Fun-a-Day 2010! This Weekend!

It's that time of year again!


And unlike last year... I actually finished my project AND got it turned in on time! Which, let me tell you, was no small feat. The drop off day was last Saturday and as those of you from the Philly area can attest... we had a bit of snow that day.

So I bundled up my knots and trudged them the three blocks to the drop off site. Snow up to my knees! It was beautiful!

And the project itself came out pretty well too:


Raph let me use her cursive typewriter to type the labels for all the knots (date, fig #, historical name.) And after only a few embarrassing incidents with a can of gold spray paint...


Come on out on Friday or Saturday to see all the amazing projects! There are always SOO many creative collections: the show is always worth coming to West Philly for.



*** in other news!! Because the snow blanketed the city last weekend, the opening event for the Text/Textile Show has been POSTPONED until this Sunday, Feb 14th! Be my Valentine and come see my work! 1-5 pm, 704 Catherine st at the DaVinci Art Alliance.

Text/Textile Show Opening This Weekend!

Come and see my art in a local textile show! Here's all the information for the opening:

"This exhibit at Da Vinci Art Alliance aims to complement various citywide exhibits happening in conjunction with Philagrafika 2010, a multi-sited international festival of contemporary art (www. Philagrafika.org). Participating artists for "TEXT/TEXTILE" were encouraged to think text, grid, language, words, script, graphics; and think texture, technique, tradition, innovation!!!

As curator, I want to represent what is happening in Philadelphia's own studios w/in the context of this specific challenge: text/textile. Studio artists, teaching artists, student artists, professional artisans, and exquisite crafters... all inclined to find & create a link with the concept/context of text/textile were invited to submit work, from which I chose select pieces, for this salon-style exhibition."

I decided to submit my knit postcards to the Text/Textile show:


And although presentation/installation is, ahem, NOT my strong point... I am lucky enough to be surrounded by other, talented artists to help me out. (Even at the last minute... thank goodness for overnight shipping.)

Eileen made me crazy amazing little individual shelves for the cards! They're made of masonite cut by the magical laser machine at SAIC.

(They smelled of wood fires and looked like mission-style furniture!) They were PERFECT and I can't wait to see how the cards look hung in the gallery. Thanks, Eileen!

The show looks super interesting: I can't wait to see all the art installed. Also, Philagraphika looks amazing!! If you're in the Philly area, or planning on visiting any time in the next THREE MONTHS you should check out some of the million and a half events going on around the city! Overwhelming calendar of awesome events! There's even an exhibition by one of my absolute favorite artists, Lisa Anne Auerbach!! Although I've been inspired by her knit pieces for years, the piece she has set up here is print-based. Oooooh, I can't wait to check it out!

Soo... yeah! if you're in Philly on Sunday, and the snow doesn't bury you in too deeply, come and see me at the opening! (Opening is from 1-5pm, I'll probably be there between 2 and 4pm.)

The Pie Diaries: Month 5

January: Time Travel Pie

(aka Creme de Menthe Pie)

In honor of the beginning of the last season of LOST, I present pie from a bygone era. Creme de Menthe makes me think of 1950's holiday cocktail parties and a time when it was totally acceptable to make an entire desert out of other, pre-packaged desserts. The alcohol content, albeit more symbolic than anything else, evokes a bit of a desperate housewife image. Also, it's green. YES! And although the time tumbling cast of LOST only spent a hot second in the 50's... hell, why not! (Thanks to Brece for the recipe!)

16-18 chocolate oreo cookies, (my aunt used 24 for a 10" pie plate)

1/3 c. melted oleo

26 large marshmallows

1/2 c. milk

1/4 c. green creme de menthe

1 c. whipping cream, whipped and unsweetened (believe me you do not need any more sugar!)

2 squares chocolate

Crush cookies to fine crumbs (blender). add melted oleo and mix well. shape into pie pan and chill. mix marshmallows and milk in top of double boiler. stir over low heat until marshmallows have melted. cool to room temperature. add creme de menthe. fold into whipped heavy cream. spoon into pie shell and chill. garnish with grated chocolate and remaining additional heavy cream and/or fresh mint leaves.

(*Oleo?? Clearly I didn't use Oleo. I used Earth Balance. Which is like Oleo but fully endorsed by the Whole Foods Generation. Seemed to work just fine as a replacement.)


Apparently Lee owns a blender! (Which would have come in really handy that time I tried to make a ginger-snap crust a few months ago and ended up making the most pathetic mortar and pestle out of a titanium thermos and a metal bowl. Not even kidding. It wasn't pretty. Or quiet.) The blender crushed those oreos with ease, though, so the crust was completed without insult or injury.

Who doesn't love a good double boiler? It took a while to heat up (mostly because the only other pot i own is a huge soup pot...) but the marshmallows melted quickly and evenly once the water was finally boiling.


Oh man... adding the Creme de Menthe was like adding alcoholic food coloring! I have no idea what kind of drinks you'd make with Creme de Menthe... but that stuff is STRONG! (The color, that is, not the alcohol...) I imagine you have to mix it with a bunch of stuff to dilute it enough to be safe for drinking.

I topped the pie, fittingly enough, with shavings from an individually pre-packaged, mini hershey's chocolate bar after letting the pie chill for several hours in the fridge. And, when served, it was delicious. No seriously. DELICIOUS! I mean, how could it NOT be when it's main ingredients are Oreos, marshmallows, alcohol and sugar?? But, astoundingly, the pie was even better than the sum of the delicious delicious parts. LOST club gave it a unanimous A+ rating, with some members risking missing important scenes to serve themselves seconds! I HIGHLY recommend this recipe to anyone who enjoys the mint/chocolate combination and wooing their friends.

Success!

Thoughts On Knots

"Down through the ages the tying of knots and the making of rope have played highly important roles in the life of Man. That there has always been a need for rope or cord of some kind can be readily appreciated. Since rope could have served but few useful purposes unless it could have been attached in some manner to the things it was desired to pull, life, or secure, Man, at the time of his first conception of the use of rope, must have conceived of some means of tying knots."

Thus begins the introduction of Raoul Graumont and John Hensel's Encyclopedia of Knots and Fancy Rope Work: Fourth Edition (1942). And although the history given in their brief preface is entirely dated, some interesting tidbits were intriguing enough to be worth repeating here.

The Making of Rope! (as of 1942, remember... Mostly, I just loved the old-school, industrial photos that the book posited as "how to make rope" as if it were the only way.)

Step one: Bales of fiber are put through a series of carding machines that transform the "hemp" into a consistency referred to as "silver.")

Step two: Through multiple cardings, the "silvers" are separated into smaller strands and those strands are spun into yarn.

Step three: Individual strands of yarn (of differing, specific guages) are plied together to make rope.

Step four: Multi-stranded ropes are again plied to create thicker, stronger, finished ropes.

Step Five: Uhm.. this diagram shows more plying? The photos aren't actually labeled all that clearly...

Step six: Finished ropes are wound onto spools to maintain their twist and tensions.

Knots: Symbolism and Superstition

I have found, through my informal investigations of history and myth, that objects with the most important functionalities are often associated with the most powerful symbolisms and superstitions: a correlation that is exemplified perfectly by the history of knots.

One example of this is the Early Egyptian, Greek and Roman practice of omitting knots in any of their artistic renderings. No knot was illustrated in their paintings, even where they very clearly should have been. Instead, rope was draped over the spot to indicate the existence of an absent knot. It's theorized that the reasoning behind this tradition was the supposed relationship of rendering to reality: were the knots to be permanently embodied in art the knot it represented in real life would thusly be permanently tied. Since knots were used as temporary holdings for farmers, sailors, etc. the inability to untie a knot would have disasterous consequences.

Similarly, among the Lapps, certain Germanic races, and the aboriginals of Borneo (as well as other ancient peoples) there was a strong superstition against pregnant women wearing knots or knotted garments. It was thought that the presence of a knot would cause complications during childbirth. In the more superstitious cases, even the husbands of pregnant women would abdicate the wearing of knots until the child was born. In some sections of Scandinavia even use of words related to knots were seen as having great power: parents with a large number of children would often name a son "Knute" or "Canute" (translations of "knot") in the hopes that the name would act as a form of birth control.

Among some European tribes, there was a belief that knots had the ability to either cause or cure illness. One such superstition was that a fever could be cured by tying knots in the bows of a willow tree: one knot for every day of fever. Then by the incantation of certain words the tree would acquire the fever and the patient would be cured.

Witches and Wizards were often considered to be able to control the magical powers of knots. Sailors would go to a witch or wizard to purchase "the wind tied up in knots," embodied by a piece of rope tied into three knots. In an emergency, these sailors were told that by untying the knots in sequence they could release the winds: first a strong wind, then a gale and finally a hurricane. (Apparently, there were risks that came along with the use of such powerful magic.)

Knots have also led to numerous common words and phrases, such as "cutting the Gordian Knot" (a bold and direct way of dealing with a complicated project), knots per hour (the method of measuring boat speed- actually derived from the use of knots) and the literary term "denoument" (a french translation of unknotting or unravelling that refers to the point in a plot where complicated things become clear).

Oh man.. I could go on and on. There are infinite applications for knots, cultural histories that range the globe and span history, even a whole branch of mathematics that deals with "knot theory." I had no idea that by committing to this project that I would be presented by such a wealth of metaphor... which just proves yet again why i love textile so much: The history of our culture, of humanity, is tied up by textiles. (Pun intended.)


**Sources consulted:

Encyclopedia of Knots and Fancy Rope Work: Fourth Edition (1942), by Raoul Graumont and John Hensel

Rigamaroles & Ragamuffins: Unpicking words we derive from textiles (2007), by Elinor Kapp

wikpedia entry for "knots"

Happy New Years and Merry Fun-A-Day 2010!

I've been a little busy lately with grad applications (done! now onto the fafsa... grossss) and other crafty stuff but that doesn't mean I've forsaken Fun-A-Day! (<-- Check out some of the other awesome projects-in-progress at the ArtClash website!)

Fun-A-Day 2010: Knot-A-Day!

Over the summer I met a fantastic artist named Debra Folz who had a contagious infatuation with knots. She had brought a great knot dictionary with her to Haystack and we even used one of the knots on our group project. As the summer wound down a bunch of us decided we wanted to carry the project on into the fall... but... let's just say that none of our momentum stood up to the test of our real lives. Ooops! So when Fun-A-Day rolled around, what better than to pick up where we left off in August?


I actually had kind of a hard time finding a good knot dictionary. The Philadelphia Free Library had alarmingly few and none to my liking... and the internet had surprisingly few diagrams that weren't specifically for camping or fishing. So when I was in Providence last weekend I picked up Deb's dictionary- the same one we had perused so enthusiastically over the summer.



Look at the super cool diagrams!! You know how much I love diagrams... mmmm... Each knot has it's own name and the descriptions are pretty hilarious. Get this one:

"Fig. 60: The Two-Strained Wall or Japanese Granny is formed by walling the strands up through each others parts, as illustrated in PLATE 53, Fig. 2. This is the Japanese method of tying a Granny Knot."

Walling the strands up? What does that even mean?? Nuts. But so much fun!

I love the way the knots kind of look like dna couplets...

My plan is to mount and frame each knot so as to accumulate a collection of well labeled knots for the show in February. How nautical, no? Nineteen days down... I'll keep you updated...

The Pie Diaries: Month 4

December: Cognac Cinnamon Blueberry Pie

As per the request of my family, December's pie continued the apparent tradition of alcoholic pies. (The choice was between the blueberry and a Creme De Menthe pie suggested by my friend Brece, which is sure to be January's pie!) The blueberries were hand picked and frozen by my mother and, working with what we had in the house, I decided to use Cointreau instead of proper cognac which I haven't drunk since having a particular experience one Tuesday evening in London. (Roskos, I'm looking at you. And I totally won that game of Rummy even though I think we lost most of the cards that night.)

(Twinkly liquor.)

As for this month's gluten-free pie crust solution, I used the often fabled, never before seen, store bought gluten free crust.

(Gasp! It's like catching a UNICORN!)

Here's the recipe:

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust
5 cups blueberries, frozen or fresh
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
1-2 tbsp cognac (Cointreau is nice as well)

Preheat oven to 350*. In a roomy bowl, mix together the blueberries, sufar, flour, cannamon, salt and cognac. Stir until thoroughly combined. Pour in the pie crust, top with the ipper crust and bake at 350* for 45-60 minutes or until the crust is brown and the filling is bubbling over.

Note: Cool overnight for the best setting up, but this pie is juicy. Uding the tiny berries it might set up nicely; with the larger berries it stays pretty saucy, in which case, you might as well cut it after 2 hours when it is still a bit warm and enjoy the delicious juiciness with ice cream!

Prep. time: 40 min
Baking Time: 45-60 min

There was much skepticism in the making of this pie. Firstly, we all had our doubts as to whether or not all five cups of blueberries would even fit into the shell. Next, 1 1/2 cups of sugar seemed an awful lot. Since there was no indication that I should thaw the blueberries, I added the sugar (and the rest of the ingredients) directly into the frozen berries. Well, the sugar was very resistant to being mixed up evenly... I let the mixture sit on top of the heated oven, hoping the rising heat would help everything blend, but eventually I just gave it one last stir and dumped them into the pastry shell. Lo and behold! They all fit. A miracle! Less of a miracle was what happened when I tried to use a second gluten-free pastry shell as a top crust.

(Pie-tastrophy!)

The thing about gluten is that it actually functions like it sounds: as a glue... holding together flour and the other elements of pastries. Sooo... when you take the gluten out, even if you replace it with something similar, the resulting product tends to be a bit, uhm... crumbly? As demonstrated by the above photo. There was NO sculpting the ugly out of that pie. Every time I tried to reconfigure it, the crust simply broke off. I opted to stop trying and stuck it quickly in the oven as-was.

(Galaxy pie!)

It baked down to something at least a little bit prettier. (Thanks, mostly, to my mother's ingenious sprinkling of distracting cinnamon. Kudos, mom!) But, I have to admit that this pie did not live up to my expectations. The frozen crust wasn't all that tasty. As is common with gluten-free products that are primarily made with rice flour, the texture was kind of sandy... gritty, even. I wasn't sure whether it was the overwhelming texture of the crust or if the sugar never really had set in but the even the texture of the fruit filling was a little rough. Delicious, undeniably, but the texture was ultimately distracting. Also, you couldn't really taste the Cointreau at all. Bummer. Ahh well... not every pie can be a perfect success. Better luck next year!

**Anyone have any flavor suggestions, favorite recipes or events to which you would like to request the presence of a pie? Let me know! 2010 is gonna be the year of creative cooking. That... and, y'know, other stuff.

Reflections on Renegade '09

A few weekends ago I was lucky enough to share a booth at the Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago! The weekend was stupendously cold and surprisingly full of motorcycles (not AT the fair... just between us and the fair...) but totally awesome!

(Us and other vendors setting up in just one of the rooms.)

We could tell almost at once that, for many of the vendors, this is was they did for a living. Their booths were beautifully cohesive- with background curtains and large logos. Our booth.. in contrast... looked more like all three of our studios all exploded enthusiasm:

(Too much stuff? Never!)

It was funny, actually, 'cause it ended up being kind of hard to see us sitting behind that mountain of brightly colored objects. So we had to position ourselves so that we could see customers and then JUMP OUT! at them and try to convince them to buy things.

(photo stolen from the Renegade Flkr of the event!)

(Sexy view from our table. Note the sun pouring in and BLINDING us.)

The fair was held at the Pulaski Field House... somewhere near Wicker Park. The space was great! There were five HUGE rooms, spread out over two floors, full of vendors. It was actually kind of overwhelming. So much of the stuff was really expensive (which didn't stop me from coming home with some choice purchases.) But it was really awesome to see so many people hand-making and selling their wares for the holidays... and even more awesome to see people shopping for them!

(The craft fair in full swing!)

We estimated that over a thousand people walked by our table! (Of that thousand.. somewhere around 200 picked up this one orange wallet I made without buying it. Lame! But hilarious.) Every room was packed! It was awesome.

And, of course, hanging out with friends made the weekend all the more better!

(The gluten-free cupcakes didn't hurt, either.)

As a first craft fair experience, I'm glad I got to participate in one as monumental, and as established, as Renegade. There has been a lot of conversation over the past few years about the nature of the so-called Handmade Nation and it's place in the DIY movement. One of the main goals of these movements is to connect individual artists to buyers while at the same time endowing everyone with the permission that is often deemed necessary for making. It is about the power of the individual and the momentum that is made possible through community. And I was really looking forward to experiencing some of that at Renegade. But I have to admit that I'm not sure I really did.

Perhaps it is the pervasive nature of professional branding (in the style of corporatization) or perhaps it is the competitive nature of sales events but I noticed that, especially on the first day, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement between the vendors to not interact. (Except for the six year old daughter of a vendor in our room who adopted us immediately. She sparkled, we sparkled... it seemed like a good match.) It really wasn't until a few hours before packing up our wares that we even started to interact with the vendors in our immediate vicinity. Ok ok, I guess I can't place all the blame for this separation outside myself; I had as much agency to strike up conversations with other artists as they did with me... but there was this sense that, as professionals, there was a strict customer/vendor relationship that was to be adhered to. And there was no getting around the intense sales mentality. I found myself slipping easily back into the sell-sell-sell mindset as I talked to customers, which is something I have intentionally abandoned since working retail. I very much prefer to use my making as a tool for building connections: sewing needed objects for friends and if possible, trading them for it instead of asking for money. Now, I know Mr. Obama would call me a "rabble rousing anti-capitalist" for such behavior... and most of my friends would point out that I actually love making money and selling stuff but... I don't know. It's just something I think about kind of a lot.

So... in conclusion... although I had a total blast at the craft fair, I don't think I'll be doing another one in the near future. (Unless Lucy and Nellie ask me to 'cause I just can't say no to those ladies.) Instead, I'd rather be part of the conversation: what is the role of the handmade object? What is the role of the hand-making? What does this say and how can we use this momentum to bring people together? Mmm... sounds like a good craft night convo to me.



*** Oh! And on a related note! I have a ton of leftover merch that will be for sale on my etsy after the holidays! I wanted to get them up there in time for Christmas but seeing as I leave for MA tomorrow that doesn't look too possible. But come January I promise riches of make-up bags, belt bags, wallets, and post-cards galore!