Journal of Modern Craft

My first post as a guest blogger went up on the Journal of Modern Craft this afternoon. I am going to be popping in there through December. Check out the site, some of it is a little much for me on the heavy academia tip, but overall it is a great resource creating some fantastic discussion about craft today.

Handmade Nation DVD for a holiday gift anyone?

This is a screen shot of the last steps of getting the Handmade Nation DVD to press! The final disc was sent out Tuesday to Buyolympia.com who will be releasing the DVD in November (for wholesale & retail purchases contact them)! My good friend Kate Bingaman-Burt of Obsessiveconsumption.com did the packaging design and it looks RAD!

This is one of the last steps in a now 4 year process, I am pretty dang hyped to be this close to holding a final copy of the DVD in my hand.....

New Orleans & Hamburg!

Sitting here in the French Quarter having my morning coffee before I head up the Delgado Community College for the first of two days of programing here in New Orleans. Today is programing for the students, however tomorrow there is a FREE screening open to the public at 6pm.

I haven't been here in about 8 years, it is really amazing to be back and see old friends and meet new people. I would like to extend a warm thank you to the Irma Thomas Center for W.I.S.E. (Women In Search of Excellence) Women at Delgado Community College and the New Orleans Craft Mafia for sponsoring my visit. pssssst..... Listen for me on the radio tonight at 10pm

Information about the New Orleans screenings is HERE.

This is where I am staying for my visit here.

PLUS:: If you happen to be in Hamburg, Germany or know any peeps there, today Handmade Nation is screening at 8pm at lichtmess-kino.

Milwaukee Art Museum:: MAM After Dark

Handmade Nation was a part of the Milwaukee Art Museum's MAM After Dark Series last month. Since Milwaukee is home, I was really excited to have my film showing there.

The event was a smashing success with tons of hand's-on tables, dj's and my favorite was the weavers from the ABK Weaving Center.






Cortney Heimerl (co-author of Handmade Nation the book) was out with her new son Abe to sign copies of the book.


A big thanks to everyone who came to the event and supported the Milwaukee Art Museum.

September 1-3rd: Albuquerque, NM!

Hey New Mexico you can see Handmade Nation today & tomorrow at the Guild Cinema! Three screenings a day! Information here

Oh life...you move so fast

Tonight I have a screening in my hometown at the Milwaukee Art Museum. I'm really excited to be home for the week and it should be a fun time. Information on MAM After Dark is HERE. Next week, Austin here I come! Book signing at Domy and all sorts of RAD programing you can check out HERE.

Did I mention that Portugal is amazing....

Hello from Portugal!

With so much travel on my calendar it's hard to keep up, so here are some photos from the past few weeks of events. I am currently blogging from the kitchen of my good friend Solana who I am visiting in Portugal, nothing wrong with a little vacay!


At the end of July I went to the CHA in Orlando to do a book signing with Provo Craft and the Crafty Chica was there!

Then zipped over to Philly for a premiere at the Philadelphia Buyers Market & just happened to be in town for the Amy Rice opening at Art Star Gallery & Boutique.


Me & Amy Rice at Art Star


Me & Tracy Bull of Happy Owl Glassworks


Drove up to Minneapolis for the premiere at the Soap Factory. It was a very hot and muggy weekend in 612


To San Francisco for a screening at the American Craft Council show.


Then to Los Angeles for the premiere at Cinefamily where between screenings there was a mini craft fair out back.....




Cathy of California's mini table


Totes designed by Kate Bingaman printed by our sponsor Provo Craft


Yudu demos inside the theater during the mini craft fair!

Yessssss, lot's of travel. This vacation is doing me good. If you want to see pictures of my Portugal trip, there is a photo set HERE.

Treehomes dyptic by Jill Bliss released by 20x200

Well, I think Jill Bliss has outdone herself with these "Treehome" prints she did especially for us and 20x200. This amazing dyptic hangs vertically- which I LOVE.

I blogged about this project last week but for those of you who are not familiar Jen Bekman curates 20x200 and she believes in Handmade Nation and is running this edition as a benefit for us (I still have a chunk of debt from production). I truly appreciate her and Jill's support.

Read about Jill HERE.
Sign up for the 20x200 mailing list HERE (do it, they do such RAD stuff).
And peep these amazing TREEHOMES!

TREEHOMES are available HERE & HERE

A visit to the country & all sorts of press!

I got out of town for 24 hours of NON-work to go visit Micaela O'Herlihy. Micaela, for those of you who don't know shot the footage for Handmade Nation. Micaela and her family live out in the country in Wisconsin, a good 3+ hour drive from Milwaukee where I am based. Since I am out of town so much these days I took one of my three days home this month to make the drive out and see her new house, new baby (Oota) and her preggers belly
((and of course the cutttttte goats)! I also got to visit some other amazing friends of mine in the area, the Hodapp family
(more on them soon).


Aaron and I got back late last night and I was up early this morning to do a ichat interview//convo with Kate Bingaman-Burt for the upcoming release of our 20x200 edition that we did with artist jill bliss. More info on that blogged a few days ago HERE.

Then I rushed down to Aarons shop to use the landline for a live radio interview on the Kansas City NPR affiliate KCUR which you can listen to HERE. It was a quick one but they pulled a great audio clip from the documentary from Andrew Wagner and Kathie Sever which was a nice change of pace.

After that interview I ran some errands and picked up some local produce, plus, this this great plant for $8) at the Westown Farmers market. I only get one homecooked dinner this month and it's gonna be YUMS!

Today I also got news about fantastic press in the San Francisco Chronicle covering the screening next Friday as well as some local press from my friends over at The Decider.

Looking forward to my trip to Minneapolis this weekend. Don't forget to get your tickets a head of time at Crafty Planet. There are only 100 seats per screening!

20x200 + JILL BLISS= Awesome!

I am SO SO SO excited to announce this news.....

Earlier this year on a trip to New York for a screening of Handmade Nation at the Museum of Arts and Design I had the pleasure of being introduced to Jen Bekman by our mutual friend Kate Bingaman-Burt over lunch. For those of you who are not familiar Jen is responsible for a number of amazing projects one of which is 20x200. 20x200 offers exhibition-quality limited-edition prints exclusively online. New editions are released twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and alternate between photography and fine-art. It was at this time that Jen expressed interest in helping out with raising funds for Handmade Nation when she learned I am still working on paying off the production cost of the film.

It was after this meeting that I approached artist Jill Bliss about creating two new pieces of work for a duel release through 20x200. Jill is featured in Handmade Nation the book and documentary and I am a huge fan of her work.

I am so very pleased to announce the release of two beautiful limited-edition print editions by Jill Bliss through 20x200 available on August 12th. Proceeds from the sale of one of the prints directly benefits the production cost of Handmade Nation.

I want to thank you for your continual support of Handmade Nation's mission to promote DIY art, craft & design and the creative community it encourages and empowers.

To be automatically notified when the editions by Jill Bliss are released and to be among the first to learn of all new editions featured on 20x200, sign up for Jen Bekman's newsletters.

PHILLY! Handmade Nation premiere!

I am here & holy crap did it rain today!

I got in this afternoon and already went to the Mutter Museum & The Independence Seaport Museum for the Tattoos in the Life of the American Sailor exhibit. Now, I'm off to Art Star for the Amy Rice opening.

Don't forget to come see me and Handmade Nation tomorrow:

August 1st: Philadelphia, PA
6-8 pm, Public admission: $5 at the door. Seating is limited.
Pennsylvania Convention Center, RM 103
1101 Arch Street, Philadelphia, 19107
Advanced tickets can be purchased at: ART STAR GALLERY
Sponsored by the Buyers Market of American Craft
Director Q&A following the screening, moderated by Kris Stewart, editor of NICHE Magazine.

Xenobia Bailey at Kohler Arts Center

If you have the option to go to the Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan WI it's always a good idea. Right now you should go check out the amazing installation done mostly in crochet by Xenobia Bailey. I just found her blog, which looks really awesome too! is great check it out.

I snuck these images of Xenobia's work from the show for you to peep and get excited about.....

VACAY!

I am taking the week off to go up North in Wisconsin and only checking email once a day! Making a huge effort to just being as lazy as I can, which is reallllly hard for me. Found this great thrift score on the way up here. Crying girl velvet painting for $2 in Two Rivers. Not bad at all....

Baby update!

Cortney's son Abe is doing so so fine, he is about one month now. Here we are hanging out yesterday afternoon. I've been trying to see them as much as possible in between trips. Luckily they only live a few blocks away!

PHILLY: Ticket giveaway!

Handmade Nation ticket giveaway on INDIE FIXX, the deadline is July 22nd so snap to it!

ATLANTA:: Handmade Nation is coming your way!

We got into the Atlanta Underground Film Festival Aug 26-30th

Dates & Times coming soon HERE

Oh Smithsonian you did me right + Edmonton, AB on Saturday!

Here is my weekly wrap-up peeps! I am taking next week off, going to a cabin in the woods!

On Wednesday I took the train from Baltimore to DC. I got picked up by my friend Kate at Union Station. We walked back to her house and then just chilled out with her boyfriend. I had a long list of suggested spots to visit in DC but I've been traveling so much we opted for Dinner and Harry Potter (it was RAD).

Thursday I ate breakfast at Founding Farmers (highly recommended) with all of my Milwaukee to DC transplant friends. It was great. The headed over to the Renwick Gallery. From their site: "The Renwick Gallery, a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, features one of the finest collections of American craft in the United States. Its collections, exhibition program and publications highlight the best craft objects and decorative arts from the 19th century to the present." I met up with Katie Crooks the program director who introduced me to Nicholas Bell the curator who was initially interested in bringing the film there. My screening was scheduled for 12 and about 80 people showed up for the programing.







It was such a huge honor to see something I made in such a grand space. After the screening I did a brief Q&A and book signing. Then Nicholas and I had a really great casual meeting and talked about the indie craft community.

Thanks Renwick Gallery, you added another amazing notch to where the gospel of DIY has been spread.

Next stop for the film is this Saturday July 18th in Edmonton, AB presented by "Make It". Tickets are available HERE. I am heading back to Milwaukee for a little down time. My next stop is the Philly screening on August 1st. Tickets for that show are available at Art Star.

All you UK crafters Handmade Nation is screening for FREE on July 25th at the V&A and July 26th in Northampton, UK at The FishMarket.

Check out my Baltimore photo set on my other flickr account with images from Baltimore's ArtScape Midway. One of my favorite things I've been at in a long while.

Baltimore!

The screening last night in Baltimore was fantastic. I met so many lovely peeps and some great old friends from Seattle and Milwaukee came to see the film as well! I also got to spend a little time around Baltimore.




If you come here make sure to visit the American Visionary Arts Museum. I was lucky enough to get to meet the director and founder Rebecca Hoffberger who was one of the most inspiring women I have ever met.





I also had the treat of getting to go up into the Bromo Seltzer clock tower! My hostess Kristen Grey works in the building and it had the BEST view of Baltimore! So so awesome.



Time to go catch the amtrak to DC for my screening at the Smithsonian tomorrow! Come see me or send peeps down there on their lunch breaks!

BALTIMORE: free screening today!

San Francisco: check this out

Go to this
Originally uploaded by Handmade Nation!.

Chronicle Books is hosting this event on Monday if you are looking for something fun to do....