Medium Reality - design from the front lines

Whew. Craft Con was a blast. We are slowly posting wrap-ups and ongoing information on the website, still working out what happens next. Upcoming is Maker Faire, where Autumn (one of my main honchos on the project) is going to be presenting the Crafting Green information she shared at Craft Con. Since she's coming back, Lz and EJ (the weebley force behind Your Mom's from the Pittsburgh area) are too so we're going to represent Craft Con at Maker Faire, tabling and even I believe presenting onstage about the project. Maker Faire is May 3 and 4 and I hope to see you there, either when I am wearing my Craft Con hat or when I switch to Pandora's Trunk organizer. Whew.

Meanwhile, this weekend I am taking part in Alchemy, sure to be a rockin good time.

~aLchemy~
http://www.false-profit.com/2008/04/26/alchemy/
Saturday, April 26th
9pm-2am
CELLspace
$15
full bar

featuring...

-Styles of Magic fashion show by Missing Piece at 10pm
-Phantoccino, a magic show by Keith Boudreau
-Art Gallery by Will Chase Arts
-Alchemical Afforestation, an interactive steel sculpture by Shira Loa -Digital Paint Mash-Up by Dangermarc
-Pyrocardium, a heartbeat-powered candelabra by False Profit Labs
-Web of (de)Construction, a live textile piece by Medium Reality
-Identity Tapestry by Mary Corey March
-Flame Tree Building Workshop by False Profit Labs
-Phoenix Aviary, a reactive video installation
-Writing Photos, an intersection of writing and photography
-Altered Paintings, reworking thrift-store finds
-Interactive Lights & Magnets, Photo Booth, Lego Robots, origami, and more.

--------------------------------------------------

San Francisco – Activity erupted the floor of the Stock Exchange and the Artsy Index soared as False Profit, LLC and Missing Piece announced the second incarnation of Alchemy. This flood of activity, however, was not the usual buying and selling.

Several men in business casual were spotted making origami while a large circle of traders watched a walk-off between representatives from several Fortune 500s. Easels sprouted up in the atrium while fortunes built on towers of Legos rose and fell. One bewildered Exchange administrator was heard shouting, "Ok. Who here brought the arc welder?!" It was the most activity the Exchange has ever seen.

"My mind is melting like a Dali clock," observed one trader, overwhelmed by the unprecedented rise in the Artsy Index. "So I guess that's what I'll be painting at Alchemy."

When asked to describe Alchemy, Stephanie Tholand, Lead Structural Engineer at False Profit, LLC offered this explanation: "It's really a collaboration built atop a series of collaborations which are themselves collaborations. I assure you, it's quite unstable and vulnerable to unexpected quakes of artistry."

Some people are indeed expecting the unexpected: "I've heard the Missing Piece fashion show is basically magic," said an anonymous source from deep within the fashion industry.

Both False Profit, LLC and Missing Piece declined to comment on the details of Alchemy, citing the impossibility of predicting what the attendees will do.

Alchemy, an interactive art event, is commencing on April 26th at
CELLspace in San Francisco and a great flurry of artiness is expected.

http://www.false-profit.com/2008/04/26/alchemy/

Labels: alchemy, craftcon, makerfaire, pandora

We're over budget (hellloooo, credit cards), I've been sleeping 4 hours a night, it's too late for me to get my dry cleaning done, and I think I've already committed to doing this again next year. Am I crazy? Probably. Come see!

Craft Con and Pandora's Trunk present
Saturday, April 5 8-11:30pm

Crafty Style Gala

Urban Art Farm SF
1345A 17th St @ Connecticut
MUNI 19/22/T
http://craftcon.org/gala

Live Music - Cake and Sake - Live Art
$4 formalwear or costume / $7 general admission



Live art and fashion construction by Onerary and Architect G from Pandora’s Trunk

Magical realist paintings by Alfonso Kellenberger

Live ambient soundscapes quartet with Mika Pontecorvo
electric cello, guitar/flute, electronics/percussion and drums

Photobooth (play dress-up)

DIY craft station (make yer own souvenirs)

Food and drink

Meet n Greet indie artists from nationwide
Savvy indie artists and artisans from all over the country are visiting in town to attend Craft Con, http://craftcon.org, a business development conference for the craft community. The Crafty Style Gala is an opportunity for San Francisco's unique local arts scene to meet the nationwide leaders of the recent craft resurgence and show them what is unique about our culture!
http://craftcon.org/gala

Labels: craftcon, promo

I said the phrase out loud two different times today before I believed it "The conference is in one week". The second time, when I let myself realize it was true, my voice went a little hoarse for a second. It is getting close and things are coming together beautifully in places and falling apart all over the place elsewhere, although that second part is amazingly diminishing. Tonight I massaged and trimmed the budgets and spreadsheet columns to a place where, with the people who are already registered, if i put my thumb over what is left in the contingency budget (not much at this point) the numbers match and the project breaks even. Let's have a happy moment of silence for that one; its not the end but I can sleep a little at night. Well, it's 2:30am but i will go to sleep soon i am pretty sure.

Not everyone who has committed to pay and come will do the former or the latter but I figured out a way to leave registration open for much of next week so hopefully we will get a few new people in to tip the scales back again. Making and arranging budgets is not as cut-and-dried as people would think. It's really interesting to me to take the budget management skills i learned in school for lumber and steel and welding and apply them to a myriad of different kinds of projects... everything seems to track. Biggest baddest rule demonstrated in this project? The less you know the bigger a margin for error you leave yourself. Thankfully i got that one right... so far.

Labels: budgets, craftcon

Craft Con is less than two weeks away now and the hours are just evaporating out from under me! I feel like a juggler, and if I only drop every third ball I have to think I'm doing ok. I've been fielding very interesting phone calls lately, from faythe levine to the american craft council... and that's just today!

Here you can read on etsy's blog about Craft Con. Hopefully the word has spread far enough that the numbers in my spreadsheet are accurate. This in a lot of ways has been a far riskier proposition financially than any of my previous endeavors... with my phone number in the hands of the vendors and much of the event resting uneasy on the backs of volunteers... it's nearly that time, though, close enough to the culmination of such a large project that it feels like jumping off a cliff with your eyes closed. when you open them you'll be there, for better or worse.

Labels: craftcon

We're two weeks out now, wow that was fast! Tons of interest in Craft Con, the business development conference for the craft community that I am hosting here in San Francisco April 4-6. Everything is coming together and falling apart at the usual rates, I don't know why I am surprised each time by both things occurring. Having a few good level heads to work with makes almost all problems go away. Well, diminish in importance.

I just got a phone call from Velvet Da Vinci and am all excited now about the high vs low craft debate coming to roost at our conference. Maybe you didn't know about this divide? as if it weren't enough for 'fine art people' and 'craftspeople' to be split from each other, there is a divide also between fine craftspeople and uppity internet crafters who yes, sometimes use hot glue guns. some of them.

Me and (oh god, uh... Mike?) from VdV had a great conversation about the ways that good (and bad) things can be found everywhere you look and the way that hacker-craft can enable fine-craft in all sorts of awesome ways.

Labels: craft, craftcon, philosophy

Spring has come upon Mediumrealityland full force! Craft Con is less than a month away but in between now and then I'll be putting on a runway show. Opel's 5th anniversary was a barrel of fun last year; I am looking forward to this one. My work has evolved a lot over a year.

The Hare and the Hounds went really well; by the time I stopped by the show my map had been purchased and my hidden piece found! It was really fun to make something map-oriented and kind of intentionally ephemeral for this concept show... I hope I get invited to do more things like it. This spring is bringing a renewed focus for me on my career as a painter. Not that I have the fashion world all figured out but I feel a little bit more comfortable there and am freeing up some time to focus on neglected areas. Spring cleaning my studio, too. I've got lots of things squirreled away that I don't see any need for anytime soon. It's a fine line between expert recycler and those people who die in musty apartments surrounded by yellowing bundles of newspapers.

Labels: career, events, studio

A rare political post here... I was walking the dog today and came to demonstrations outside of the state building. Today was a hearing on the gay marriage issue here in California; it's been bouncing around in the court system since 2004 when that smart (and slimy) man Newsom made/exploited a loophole in marriage law and got a bunch of gays married. Don't misunderstand me, i am alllll in favor of gay marriage. I think that he made the move as a political act but I'll take what I can get.
I was led to the demonstrations today by a pickup doing loops around Civic Center with rickety aftermarket wooden sidewalls all tarted up with bible verses and dire warnings. "The truth seems like hate to those who hate the truth."

At the state building the crowd was small and tepid. Mostly trucked-in bible thumpers with god-love and god-fear signs that were a little bit well-worn. A giant yellow banner declaring "sodomy is sin" which, when I was walking up, appeared for a moment to say "sodomy is in". There were a few signs which i wanted to string together in silent conversation with each other. First, the one quoting MLK Jr saying "Christianity sets for a system of absolute moral values" then "stop ignorance homosexuality is not a choice" then "moral wrongs cannot equal civil rights" then "your religion is not my government".

I tried to explain to an englishman the difference between marriage and domestic partnership. i stuck my tongue out at the eastern european men from sacramento who had come out for jesus. There was a jolly effeminate brown man on a bicycle who went down the line of them, asking questions and demanding to see the passages of the bible they were quoting.

Creepiest was the smiling grey-haired grandma in an understated black outfit with a sign simply declaring marriage = 1 man + 1 woman. A few kids walked up to her to ask what was going on and she began explaining her sign and the crowd. After a few minutes the girl grabbed both guys and declaring "i hope they make the right decision" over her shoulder they all fled giggling. A MUNI bus roared by with a cell phone ad on the side. The series of ads is all about how this new kind of phone can let you say more; the ads consist of a first half that says something simple, the second a complex concept. this particular bus said "wassup" and "support gay marriage".

Labels: politics

Craft Con is a business development conference for the craft community. That's our tagline. i say it a lot. i write a lot of emails and make a lot of phone calls, because that's what this planning job is all about. I have felt recently a little like a cheerleader, helping people who are quite literally spread across the globe to figure out what tasks they want to do and ways to do them. We've done most of the planning to date live in full view on a wiki. Yesterday I was handed the reins to our website, being made and made pretty and most importantly made gloriously functional by Autumn in St Louis, who I met last year at Craft Congress 2007.

I started plugging in bits of text written by various helpers, editing language to be more uniform and cramming different bits together to help make different statements. Now it's a website, viola! What an amazing and humbling experience. Thanks everyone, from australia to england, new york to los angeles. Autumn of course says it's not done, and going to look even more fabulous, and be even more gloriously functional. I might plotz.

Labels: craftcon