Mark Your Calendar: Handmade Nation Screening in San Francisco

Making its San Francisco debut tomorrow night, Wednesday, March 11, as part of the San Francisco Film Society SF360 Film + Club: Faythe Levine's long-gestating, labor-of-love documentary, Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY Art, Craft & Design.

"Buying local for many means buying handmade objects that are designed and fabricated with ingenuity, grit, and love. Handmade Nation documents a movement of artists, crafters, and designers that imbue traditional handiwork techniques with a punky do-it-yourself ethos informed by modern aesthetics, politics, feminism, and art. The film explores the burgeoning art community of indie crafters that is fueled by creativity, determination, and networking. First-time director Faythe Levine traveled the U.S. to capture the tight-knit community, conducting interviews in the studios and homes of noted and independent artists. Levine also details how Web sites, blogs, and online stores have spurred a once underground movement and how crafts have expanded to connect with the greater public through boutiques, galleries, and fairs."

Following the screening will be a panel discussion with Lisa Congdon, co-owner of Rare Device; Derek Fagerstrom, craft and DIY co-editor at design*sponge and co-owner of the Curiosity Shoppe; Natalie Zee Drieu, senior editor at Craft magazine; and Stephanie Syjuco, fine artist and professor.

Several local crafters, artisans, and indie retailers will also be onsite to sell their handmade products, including Dutch Door Press, Diana Fayt, Cara Lyndon, Miss Natalie, Mittenmaker, Nous Savons, Sharon Spain, Woolly Hoodwinks, Zum, the Curiosity Shoppe, Little Otsu, Needles & Pens, and Rare Device.

The events starts at 7:00 Wednesday evening at Mezzanine. Tickets are $8 to $12. Click here for more info.

Mark Your Calendar: Lisa Congdon at BellJar

Opening tonight -- Thursday, February 12 -- at San Francisco's BellJar: Lisa Congdon's Love Me Not, a modern reinterpretation in painting, illustration, collage, and shadowbox of the lush, effusive, and slightly bizarre Valentine's notes of the Victorian era.

Here, Congdon explains her inspiration for the show: "Valentine's Day reached its height of celebration in the Victorian Era. Valentines cards were produced in tens of thousands, from whimsical to slightly vulgar. Their designs included lace paper, embossed envelopes, glass or metal mirrors, ribbons, real feathers, and flowers or dried ferns. Chubby, adult-looking children called cherubs adorned them. Just as important as the decoration are the unabashed pleading for affection and pledging of undying devotion that accompany traditional Valentines.

In Love Me Not, I explore both the traditional decor and subject matter of Valentines from the Victorian Era along with common Valentines sentiments and proclamations. In some cases I have taken the gaudy decoration and purposefully toned it down to be more austere to play with the viewer's sensibilities."

There will be an opening reception for Love Me Not this evening from 6 to 9 p.m., and the show will be up through March 11. BellJar is located at 3187 16th St. at Guerrero in the Mission.

Check out more of Congdon's work right here.

Cool Stuff: Poketo

I blogged Marco Cibola's new Middletons Plate Set at Poketo the other day, and have since spent a little more time clicking around the site founded by Ted Vadakan and Angie Myung (above).

Poketo bills itself as an international artists' network producing limited-edition lifestyle goods. Some of my top picks there:

Clockwise: Irana Douer Untitled giclee print, Pietari Posti Giant Deer giclee print, Little Friends of Printmaking Cosmic Drawer letterpress print, and Lisa Congdon's Where I End and You Begin giclee print, $40 each

Oksana Badrak Birds of a Feather Plate Set, $40

Betsy Walton Wallet 1, Camilla Engman Wallet 3, $20, Hannah Stouffer Wallet 5, $20 each

Leah Chun Forest Roller Gang Notebook, $7

Check out all of Poketo's offerings right here.

And if you're in the L.A. area, don't miss the first-ever Poketo Warehouse Sale on Saturday, May 10. Wallets, t-shirts, plates, stationery, prints, and more will be on sale for just $5 to $10 each. (Plus: Cupcakes!)

The sale runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 510 S. Hewitt St. #506. The first 50 folks to arrive will get a gift bag and 10 percent off their entire purchase. More info here.

Wanderlust: Arty Portland

I think there must be something in Portland's water. What other explanation could there possibly be for the fact that so many artists whose work I really like happen to live there? Just off the top of my head, there's Amy Ruppel, Jill Bliss, Evan Harris, Hadley Hutton, Trish Grantham, Heather Amuny-Dey, Joe Futschik ...

Needless to say, experiencing a bit of Portland's hopping homegrown art scene was high on my agenda during my most recent visit. But -- aaack! -- there was so much to see, and relatively little free time in which to do it. Still, in addition to checking out some of the amazing murals at the Ace Hotel (blogged here), I did manage to swing by a few art spaces during my whirlwind jaunt through the city.

I arrived in town just in time for the Pearl District's monthly First Thursday Gallery Walk. Much of the art showing in the galleries I hit that evening wasn't exactly to my taste -- it was pretty polished and very high-end, with a few pieces costing more than the down payment for our house. But I was intrigued by some of the work from artists such as Susan Seubert and Mia Nolting, up through the end of March at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, above.

Over on edgier East Burnside a couple of days later, I popped in to Grass Hut to check out the Balls Out! show. The exhibit features contributions by more than 50 artists (many of them local), and I was blown away by the awesomeness on display. Some of the work is reasonably affordable, too, starting at $80 (though a few pieces are priced at more than $1,000).

Pieces by Dave the Chimp, Apak, Jill Bliss, Oliver Hibert, and Jeff Soto, among others.

Paintings and collage by Chris Ryniak, Lisa DeJohn, Colin Johnson, and others.

Tough Case #4, by Meredith Hamm.

Work by Arbito, Maija Fiebig, Bwana Spoons, Cupco, Kristin Cammermeyer, and others.

Balls Out! will be up in the Grass Hut Gallery through March 31. Available work from the show can be purchased here.

Two doors down from Grass Hut is Redux, a little shop where Portland native (and San Francisco transplant) Lisa Congdon was showing a collection of collage work called Little Souvenirs. (By pure chance, I actually saw Ms. Congdon at the Portland airport the afternoon I flew in, and went over to say hello. I'm pretty sure she thought I was a stalker. Anyway -- Lisa, fabulous as you are, I promise I don't like you in that way.)

Little Souvenirs will be up at Redux through the end of March.

This painting by Rachel Ann Austin (whose work I also saw at Portland's Crafty Wonderland) was on display at Flutter, in North Portland's charming Mississippi area.

A large fiber collage made from recycled sweaters by Portland's Woolie Originals (aka Jenna Robertson), at downtown's Flora boutique.

And -- arrrgh!!! -- here are three shows I wish I'd known about while I was still in town: Locks of Lore, a collaboration between artists Evan B. Harris (who I am stalking) and his girlfriend Sarah Jane, at the Grassy Knoll Gallery in Old Town Portland. It'll be up through May, and works from the show are available for purchase in the Grassy Knoll online shop. Prices start at $195.

At the Together Gallery, in the upstart Alberta Arts District, Ryan Jacob Smith and Mark Warren Jacques' Influence of Matter will be open through the end of March. Check it out here. Prices for original works start at just $50.

And at Compound Gallery in northwest Portland, Alice: Art from the Rabbit Hole features Alice in Wonderland-inspired work by more than three dozen cutting-edge artists, including Ina Takayuki, below left, and Yagi Tomoko, below right. The show will be up through March 30, and prices start at $30.

On the art agenda for my next visit to PDX: First Friday in the hipster/industrial LoBu neighborhood just across the Willamette from downtown, and Last Thursday in Alberta Arts. I hear that -- unlike the established (and often super-pricey) galleries in the Pearl -- these are the places to catch one of Portland's many rising art stars.

Cool Stuff: Poster Hangers

Photo by Lisa Congdon

When I popped in to check out San Francisco's Rare Device awhile back, I oohed and aahed over the three sheets of beautiful Ferm Living wallpaper hung like art behind the counter. It's such a simple but ingenious idea.

It's also a fun way to experiment with wallpaper without making a major cost, time, or labor commitment: Simply order a roll of your favorite paper, scrounge a bit of leftover paper from a friend who's papering a room, or hunt for vintage paper on eBay or from a shop like New York's Secondhand Rose. Then slip a length of it into these handy Jørgen Møller aluminum hangers and voila -- you have an instant, dramatic piece of "art."

I'm going to use the hangers to (finally!) display a bit of that much-debated vintage foil paper in our freshly painted brown bedroom.

For an even more affordable option, you could substitute a piece of large-scale, graphic wrapping paper, like this Nörsa Luxe Wildflower print, $6.50 a roll from Paper Source.

The one-nail poster hangers are $18 to $25, depending on width, from Rare Device. While you're there, be sure to take a look at the shop's selection of pretty Ferm wallpapers ($95 a roll).

Photo by Lisa Congdon

(And speaking of simple, genius ideas, I also loved the shop's striking homemade paper mobile, which was crafted by co-owner and artist Lisa Congdon. It'd be fun -- and, I think, pretty easy -- to construct something similar with a couple of embroidery hoops, some fishing line, a selection of pretty papers, and a hole punch.)

eBay Finds of the Day: Retro Kitchenware à la Lisa Congdon

Photo by Lisa Congdon

A few days ago, San Francisco artist (and SF Rare Device co-owner) Lisa Congdon posted pictures on her blog of her freshly reorganized and accessorized kitchen.

Something about the pictures really grabbed me, and I found myself coming back over and over again to look at them. I was especially taken with a shot of the display shelves over Congdon's kitchen sink (which I'm pretty sure are these ones from IKEA). She had filled them with a simple but vibrant assemblage of vintage kitchenware that was so fresh and fun and perfectly composed that I wished I could do something similar in my own kitchen.

So in my eBay wanderings today, I set myself a little challenge: Could I recreate -- or at least approximate -- Congdon's artful display (which no doubt consists of things she gathered over the years at thrift stores and yard sales) with items found on the auction super-site?

Here's how I did (as always, you can click on the image to see a bigger version):

From top to bottom and left to right (all prices are the current bids or "Buy It Now" cost as of this writing): Orange canister set, $22; blue enamel Cathrineholm lotus casserole, $10; yellow enamel roasting pan, $15; green and blue pitcher, $9; red milk jug, $8; green Cathrineholm bowls, $10; red Cathrineholm teapot, $59; green enamel ladel, $8; red rooster cookie jar, $15; yellow and orange metal napkin holder, $13; blue canister set, $6; teak candle holder trio, $30; red Dansk pitcher, $10; red bunny, $5; Scandinavian teapot, $10; red canister, $10; and wooden apple cutting board, $1

Is there a room or vignette you'd like to recreate with eBay booty? Let me know and I'll see what I can do.