Youth Carpentry at Root Division

This past fall I taught a weekly woodworking class for some of the youth from 7 Teepees, a nonprofit for teens that is next door to Root Division. It was a small group, only about 6 students, all middleschoolers. They made and then painted boxes using wood that was donated for the class. All the hammering was loud (especially since they were doing it in the gallery!), but it was a lot of fun- definitely want to do more teaching.

Auf Wiedersehen, Space Waves!

Space Waves was up at the Aldea Home store on Valencia Street and was bought by a German woman. Woo hoo! I made a crate and packed it like a champ...

AWFS Fair

I received an educational scholarship to go to the Association of Woodworking and Furniture Suppliers' trade show this summer. There were a lot of very fancy machines to oggle. Above: Martin panel saw... Below: Cabinet from the 'Fresh Wood' show, made by College of the Redwoods student Bonner Armbruster.

Rosie's Girls

This summer I got to teach carpentry to middle school girls through the trades program Rosie's Girls. There were two groups of girls-- apprentices and journeywomen-- based on their experience. They made chairs and chests, respectively. It was definitely challenging at times but I had a ton of fun and discovered that I love teaching.

Penland!

I just returned from Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina where I received a scholarship to take a two week parquetry/piercing workshop with Brian Reid. It was awesome! We spent the first week learning how to make patterned tiles out of veneer (by stacking up layers of veneer and cutting them at the same time on the scroll saw). Next we learned how do piercing... Then we made small cabinets with sliding doors made out of the parquetry and pierced panels.

"The first significant challenge to mechanism came from Einstein, who claimed there were deep contradictions in the very notion of an independently existing particle. He proposed that what we normally think of as a particle is actually a temporary localized pulse emerging from a larger field, very much like a vortex temporarily forms from the dynamic flowing of a stream."

- From The Essential David Bohm

some small stuff...

1. swarf cabinet 2. scrap punch-outs 3. cast rockite blocks

reminder objects

1. periscope sculpture 2. slipcast buddha made by natalie 3. rock table with rocks from lassen and rockaway beach

a quote

"and nothingness itself--instead of being empty space, as in the west-- is alive with possibility. in metaphysical terms, wabi-sabi suggests that the universe is in constant motion toward or away from potential."

from ' wabi-sabi for artists, designers, poets and philosophers' by leonard koren

new studio, new work

i haven't updated this thing in a long time... last month i moved into a studio space at Root Division, an arts and arts education center in San Francisco. i'm one of 18 or so resident artists provided with below market studio rent in exchange for volunteering for the organization. this relationship is working out well, so far.. as scheduled commitments to the space keep me from procrastinating on my own stuff. (well, mostly). after not having a space for a year and half it's been a bit rocky trying to figure out where i'm actually at and what i want to do. i've been feeling pretty blocked but this past week i've finally had some breakthroughs.

a lot of the stuff i did at cca had to do with geologic principles-- sedimentation, precipitation of matter.... the emotional resonance of earth shifting and settling. This is still something that i'm drawn to (maybe because i'm always subconsciously thinking about earthquakes..?) in any case i wanted to do some work with casting so i made simple molds and began layering up rockite with different amounts of pigment. part of the concept here is pairs that slant-rhyme or something. they are almost matching, but not quite, if you look closely. (i've been thinking a lot about imperfection......... wabi-sabi....)

i've also been working at a metal shop-- an incredibly dirty, disorganized place (but that's teaching me to tig weld) so i've been thinking about ways to incorporate metal scraps and things that i can make in the shop. i'll write more about the shop later but the point is it's making me think about gender a lot more and about how i have taken on a lot of unhealthy macho attitudes as part of being a maker that i'm only now realizing are totally detrimental.

in short i feel my new work is coming from a need to have a sacred connection to the earth and to femininity, and to have my processes reflect humbleness and respect (to materials and to emotions/suffering/healing). as opposed to my previous work that i did in school that was quite large and flashy i am more interested in doing smaller works with found objects and scrap and earthier materials. i plan on doing several more of the castings, all as sets of slant/pairs-- exploring the messy imperfections and unexpected results from layering rockite. the piece with the metal is an exploration of contrast. it was actually quite powerful (i know i'm a cheeseball) to drape the scraps of muslin through the steel piece, as i welded the steel at my workplace which is so harsh and handling scraps of fabric triggers so many female experiences-- girls' hair, flowy dresses, laundry, sewing with my grandmother. it also triggered some kind of midwestern prairie- daughter in me-- the combination of minimalism and natural materials feels amish or puritan. when i got to stacking the scrap steel punch-outs (the things stacked on the "shelf") i just kept thinking they look like beans... and then i was thinking about that greg brown song where he's singing about his grandmother (in iowa) canning tomatoes and beans and stuff. well, now i'm rambling. i think this is enough for now.