Contribute – 100 Million Knitted Stitches

via Craftivism

 

Did you know that there are 100 million women missing in this world?

When I came across this statistic, I couldn’t believe it. The facts tell a different story. If you take the natural distribution of male/female, there are 100 million women missing from our planet. Why?

Because baby girls are selectively aborted
Because baby girls are killed
Because women are killed
Because women aren’t given an education
Because women do not get the same medical care as men
Because women die in childbirth
Because women are trafficked and sexually exploited

And all of this 100 years after International Women’s Day was first celebrated on 8 March.

100 years of International Women’s Day, one million women missing for every year.

To highlight the inequalities that still exist across the globe and are responsible for 100 Million missing women as well as the continuous gap of women being represented in decision making positions in the government, the workplace and the media, there is a great Scottish-based initiative which tries to create a debate and… a massive blanket, with 100 Million knitted stitches; one for every woman missing. The great thing is that everybody can contribute to this, by knitting a simple square measuring 15 x 15 cm (6×6 inches). 100 million stitches is an awful lot though, as little as one stitch per missing woman does sound, so a lot of helping hands are needed.

So then, I challenge you my lovely readers to support this initiative. How? Simple. Sit and knit a bit. Knit a square, or two, or many. Ask your friends and colleagues to do the same. Blog about it. Follow on Facebook or Twitter. Organise a Sit and Knit a Bit evening – in your home, in a cafe, in a community centre. And while you do all of this, or some of this, remember the 100 million women missing from our world today. There are so many ways to support this, do head over to the website to get inspired.

Please send your completed squares and stories by 8th March 2011 to Jetson and Janssen, c/o Tramway, Albert Drive, Glasgow G41 2PE. If you have any questions, you can email here. If you blog about it, please come back to this post and add a link to your post in the blog hop below (and the blog hop code to your post, to link them all together).

 

I will definitely be doing this — and I have the perfect hot pink plarn to knit for it too!!

Inspiration: The 3 As of Awesome – TED talk

Well I have to admit that I’ve been in a low mood lately. January is never the easiest month for me. This TED talk really snapped me out of it and made me realize that we only have a short time here on Earth and I need to appreciate the small things that make life so beautiful everyday.

The speaker, Neil Pasricha, is the author of the blog 1000 Awesome Things (today’s is #355: Catching someone you love admiring you from across the room). There is also a book for all you print lovers out there.

 

Loved the bit about Rosey Grier, a pro football player with a love for needlepoint. Talk about an authentic guy. He even published this book. I really hope I stumble upon it at a rummage sale or thrift shop someday.

We should all remember to look at life through the eyes of a three-year-old. Best advice ever.

art nowhere mag

I just realized that a project I conceived of in January is now coming together in December. Well, I guess with the year that I’ve had that doesn’t surprise me!

The project is Art Nowhere Magazine, a print publication that I aim to have out in the Winter 2011.

adam koenig

The publication will explore art that falls outside of the mainstream. Art, writing, design, craft, performance, etc. that isn’t covered by the major publications and websites. You will find the different and truly unique, not the same old trendy thing.

Our goal is to break stereotypes about the arts, notably the location issue (i.e. If  you don’t live and/or are not showing in a major metropolitan area, you are not an important artist).

This magazine will be a must read for those interested in what’s happening right now under the radar in contemporary art.

We will be posting content on the Art Nowhere website, so check back, bookmark it, and subscribe to our feed to be the first to join in on the conversation. Also stay updated on Facebook.

We are accepting submissions from artists, writers, etc. Click here for more info.

If you have an arts opportunity such as a “call for artists”, e-mail me at sarah@theeclipsegallery.com and we will publish it in our Opportunities section for free.

We will be picking and choosing a few, select advertisers for the magazine. One of our goals is to make our advertising opportunities for artists and arts organizations affordable. We have a basic listing available for artists for only $5 per issue. See all the advertising options here.

So, artist friends, let me know if you have a contribution to make–could be an image, poem, essay, etc. All contributors get a free copy of the magazine and a link on the website. Email me at sarah@theeclipsegallery.com

The only way that the arts we love can survive is by supporting them. This means buying handmade, going to local art shows/performances, and supporting independent publications like this one, among other things.

Thanks!

A Fine Line American Supper

Two print publications came into my life today — Fine Line Magazine and American Supper by D. R. Baker.

Both are jaw-droppingly great.

American Supper is a book of poetry that is really fresh. The author, Deron Baker, happens to be a poet/artist living in Algoma, which makes it that much sweeter for me. He stopped by the gallery today and dropped a few copies off — we have a mixed media piece of his in the current Salon 100 show.

Let’s just say that I was blown away when I started reading his poetry. The copy he gave me smelled slightly of smoke as I turned the pages. Fitting for poetry that has been described as “apocalyptic” and “a quest for the sacred in the everyday world”. I agree with the back cover — the imagination does find refuge here. I was painting pictures in my head the whole time. Sublime.

Another interesting (and more professional) review of American Supper.

Excerpt from Dead Town

I took an evening
stroll through a little
Place called Dead
Town, like
Walking through a tinted photo.
Everyone stood still,
stiffened by fear.
Fraudulent phobia
and pink lemonade.
Everyone here is a
statue,
Preserved for
posterity, calcified,
Marking the exact
moment of their
death.

We are working with Baker right now to set up a poetry reading/book signing at the gallery. It will probably be during the February Algoma Art Wave.

We have a few copies available at the gallery or you can get one online.

NOW, a few words about the new Fine Line Magazine, created by Milwaukee artists/curators Cassandra Smith and Jessica Steeber.

cohesive, succinct, penetrating

It’s refreshing in many ways. No advertising, first of all. Mostly images, with quotes from some of my favorite poets and authors scattered throughout.
New art. Good art.

image credit/more images from the mag

According to their website, Fine Line Magazine aims to encourage the viewer to develop their own understanding of and relationship to the ideas presented.
I say mission accomplished and get your hands on this issue right now.

You can buy the first issue, Welcome Home, here

There is just something about print that I really connect with.
Print will never die.

Gifts for the Hard-to-Buy-Handmade-For

This time of year I’m always perplexed about how much money is spent on holiday presents that are essentially cheap pieces of crap. The holidays have become so overtly commercialized, and most of the stuff people buy is from a big-box store and made in China. It’s just gross. Bad for the environment, bad for people, and actually makes for bad gifts. (not convinced? read this)

So I always try to buy handmade gifts, or when that fails at least “smart gifts” (will explain more below) for my friends and family. As far as my kids go (ages 7 and 8), it is getting harder every year to do this. There are a lot of handmade baby and toddler items available, but not so much for the school agers. Another group that can be hard to buy for are the teenagers/young adults. But there is hope! Here are a few cool things I found:

Mandala Wooden Puzzle by PuzzleOne

This would make a great gift for a wide age range of kids. I have something similar that my kids received as a gift when they were 3/4, and they still play with it–plus it’s still in such great shape my new little one will enjoy it too!

Socktopus by blackbirdfashion

This is another great gift for a wide age range of kids. I’m getting this for my 8 year old son for Xmas. He collects sock monkeys so this whimsical version will be perfect. They also had a punk rock sock monkey–I’ll save that for when he’s a teenager :)

I Spy Bag by aebaby

I LOVE these toys! I’ve seen these capture the attention of toddlers up to 3rd graders!

When buying handmade for your school-aged child or grandchild just isn’t enough-buy them “smart toys” instead of the plastic junk. Art supplies, science kits, musical instruments, books (the Klutz books/kits are always awesome), etc.

Another hard group to buy for are the teenagers and young adults!!!

Bunny Loves Kitty Pendant by Gingerdead

I have items by this artist at The Eclipse Gallery, and you can click the link above for her online shop. I bought one of these necklaces for my 16 year old niece for her birthday and she loved it.

Circut Board Geek Shirt by nonfictiontees

Getting clothes as a gift is definitely NOT lame when they’re like this.  There is a huge selection of handmade clothing for all ages on Etsy.

Vulture Silkscreen Moleskin Journal by The Crafty Hag.

Every teenager (and adult for that matter)  needs a journal to vent into and sketch in. I have a good selection of this artist’s journals, magnets, pillows, note cards, and more at The Eclipse Gallery–or click the link above for her online shop.

Smart gifts for teens and young adults could include books, art supplies (for example, a screen printing kit would be an awesome gift for art types), or gift cards to a cool handmade shop in your area.

If you live or are visiting Northeast Wisconsin, stop by The Eclipse Gallery for a wide variety of handmade gifts–we have something for every age–from birth to 100.  Buy Local and Buy Handmade this year!

And this I believe: John Steinbeck

Brittany Peterson, Yellow, Blown Glass

I am currently reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck and the following passage really spoke to me. It’s long but worth the read. This meshes with everything I feel about myself, my individuality, my freedom, art, and how important handmade craft, design, and products are to our lives.

Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then–the glory–so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man’s importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories. It is a lonely thing but it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness, and it sets each man separate from all other men. I don’t know how it will be in the years to come. There are monstrous changes taking place in the world, forces shaping a future whose face we do not know. Some of these forces seem evil to us, perhaps not in themselves but because their tendency is to eliminate other things we hold good. It is true that two men can lift a bigger stone than one man. A group can build automobiles quicker and better than one man, and bread from a huge factory is cheaper and more uniform. When our food and clothing and housing are all born in the complication of mass production, mass method is bound to get into our thinking and to eliminate all other thinking. In our time mass or collective production has entered our economics, our politics, and even our religion, so that some nations have substituted the idea collective for the idea God. This in my time is the danger. There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point, and men are unhappy and confused. At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against? Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man. And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of the man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammerblows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.

And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.

I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.

Artists of Influence: Alexandra Bircken

Art in America says, “Today more than ever, the insistence on the handmade has the feel of a manifesto, one that Bircken develops with each new exhibition.”

Drape

Unit 3

She is currently exhibiting at Herald St. Click on the images to see more.

Book Review: Words of Wisdom: A Curator’s Vade Mecum on Contemporary Art

This is a hard one to find online, (i.e. not on Amazon) so I made it easy for you–it’s here for a mere $15.

This book consists of over 60 interviews with contemporary curators. It is meant to be a handbook for beginning curators–and if you are going into the contemporary art field at all I would highly recommend this book. But I think it’s also a good read for artists who would like to get more insight into how curators think and what they feel is their relationship with artists. Also there are tidbits of treasured info scattered throughout the book that artists may find interesting, like “Put yourself in the shoes of an unprepared viewer” and “Be yourself. Don’t try to be different from others; be different by being yourself.” (A couple words of wisdom from Jean-Christophe Ammann (who was a co-curator of documenta 5).

Most of the curators in this book highlight the importance of the artist in building exhibitions and their personal relationship with artists. Bart de Baere describes, “The idea of ‘selecting artists’ to be featured in an exhibition renders invisible the aspect of mutual choice, engagement, communication. The artists who are esssential for the success of the exhibition are those whom the curator believes can realize an undertaking. Their refusal would mean a certain loss. This belief is, for me, at the heart of curatoring. It is no longer just about you and your decisions, but about the collaborative effort by both you and the artist(s) together…To the world, you speak a hypothesis of art; to the artists, a hypothesis of the world.”

What a great attitude, and my feelings exactly. Remember, the art world is full of stereotypes, and it’s not just artists getting stereotyped but curators as well. It’s not fair to either. If I could do one thing in the art world I would banish all the preconceived notions people have. It ruins a lot of really great things. But what we can do is rise above it, live by our own rules, and create our own art world.