no fun.

i just got word that one of the most fantastic stores in the world, uncle fun, is closing its doors at the end of january. aside from being totally fantastic, this chicago landmark was possibly the first store i ever sold my buttons to. i remember walking in there a decade ago while i was in town performing and meeting billy behind the counter and having just about the best experience ever. as both a seller and a shopper, i love uncle fun. i can't even count the number of things around our home that came from there. it has also been home to the world's largest spray string sculpture, it was the first (and only) place i learned to circuit bend...i could go on...

if you are in the chicago area, they are having a big sale until they close - including stuff from their amazing warehouse. oh, it would be a bittersweet sale to go to, but i would go if i was in town. in fact, part of me even felt like planning a roadtrip through this blizzard just to be able to be there one more time. i have ten days until i go on tour again. who knows? but until then, here are some pictures from our years passing by our favourite uncle. i even did an artist residency in their window!

 

working in pairs (or the fabricate show at freedom clothing collective).

this evening, i managed to stop by freedom clothing collective to catch the closing reception for fabricate, a show co-presented by freedom and meredith keith gallery. conceived from the current overlap of art, craft and design, the show paired makers of different disciplines into collaborations. since most of the programming was at the other gallery, i only got to see the collaboration between lizz aston and jen kneulman (the ghostly and structured woven pieces pictured throughout). i wish i had time to see the whole show. this particular discussion is a very interesting one to me at the moment. plus, the images i saw online of the other pieces communicated some great skill and curation. freedom's head curator, marsya maharani, wrote an interesting note about the origins of the show and how it fits into the overall complexity of the freedom project and contemporary art/craft/design interplay here. full show write-up is here. great work, everyone! man, it is nice to be back home.

it's alive!

photo by cortney heimerl

after all the hard work (and no small amount of picky photography by cortney), edition #001 of the awards for nothing project is now up and for sale in the printshop forever shop. i owe cortney a big debt of gratitude for figuring out how to release this huge edition. also, for being so articulate and complimentary in her release post about the project. thank you also to faythe and aaron for hosting our real-world awards launch, for documenting and for posting about it. also, big thanks to lish for posting on the craft: blog.

now, go and browse it up, buds!

final fantasy.

hey, lawrence, kansans, guess what! tonight we will be hopping into the one year anniversary edition of your final fridays as special guests of the fabulous wonder fair shop and gallery. the wonder fair has actually gone through some recent changes - three of its four members moved to kansas city in recent months - and has changed hands. the new owners, meredith and paul, were actually planning on taking this month off from the art evening because the space is in flux and under construction. then we connected.

presenting...for one night only...
the wonder fair / sweetie pie press / misanthrope special company
pop-up staircase gallery and boutique!

peruse crafty goodness! get your unflattering portrait done! purchase amazing pinback button sets designed by artists the world over! meet the new wonder fair brain trust! get mired in ephemera! have fun!

and most importantly, tell your friends. we only know about seven people here.

children of the 70's.

on the way out of dallas, we also managed to stop in on another shop we have heard a lot about over the years, we are 1976. for indie craft wares, it does not disappoint and i saw a lot of familiar indie lines there. plus, they have a big, presumably old, mural in the shop (a la wholly craft). i am such a sucker for such architectural touches.

oil and cotton.

and as one thing leads to another, julie emphatically recommended that we look up oil & cotton when we shoved off to dallas.

newly opened in the fall of 2011, owners shannon driscoll and kayli house cusick founded oil and cotton to be an educational epicentre of sorts. although they do carry some support supplies, the studio's main focus is skill sharing. as we travel, it is deeply heartening to find spaces like this popping up all over the continent. workshop spaces exist beyond the constraints of retail, working to ensure that craft practices endure as well as goods. even as a workshop space, oil & cotton distinguishes itself in the scope of its class roster. the offer all sorts of workshops that i have not encountered before in this community - prenatal art, basket weaving, music (to name a few), and all sorts of syntheses between these practices.

not to mention that its uneven and dusty walls provide for one of the most textured and photogenic spaces i have ever encountered. and did i mention they make their own inks (above)? and use its rooms and flex spaces for pop-up events and happenings? amind the supplies you can even spot vestiges of such events (like the large bag of gold suspended from the ceiling) - and each object has a story. this space, and its owners give the sense that anything is possible and that whim and business are perfect counterbalances for one another.

more images here.

webbed.

based on an emphatic recommendation by russell, we made our way out of austin today and straight to a specially arranged gallery visit to the webb gallery in waxahachie, texas. even at off-hours, we were lucky enough to get to meet both owners, bruce and julie webb. the place is beyond amazing, and so are the webbs. passionate about what they do, kind, generous with their time and knowledge and, as it relates to the gallery, each of them has a killer eye for the obscure and the heartfelt.

housed in a spacious old building in the centre of waxahachie, the gallery is such a feast for the eyes and senses, that it is hard to even begin to capture a visit in pictures.

the main exhibition at the moment is a grand-scale collection of sculptural works by camp bosworth entitled 'plata o plomo'. in exploration of the mexican drug trade, it features relief portraits of drug lords, massive hand-carved wooden guns that fold out into bars and the biggest piece of bling i have ever seen (bling not being a word i use often or lightly). it is a brilliant show, dazzling and scary, that is installed perfectly into the spacious gallery.

in their smaller loft space upstairs is another show by another texas artists, esther pearl watson. i have been aware of miss watson for a long while now from the zine scene. in fact, some of her zines must be some of the earliest added to my collection. but i have never had the privilege of seeing her paintings in person. i found this collection - an autobiographical series based her childhood home and family happenings from her formative years - incredibly touching. for me, it fell somewhere between fine art, self-revelation, sequential art and snapshot. you know those moments when you feel incredibly broke because artwork is so reasonably priced yet you are so outpriced? yup. i felt really compelled by these works.

and all of this not even to mention the webb's extensive collection of circus ephemera, secret society regalia and general wonderfulness. suffice it to say, if you are in the area, you should seriously make a visit. especially you, faythe.

more pictures here.

leaving austin.

it has come time, we need to move on from this lovely city. above are a few last snaps (mostly of lettering and signage) from our last day here. in the mix, you may spy parts & labour, austin's preeminent, all-texas-all-the-time indie boutique. they have recently opened an adjoining poster shop, too - shark attack. i definitely recommend a visit.

plains and simple.

after making things and trying desperately to catch up on ethereal concerns, today's outings began with a visit to a much-recommended shop, spartan. housed on the ground floor of what looks to be a new condominium development, spartan shares its space (and one dividing wall) with bows and arrows, a harmonizing sister shop that tends more towards apparel. both stores sell housewares although spartan leans more towards gifts and paper. they occupy a space of cool southwestern design that snowy tourists like myself are easily taken by. there is really not much to say. both shops are so thoughtfully stocked and arranged that i may as well just let my pictures speak for themselves (click on any image to find out which shop it came from).