Saturday 21 August 2010

Slightly Terrifying, But Big...In a Little Way...


Okay. So The Wunderkabinet has GROWN! To some of you with whom I've shared my big dream of spaces and future residencies here in Berlin, this is news of a giant step forward. Also, I'm taking this step far, far sooner than I ever intended.

What was a neato cabinet in a neato little shop, has now become a whole neato little room that I am now renting from the aforementioned shop. Legalities aside - who really knows? really(.) - The Wunderkabinet is a live and true THING!

Initially, this was a terrifying realisation at 4am - 6 hours after the meeting. Then the sun finally rose and I remembered all the great people involved on both ends. The final list is set to break over on the kabinet's page in the next week!

Okay, so still a little terrified, but pretty darn excited too.

Friday 6 August 2010

In the Realm of the Handmade


My life is spent floating between two worlds. There's that one where I strap on a bass - or accordian, or something else - and make (sometimes melodic) noise. Then there's the one where I run with a slightly different crowd. One where I spend hours and hours cuting, folding, and sewing hundreds of pieces of paper together making books. And one where I can't help myself but to start some new thing. It's in this other life where I met a photographer from Paris who sometimes lives in Berlin and happened to take a bookbinding workshop I was giving. She has a photo blog and took a few pics of the coldsnap home studio - look here!

I came from Toronto and a pretty darn incredible community of friends and makers so it's been an education these last weeks of how stuff works here. I think I'm pretty lucky to have found some people trying to make Berlin a great city for craft and as a result, this other life of mine is now pretty busy.



La Bastellerie is, itself, transforming these next weeks, but in the midst of that I'll be shilling Coldsnap wares out of a trunk - as the above image suggests - at their second trunk show in the shop. For a list of other makers and more info, check out their blog. I had a test run of selling in Berlin last weekend and I learned a lot! Enough for another post altogether.

Also, you may have already read it here, but my aforementioned 'thing' is called The Wunderkabinet and applications for unique handmade oddities are still being accepted for another week!

In further calls...



...my dear buddies in the City of Craft (Toronto) are accepting applications for 3! amazing exhibitionary extensions of the show. More conceptual than craft? Apply to the interactive Midway! Are you inclined to fix what you've broken? Apply to the exhibition on mended wares! Do thoughts of money and art and survival consume you? Apply to the Love & Money exhibition!