I'm digitally compulsive - digits being defined as fingers. I need to use my hands all the time. Making things centers me in the same way that training for a marathon, practicing the piano, or cultivating a garden does for others. In home economics class in junior high, we learned to make gathered skirts and crop tops. I made a dozen. When I was young and my kids were little, my expression was still craft. Seeing an item I had sewn or knitted proved I'd lived the day before-that I had accomplished something that hadn't been eaten, dirtied, or thrown away. For years I continued to knit size two toddler sweaters (using the same two patterns in different colors) while watching TV, riding in the car, and sitting through meetings. I gave them as baby presents or sold them to friends for the cost of the materials. I have 60-plus sweaters and several dozen skeins of yarn stored in boxes.
As my kids and I got older, I wanted more from my making. I was drawn into the artier side of creativity. I wanted to communicate-not just affirm-my existence. Making needed to be more than just about me and yet ...
Kenya, May 1991. My husband came home from work and found me in a low chair by the window. On my lap was a tray of African beads, and in one hand I held a partly finished necklace - Ethiopian silver threaded between amber and old Venetian trade beads. The jacaranda tree outside was catching the last of the light, its froth of mauve flowers gathering a tinge of pink. The call of a Hadada ibis lingered in the air. I, who am sustained by the beauty of nature, was not moved. Instead I felt stung by nature's indifference, by the fact that this beauty continued as though nothing had changed.
Graham called out his usual greeting, knowing nothing until I spoke. My response was flat and clipped, I'm sure, as though any intonation, any lingering on a vowel, would be too painful. He crouched at my side and looked into my grief-flattened eyes and pressed his lips on my swollen eyelids, my stiff mouth.
I had learned about the accident in the morning, how a huge truck had crashed into their car on the Naivasha Road in the Rift Valley. They did not die instantly, but of their terrible wounds. ...
Today's interview is with Alanna Nissen, office coordinator at the American Craft Council.
What is your favorite/most-read craft book in your personal collection?
I have so many, it's impossible to pick! I've got everything from historical overviews of traditional, domestic crafts to how-to books to Amy Sedaris's new book, Simple Times. A favorite recent addition is the catalog to the Sonya Delaunay exhibition, "Color Moves," which recently closed at the Cooper Hewitt - a show I absolutely loved.
What book or magazine would you like to sneak out of the ACC Library?
I just did! I recently borrowed Becoming Judy Chicago, Gail Levin's biography of the controversial feminist artist.
What book(s) are you currently reading? Any kind of book is fine!
Besides the Judy Chicago bio, I'm also reading a collection of 1960s Batgirl comics. You really can't beat a crime-fighting librarian who sews her own superhero costumes!
What hooked you on craft? What's the first craft you remember seriously catching your eye?
I'm a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, master of none when it comes to crafts. I do fancy myself a decent knitter, and I particularly love textile related crafts. Early on I was a big fan of puff-painted ...
Gustav Reyes makes jewelry I can get behind. I love the curved and clean lines of his bracelets, and the live-edge on the ring looks almost Nakashima-inspired. He'll be at the Craft2Wear show at the Smithsonian in October, but in the mean time you can take a look at more of his work on his website.
Can't get enough craft? Neither can we. Heck Yes Craft is a series of visual blog posts with a simple mission: to show off amazing work. Come back every Friday for more.
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Meg Little loved to doodle as a teenager, and you can see it in her work today: vibrant rugs that look like they've been lovingly sketched with colored pencil. See a sampling of the rugs she's been making for 20 years above. But visit her website too, to see the whole gamut and to read a wonderful selection of thoughts about life, human needs, creativity, and the handmade. Here's a sample passage: "For thousands of years now, we've been using the same symbols: spirals, squares, dots, rings, to communicate, powerfully, below consciousness. They address a homesickness that can't be satisfied by the Earth beneath our feet."
Can't get enough craft? Neither can we. Heck Yes Craft is a series of visual blog posts with a simple mission: to show off amazing work. Come back every Friday for more.
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Over the past two weeks we've been recounting our favorite entries from the 70-year craft timeline in our August/September issue. Today's picks are from Alanna Nissen, the American Craft Council's office coordinator.
1991: Anne Wilson's Hair Work in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, extends the provocative possibilities of human hair in art.
Call me creepy, but I love hair art. Everything from elaborate 19th century wreaths made of intricately twisted and braided strands to Janine Antoni's "Loving Care." As an artistic medium, human hair brings together themes of embodiment, loss and memory, beauty, and abjection. Since so much art made with hair, whether historical or contemporary, is derided as "morbid" it's nice to see it getting a little institutional love instead.
1949: Lloyd Reynolds begins teaching calligraphy at Reed College in Portland, OR, sparking a revival in the lettering arts. Among those influenced: Steve Jobs, who attended a class taught by Reynolds' handpicked successor in the early '70s and became convinced of the need for beautiful, readable fonts for the first Macintosh computers.
Sixty years later, calligraphy is experiencing another revival with new leaders like Betsy Dunlap practicing a non-traditional, but still gorgeous, version ...
This is your last week to check out Mad Homes. Artists have taken over a block of homes scheduled to be moved or salvaged in the North Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, creating giant, temporary installations. The exhibition is open to the public, but also receives a lot of attention from those just driving through the otherwise relatively normal neighborhood.
Fourteen artists, including Jason Puccinelli, Allan Packer, and the trio SuttonBeresCuller, created work for five houses. There's a "ghost house" constructed from old house paint peeled off like skin, an upholstered living room, and a thunderbird pendulum swinging through floorboards. And so much more.
The exhibition, running through Aug. 7, is put on by MadArt, an organization dedicated to engaging with the public through novel art installations.
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It's August! The dog days of summer. And, if you live in a Northern climate like me, some of the last weeks to slip outside, find a patch of shade, and kick back with a great book. Now imagine that book inspires you to make.
The thoughtful folks at London's Black Dog Publishing have us covered: They're offering a 40 percent summer discount on their contemporary art and craft backlist, including Making Stuff, Making Stuff for Kids, In the Loop: Knitting Now, Outside the Box: Cardboard Design Now, Paper: Tear Fold Rip Crease Cut, and Breaking the Mould: New Approaches to Ceramics. Check out the covers and bargain prices (not including postage) in the slideshow above. Interested? Email Black Dog's Jessica Atkins, jess -at- blackdogonline.com. To order, include your name, address, and choices.
And then get out there and make something.
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