New events scheduled!! (some of the last…so come join in!)

I’m not quite willing to say these are the last events I’ll be scheduling … it’s all gone by so fast!  And I have at least 60 more feet to make!  But, these are some of the last events, so if you are curious to experience what this is all about, get out your calendar and see what works!

• 7th of June , Sun,  10 am – 2 pm,  SAM Olympic Sculpture Park, outside PACCAR Pavillion (inside if rain), 2901 Western Avenue

• 8th of June, Mon, 11 am – 2 pm, 4Culture Conference Room, 101 Prefontaine Place S. 

• 11th of June, Thurs, noon – 4 pm, Camp Long, 5200 35th Ave. SW at Dawson   
• 11th of June, Thurs, 6 pm – 8 pm, Columbia City Gallery,  
4864 Rainier Ave S.     

See all the events here.

 

130 feet, approx.

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Inspiration for MMMM at Columbia City Gallery: Another performer collaboration and another crochet event

This Saturday May 30th from 5-8pm at the Columbia City Gallery , I have work in a group show called “5280; Ten Artists Living Within a Mile of the Gallery”.  I’ll be showing a little bit of inspiration for MMMM — another product of a collaboration with an incredible performer. Last summer and fall, I collaborated with the luminous performance artist, Haruko Nishimura.

the Slug Princess

 

dusk at Smoke Farm

 Together we created a hybridized mythological creature, the Slug Princess — an arion slug goddess —  with my work as the lumbering undulating skin and Haruko’s work with Butoh as the mercurial spirit of this creature of appetite.  We then worked with filmmaker Ian Lucero to create a short film called “The Silvering Path”, shot at Smoke Farm in Arlington Washington.

 

filming

 

 It was an intensely inspiring experience for me, watching my work, shredded fibers and yarns crocheted and beaded, pulsing and lumbering through tall grasses, twisting around rocks, picking up dirt, moisture and life.  

 

little creature on my creature

I believe the three of us together created something really beautiful and unsettling, and I wanted more.  More collaboration, and more of seeing fiber breath to life, not just because it was wrapped around a body, but because it rubbed and caressed the natural environment.  I knew I wanted to do work that didn’t just use the natural environment as a site for action, but would become entwined, enmeshed with all the processes, however minute, of the environment.  I wanted to push my work with a performer further away from “costume” & literally interweave the body into the landscape using stones, trees and flowing water interacting with changing fabric. I wanted to explore using the environment as material not simply backdrop, to create an installation that is in & changed by the elements.  

an early sketch

Then this SPU project came up, and of course those desires and ideas from the Silvering Path directly inspired what I am trying to accomplish now with MMMM and the interaction with the landscape at Camp Long.  So, at the Columbia City Gallery I’ll be showing the slug wearable element as well as these giant magic crocheted cabbages from the film.  It’s a group show celebrating 10 years of the Gallery, as well as celebrating this little hub of artists down here in the south end.  More about “The Silvering Path”…

And the Gallery has also generously offered to host a crochet event on Thursday June 11 from 6-8 pm, so you can come crochet,see the show,  catch dinner at Tutta Bella and head to a movie at Columbia Cinema.  Columbia City has it all!!  The Columbia City Gallery is at 4864 Rainier Ave S | Seattle WA 98118 | 206.760.9843

“5,280” runs from May 27 – July 5th, 2009

This weekend: May is almost over but MMMM crochet events are not!

This weekend, like every weekend, it seems, is PACKED to the gills with things to do in Seattle.  When I first moved to Seattle, I remember seeing this old scary/fascinating boarded-up turn-of-the-century school while exploring West Seattle, which is now the AMAZING Youngstown Cultural Arts Center.  The building, now filled with life again, is itself like a giant bellows breathing big breaths of creative life back into the Delridge and West Seattle communities.  Come visit the Center this Saturday the 30th, 11-5  for “Delridge Day”, celebrating the community with music, multiple art projects including MMMM, farmer’s markets, hoola-hooping, break dancing, skateboarding, battling Chefs.  Wow!  Stop by!  I’ll be there from 11-4.  The Sew People will also be there from 1-5, you can repurpose some old clothes into some new kind of awesomeness!

Then, on Sunday the 31st from 11 am – 3 pm, I’ll be at the Alki “Seattle Summer Streets” Party, hosted by Cascade Bicycle Club.   Alki Avenue SW will be closed off from California Way SW to 63rd Avenue SW, first for a race at 9am, and then for street party fun for the rest of the day.  Come find me somewhere down there (somewhere in the shade!!)

Here’s the whole list of the day’s activities

 

9:30 a.m.	West Seattle 5K Run/Walk
11:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.	Cascade Bicycle Club helmet sales & information booth
11:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.	Bike Maintenance demos by Alki Bike & Board and Sustainable West Seattle.
noon – 4 p.m.	Cascade Bicycle Club “Advocacy Alley” & staff info booth
noon – 3 p.m.	Kids Learn to Ride classes
noon – 4 p.m.	Bike arts & craft booth
12:30 p.m. – 1 p.m.	Ryan Leech show
1 p.m. – 1:20 p.m.	Kids’ Bike Parade
1 p.m. – 4 p.m.	Cascade Bicycle Club Bike Blender
1 p.m. – 5 p.m.	Rock music stage & skateboarding at Coastal Surf Boutique
2 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.	Mini Bike championships
2:30 p.m. – 3 p.m.	Ryan Leech Show
3 p.m. – 3:20 p.m.	Kids’ Bike Parade
3:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.	Mini Bike championships

SuperNaturale Sculptural Crochet Primer

SuperNaturale Sculptural Crochet Primer.

For all those wanting to know more!

 

 

 

Dancing at the Sustainable West Seattle Festival a few weeks ago

 

Patti's hands

I’m continuing to try to catch up with posting about all the great places and events I’m visiting, in no particular order.  A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of bringing my project to a booth at the Sustainable West Seattle Festival.

getting sunburned

  I just happened to share my booth with West Seattle’s “Dance for Joy” studio, who spent their time teaching people to dance in the street!

Dance for joy, ya'll

 I also chatted it up with members of West Seattle’s Senior Line dance troupe, all decked out in fringe.  I want to kick my own shin for not taking their picture, drat!  For a good part of the day, I felt like I was in the middle of a musical, which is a pretty good way to feel.  Met many West Seattlites excited about this project sited in their neighborhood!  (Still hoping to catch up with some of them for crocheting this weekend when I’ll be at Delridge Day at the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, 11am-4pm)!  I also began having the trippy experience (it’s now happened at least 5 times!) of having someone say to me “There’s this show down in Portland that you would love….”  or  “I saw this show at BAM last year, did you see it?, you would have liked it…”  That’s me, those are my shows…  It’s a funny experience, takes me off guard, I get tickled…I’ll say it.  But it also got me thinking about another benefit I’m gaining from this project.  Often, when I set up a huge installation, it’s like a gigantic marathon, all I can think about.  It goes up, there is an opening for a few hours, then I leave.  People see it, and I never really get to hear their thoughts about it.  A review may happen, and a friend or two may email.  But in general, there is not a lot of discussion with people I do not know about what I made, what they saw in it, how they felt about it, etc.  Being so out in public, so all over the city with MMMM, I’m getting these conversations that I have never had before.  Critics are one thing, friends, other artists are another.  But getting to hear what the general public thinks about your work is eye-opening.  Valuable.

Robert, chain maker

not so precious

Ten yards of silk…..

I dyed 10 yards of silk today.  If I could eat china silk, I would….it is so beautiful and easily takes on the exact color of blue I want for the wearable element, a sky Hindu-ish color, like the walls of Silence Heart Nest restaurant.  Peaceful, holy, dream-like.  Thank you, silk.  I dried it in the sun on my rosemary bush, and am hoping it will still smell so good by the time Zoe gets to wear it.  In the next several days, 10 yards will be gobbled up in giant crocheted ruffles.  Crocheting is a bit ruthless about using up materials…

 

a bit of sky fell down

Ballard coming and going; This weekend and last

 

working in the gutter

I have such a glut of images of all the events and people who have been joining in with MMMM! The weekends seem to coming at me faster and faster as this phase of the project, the community art events, move into their last month.  From June 15th till the performance, I will mostly be full time working at building the river in Camp Long, so this last month I will really be trying to get everyone involved with the project who would like to be.  So…if you are one of those people who have been telling me how excited you are about this project but haven’t been able to attend an event yet, get out your calendar and pick a day!  We all know how fast a month goes by…….and I hope you can make it!

 

So back to back weekends I will and have been crocheting in Ballard.  Last weekend, it was at another of the CAN “Seattle Summer Streets” events, this time hosted by Cascade Bicycle Club as a way to celebrate “Bike to Work Day”.  Bikes everywhere!!

bikes , bikes!!

 

 

  Sadly, I did not bike to work that day because I had so many crocheting supplies, but if I had a Bakfiets Bicycle  from Dutch Bike, Co. of Seattle, perhaps I could have!

I want one!

Dutch Bike, Co. also had another CRAZY bike that kept going up and down the street past me, each time I tried to run after it taking a picture, because it reminded me so much of what I was trying to do at the time — gather people in a circle for a little unusual creative connection with people they don’t really know.  I give you the Conference Bike!!  I enjoyed my

crazy , giggling mass of people!

there it goes again!

early evening in Ballard and had quite a few lingering loungers, a few returning friends and new acquaintances!

Here’s Diem Chau (new Ballard business owner, artist!) taking my picture as I take her picture!

 

Diem!

 

 

Now this coming weekend, on Saturday from 12 – 4:30pm, I will be back in Ballard, this time at the lovely green-roofed public library.

And then sunday, I’ll be at the Beacon Hill Library.  Please come, even for just a bit as you get out of the sun!

• 23rd of May, Sat., 12 noon – 4:30pm, Ballard Library meeting room, 5614 22nd Ave. N.W.  206-684-4089 , directions

• 24th of May, Sun, 12:30 pm – 4:45 pm, Beacon Hill Library meeting room, 2821 Beacon Ave. S.
  206-684-4711, directions

Four Cultr and SOIL on Monday!!

 

Knitted Soil

Monday is going to be really fun for me, two organizations who have been my bread and butter in one way or another will be hosting me and my crocheting habit this coming Monday!  4Culture has supported me in countless ways, including at my show at the then ‘King County Cultural Arts Authority Gallery’ back in 2003 which really feels like one of my first installations in the vein of what I am doing now.  And since then, I believe 4Culture has been a part of every major show I have had.  I am truly indebted and so am thrilled to come hang out with the people who work so hard to make so much art and culture happen.  Thank you Tina Hoggatt for setting this up!  And anyone else downtown on their lunch break should come on in! Besides, you get to hang out under Leo Berk‘s  lovely “Low Ceiling”.

 

Leo Berk, "Low Ceiling"

 I’ll be there from 11am – 2pm.  Then later on in the day at 5:30 – about 7pm, I’ll be at All City Coffee with several of the members of Soil, thanks to Etsuko Ichikawa for organizing the meet -up just before their monthly meeting.  Come by!

Broadview Revisted….

After tonight’s date with the streets of Ballard, I will be heading back to Broadview Library on this Saturday  from 12-4. A few weeks ago, I took my project to Broadview on a Thursday night, already knowing that my non-weekend night library gigs were usually not well attended. I had just really wanted to get my project out of the center, south end or west seattle, so I took the Thursday and this later Saturday date. And since most of the meeting rooms in the new libraries are amazing spaces filled with light, I just figured I’d get some work done by myself in a great room, and just spread the word for this next visit.

Chandra and Mary

It was slim, but I did meet some wonderful people who detoured their evening plans to spend an hour or two with me.  Just coming in to return books Chandra learned to crochet for the first time, while her sweet daughter and I played with the camera.

working the camera

 Pretending to be superheros and dressing up in the crocheting, unraveling yarn and touching it all, I am well versed in the joys of being four.  Then Mary came in and quickly revisted crocheting from when she was a kid.  

pals!

And all three became instant pals!  Seriously!  

 

This was not the only high-five

High Fives and laughter for the whole time.  Chandra just moved here from Georgia, and Mary and I were telling her about all the stunning parks all over the city to take her little one.  Anyhow, Broadview here I come again.  

There were many high-fives!

 

This is how a super-hero takes off....

Welcome to Seattle, you two!!

Where I’ll be this weekend….

Just a quick note as we head towards the end of the week.  This weekend I’ll be participating again in a “Seattle Summer Streets” event.  This time in Ballard on Friday…

• 15th of May, Fri, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., Ballard “Seattle Summer Streets” Party,  22nd Avenue connecting to Bergen Place Park 

I had a really fun time about a month ago at the Greenwood Summer Streets Party, so I hope this rain clears up so we can all play in the street again (although playing in the street in the rain does sound about perfect to me.  Today I gardened in the rain and liked just getting soaked, try it.  But I doubt anyone would want to crochet in the rain.  But…I may be doing just that if it rains in June as I install this thing.)

Then on Saturday I’ll be heading back to the Broadview Library for another go up north.  I hope you can make it, and take some time to go to Carkeek Park while you’re there!

• 16th of May, Sat, 12 – 4pm, Broadview Library meeting room, 12755 Greenwood Ave. N., 206-684-7519, directions

Valuing Process over Product: West Seattle Library

very special yarn

It was a quiet day at the West Seattle Library a few weeks ago, which gave me some insight into what it means to really value process over product.

Robin with her yarn

Robin stopped by with several balls of wool she had spun and dyed just for the project!  How incredibly lucky I feel to get to work with this stuff, and I’m giving a ball to my husband Paul Margolis for a new ‘crocheted second skin’ project he’s working on.  Robin and I worked and talked for four hours about the pleasure of figuring things out and making things ourselves (and the many uses of Youtube for the autodidact), from roasting coffee in her backyard, to butter making, tatting and making cheese.  It was a conversation I probably wouldn’t have had if 15 people had showed up, and I really don’t know if I would have ever met Robin if it weren’t for this aspect of this project,  to create a space for people to come together, work with our hands and allow the slow and meandering flow of conversation to happen.  It’s not about some preconceived notion of what dialogue or discourse about art should be, or even community.  I have to begin with why on earth I’m there, how this piece came to be, what it is about for me the artist, and then something just begins to happen, sometimes slow, sometimes hard.  And then, like making butter (really), it turns to something harmonious.   The process has opened me up more to taking people as they are, and allowing this work about creating conversation to mean a little something different each time.   Meeting Robin also  gave me the opportunity to get a bit more earnest about this project being about ‘process’  rather than ‘product’.  Admittedly, I am a person with a drive and a particular amount of ambition — it’s just how I have been able to get things done  — and there is a certain part to ambition that views things in numbers, and ‘how many’.  Is the project a success if I don’t have hundreds of hundreds of people participating?  The last three weeks of meeting many, many people, and the huge spectrum of interactions from 2 minutes of describing the project in a coffee shop, to sitting and talking with a stranger for four hours — this stranger giving up four hours of their time to contribute to something I deeply care about — has made me come to understand that I also have to accept the process of making this River as it unfolds, rather than what ambition might have wanted.  One person showing up at an event allows for a different sort of interaction, just as important as feeling like a lot of people have made space in their lives to join this project.  Community is a word used to describe a group, but that group forms around the tiny moments of connection that happen between 2 people at a time.  I feel much more energized, moving around the city, more appreciative of the small moments of this project.

Robin's yarn in a system of pools

At Delridge Library….all about the Mother

It’s been almost three weeks of really traveling the cardinal directions of Seattle.  Today I’m spending some time crocheting up huge strips of hand-dyed silk, alpaca and pearls for the wearable element of MMMM, and I also need to reflect upon and share some of the places I have been to.  Thank you Delridge neighborhood for joining in with MMMM!  

brother and sister crocheting duo

 

A diverse group of all ages

Now that Camp Long has been confirmed as the site for this installation integrated into the natural environment, interpreting and celebrating our urban creeks and watersheds, it felt good to be working just around the corner from the Longfellow Creek watershed at The Delridge Library , and sharing my project with members of the community the creek runs through.  

It was one of my best attended events that wasn’t a street fair, several children playing hookie from homework made long beautiful chains, including 2 four years olds.  Towards the end of the day, yarn was everywhere with kids running around the room eating animal crackers, and still crocheting.  I loved it!  For me, art and learning are both messy chaotic and wayfaring processes, full of sensory overload.  So I was quite pleased with the rumpus!  And glad I could create a space where children can mess around and babies can screech while mother messes around with yarn!   Even my doula stopped by, Betsy Hoffmeister who is an activist in her community supporting mothers and children with birth and breastfeeding support.  

Betsy and Becca

We have hardly seen each other since she was with me during the birth of my son, so I am really thrilled to have a tiny fuzzy whirlpool made by her hands join this long river.   She sat and taught her daughter to crochet, as well as two other mother and child pairs.  

Brenda teaches her son

Crocheting has been a way for me to generate my giant installations in tiny bits of time, because it’s a very simple looping process I can keep in a little bag and carry with me throughout my daily life.  My ordinary experiences of watching my kid at the playground or waiting for a few minutes in the car get imbedded in the larger mythical narrative of my work.

I'm just waiting...not driving

 

 

  I always feel like this correlates with how myths or archetypes would have been created, the repetition of the ordinary story until it transcends the individual.  So to have these moments of mothers and  children, passing hands through hands, recorded in knots in this work, to me, gives it some powerful magic.

See the entire set of images here

Mariko and little one

Robert and Tenny hold back nothing

 

babies don't crochet, but they sing for us

 

 

already a crocheting ace, taught by her grandmother

 

a tiny pool

Mark your calendars for the MMMM performance and residency at Camp Long, this summer

After much planning, The Performance…..

Mater Matrix Mother and Medium will culminate with a site-specific performance by Seattle-based and internationally-recognized choreographer and dancer Zoe Scofield.  Come join in this one-time experience on July 16th, 2009 at 6:30 pm at the pond at Camp Long in West Seattle, 5200 35th Ave. SW.  

This River, made up of thousands upon thousands of tiny moments and movements of individual citizens, integrated, linked together and interwoven into the natural environment, will itself embed Scofield in an exploration of how we ourselves are both literal and metaphoric manifestations of the living essence of water.  Our experience of water is both one of ultimate intimacy and also of civic structure.  This artwork, a unique blend of community engagement and personal inquiry, site-embedded installation and performance, embodies the ancient human practice of acknowledging our own physicality rooted in the cycles of water and how this forms the very foundation of human community.  Water, both mundane and miraculous, mirrors the everyday meeting of strangers and the tiny moments that begin to bond us together.

An outdoor studio for myself, Artist-in-Residence at Camp Long….

 

deep in the urban forest

The River of Mater Matrix Mother and Medium will be created on site at Camp Long, as I integrate all  the fiber parts created over these many months into one form based on the topography and structure of the trees of the park.  Please join me, from June 15 – July 9th, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 am – 2 pm, and watch as this brilliant blue line begins to accumulate and grow in this tiny patch of urban forest.  You can watch me work, join in with more crocheting and also explore the trails of this hidden gem of a park in the Longfellow Creek watershed.

 

 

It’s the weekend, so that means I’ll be all over the place crocheting!

See if you can catch up with me this weekend, because I’m not so sure I can.  The River is starting to grow like mushrooms, with piles and piles of blue whirlpools all over my house, some needing a little of this, some needing a little something else.  

Piles!

 

 

But its back out in the world tomorrow with my portable studio, just like last weekend (still need to sort through all my great pictures!).  On Friday, I’ll be visiting the High Point Library, in West Seattle, from 1:45pm until 5:15pm.  Then suddenly, I show up at SAM downtown for their ArtAttack Teen Night Out Party, from 6-9.  The teen I once was is completely jealous of this terrific program planned by SAM’s TAG (Teen Advisory Group, for teens by teens).  I’m quite honored to get asked to go.  I spent some time today with a few members of the group, giving them a demo on crocheting, so they could help me keep up with people who want to join in on the making of this giant project.  I was completely impressed with everyone’s willingness to learn chain, single and double crochet, young men and women.  Last weekend at the Sustainable West Seattle Festival, I had a chat with a few delightful women in their 80’s, who were just agasp and AGAPE that my friend Robert was crocheting.  I

 

Robert

 know they’re from a different generation, but it was nice to see the guys just as game to crochet as the ladies today, without  even any acknowledgment of any kind of gender association with handwork, crafting or whatever you want to call it.   If I’ve learned anything from my association with Ms. Faythe Levine, director of Handmade Nation, its that craft and Doing IT Yourself can be a radical action, a personal stand against mediocrity and force-fed culture.  With all that Revolutionary art in the floors above us, I hope to spread a bit of her message.  After SAM, on Saturday I’ll be heading to Greenwood Library from 10:30-3:30 with some muffins and coffee.  Then for Mother’s Day, I’ll be out at Plant Amnesty’s Festival of Trees at Sandpoint Magnuson Park from 10:30 am – 2 pm.  I hear there will be a parade of people in tree costumes, free trees to plant, the usual festival food goodies and some Mexican cowboys doing some tricks on horses.  I can’t wait, and neither can my big and little boys!  One small bonus of being involved in this whirlpool of a project is finding out about the incredible diversity of community and cultural experienece that Seattle has to offer, and getting to contribute to them in some way!  Join me!

 

DON’T MISS IT! ARTattack: Teen Night Out — American Rebels Are you ready to be a cultural rebel? We all know the American Revolution didn’t stop in 1776. Give props to your world-changing, revolutionary role models. They could be historical freedom fighters or people in your family or community who give back in a BIG way. Rock a poem, dance, make art or sing your heart out. We want to see your skills! Come make ARTattackyour stage.       Featuring local talent from:  SAM’s Teen Advisory Group (TAG) Jason Webley The Frontmen Youth Speaks Seattle Slam finalists All City Break Dancers/Arts Corps And more! Date: 5/8/2009 Time: 6-9 pm Location: SAM Downtown (near The Hammering Man) Event details >> Copyright © 2009 Seattle Art Museum. All Rights Reserved.

A HUGE thank you to Karin Skacel Haack at Skacel Yarn! Crochet hooks for kids!

This piece is bringing me in contact with so many generous people, freely giving their support (a hem, Sharon Arnold at dimensions variable), encouragement, their time, old clothes, old yarn, etc. etc.  But I have to just also give a gigantic thank you to Karin Skacel Haack , the president of Skacel Collection, Inc. , a Seattle-based family business importing yarns and beautiful German crochet hooks.  Karin contacted me during the making of my last project, The Silvering Path, and wanted to donate some yarn.  I believe she had seen Small but Mighty Wandering Pearl, and also one of her newest designers had helped me with some beading on that project.  She generously gave us a mountain of yellow yarn and other supplies.  She also came for a day and crocheted.  Karin and I recently got in touch again, and she again wanted to donate more yarn and asked me what else I might need for this new massive project.  I told her how I have been giving away my crochet hooks to kids who come to the events, and yarn where I could, to the point it was outside of my budget.  She said she’d find me some hooks too.

Well, her awesome web designer Candice, came to the Southwest Library crochet event with a giant bag of the most beautiful blue yarns, and a box of an unbelievable amount of glittery crochet hooks (yes, they have gold glitter in them, they are truly the glam rockstars of crochet hooks).  Not only has she insured that I can take this piece to the scale that I would like it to be without busting my budget, but also I can make sure to pass on a crochet hook to every kid I come across.  

Skacel yarn and hooks!

Crochet hooks are like special wands of transformation, simple and elemental, archetypal tools that can create infinite variety through the single gesture of knotting loops inside of loops.  I don’t even know how old they are…..It feels good and full-circle to hopefully keep a kid working with their hands.  Handwork and reading were really the saving grace of my childhood.  Someone somewhere taught me the simple gestures that have shaped my life and set my hands and mind into the motions that will probably be with me for as long as I know.  Thank you Karin for such generosity.

 

 

crocheting at Delridge Library

 

four hands together

Come see me at the Sustainable West Seattle Festival this Sunday, 5/3, 10am-3pm

Join me at the Sustainable West Seattle Festival this Sunday from 10 am – 3 pm. I’ll have my own booth for people the hang out in for a bit and crochet.  There are a whole host of other exhibitors, Community Resiliency demos, music/performances (including the Duwamish Drummers and Dancers, and the Senior Center Line Dancers!)   And the West Seattle Farmers market is going on at the same time, so venture out rain or shine!

And Thank You West Seattle for all the interest in my project!  The West Seattle Blog has sent a ton of hits my way, and I’m just so energized by all the support for this work.

 

Crocheting at Delridge Library

small hands learning the chain stitch