Personal Interjection Plus

the last few weeks have kept me pretty busy, what between physical and emotional cleansing, designing some new skirts, doing homework, piecing together work, and of course my ever-evolving social calendar. add to that tap dance class and i have barely had the chance to make time for being depressed.

so i haven't been producing as much as i'd like to. looks like i'll have to wait till the next round of Mission Indie Mart to be a vendor and make some buck for my wares. but something worth mentioning here: i'll be working at the Aunt Lute publishing table at the Radical Women Conference this weekend. we'll be selling Aunt Lute books to the amazing folk who grace the conference. i'm more than a little excited to be surrounded by a sea of female revolutionaries...the energy will much resemble that of the Bay Area Girl's Rock Camp benefit: empowering and inspiring with electricity in the air.

oh yes, and one more thing: the fashion event i am styling this thursday. it's called Planet X. Not only will i be responsible for doing the last check to make sure the models are perfect and sending them out on the runway, but i will also be actually dressing and styling the male models, since the design company rep won't be there to choose their outfits. shweet. total big deal for me. just the adrenaline rush i've been looking for.

and since i can't leave you without an image...here's a great piece of handiwork i saw the other day. barbie bondage!

Maximum Rock N Roll Artgasm

this week i was asked to co-lead a zine making workshop at a benefit for the Bay Area Girls Rock Camp - the Bay Area's permutation of the Girls Rock Camp that originated in Portland. this past summer was their first year of camp and they're doing awesome - this week they are moving into a real live office space, and paying themselves! it gives me hope that personally and politically sustainable grassroots programs are alive and kicking. the icing on the cake is that the benefit was at a sweet non-profit, all ages music venue in Berkeley called the Gilman. will definitely be making my way over there in the near future.



the zine making workshop was a fabulous mayhem-magical amalgam of puff paint, cut & paste, markers, and of course creative genius. we rolled in with our own zine, the Ultamini Guide to Zines, for people to take home and stay inspired. and we were asked to lead the workshop at next year's rock camp!




Now to the Artgasm portion of the evening...

when: Saturday night
where: Benefit for Girls Rock Camp, the Gilman in Berkeley
who: Purple Rhinestone Eagle
what: a trio of hard-driving, incredibly talented, invariably Loud women rockers from portland. the combination of the almost-falsetto lead vocals, a healthy dose of rage, and the intense heart thumping beats reminded me of one of my favorite female rock bands of all time, sleater-kinney. it made me want to dance, scream, rock, and be back in college again. good times.

bad day, good mood

let's just call this a personal interjection, since things like these will appear only so often, and since it is not specifically design/ craft/ textile/ art related.

some days i feel like i'm being sucked into the vortex of my life and all i can expect myself to do is swim around in it, finding rest in the form of an occasional buoy. if i can avoid the emotional undertow, all the better (usually i can't). but sometimes i manage to wake up in this mood. and i revel in those days.

Artgasm

my last few days have been rife with sensory-titillating artworks.
consider this an e-dossier of this week's artgasm-worthy work.

when: Sunday morning
where: Ashby fleamarket, Berkeley
who: Goldiloks
what: a collection of wearable and visual art based on collage. goldilocks dresses old windows, shadowboxes, and woodblocks in stimulating color palates. conceptually, she incorporates elements of pop culture and the idea of lost memories (dare i say both reflective of the broader concept of inherited cultural histories) into her work. she also decorates baked goods! talk about mixed media. you can read a little article about her at ill-literacy dot com, or you can look at her flickr account to see all of her amazing work. she is most definitely working it.




when: Sunday afternoon
where: Gallery Route One, Point Reyes CA
who: Pam Bolton and Cindy Cleary
what: an amazing collaborative installation piece which focuses on our interactions with and connections to trees. in addition to trees, stumps, and rocks carefully placed throughout the space there were paintings which incorporated some element of trees - leaves, natural bark dyes, whathaveyou - and which were an equally stunning addition to the space. i wish i had taken some pictures. but this brief and inadequate video will have to serve as your glimpse into a show that can really only be taken in using all five senses. i know, it's not fair to you.



when: Tuesday evening
where: Yoshi's Restaurant and Jazz Cafe, Oakland
who: José González
what: "José González from Sweden" is how this classical guitar virtuoso (as jazmine describes him) introduced himself to us at the beginning of his set. he then proceeded to lull my mind into a melodic, lyrical trance while simultaneously managing to galvanize my body through his percussive inclinations. some of the songs would work well as lullabies, while others were torrential in their vibrant angst. and yet throughout, his fingers and hands worked with ease; only the curve of his neck, the crooked focus of his face on the fretboard, gave any indication of how consumed he was by the instrument. also, one of the percussionists played a mouth piano! (also called a melodica.) i just can't get enough.

Charmed, I'm Sure

i found some old shrinky dink stuff that i made during a fit of creative boredom one afternoon in the suburbs at a friends house, long long ago. (okay, not that long. last year.) most of it was entirely useless for anything remotely interesting, with the exception of two little keys i made...
i figured i'd make them into dangling earrings for my friend ladi since she rocks the plastic earring look, and wears it well.

of course, once one little key was at the bottom of the earring, it looked sort of sad. alone. graceless. "let's give it friends!" was the general consensus, and ladi, being the ever-prepared crafter/thrifter/finder of random junk that she is, pointed me straight to a jar full of little plastic charms. a dream was born, and so were these earrings.

accessorize my fist!

...or any part of my body, really.

the problem with having worked with a jewelry designer for a year - being taken to trade shows and learning techniques in handcrafting high quality jewelry myself - is that i am now severely disappointed by most all 'handmade' jewelry in my price range. (ah, if ever i thought that the adage 'ignorance is bliss' wasn't true!)

my best jewelry score (and a tried and true conversation piece) are my Chee-Me-No earrings, made by Lisa Cimino. scored through a trade show. i'm sure they were expensive but i don't even remember how much they cost - it was worth the price! i'll never let these go. she even made the posts bigger to match my earlobe gauge. fabulous.

the other go-to piece of show-stopping jewelry is my jerry rigged cascading gold chain necklace, which i made by (cleverly!) stringing three gold chains together and creating multiple cascading layers.

i often fantasize about making my own accessories, about having a jewelry bench to sit at, with fire and soldering pick in hand, making all kind of adornment for myself. alas, with those expensive tools out of my reach at the moment, i will have to settle for what i can find from the meager offerings at bead stores in san francisco, dick blick, and jewelry suppliers online (without breaking the bank). hopefully what i come up will be as original and amazing as i'm convinced it will be. pictures to come.

first item on the wishlist: a hand saw! will have to pick that up tomorrow. it's great for making jump rings.

today's steal deal...and a bit of jeopardy.

recently, i've been daily and devoutly scouring my mainstay thriftstores for that perfect fall boot. while i haven't found anything in that department, today i found a beautiful, deep navy blue pair of nickels - as always, the italian made shoes hypnotize me. with a cross back, ankle strap, charming gold buckles and closed toes, these scream sexy librarian. always the feminine look i strive for. and what's better? what makes this today's steal deal? the shoes were three dollars at thriftown. three dollars.



in other news, my friend jazmine has started a blog called what's ur damage. in her first post she introduces herself by listing her 7 dream categories if her life were a game of Jeopardy.
so, in case you didn't feel you knew me, here are mine. what are yours?

1. superficial fashion and textile snobbery
2. armchair psychoanalysis
3. craigslist W4W
4. virgo astrology
5. sex education
6. the world of chocolate
7. sociological musings

upcoming: pictures of silk wallets! and my latest skirt design! information on my new website! more exclamation points!