Monday, January 26, 2009
Call for Artists: Lark Books - Mixed Metal Jewelry
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
CCCOE Member Studio Tour: Featured Artist: HideABook
Monday, January 19, 2009
CCCOE January challenge - AMORE! EXPRESS YOUR LOVE!
Friday, January 16, 2009
Exhibition: Track 16 Gallery - Santa Monica, CA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Laurie Steelink 310.264.4678
HYPERBOLIC CROCHET CORAL REEF by the INSTITUTE FOR FIGURING AND COMPANIONS
CURATED BY MARGARET AND CHRISTINE WERTHEIM
JANUARY 10–FEBRUARY 28, 2009 Opening reception on Saturday, January 10, from 6–9 PM
5 December 2008, Santa Monica—Track 16 Gallery is pleased to present HYPERBOLIC CROCHET CORAL REEF by the INSTITUTE FOR FIGURING AND COMPANIONS, an exhibition curated by Margaret and Christine Wertheim. The exhibition runs from Saturday, January 10, through Saturday, February 28, 2009, with an opening reception on Saturday, January 10, from 6 to 9 P.M.
One of the acknowledged wonders of the natural world, the Great Barrier Reef stretches along the coast of Queensland Australia, in a riotous profusion of color and form unparalleled on our planet. But global warming and pollutants so threaten this fragile marvel that it may well be gone by the end of the century. In homage to the Great One, Christine and Margaret Wertheim of the Institute For Figuring have instigated a project to crochet a handmade reef, a woolly testimony that now engages thousands of women the world over.
Vast in scale, collective in construction, exquisitely detailed, the Crochet Reef is an unprecedented, hybridic, handicraft invocation of a natural wonder that has become, in itself, a new kind of wonder spawned from tens of thousands of hours of labor. After major exhibitions in Chicago, New York, and most recently a smash success at The Hayward in London, Track 16 is proud to present the first West Coast showing of this giant, ongoing, evolutionary, fancywork experiment.
As a response to the ecological crisis facing marine environments, the Crochet Reef project has been called by Ren Weschler “the Aids Quilt of Global Warming.” What began as a tiny seed in the Wertheim’s home in Highland Park has morphed organically into a worldwide movement – Sister Reefs have now been made in Chicago, New York and London, with other efforts currently under way in Sydney, Arizona and Latvia. For the first time, in this exhibition, Crochet Reefs are brought together from around the globe, massing into an archipelago of stunning craft finesse.
Also on show is a new expanded version of the Toxic Reef, a gigantic, riotous agglomeration crocheted from plastic trash. An industrially malevolent, post-modern sibling to the classical, domestic beauty of the yarn-based Reef, the Toxic Reef, responds to the escalating problem of plastic trash inundating our oceans and threatening marine life everywhere.
Surprisingly, the roots of the Crochet Reef project are to be found in the realm of mathematics for the Reef also celebrates a geometry realized throughout the oceanic realm. Loopy kelps, fringed anemones, crenellated corals and curlicued sponges are all manifestations of a structure known as hyperbolic space. Though mathematicians had long believed this space impossible, nature has been playing with its permutations for hundreds of millions of years. In 1997, Dr Daina Taimina at Cornell, realized how to make models of this geometry using crochet, a discovery that astounded the mathematical world.
Building on Dr Taimina’s techniques, the Wertheim sisters have been evolving a taxonomy of reef-life forms. Just as the diversity of living species result from variations of a genetic code, so too a huge range of hyperbolic crochet ‘species’ may be brought into being through modifications in the underlying crochet code. Anyone who takes up this work can begin to develop his or her own woolly species and the project has become a kind of ongoing collective evolutionary experiment, involving women (and a few men) from all walks of life. Participants include Evelyn Hardin, a madly creative Dallas housewife; Sarah Simons, a Culver City book-maker and museum curator; Helen Bernasconi, a computer scientist and sheep farmer in rural Australia; Vonda N. MacIntrye, a science fiction writer in Seattle; Shari Porter an African American mother in San Bernardino; Rebecca Peapples, a master beader in Michigan; and Kathleen Greco, an industrial designer in Pennsylvania.
HYPERBOLIC CROCHET CORAL REEF will be shown concurrently with Harriet Zeitlin: ALL HANDS ON DECK. For more information please visit www.track16.com.
More information about the project may be seen at the IFF website: www.theiff.org
--------------------------------------------------------
Margaret Wertheim and Christine Wertheim, co-curators and wranglers-in-chief to the Crochet Reef, are co-founders of the Institute For Figuring.
Margaret is a science writer and author of books on the cultural history of physics, including “The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet” and (forthcoming) “Lithium Legs and Apocalyptic Photons” about the life and work of outsider physicist James Carter. From 2000-2005, Margaret wrote the Quark Soup science column for the LA Weekly, and her work has been published in magazines and newspapers around the world. Christine is a faculty member in the Department of Critical Studies at California Institute of the Arts, where she teaches experimental writing and feminism. Her books include “+I’me’S-pace” a poetic anthology that explores the intersection of language and logic, “Noulipo” a compendium of new constraint-based writing, and Feminaissance (forthcoming). Both twins learned handicrafts from their mother Barbara when they were growing up in Brisbane, Australia.
INSTITUTE FOR FIGURING The Institute For Figuring is a Los Angeles-based organization devoted to the aesthetic and poetic dimensions of science, mathematics and the technical arts. (www.theiff.org) The IFF hosts lectures, publishes books and curates exhibitions on subjects such as mathematical paper folding, logic crystallography and the anatomy of insects. Recent exhibitions include, Inventing Kindergarten at Art Center College of Design, The Business Card Menger Sponge at Machine Project, and The Logic Alphabet of Shea Zellweger, currently on show at the Museum of Jurassic Technology. The IFF’s work has been acknowledged in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, The Nation, The Times of London, The Guardian, Make Craft, and many other publications.
This exhibition is supported by grants from the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Norton Family Foundation, The Daniel and Joanna Rose Foundation, and Bella Meyer.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
2009 Annual Glass Art Society Conference
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Exhibition: "RE-FASHION: Plastic Bag"
Monday, January 12, 2009
Exhibit at The Tucson Bead Show
The Tucson Bead Show is produced as an adjunct of the legendary To Bead True Blue. It brings together two-hundred fifty of the finest artists, artisans, and wholesale trade suppliers for an intense three-day show. Exhibitors are chosen for traditional skills in art jewelry and bead design, wearable art, polymer clay, enamel art, metalwork, fiber arts, lamp work, lapidary, designer components, glass arts, gold and silversmithing, textile weaving, handmade clothing, clay arts, handwovens, art couture, precious gems, collectibles, interior décor, plus beading and jewelry trade supplies.
Attendees come from across the U.S. and thirty-eight countries, to meet contacts, place orders, and attend workshops. This opportunity will bring you both domestic and worldwide clients. The availability of space for the show is very limited. The Tucson Bead Show is a production of Garan-Beadagio.
The Tucson Doubletree Reid Park, 445 South Alvernon Way, Tucson, AZ 85711
The new version of Aurlaea® is now up and running.
For Information on Exhibiting Contact Us: (530) 274-2222 | tucsonbeadshow@msn.com
Sunday, January 11, 2009
2009 Handmade In California Spring Gift Guide is here!
Bring on YOUR craft game in 2009!
- Kiss 2008 Goodbye, Hello to 2009! CCCOE has the first event of 2009 at your door!
- WHAT: 'Love thy Neighbor (and thy Friends)' - a pre-Valentine boutique
- WHEN: Saturday, 1/24/09 (all day, set up and break down times tba)
- WHERE: Calabasas (between Los Angeles and Ventura) at the home of Jackie, http://appliedwithlove.etsy.com
- WHO: Any CCCOE team member invited to have a table.
- HOW: Interested to sell? Any CCCOE member who is interested! Reserve your spot by sending Jackie a $10 deposit (email her at appliedwithlove [!at] gmail.com for the address to send a check or other forms of payment). Vending tables will be provided (paid by the deposit). This is an outdoor, but overhead covered event. Rain or shine. Refreshments for guests will be provided completely by Jackie and her mom. Additional info will be given to sellers (such as set up details and small volunteer duties as developed).
- Or just come and meet up! Expect a sophisticated crowd of neighbors and friends inside this upscale gated Calabasas community. Your guests are also completely welcome as long as they RSVP when the time comes so Jackie notifies the gate attendant!
- Sign up soon, don't miss your chance to start 2009 off with a lotta love!