Presented by Garth Johnson
emiko introduces Garth Johnson
“Garth gave this amazing presentation on Extreme Craft. Garth has this blog, ExtremeCraft.com” “he curated a show at the museum of contemporary craft and pulled works from their collection to curate a show ‘Error Messages’ editor note, not 100% sure on that name, will look up later
“I wanted to show you guys a different side of craft and DIY that’s a little different”
“A lot of these people he finds are really good craftsmen”
“This is what I see as the future of craft and how we can really break some boundaries”
Garth:
“Wow, so Dale Dougherty is a major hero of mine.” “I’m so excited to go up and talk after all that Maker Faire stuff, I feel like I’ve been there and it’s rubbing off on me”
“I’m going to start with a video that’s been kicking around the craft world”
He shows a car commercial about making – the Jeep Grand Cherokee
“I’ve been taking this lecture around the country around the world in various forms for the past 6 or 7 years” “I give it to art groups, to community groups” “whenever I give it to craft specific groups is how no one loves crafts, and how our world is shrinking, boo hoo” “And I always ask them if they’ve ever been on ravelry sp? “ It has over 1 million members and is growing all the time”
“There’s something strange about why I do craft” “Craft runs deep in my family” “I went to art school, and I think there are a lot of people in here that went to art school. I started ceramic as a way to piss off my professors who thought craft was this lesser thing”
“I like to think about craft as the metaphor of the Trojan horse” “People love craft” “So you can take Craft as a thing and a lot of the people in this lecture are taking what they do and what they’re passionate about and sneaking it into what they do as something of a Trojan horse”
“I go to a lot of academic conferences and there are a lot of people who think that we cannot advance the field of craft unless we know what craft is”
“I’ve got to say that I don’t want to be involved in the world of craft unless the world of craft can encompass a wide range of craft types” “I don’t think we’re ever going to be able to get that ‘what is craft ‘ toothpaste back in the tube”
“I like to think about the story of the blind man and the elephant. You get the 7 or 8 blind men around the elephant and each one is telling you a different story”
“I grew up on a farm in Nebraska. My father made all of the knives in the kitchen”
“To talk about the artwork that I make, I make a lot of things out of porcelain. Like Harriete, I’m a little obsessed with plastic bottles and their impact on the environment”
“Also very recently I’ve started to tinker and hack and use an easter egg engraving decorating robot to engrave onto small pottery”
“Speaking of our house, I love extreme craft so much that I married the most extreme crafter I know”
“My wife Claire is a glitter painter. This is nothing more than a 4’x4’ panel of elmers glue and glitter” shows image of a painting done solely in glitter
Talks about a post on Extreme Craft about (may 21st 2008) in which there’s a post card about making architectural models out of rendered pork and beef fat
“There’s a chopper by Arlen Ness that’s been redone in the 1980s, and all of the chrome parts have been very intricately engraved”
Shows a quick video of San Francisco cast in jello by Elizabeth Hickock
“Another favorite Bay area extreme crafter, is Eric Scollon. He’s a very handsome, gay crafter.” “This is an exhibition that Eric did in a bathroom of a gay club”
“Anna Maltz conceived this project while she was in the Bay area. She makes these very realistic Mohair people suits and dresses people in them and just sort of sees what happens”
“One of the threads that has run through this conference is crafting a community. People who think the craft field is shrinking really need to look a little out of their sphere of influence”
Talks about Booze & Yarn in NYC
“I also mentioned the idea of Wravelry.com”
Talks about Etsy.com Virtual Labs ‘Shop Live’
“So I started Extreme Craft kind of on a lark.”
He talks about beginning Extreme Craft while working at an architectural firm
“Go back to Judy Chicago, going back to the 1970s and venerating these goddesses from throughout history through craft”
“Ghada Amer embroiders. So this is a large scale painting that is all embroidered. She’s mashing up hardcore pornography and somewhere in here is Snow White”
“This is Gelatin. They created this giant pink bunny on the side of a mountaintop”
“And then Tracy Emin. She’s just had a big retrospective.”
“This is sort of where I come in, Craft Masquerading as Art.” “Interested in doing geeky things with materials”
“Judith G. Klausner – She makes these amazing carved cameos out of Oreo cookies.”
“Here’s another one of my favorites, Tara Bursey, and this is her shrimp lace. She buys these very pungent dried shrimp packages and turns them into these intricate doilies and lace”
“Jason Mecier – the renaissance man of pasta art”
“This is me imparting life lessons on you guys” “I’m betting there are plenty of classic overthinkers in here” “A ceramic artist named Mark Burns came to visit me while I was in grad school and said ‘I want to tell you about my philosophy of life, and that is following the whim of iron’. The whim of iron is having an idea that’s so crazy, so cockamamie that you’re unable to not pursue it”
“Going after that is the pure, undistilled stuff of creativity”
“Joanna Lopianowski-Roberts – She had one of those moments and decided she needed to make the entire Sistine Chapel out of needlepoint. It took her 10 years. In true DIY nature, she created patterns of it”
“This is a sea captain by the name of Rob McDonald. He’s made a full scale replica Viking ship out of popsicle sticks” “He got these popsicle sticks the hard way, he didn’t just go to the popsicle factory and get them” “A lot of children in Europe have diabetes for this project!”
“Craft extending its middle finger”
“patricia Waller – she creates these cute, cuddle stuffed animals that behave more like animals in the wild”
“Karin Frank – A master woodcarver that really enjoys the human body and the things that the human body does, and what comes out of it”
“Katie Pell – She goes to the thrift store and finds old appliances and gives them this whole other world around them”
“There’s a potent metaphor around ‘the cozy’.” “So there’s this human impulse to swaddle things in fibrous materials. Yarn bombing is a great expression of that.” “This is a Bay area group that does this (streetcolor.wordpress.com)”
“This is woman named Theresa Honeywell that created a cozy for an entire motorcycle”
“This is Marianne Jorgensen and she created this knitted cozy for this tank” as an antiwar sentiment
“So the scale of these is advancing a little bit”
“I hope you guys know Olek. Olek created this amazing piece of yarnbombing of pink camouflage on the wall street bull”
“This is another piece by Olek. She’s a little obsessive! These messages on the wall are all obscene text messages by ex-boyfriends”
Elizabeth Demaray – Giant quilted stain cozy for a missile
“Craftivism is one way to get your craft out in front of the public. Just as importantly, you’re sharing what you do with the public”
“The patron saint of man craft is Rosey Grier. He’s a 300lb ex football player and after a hard day of crushing skulls, he liked to unwind by doing a little needlepoint” “He was a huge permission giver for men who wanted to do craft”
“Dave Cole is a gentleman who has embraced knitting.” Talks about his efforts knitting a giant American flag using three cranes
Cory Fogel – “A Bay Area drummer that has combined drumming and knitting” “the genius thing about his work, is that he will sell you a CD, and the cd comes with the swatch of cloth that he knit while he was making the cd”
“I think that that’s another thing that runs through a lot of this extreme craft work. Choosing the thing that you like to do and taking it to its logical conclusion, or perhaps several steps beyond”
Here he talks about a metalsmith that created an enameled doggy butthole cover for her roommate’s dog.
“This is Laura Splan. She creates these amazing crocheted doilies that are in the shape of human viruses”
“Thinking of jewelry as an affliction” talking about Lauren Kalman
“A lot of this is about imparting my life lessons on you, dear audience, so this is the ponderous part of the discussion”
“Craft can have amazingly positive effects”
“Here’s a guy you might feature for your next symposium, Ray Materson” “He was on death row in Michigan” “He was eventually released from prison and he talks about the transformative effects of his embroidery” “He makes a lot of money from his embroideries” “He wrote a book called Needles and Sins”
“So there’s a village named Koniakow in Poland where the best lace in the entire world gets made. So all the vestments for the Pope get made here” “In steps an entrepreneur who stepped in and created a line of impeccably made lace thong underwear” “the Catholic church threatened to excommunicate the little old ladies who were making these things” “I want to ask you guys to question just how much you guys want to make the things that you make. Would you risk your eternal soul?”
Here he talks about craftivists creating sweaters for penguins who were affected by the oil spill, which prevented the penguins from dying of hypothermia
“This is a woman named Julie Green who took thrift store plates and created china plates with food porn images” “Each of these plates represents the final meal of a person on death row, just before they were executed”
He talks about Michael Strand, making a hundred Japanese inspired teacups and placing them on the doorsteps of the citizens of a town. (artstimulus.org)
Gabriel Craig – did a pro-bono jewelry experience (conceptualmetalsmithing.org)
“Craft can also be a weapon” “Lacey Jane Roberts – created knitted cozies and snuck up in the middle of the night and replaced the & crafts portion of the signage”
419eater.com – talks about how people scam the scammers into making craft projects
“So Harriete gave that great discussion on Professional Development and how important it is to get your stuff out there on the internet.” “that’s a double edged sword. Once you have you work out there, there’s no way to control what happens to it” talks about Regretsy.com
“This is the most heart-rending example. This is Camille Allen. She makes these tiny premature looking little babies out of polymer clay. Unfortunately, some asshole out there went and wrote something how they’re made out of marzipan. (they’re not)”
“Similar to Regretsy, this is http://whatnottocrochet.wordpress.com/ “
“Cross-pollinated craft, very briefly” “Think about ways to mash it up in different ways”
“The Institute for Figuring – No matter what you like, there’s something out there for you”
garth@extremecraft.com – everything I’m showing is sent to me by other people. I want to hear from you!
Shows a clip of Martha Stewart on Thanksgiving food costumes for infants.
“If I have one sort of message to distill down to you guys, it to think about the role of play in your work. Craft like you mean it. Craft passionately. And above all, Craft Hard!”
