goods on sale for now...

for those of you who love shopping and have always wanted something nice from me, my wannamake etsy shop is having a big old sale this week.  30% off of every single treat in the shop, until the new year:
etsy.com/shop/wannamake

production, post-production

Oh how embarrassing.  The last time I posted here I was in the middle of spring production, and now I am on the tail end of fall production.  From May to October of this last year, my life was taken over by a project I call Quilt Stories- an field work research adventure in traveling by car, popping a tent, and collecting stories across the country.  Of course there is ample documentation on the facebook, the flickr, and other places, but as winter sets in and the quilt stories I have collected simmer down into new forms, I will be writing here on some of the anthropological readings I have come across, as well as technique discoveries and rad contemporary quiltmakers that are out there in the art world.

In production news, I have learned to roll with the punches of kiln mishaps and imperfect things, and have come out with some new slip-cast forms that I am very excited about.  The jar family has grown, and pendants, decanters, gems, and a mystical tincture bottle join the collection.

spring production

It's been a while since I have posted, I have been in the studio working on production:
A batch of new spring dresses for Radish Underground in Portland, and new slip-cast wares for my new Bay Area stores- Home 101 in Berkeley, and Gravel & Gold in San Francisco.

THORNBURG - - cloaks

 I am working on a patchwork cloak commission, and revisiting the amazing works of art that are Lindsey Thornburg's Cloaks.  She uses Pendleton wool knits and other amazing blanket finds to fashion an entire line of sexy and sculptural cloaks.  She also has a dress collection that favors black lace, draped velvets, appropriated prints from afar, and really really smart cuts.  Also, the photography on her site is straight up beautiful.

mall performances

I am pretty sure I have performed in a mall before.  I was in a jazz dance class and we would perform at different suburban locations- I can remember the Christmas performance being on the floor of the Funplex roller rink.  When Gary asked me to perform at the gallery PLACE, on the top floor of the Pioneer Place Mall in Portland, I decided interactive pieces would have the most pertinence.


Saturday afternoon, "Let's Be Matching" outfitted visitors with personalized accessories that linked them to past and future participants:  

visitors from elsewhere

                                                                           happy.....

not so happy.

Sunday afternoon, "Quilt Stories" gave me an excuse to lounge inside of my quilted tent, waiting for visitors to stop in and share their stories of quilt memories:

Travis Meinolf - textiles & social practice

My dear friend Nancy sent me a link to this craft theory reading list, where I found out about the dreamer / action weaver Travis Meinolf.  His dream is to incite a future culture that is gentle and self-reliant (using The Gallery as a space for experimentation), and his tools to start the revolution are sweet weaving looms that everyone can use.  The one I am really interested in is called a laser loom, and attaches to your waist while you weave.  
(this is his demo video)

His 2008 thesis paper (MFA from CCA) Common Goods proposes a revising of culture by spreading the skill of making your own fabric:


"Our objects are a concrete expression of our culture. Production, exchange, and distribution of commodities are the driving forces of culture. Production especially is deeply linked with the structure of society. This fact gives us a lens through which to consider this
global market economy, in which seductive objects are hastily made by near slave-labor to be impetuously consumed and swiftly discarded.
But more importantly, we can become object producers ourselves. We can aspire to recapture the reins of our immediate modes of production and exchange, and then the fact of commodities as agents of culture holds great power.
If we take control of production we are taking that power back.
This is a path for those of us who would non-violently change society: change its commodities, its understanding of production, of distribution and exchange. Even the way we relate to things personally. Do you have a sweater or other garment made for you by a relative or close friend? How does that feel to use when compared with something from a store? Imagine if, rather than wearing blinders to remain ignorant of the grotesque production processes that made all of your stuff, you could celebrate and enjoy the vision of its creation you hold in your mind like
that grandmother-knit sweater! What if you could feel that warmth for each item in your household: clothes, plates, chairs, blankets, bicycles? Each thing imbued with an awareness of its loving, familiar source. "

His example of the sensual experience of wearing a handmade garment is much in line with what I envision for wannamake.  I am interested in the histories reused fabrics hold, the action of saving those fabrics from a landfill, and the satisfaction given in wearing something personalized or handmade.  It seems inevitable to feel warmth and personal connection to your household items- each one holds a story for you, even if it was mass-produced you may have an anecdote attached to how you obtained it or one special time you utilized it that imbues it with meaning.  I don't want to get into a scary preachy zone here, but sometimes it is disturbing to look at a manufactured product and start to think about the hands that made it- the place (working conditions) it was born in- the source of the materials- many of those histories that objects hold are very dark.

His paper also makes me think of the idea of the 'aesthetically sensitive', and Penny Sparke's theories on the domination of male product production dictating the aesthetic of feminine taste.  If we are able to identify our own particular taste, then we have the power to build up our surroundings to suit it.  This familiarity of functional objects that Meinolf suggests is comforting not only in that our surroundings suit our aesthetic, but that they suit our morals and priorities.

shakers and other finds...

shakers for potato fans, with a matching gravy boat and conjoined siamese cats 

Ever since I made a little set of spice shakers for a friend, I have become enamoured with S&P shakers and all the forms they live in.  It seems that any subject, shape, and size, are available to house your salt and pepper (or other spice- sweet or savory) as long as the sculpture is hollow and perforated with at least one hole.

a squirrel clinging to a giant acorn shaker and toast shakers that pop out of a tiny toaster



A trip to the antique mall today inspired me to let loose on making my next batch of shakers.

this is not a shaker, but it is a pig wearing roller skates on a music box

pair of owls in a rose bud studded sugar egg

many cutouts of young girls in a sugar egg

Sugar eggs are also not shakers, but I want to make some.