Crocheting Time and Space

Not much to share these days in terms of my own work on account of it being crunch time at school.  One thing I would like to share is this incredible example of conceptual craft dreamt up my internet pal Lana, who hails from Hamburg, Germany.  A brilliant example of time-based crochet, this is what Lana had to say about the project:

I have crocheted this bangle in the subways of Hamburg on November 2nd, 9:00 - 14:00.  I crocheted only while driving in the subway, in the color of the current subway line.  I started at home, because the beginning is complex (you have to sew, which would be difficult in the subway). Then I started with the red line at "Gänsemarkt," and drove to intersections to switch the color/line.

I rode the subway for so long until the bangle was finished.
  Surprisingly, this was exactly at 14:00 on the station "Wandsbeker Chaussee."  The whole experiment lasted 5 hours,
 pure crocheting time was: 3 hours 43 minutes.

The bangle was available in my etsy shop.

Genius!  Imagine what the NYC subway system would look like?  It would probably be the size of a skipping rope...or longer!

New Zines

Eat to the Beat: A Rock'n'Roll Cookzine

"Food and music are two of the most primal pleasures on earth! It’s a wonder that their paths don’t cross more often than they do-- exceptions being pasta sauce made by ex-Ramones, punk sommeliers and the song titles of bubblegum pop bands, of course…and that guy behind the desk at the record store with the pizza sauce dripping down his chin…

Community recipe collections in the form of cookbooks are not new. I embarked on this project because so many of my friends in “rock”-- whether they be musicians, DJs, record store clerks, recording engineers or record collectors-- are also total foodies. The premise for this zine is simple-- to bring rock and food together in one tasty package, as well as to pay tribute to my community of talented, creative and fun rocker pals and the songs and artists that inspire them."

Eat to the Beat is a collaborative rock'n'roll-themed cookzine featuring contributions by Alycia Wahn, Alexandra Gutnik, Andy "Dictator" Shernoff, Ben Needham, Bev Coneybeare, Casey Johnson, Christina Wozniak, DJ Nico, Elaine Banks, Mark Kingdon, Mary Ann Guiao, Matt Hitch and myself. Zine includes a super special "Food Fight" Risograph pin-up insert illustrated by the fabulous Elaine Banks.

42 pages, 8.5" X 5.25"
Xerography with Risograph insert
2012

Rusty's Dusty:  

A solemn short story in mini-zine form about a man who works in a boatyard in Etobicoke. Inspired by a real-life encounter I had in the early 1990s. Zine comes in a little origami boat.  Recommended for people experiencing post-industrial anxiety.

Zine measures 4.25" X 2.25"

Xerography, origami paper

2012

Buy them here.

Zine News

1. My latest zines, the first issue of Goin' Down The Road: Newfoundland Stories of Leaving and Museozine are now up for sale in my Etsy Shop for anyone who's interested in picking up a copy by snail mail.

2. On the flip side, locals can now pick up copies of either zine at local art shop No Show Exhibits, which is a part of Katharine Mulherin's Queen West art empire of amazingness.  The shop can be found at 1082 Queen Street West, just east of Dovercourt.

3. Said zines will be traveling all the way to Halifax, where they will be both exhibited and for sale in Eyelevel Gallery's Reshelving Initiative 5 exhibition.  You can learn all about it here.

4. Finally, there is no confirmation on this yet, but I'm hoping to table OCAD's very own zine fair, happening at the end of the month. Once I know that I have a table reserved, I will post more specific info about this as soon as I can.

Skele-toons

I've been finding myself particularly drawn to skeleton imagery lately. These are three pieces of work I've found in my travels lately, online and in person. The first is a skeleton drawing by local artist Shannon Gerard, that I acquired at her awesome studio sale that took place last weekend. The drawing is from the comic she did called Sword of My Mouth, which came out last year on Jim Munroe's No Media Kings book label. I'm looking ever-so-forward to framing it and putting it up somewhere. Finally...a piece of work that my boyfriend and I can agree on. Skeletons are unisex, right? We all have them!

The next two pieces are ones I found on Etsy by Portland artist Michael Paulus. These famous cartoon character skeleton drawings-- and the way he goes about doing them-- are pretty priceless. His project statement about them is pretty interesting too...the following text is scooped from his website under the series Character Study:

Animation was the format of choice for children's television in the 1960s, a decade in which children's programming became almost entirely animated. Growing up in that period, I tended to take for granted the distortions and strange bodies of these entities.These Icons are usually grotesquely distorted from the human form from which they derive.

I decided to take a select few of these popular characters and render their skeletal systems as I imagine they might resemble if one truly had eye sockets half the size of its head, or fingerless-hands, or feet comprising 60% of its body mass.

These characters have become conventions that are set, defined, and well-known personas in our culture. Being that they are so commonplace and accepted as existing I thought I would dissect them like science does to all living objects - trying to come to an understanding as to their origins and true physiological make up. Possibly to better understand them and see them in a new light for what they are in the most basic of terms.