studio n seeks new studiomate!

please pass it along! many thanks, michele

Studio N Seeks New StudioMate

Studio N is a shared studio of independent jewellery/metal/craft artists with varying careers and schedules. The studio itself is located at 44 Dovercourt, south of Queen St, and is approximately 750 sq ft, with a wall of south-facing windows. It comes equipped with a small kitchen, bathroom, a reception area and some storage.

This is a shared studio with 5 bench areas (one area is shared by 2 part time people). We each bring in and are responsible for our own benches, hand tools, torches, materials, hardware, etc, and contribute to larger items/ machinery/ tools where possible. The pickle pot is shared, as are vise grips, a shear, ultrasonic, polisher, hydraulic press, etc.

As a caveat, Studio N is not a residency, mentoring or educational facility – it’s a professional collective of individuals developing their studio practice and business. We don’t provide access to materials, clients or exhibitions, but are definitely about supporting each other when we can. Our works vary from the traditional to the conceptual, with lots of messy territory in between. We do hold open house exhibitions 2+ times a year, involvement is not mandatory, and some of us teach small classes.

What we’re looking for:

You’re friendly, reliable, professional and used to working in a shared, respectful, studio environment. You’re safe and savvy around tools, chemicals, materials and processes. You’ve got some learning in you regarding jewellery and metals, whether it’s through school, apprenticeship, etc, and you have a professional commitment to your practice, whatever that might entail. You’re in possession of tools, and are not averse to contributing when you can!

• Rent: $200/month inclusive, last month deposit req’d, one year+ commitment preferred.
• Other: a shared phone line at about $9/month plus any long distance; a $5/month kitty for baking soda, pickle, dish soap, garbage bags, etc.
• Available: February 1st, 2008
• Access: 24 hours. close proximity to Queen and King streetcar, Dufferin bus, Gladstone Hotel poutine.

Who we are:

• Fiona MacIntyre
• Lara McQuay
• Michele Perras
• Carolyn Scandiffio
• Anneke Van Bommel

Please contact Michele at 416-805-8661, michele {.} perras {@} gmail {.} com

around the neck @ prime gallery

this group show opens next saturday, stop by if you’re around!

all this useless beauty

cali balles, photo

i came across this paper* while researching for my project and prepping for the last lecture of the year before presentations, and it really highlights some of the ideas i’ve spoken about previously as well as given articulate phrasing to some really interesting connections in the relationship between craft, design and digital technology. craft and design have had a schism since the industrial revolution, when, for all intents and purposes, design was born. greg calls design ‘creation for reproduction’ – making with the direct intention of replicating, and thus requiring systems and standards to ensure exactness throughout that reproductive process. and most digital technology reflects this, presenting us with clean and simple efficiencies of form but very little humanity. i think that craft, however, embodies a bit more of our humanity as the unique experience of making by hand can’t be replicated and our tools and processes do not become extensions of ourselves, but rather interfaces in an empathetic relationship with the materials, the ideas, the user and ourselves. and beauty.

jayne wallace and mike press (the latter of whom is speaking this week in halifax at nscad university’s neocraft conference- i SO WISH i was there) express their thoughts on the role of beauty in craft, it’s approximation in design and it’s role in creating better digital technologies.

1st part of the excerpts below (2nd to follow shortly)

Beauty, we argue, plays a vital role in humanising technology and ensuring its cultural relevance… Industrial design can
employ the illusion of beauty to temper the beast of technology by providing a veneer of desire, seduction and usability. But let us not confuse eternal beauty with the passionate but fast fading blooms of desire. We enjoy the delights of the G4 Powerbook as much as the next fashion-conscious academic, but only as a well designed one night stand at the orgiastic party of our consumer culture.

moar

what i learned from the arts & crafts movement

photo by 3blindmice

from my post from last week, and some really inspiring conversations since, these are some of my thoughts and a bit of rationale of the connections that’ve been flitting thru my head over the past few months…

• people are happier when they have control over the nature and outcome of what their goals, as well as the process in which they can work. the desire to make is innate – we desire to be heard and to leave a trace of our voice, in materials, events, systems, etc, and i think we strive for integrity in our tone of voice.

• objects/services that represent the values and integrity (or the brand, if you will) of the maker have a stronger attraction and potential for engagement.

• objects that retain traces of those who made them speak not only of the context in which the thing was made, but also create a sort of relational continuity with the maker*. our perception of objects and their social systems is intersubjective, and the flavour added here becomes personal and human, providing space for social practice, creating narrative and future legacies.

moar

arts & crafts revisited

***update below***

a few weeks ago i gave a talk on the arts & crafts movement that emerged during the latter part of victorian britain, from roughly 1860 to 1900, and i was taken with the similarities between now and then, in relation to the changes and/or transformation our culture has undergone over the past twenty years or so; and i think i’m still in teacher-mode, so this is a bit of a long post. while the circumstances and contexts are very different, there are arguable parallels in the nature of how people responded. lately i find myself more and more fascinated by the past incidents of massive change, thinking about what insights into the future can be gained by looking back.

bit of history…. originating a few centuries prior with the printing press, the industrial revolution took hold in the early 1800′s with the advent of mechanized innovations in the textile industry, and the mechanization of labour quickly spread to other industries and spurred the production of goods towards extraordinary volumes, creating a greater need for regulated tradeways (rail, road, canal, etc) and urban development. mass production of goods was rampant, newly established factories hired workforces in the thousands, and a new middle class of entrepreneurs and nouveau riche emerged.

by mid-century, the industrial revolution was reaching the crest of its first wave, transforming every aspect of british culture while it gained strength as a global empire. it’s critical to remember that these changes were happening for the first time ever, accelerating human life into the modern age at a pace that barely allowed time to gain vantage on the present before hurtling into the future, all the while changing the expectations of what that future might hold.

more after the jump…