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.

Cool Stuff: Chris Duncan Calendar at Little Otsu

Can you believe that I still don't have a usable 2009 calendar? There are a million great calendars out there, of course. (Etsy, for instance, has dozens of them.) But we need a calendar we can really use -- for recording dentist appointments, carpool duty, the kids' school holidays, work due dates ... In other words, the kind of calendar we can stick on the fridge and start marking up with our busy, complicated, ever-changing family schedule. (I'm old-school, too, and simply refuse to keep our calendar online or transfer it to a handheld.)

Sadly, I haven't had any luck finding a calendar like that -- well, at least one that doesn't feature month after month of kittens "hanging in there" or New England's covered bridges. But my search did lead me to this awesome two-year calendar by Oakland artist Chris Duncan (see more of his work here).

While it's not a stick-on-the-fridge-and-check-every-morning-to-see-where-the-heck-we're-all-supposed-to-be-today type calendar, it is a gorgeous, year-at-a-glance style planner and two pieces of art rolled into one. It's double-sided, too, so when you sing "Auld Lang Syne" to 2009, simply flip it over for 2010.

Two Years of the Youniverse measures roughly 11 by 15 inches and is just $9 from San Francisco-based print shop Little Otsu. I may just have to snap one up.

Meanwhile, I'm still hunting for that practical refrigerator calendar with an arty edge. Any ideas? Anyone, anyone?

Cool Stuff: Mission Booty

Yesterday, Nick and I took the kids to see a matinee of A Christmas Carol at A.C.T. in San Francisco. It was a great show -- and was even reasonably affordable with the 4-pack ticket special.

Photo by QT Luong

Afterwards, upon my having a near panic attack in Union Square, we decamped for the less-frenzied and -commercial climes of the Mission District. (As a child, my husband made an annual pilgrimage with his family to see the big tree and the window displays in Union Square, so he was warm and fuzzy associations with that particular holiday ritual. But for me, the idea of scratching my own eyes out is a more pleasant alternative to the surging crowds and the canned holiday music blaring out of the overheated stores there.)

First we checked out the Mission Indie Mart, which was just as packed and noisy as Union Square had been, but had a much mellower vibe.

We picked up a great little key holder from FluffyCo. for a mere $12 and stopped to admire the wares by Wexford Girl and Kate Durkin before the kids started mutinying.

Over on Valencia, we visited the new-ish Curiosity Shoppe, where our daughter had a tantrum, screaming "I. Want. To. Go. HOME!" and kicking my shin. I can therefore never show my face in this lovely shop again. (But I will most definitely sneak back sporting a head scarf and big sunglasses.) Anyway, tantruming daughter safely installed on the handy built-in window bench for a time-out, we quickly browsed the shop's Small Stakes exhibition and hastily purchased a couple of these awesome Graphic Mugs ($6 each) and Parasol and Panther Cap Porcelain Mushrooms ($20 for two).

And at Little Otsu a few doors down, we got this Lart Cognac Berliner 2008 Map Calendar for $11. It's kind of useless as a functional calendar for keeping track of dentist appointments and such, but it was too pretty to pass up.

Both kids were pretty much in full, tears-on-the-sidewalk meltdown mode at his point (and yes, we did try offering them some food, to no avail). There's nothing quite like being called "the worst parents EVER!" who "only care about yourselves and never do anything that WE like!" amid a swirling sea of twentysomething hipsters (all of whom, no doubt, headed straight home to their funky Mission flats and made appointments to have their tubes tied or other bits snipped) to make one feel old and hopelessly lame.

Anyway, gazing at the fish tank at the Pirate Store at 826 Valencia magically calmed them down, and we all actually enjoyed perusing the weird and wonderful wares at Paxton Gate next door (Laurel was particularly taken with the store's mounted Morpho butterflies) before tucking in to a yummy Thai dinner at Osha.

Afterwards, the kids had a blast wandering around X21 and cracking each other up with their reactions to the collection of strange and stranger nudes on display there. And we were all delighted by the charming handmade (by owner Yaeko Yamashita, who was there stitching away) goods at Laku Yaeko. It took great strength of will not to bring home the sweet knitted owl pillow that first drew me in from the sidewalk.

A perfect day? Hardly. But it did have its moments.