Category: Craftiness

Heath Ceramics

Posted by Alison – May 24, 2011

As a bit of a ceramics freak (seriously, I can’t stop buying it), I recently got into Heath Ceramics. I knew there was a history behind all this vintage pottery I was coming across on Etsy and eBay, but I knew little about the woman behind the company’s legacy: Edith Heath. As an industrial designer and potter, she founded Heath Ceramics in 1948. Its iconic designs, still modern and relevant today, are still produced in Sausalito. It’s one of the few mid-century American potteries still in existence, though now run by new folks. I’ve been pining for both new and old pieces, but finding that rare old vase or set of mugs — it’s a satisfying quest.

 

 

 

 

According to the SF Gate,

It was at the San Francisco Art Institute where she made her foray into ceramics. Driven to better understand the science of clay and glazes, Mrs. Heath successfully petitioned the UC Berkeley’s extension program to host a yearlong ceramic chemistry course.

When her husband, an engineer and inventor, converted an old treadle-powered sewing machine into a potter’s wheel, and later installed a gas-fired kiln in the basement below their Filbert Street flat, Mrs. Heath was able to practice her newfound craft, developing endless glaze formulations.

Mrs. Heath became a defining influence of 20th American design by creating distinctive ceramic dinnerware and architectural tiles. She is best-known for her pioneering glazes and clay bodies made to her own formulations with an avant-garde, minimalist look.

 

Edith’s designs immediately captured the attention of Frank Lloyd Wright, who requested Heath dinnerware for some of his projects. (Pretty incredible, as he was so famously particular and ornery. But brilliant. Have I mentioned I’ve been to almost every house he’s built in the Midwest? Anyway.) The positive response led to the founding of the same factory where work is produced today.

And those glazes: talk about beautiful The fading blues, creams and browns… I’ve been building my collection, and I can only hope I recognize Heath when I see it in the future.

Pictory: The Stories of Handmade

Posted by Alison – April 25, 2011

 

If you’re not familiar with Pictory Magazine, you should be. (Pictory = picture + story) This collection of curated galleries and stories document love, loss, family, travel, and our lives and culture in big, gorgeous photos. Anyone can submit a photo story on the continually changing social documentary themes, then the best work from the community is curated into polished photo essays.

I was recently part of the curation process — on behalf of Etsy — for a collaborative project with Pictory on the subject of “handmade” and the art of craftsmanship. The virtual gallery is now live. Here a few of the winning entries to whet your appetite. Beautiful stuff.

 

Watercraft by Heather Perry

Carefully, methodically, and very precisely, Buster Prout of Bowdoinham, Maine, constructs a gunning float, a boat used for hunting duck. This model is specific to Merrymeeting Bay. Buster Prout is the last of the bay’s gunning float builders, and for each full size boat he crafts, he creates a precise and tiny model, exactly 1/8th scale. He is a gentle man, with an artist’s hand. They are elegant crafts, and a good sculler can move the float through the rushes silently, and sneak right up on the birds. At best, a hunter might bag a limit. At worst, one spends a day in a remarkable place, in this handmade, remarkable boat.

 

What Lives in the Body by Meera Sethi

Once a week for two years, I have sat down at a table in a natural history museum, picked up a scalpel and a pair of tweezers, and—gently, carefully, meditatively—created a study skin out of a bird, or two, or three, that has been killed by its unsuspecting flight into a window of a skyscraper. On this day I prepared a Wilson’s flycatcher (a slight, somewhat unprepossessing bird notable for being new to me and for turning out well despite being incredibly small), a Savannah sparrow, and a Gray-cheeked thrush. They were all good to me; no one’s skin tore, no one’s wings sat crookedly. It was quiet, without even the radio on to disturb the hush, and there were no visitors all day. I felt restored when I left.

 

Fur Trade by Harriet Andronikides

For the past 40 years, my father has been working as a furrier in the Garment District in New York City. This neighborhood was once the heart of the fur industry, thriving with craftsman from all backgrounds and nationalities. However in the past decade, the craft of making fur coats and accessories has vanished, leaving my father as one of the last few artisans left in the Fur District. The sewing machinery, tools, and collection of coats themselves are a beautiful example of American craftsmanship.

Quilt Crazy

Posted by Alison – April 12, 2011

1st Dibs is a magical place, so of course the collection of folk art quilts for sale is jaw-dropping.

This “turkey tracks” crazy quilt was made in the 1930s. If I ever found something like this, I’d hold it so tight, I’d never let go.

This African American improvisational quilt was originally constructed to raise money for the temperance movement (a.k.a. outlawing alcohol) in the ’20s. It looks so contemporary!

And finally, this Japanese indigo-dyed quilt from the 19th century is beyond beautiful. It has the color and texture of perfect, ancient blue jeans.

Simple Times

Posted by Alison – January 17, 2011

Who doesn’t enjoy a flavorful potato ship? Mmm! Learn the crafts of poverty with Amy Sedaris on her new YouTube channel. I thoroughly enjoyed the donut bird feeder how-to, and the hot dog on a rake video is — ahem — informatively sexy.

Also, random thought: Have you ever used press-on nails? (Inspired by the tape fake nails Amy sports in the video.) I shudder to think about when I used them in middle school. Long story short: a lot of band-aids resulted.

Petra Hilbert

Posted by Alison – November 9, 2010

This Frida-esque doll by Petra Hilbert is incredible. No detail was left to chance, including a tiny embroidered mustache, delicate lace sleeves and adorable headdress. Love!

Add a little fairy tale magic and you’ll find Hilbert’s set of illustrated decorative plates, inspired by her story “A Girl With a Heart on Palm.” Multitalented much? I’m especially fond of the first in the series, with the little girl riding a deer with a clutched heart.

Where Only Anglerfish Reside

Posted by Alison – November 4, 2010

The creatures that ooze, float and pulse near the ocean’s floor are a rarely viewed breed unto themselves. Magnhild Disington, along with fashion designer Emma Jorn, created this collection of ramshackle textile, yarn and fur abstract objects, loosely inspired by deep sea creatures, sensations and atmosphere of life down in the dark waters. These creatures are equal part imagination and possibility. See more deep sea creatures in the video.

[Via Me Melodia]

Leather of My Dreams

Posted by Alison – November 3, 2010

I’m quite smitten with Alya Kazakevich’s handmade leather shoes and bags (made in Brooklyn, in fact). Her bags are that truly sumptuous shade of leather, which is quite hard to resist. However, the real story here is the shoes. How many contemporary cobblers have you seen? (Not many on my end.) Making shoes by hand really seems like a craft from another century: it’s so labor intensive and hard to get right. These shoes look totally wearable and the styles are so cute!

See more of Alya’s work at a.b.k. Custom Leather Craft.

[Via]

Sky Quilts

Posted by Alison – October 12, 2010

These dyed quilts are such a beautiful conception! Kimem hand-dyes the fabric using her own recipes — isn’t the shibori incredible? (Believe me, I’ve tried to do it. Not easy.) Most of the patterns are inspired by skylines and sunsets. The gradations between colors are kinda magical.

Yo Yo

Posted by Alison – October 7, 2010

It’s like playing cat’s cradle, but with an enamel roller attached! Oh, yo yos.

[Via Stopping Off Place]

Gee’s Bend: A Colorful Place

Posted by Alison – September 23, 2010


I’m a bit quilt obsessed. I have a linen closet steeped with antique quilts made by my grandmother and aunts, and I sleep with a worn purple number given to my as a gift by my mother (garage saled!). I lie with them on the couch, I buy them anywhere I can find them, and I keep diminutive quilt remnants on the edges of drawers as little reminders. JB, thoughtful as always, found a book on quilts — The Quilts of Gee’s Bend: Masterpieces From a Lost Place — and knew that I would love it. These functional art pieces are all kinds of beautiful, as you can plainly see; however, there’s also a fascinating back-story to the Gee’s Bend community.

“Gee’s Bend is a small rural community nestled into a curve in the Alabama River southwest of Selma, Alabama. Founded in antebellum times, it was the site of cotton plantations, primarily the lands of Joseph Gee and his relative Mark Pettway, who bought the Gee estate in 1850. After the Civil War, the freed slaves took the name Pettway, became tenant farmers for the Pettway family, and founded an all-black community nearly isolated from the surrounding world. During the Great Depression, the federal government stepped in to purchase land and homes for the community, bringing strange renown — as an ‘Alabama Africa’ — to this sleepy hamlet.

“The town’s women developed a distinctive, bold, and sophisticated quilting style based on traditional American (and African American) quilts, but with a geometric simplicity reminiscent of Amish quilts and modern art. The women of Gee’s Bend passed their skills and aesthetic down through at least six generations to the present.

“Throughout much of the twentieth century, making quilts was considered a domestic responsibility for women in Gee’s Bend. As young girls, many of the women trained or apprenticed in their craft with their mothers, female relatives, or friends; other quilters, however, have been virtually self-taught. Women with large families often made dozens upon dozens of quilts over the course of their lives.”

For more photos and quilted goodness, check out the Quilts of Gees Bend Catalog. And get the book! Seeing all of the photos up close and in bound form is a delicious experience.

[I'd forgotten about this book until I saw these beautiful photo on Cursive Design. Thanks for the reminder, Sarah!]

Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People

Posted by Alison – July 5, 2010


I can’t even begin to express my excitement for the upcoming Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People. Honestly, I’d buy anything Amy Sedaris was selling, including a peanut with glued-on eyes. (True story.) Amy Sedaris is a freaking genius, and not just when it comes to pantyhose and weed jokes. So pumped. I’m pre-ordering as we speak.

[Via Amy Sedaris Rocks]

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