitcase). But isn't that what are friends are for?
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