I am very happy to share that I will be participating in Lit Crawl this Saturday with a crew of brilliant writers and artists talking about reading and writing motherhood. I’ll be joined by @unrulyidiom@pfebes Jihii Jolly and Akasemi Newsome. Join us! Thanks to Prasant Nukalapati @janine.kovac and @litquake for making it happen.
Creative practice and motherhood flourish in community. A multi-genre group of artists and writers share work shaped by the conditions of mothering—from embracing distraction as creative fuel to finding theater in the everyday of parenting. Through conversation and community, let’s weave an infrastructure of support for parenting and creativity that acknowledges constraints while reorienting around a frame of mothering as a site of creative possibility.
Had a lot of fun participating on a panel about artmaking while parenting organized by @whatliat alongside @christiemgeorge@unrulyidiom for @batherslibrary Summer Symposium, where I talked about woodworking while pregnant, the fragmented attention of caregiving, what it takes to teach at craft school with a baby, and the seasonality of creation!
WORKS IN PROGRESS II @worksinprogress_sf runs Sep 28 through Oct 11.
7 collaborative screens by 14 Bay Area designers and craftspeople:
Len Carella lencarella
Marina Contro @marinacon
Lundberg Design @lundbergdesign
HB-AS @hbas_co
Ruth Kneass @chiofchi
Phoebe Kuo @pfebes
Estudio Material @estudio_material
Yvonne Mouser @ymouser
Devan Ponce @empty_pinata
Stephanie Robison @squishystone
Jessy Slim @_slimfactory
Medium Small @medium__small
10th Floor Studio @10thfloor.studio
White Dirt Studio @whitedirtstudio
WORKS IN PROGRESS brings together the contemporary craft + design community in the San Francisco Bay Area. The second edition in the series expands upon the idea of community through the lens of creative co-creation, highlighting fourteen artists/designers who have been paired together to interpret a screen. An object in itself yet inherently spatial, a screen is an intervention in space that helps us frame new perspectives.
MACLAC Building
198 Utah Street
San Francisco, CA
Sept 28—Oct 11
T—F 4—7pm
S—S 12—5pm
Opening party:
September 28 at 6—9pm
Presented by @kate.hands.co and @kelley_perumbeti
Photography by @sahrajajarmikhayat
Graphics @m.c.madrigal
Haystack 2023, Session 3, co-taught with Wu Hanyen @workinuse . What dream students and dreamy projects. The project prompt: to build a coopered sculpture for a specific site on campus, starting with a single board of pine. I find constraints to be highly generative for my own practice, so it was great to watch these nine works emerge from tight material and technical bounds, unique yet of a family. A patchwork quilt, a giant paper clip, roadside rivulets, forest feathers, a funky stump, a quiet gap, tree crutches, wistful buoys, and a clattering architectural gesture. Each made me see coopering and the campus in a new light—a gift! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
#haystackmountainschoolofcrafts #haystack2023 #coopering
What a way to close my first year of parenthood: teaching a two week workshop at Haystack @haystack_school ! I accepted the invitation when I was pregnant and clueless about life with a baby. It all came together thanks to my co-teacher Wu Hanyen @workinuse , our generous and talented students, the leadership and staff at Haystack, parent artist mentors who shared their hard-won wisdom, friends who gave rides to and from SFO, and most of all my partner @minli_chan who maxed out her paid vacation to be on baby duty. It takes a village! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The course was designed to foster trust within the group in support of creative risk-taking and generative conversation. In the span of two weeks, our tight-knit class traversed the full design process from quickly generating ideas to building mockups to participating in lively group critique, and through this process arrived at beautifully resolved sculptures installed around campus. I’ll share their final works in my next post, but for now enjoy some shots of students at work and play and a coopered orange peel 🍊 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
#haystack2023
It’s been awhile since I posted a Sunday project! Introducing Zadie Bee 🐝 Conceived and born on Sundays 38 weeks apart, she was delivered by our wonderful midwives after a fast unmedicated labor exactly on her due date. I ran, swam, woodworked, taught, exhibited, juried, and moved cross country during pregnancy. It wasn’t easy but @minli_chan and I got to do things on our terms and for this I am so grateful. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
One meaning of bee is “a gathering,” a nod to all of the people who came together to help us bring Zadie into the world! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
To the knuckleheads who think pregnancy has nothing to do with woodworking: you’re wrong. But I’ll hold that thought for another post another time.
March 20th is the deadline to apply for this summer’s @acreresidency —to spend two weeks in beautiful rural Wisconsin connecting with mindblowingly talented artists, playing in outdoor studios, trying new crafts, and exploring woods and corn fields and swimming holes. And oh the mosquitos. (My tip: make friends with a 48” fan!) These photos from August 2021 can hardly capture the strange joy of communing with new people in that brief reprieve between Delta and Omicron. Don’t miss out, and I’m happy to share more about my experience by dm ✨ Pic 8 by @bofiaselkin
I did not know what to expect when in 2019 I proposed a site-specific coopering class for beginner woodworkers at @arrowmont_school . It seemed to me terribly far-fetched, in terms of both ambition and potential appeal. Well, our students last week blew us away with their creativity, focus, and wit! From droopy circles to shy sign clingers, tree pentapods to a steak picnic for bears, the students quickly absorbed the techniques and made them their own. So grateful to have had this opportunity to play and connect safely in the time of Covid.
Catch-up post! Photos from Counterbalance curated by the wonderful Erika Diamond @diamond_erika Images courtesy @chq.art Thank you so much for including me and for sending Little Loop off to a new home 〰➿
One week left to see Counterbalance at Chautauqua Institute @chq.art beautifully curated by Erika Diamond @diamond_erika ! So delighted and honored to be in such brilliant company.
Curated by Erika Diamond, Assistant Director of CVA Galleries, Counterbalance features women working primarily in the media of Wood and Textiles, using a hybridized language of adornment and structure. Wood objects drape over corners and conform to the body, while textiles muscle in with bold color and rigid form. Works scale walls and shimmer from across the room in this exhibition that plays with our understanding of hard edges and soft curves.
Link in bio for video tour and exhibition photos.
