Urban Craft Uprising recap

Every time I go to a street fair or art fair I get a bunch of great business cards from the merchants & crafts people, expecting to blog about it... and then never do. Today I'm rectifying that with a recap of my two (yes, two!) days spent at Urban Craft Uprising this weekend!

Well, maybe not a recap. More like a shopping list for the future. :-) I got a lot of great Christmas gifts from the vendors, but of course there's always so much more you want to buy than you can really justify. Happily, there were a ton of people at Urban Craft Uprising and it was really great to see so many supporting our local artists and craftsters!! It almost makes one optimistic about making a living in the handmade business.

I did most of my shopping on Saturday, but was so impressed with the vendors that I came back early on Sunday to wait in line for a swag bag. My two hours in the cold ended up being well worth it.

Here are some of the vendors that most caught my eye:

• Imps & Monsters (Justin Hillgrove)
  Very cute & unique prints & paintings. A lot of his work has a dark or lonely quality to it, but then you'll find one that you can't help but smile at. I may or may not have gotten a few of these as Christmas presents. :-)
• Texture
  Comfy, classic, casual-chic clothing made in Bellingham. After ooh-ing and aah-ing over the booth on Saturday, I went back on Sunday and got this irresistible skirt. Their palazzo pants looked pretty cozy, too.
• Belle Epoch
  OMG feathers! This was another booth that I drooled over on Saturday and came back to on Sunday. They collect molted feathers from fowl and make them into rockin' jewelry and hair accessories. From long & dramatic to irresistibly iridescent, their stuff is eye catching in every form.
• Queen Bee
  Everyone I know was drooling over her baby-soft faux leather bags and their beautiful embroidery. I was lucky enough to get this adorable coin purse in the swag bag I got on Sunday (squee!). When I went over to thank her I think she giggled at how excited I was. :-)
• The Sprinkle Factory
  Jewelry that looks like CANDY! This stuff was seriously adorable and looked good enough to eat. They have all manner of rings, necklaces, clips, charms, etc. that look like cookies, cakes, lollipops, sushi, donuts, and more. I got my mom a cute necklace that I think her kids will like (she teaches at an elementary school).
• Foamy Wader
  Delicate, sophisticated gemstone jewelry. I got a koi necklace here for someone who hopefully doesn't read this blog. :-P
• Jewels Curnow
  I liked these folks' gemstone rings, and had an interesting chat with Robbie. This full lotus ring was one of my favorites. They also had these cool rings where the stone is set off to the side so it looks like it's sitting between your fingers.
• Mermaid Empire (Rachel Rader)
  Rachel makes these great little flowers out of polymer clay—her earrings & brooches in particular grabbed me. I love her use of color—she stacks three or four gradations of color together to create a lot of depth in such small objects. I love combination of solid colors so this was right up my alley.
• Bella Sisters
  Painfully adorable jackets. They take thrift store jackets & vests and make them into new, stylish, you'd-never-recognize-it fashion items by adding felt appliqués, lace, bustles, embroidery, and awesomeness. I didn't even look at the prices because I knew it would only make me sad... it was all lovely and oh-so-hip.
• Slow Loris
  Screen printed clothing of all colors & shapes. This rockin' polo shirt dress caught my eye immediately. I'm not really into the bicycles, though, so I discovered that the base garment (minus the screen printing) is on sale for $17 right now...

Sooooo now you know what to get me for my birthday (you've got two weeks!). ;-)

Art, film, and one-panel comics

If you like strange, wonderful, and inappropriate things, you must check out this comics and film blog by the boy who taught me to love graph paper.

Here are three reasons why:

1. One-panel comics
2. Two-panel comics
3. More one-panel comics :-)

Across The Universe

Wow. Just got back from seeing the film Across The Universe. It was superb.

When I first saw the preview for this film, it looked unlike anything I'd ever seen, and I knew I'd have to watch it. They certainly pulled some of the most titillating scenes for the preview, but the entire visual experience is fascinating and bizarre. Think Tommy, but more accessible. Think Michel Gondry, but more psychedelic. (Incidentally, my favorite random shot was of a head shop called the Psychedelicatessen.) Think Moulin Rouge, but more giant puppets.

I'll spare you the movie review in full; what really struck me was the role art played in the movie and the feelings it evoked in me. The main character is an artist, several of his friends are musicians and performers, and all the emotion and turbulence of love and the 60s and the Vietnam War are wrapped up in and expressed through their art and their music. (Oh yeah, and there's the fact that the movie is a musical, too.) The viscerality of it all was fascinating and was something that I'd partially forgotten. One of my best friends is an Artist; during the periods of my life that I've spent with him, I remember feeling some of that same visceral quality. There's something... fascinating? eerie? about art in the way it makes you feel more alive.

I spent a couple weeks at RISD on my way to and from Paris, and the energy there was amazing. There's no way to say this without sounding corny, but you could just feel that there was this confluence of creativity all pooling together, people feeding off each other's ideas and amazing secret things coming to life behind every closed door. Just being in that environment was energizing... like being a fluorescent light near a Tesla coil, lighting up simply by being in the vicinity. After a week there I was sketching, writing poetry, drafting stories and dreaming up crafts projects for months. (I'm actually quite glad of the timing, because I made some really neat sketches in Paris that I normally would never have thought to even attempt.)

So what is it about our relationship with art and music? I used to think that some people were just born with art and creativity in them, and they spent their life trying to pour it out onto paper (or any other medium). But now I'm thinking that art shapes us as much as, if not more than, we shape art. Or at least that being able to express ourselves in that particular way taps into some part of ourselves that we rarely stimulate in other situations. There was this great scene in Across The Universe where he was pinning strawberries on a white wall and they were dripping juices like blood running down the wall. How evocative is that?? How else could you create that feeling, that strong, without just doing it?

A fellow skater is applying to live in an art commune that's starting up in Seattle. I really hope she gets in; maybe I can go visit and some of that stardust will rub off on me. In another life I'd love to tap into that lifestyle more; but for now I'm feeling pretty suburban and yuppie. It seems I'm settling for occasionally drooling over the graphic novels in the bookstore and dreaming of the days when we could draw on the walls while listening to Philip Glass.