Introducing Coyote Counter Collective

Medium Reality has been suspiciously quiet for the last few months. I have been getting surreptitious inquiries from concerned friends, clients who crave attention, and art lovers who are demanding I keep up the supply of laser etched landscapes.

What the heck have we been up to? Where have we been?! Well, a lot has been going on. The revolution, hallelujah, has come, and it's here to stay. Even stranger, though, we have moved our studio. Medium Reality has been based in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood for most of a decade. The rising cost of real estate in that neighborhood is finally sweeping through lots of little side streets that time had forgotten, though, and things are changing. We are excited to change our focus to Oakland, where a more wide-open (but still bike-friendly!) city leaves more elbow room for oddball arts projects.

Medium Reality, in collaboration with Project Transaction, Ghetto Goldilocks, and Gneiss Wood, presents:

Coyote Counter Collective
a new (re)construction experience in Oakland

423 40th St, Oakland
(leave Macarthur BART, turn right, cross Telegraph and look out for us on the right at Webster)
Open Now By Appointment

Grand Opening December 1st

We are slowly assembling an altered storefront experience, by hand, from scrips and scraps. We've already painted, hung curtains, installed glass cases, tiny puppet doors, trunks and suitcases everywhere, and cut scalloped edges into everything. There is a sewing studio in back where we are still desperately putting up storage shelves, and throughout the space we are working on small facilities projects one piece at a time.

So we're building a store? Well, yes, but. But. One of the things I am most excited about for this new space is something we are trying out - a menu of (re)construction services. Drawings, swatches, samples, and photos will bring customers in to the style re-design process, while the streamlined menu will allow these services to be offered a la carte to all members of our community, for affordable prices. Services will range from complete reconstructions (and my unique brand of elaborate layered embroidery/applique), to simpler alterations like silkscreened images or added pockets, which can be offered at very reasonable prices. We are working towards offering laser etching services as well.

It is my hope that this space will become a hub for different reconstruction communities, and I am excited to see how the cooperative part of things comes together. In assembling the business model for our collective we have drawn heavily on my experiences at City Art and Noisebridge, as well as all of our time together at Pandora's former location on Haight St. It is great to be working with these artists again.