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!

5 comments:

Jen Anisef said...

oh leah it's so nice to catch a glimpse of your space. glad to see the berlin craft machine is picking up some steam, no doubt due in part to your gentle finessing. yay!

leah b said...

my space feels so open and empty compared to my various homes in toronto! i guess that will change over time and accumulation...

and yes, my hands can't help it but to stick themselves into as many pots as possible. maybe it's an illness.

also - i don't usually have semi-useless stuff artfully strewn over my work table :)

Debt Management said...

Nice and very interesting blog. I like to this blog. It is so good to look at your space. I am very much impress to see the machine craft Berlin pick up some steam, no doubt due in part to its mild tuning.

avi editor said...

Well, machine craft of Berlin is very much unique. I like it very much. Thanks for sharing!

Sonia by Sonia Rykiel said...

Its interesting blog. I like this post so much. Its home made things as well as Its very useful to me.