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Posts Tagged ‘craft’

Treasure Hunt

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2012| 2 Comments »

Eben Horton, a glassblower with a studio in Wakefield, Rhode Island, loved hearing how glassblowers in Lincoln City, Oregon, had hidden special creations on a local beach for a community treasure hunt.

Inspired to do something similar, he settled on the idea of glass floats, the kind traditionally used on fishing nets.

The Block Island Tourism Council helped Horton launch the Glass Float Project. The council’s site has details.

“WHEN: The hunt begins June 2nd, 2012, and continues indefinitely. It only ends when all the floats have been found!

“WHAT: 200 Glass Floats (glass orbs about the size of a grapefruit) will be hidden on Block Island. Floats will be dated, numbered and stamped with the shape of Block Island. All floats are clear glass except for 12 (because it is 2012), which are special colored orbs. One super special float is made entirely out of gold leaf.

“WHERE: 100 floats on beaches and 100 floats on Greenway trails. Floats will be hidden above the high tide mark but NEVER in the dunes or up the bluffs.”

Understandably, they don’t want people walking on the dunes, which protect the island in storms.

Check the council website for the bio on the artist, too: “Eben creates custom one of a kind pieces on an individual basis out of his studio that he calls ‘The Glass Station’- a converted 1920’s gas station.” More.

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Do-It-Yourself Projects for Kids

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 23, 2012| 4 Comments »

Do you believe that kids are overprogrammed with structured activities — not enough time for daydreaming, not enough time for experimenting?

Well, here’s a site that might encourage parent-and-child experimenting on do-it-yourself projects. Sounds like it could be rewarding in a variety of ways (collaborating with parents, nurturing creativity, building confidence and independence).

The NY Times writes that a couple who do home improvement got an idea for projects that might interest children.

They “developed Built by Kids (builtbykids.com), a Web site devoted to do-it-yourself projects that parents and children can collaborate on, like herb gardens planted in a wheelbarrow, refurbished tatami tables and handmade wagons. The tasks were tested and refined during a series of daylong workshops with friends at the couple’s Los Angeles bungalow.

“Their intention is to revive some of the backyard know-how that children had before the distractions of television, video games and other off-the-shelf entertainment, [founder Timothy] Dahl said. The do-it-yourself movement is enjoying a long, fashionable run as an alternative to consumer culture, he added, but when children are involved, the results are ‘too often dismissed as disposable “crafts.” ‘ “ Read more. Try a project.

Photograph: BuiltByKids.com

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Flying Paper Jellyfish

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 11, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Dutch artist Peter Gentenaar makes stunning paper sculptures that Nathaniel Ross at Inhabitat (“design will save the world”) describes as “soaring through the air like flying jellyfish. …

“Peter Gentenaar’s art was born out of the limitations of what he could (or couldn’t) create with store-bought paper. So with the help of the Royal Dutch Paper Factory, he built his own paper factory and devised a custom beater that processes and mills long-fiber paper pulp into the material you see in his artwork. He saw the potential that wet paper had when reinforced with very fine bamboo ribs, and he learned to form the material into anything his imagination would allow.”

Check out the machine Gentenaar uses to create his paper. You can buy one. He describes it thus:

“A machine suitable for beating long fibers, flax, hemp or sisal, as well as for beating soft and short fibers like cotton linters. The machine is built in stainless steel and has a bronze bedplate. The bronze bedplate has the same curve as the knife roll, this gives effective grinding/beating over a surface of: ± 20 x 10 cm. The distance between the roll and the bedplate can be finely adjusted. Also the weight under which the fibers are beaten can be varied from 0 to 60 kilo’s. This means you can use the beater on very delicate fibers and on very strong and rough fibers as well. I never have to cook my fibers. There is a factory guarantee on the beater of one year. At present I’m getting a CE mark, which ensures certain safety standards. There are over 70 beaters of this type sold over the last 12 years and they are all still working.”

Art: Peter Gentenaar

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Binding Your Own Books

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 16, 2011| 3 Comments »

My friend and former colleague Mary Ann acquires, edits, and designs lovely craft books for Quarry. Today on Facebook, she linked to this article by one of her authors, Los Angeles Times writer Jeannine Stein.

Jeannine has published two craft books on making your own books: Re-Bound: Creating Handmade Books from Recycled and Repurposed Materials and, this year, Adventures in Bookbinding: Handcrafting Mixed-Media Books. This quote from Stein’s LA Times article gives you an idea of how she thinks about these projects.

“As I learned more complicated traditional bindings, I also gravitated toward unorthodox materials such as 19th century photographs, old quilts, cereal boxes and vintage record albums. My fascination with these materials was really born from books. Reading Laura Ingalls Wilder books made me crazy for worn, faded quilts, calico fabric and rough, unbleached cotton and linen that to this day inform my work. I cannot go to a flea market or thrift store without pawing through every basket of vintage linens, and I have a vast collection of 19th century tin types, carte de visite photographs and cabinet cards that inevitably become book covers or embellishments.”

By chance, my friend Kristina, who is an artist and teaches after-school art classes in her studio, is deep into planning student projects for the coming school year, with a focus on the art of books and bookmaking. I like making connections in general, and in particular, I have been passing leads to Kristina from Mary Ann. And while I was at it, I also promoted Quarry Books to the owner of Dabblers, a craft shop in Concord.

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Among the Artists

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 5, 2011|

I met my friend Mary Ann at the famous management journal where I met Asakiyume. Like Asakiyume, Mary Ann has too big a spirit for business management articles and has for the last 10 years been in a more artistic field. From soup to nuts, she edits craft books for Quarry — that is, she finds the authors and designs and edits the books all the way through page proofs. She has been instrumental in moving the field from how-to manuals for specific projects to a broader and more intriguing perspective. Her approach can be summarized as “here are some ideas about how to do a creative project; take the ball and run with it.”
        Mary Ann was in the area last week to check in at Quarry headquarters. We arranged to meet yesterday in a suitable venue — an independent book store, with a nice coffee bar and extras like muffins and Vietnamese salad rolls.
        It sure is fun to talk to artistic friends. Mary Ann gave me some great leads on websites that I have already shared with friends. Here is a fun one belonging to Massachusetts-based artist agent Lilla Rogers. Another one, Urban Sketchers, contains wonderful sketches from all over the world. (Perhaps you would like to add your own.)
        Mary Ann’s latest craft book is Playing with Books, by Jason Thompson, and it looks wonderful. Check out the book on Jason’s website, Rag and Bone.
        Mary Ann and I were happy to see that the book store we chose to meet in had some Quarry books. But later in the day I checked out a craft store in Concord (MA) and was disappointed that their books were mostly from another company.
        In spite of my disappointment about the books they carry, I love this craft store. It has a great new concept. You can work on crafts there and just dabble, just try things out, while having a nice sandwich or George Howells coffee. Because the idea is to try out the equipment and materials and find out if you want to go deeper after some dabbling, the store is called Dabblers.
        This blog is a project of birthstone jewelry company Luna & Stella. I will post comments of readers who contact me at suzannesmom@lunaandstella.com.

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