nice ride

This hasn't exactly been the summer of leisure Aidan and I planned so today we shirked our duties to all of our other projects and took a nice 25 (or so) km ride around the city.  

Our only real destination was the bauhaus-archiv to see an exhibition that closes very soon on the work of Benita Koch-Otte. There were maybe a dozen woven pieces, and lots of really beautiful designs on paper which made me wish more of them got made into proper textiles.  I'd seen a lot of her designs on various websites, but I guess like all art, it's best seen up close and for real so if you're in Berlin and this is up your alley, check it out while you can. 

On our way there we passed my favorite building in Berlin:

We left the Archiv and rode up the Lankwehrkanal to Rosa Luxemburg's memorial and then down to one or our favorite riding spots.  A perfect day!

slime work

Getting back to work today in my little corner meant stringing up a line and coating a whole bunch of washi paper in konnyaku starch!  I guess most people who use it try to get as much wrinkly texture as possible into their paper, but as my plans require strong and flat-ish paper, I was a little gentler in my wringing.  I got my little tub magic-paper-strengthening starch at The Paper Place in Toronto.  

From slimy balls to majestic sheets.  Soon to be embroidered and worked into book covers!

unlike me

I have a habit of doing things that go against my instincts. Getting up on stage is one of them. Running public and/or interactive projects like The Wunderkabinet and now, The Lesen Lounge is another.

I'm shy and I'm awkward and interacting with strangers kind of freaks me out. Thank goodness for the incredibly generous help - particularly from Ina, Cati, and Aidan - I've gotten to pull it all together, but when it comes down to it, the responsibility to explain myself to the confused masses falls on me. Geographically, this also means I do it in mangled English-German.

Anxieties aside, I'm pretty excited to be pulling out The Lesen Lounge for the first time this Sunday. I've decided to unveil the finished bike trailer/library box after the Sunday outing, but here's a 'before' paint, 'after' construction picture:

It'll be going out regularly - as long as the sun is shining - over the next months. If you live in Berlin you should come and visit. To find out when and where we'll be, check our website!

a new toy and some rain

I have so much to work on these days that the storms and rain this last week only serve as an excuse to not leave the house. Today, a lack of food in the fridge - and fear of atrophy - forced me out.
I walked from our place to the Turkish Market along the water, through a quickly disappearing no-man's-land. All the rain these last weeks has made everything so green, and flowers are sprouting up out of the sandy soil. I didn't have my camera with me so I took out my newly upgraded ipod (with camera) - a birthday gift from Aidan - to fool around with along my walk. It's not a terribly great camera, but also not a terribly terrible one. And, my listening is uninterrupted as I fiddle with other functions.
It's a little difficult to imagine how the picture will look large as you fiddle with neat little editing tools, and I think I may have gone a little overboard with edge-fading and filters.

Parks, Kultur, Difficulties

Since first hearing about Kulturpark and what they hoped to do with Spreepark, idling and slowly being stolen away by people (I presume) hoping to add some Berlin cachet to their apartments, I was totally onboard and even contributed to their Kickstarter campaign. Then came the inevitable walls of bureaucracy and when they opened the park to the public this weekend, this is what we encountered along a (literally) red-taped perimeter around a few bier stands and food stalls:

What was operational during the weekend was the old train tour around the perimeter of the entire park. It was surreal and oddly unsafe feeling - particularly - as we moved over the florescent water of a decaying ride and through a pitch-dark tunnel that smelled pungently of rot.

I do hope some their big plans come to fruition. I went exploring the park early one morning a few years ago with my friend, Jill, and what I saw from the train this weekend proves that the park's vacancy is leading to it very slowly being lost.
Further reading, or what the park was like in the summer of 2009: http://papermademepoor.blogspot.de/2009/07/early-morning-amusement.html

Solo

A few nights ago, Aidan began a solo tour with A-Sun Amissa. It started with a really great show here, in Berlin, at West Germany. I wish I could share audio from the entire night here, on the blog. It was super great. Between sets, Helge dj'd a perfect mix and Aidan played in a super trio with Erik Skodvin & Andrea Belfi. Really only the third time - ever - the three of them played together, it was truly great and they've got to get that shit recorded. Seriously.
Aidan being on the road, I'm left at home to work and (grudgingly) make my own coffee. It's tough getting motivated when the workaholic I share my space with isn't around to make me feel guilty about loafing around, but I'm working on the foundations of what will be The Wunderkabinet's big project of the year. I've pared down from constant exhibitions to accommodate for tours and a trip back to Canada this summer. I'd also like to go as nuts as possible where the kabinet is concerned so focussing on one big project right now is the way to go. More on that later.
For now, I'm working through an immediate to-do list of things long overdue. Alright, I'm also crocheting myself a cape while watching episodes of Downton Abbey. This is the first thing I've ever crocheted using an actual pattern and it's a big project! It will be about hip length with arm slits and button-up. I thought I'd try to chronicle my progress:

Not so much at the moment, but more to come.

Domo arigato

We went to Japan.

We toured with a really great band - that we also made a little collaborative tour cd with - called Vampillia. Not only is Vampillia a great band and NOT TO BE MISSED should they come to your town, they are hosts like no other and just very swell people. We came home to a frozen Berlin.

A small obsession with little trees.

I've spent a lot of time staring out of car, train, and aeroplane windows, and it might be my years spent in the middle of Ontario forests with my family nostalgically catching up with me, but I've got hundreds of photos that I took from these cars, trains and aeroplanes of northern European forests. I love the way birch trees look in the snow and clumps pine trees look from the air. I even bought a giant piece of locally woven linen in Tallinn, Estonia last winter after I was inspired by the landscape of wintery Finland as we flew over it and wanted to embroider what I saw. Well, that or the icy water that clogged up the small channel that separates Finland and Estonia. I can't decide so that chunk of fabric remains in a box.

Instead, I've been doing a lot of this.

I sold a couple these before I could even photograph them - my own fault for archival laziness - but, I kind of love the way they're turning out so there'll be many more.

So Much Road

Sometimes so much happens between the posts I make here that I find it a little overwhelming to 'update'. Sometimes I'd rather just go for a bike ride than unload my camera. I've really only done one thing since that September post, but it has left me with a million pictures I need to sort, an apartment to clean, and mountains of laundry. AND, I'm not quite finished.

This last tour had us criss-crossing Germany, in Belgium, The Netherlands, France, The United Kingdom, Norway, Latvia, and Lithuania. Next week we're off to Greece, Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, and Hungary. Oh, and we'll be spending part of the first week of December on the island of Madeira. Our schedule has been a little mental, with just enough time in Berlin between trips for a nap in our own bed and a bowl of Aidan's comforting gruel. At this point, I would be wallowing in my fatigue had these last weeks not been very good. [knocking on wood] Also, I'm pretty excited as the rest of our time on the road this year has us going to places we've never been.

Here's just a few pictures from a few of those places...

in order: Kavka - Antwerp, Belgium; Kafe Kult - Munich, Germany; walking around old Nürnberg, Germany; Frappant - Hamburg, Germany; old fort ruins on the Baltic in Liepaja, Latvia; mossy ground swallowing me up in Durbe, Latvia; Durbe, Lativa; Aidan rehearsing with his Latvian band in 400 year old church; a piece of medieval Lithuania outside the cathedral in Vilnius

Hi, Again.

I haven't been here for a while now. For most of the last few months, I've been spending 3 days a week over at the Etsy Labs tending to my little project, The Wunderkabinet/Reading Raum - you might have heard me mention it. It closed with summer, but my brain is still churning so it will resurface one day soon.

What else has been goin' on? Well, we moved from the crazy gentrification of Kreuzberg to the watery calm of Rummelsburg. Where's that, you say? It's (probably) east of wherever you are.

Moving also meant that coldsnap bindery got to have a studio again - this has meant that time at home has been spent in production!! All those books (and even more!) are going to be available at Renegade London this October. I'm going to share a stall with my super pal Tania! If you are reading this and you are in London this October (that is, the original one in the U.K., and not my hometown), you should come and say hello.

Let's see, what else? Well, tomorrow we leave on tour! This is shaping up to be a very busy fall as we're on and off the road for most of the next few months. We start off tomorrow in Amsterdam with our friends, Picastro! Speaking of which, you should totally check out a little record we did together.

I'll try to keep up with everything happening in the real world, in this one. Bis bald!

Where's Leah?

HERE!

Of Boris & Becky

 

photo by Becky Johnson

There are just a handful of people left in the western world that lead rare and amazing lives. Often, their sustainability is threatened by the forces of man, nature and sometimes both.

If you've ever brushed past the surface of this blog or my own life, you are no stranger to Becky Johnson. There are even a hundred (or so) Nadja fans out there sporting a Becky Johnson designed t-shirt. What many of you don't know is that Becky and her partner, the Reverend Aitor - another Nadja collaborator - do a substantial amount of their work on the road. In the past, they have criss-crossed North America in the crocheted-afghan-interior of beat-up Dodge station wagon, Boris Karloff, but like everything manufactured in the early 80's (take note 'Cosby' sweaters) expiration dates are imminent.

Along with working along and with the road, Becky also runs a blog that not only chronicles their life, but also serves as a huge resource to crafters, artists, and makers across the continent. The so so sad demise of Boris has put a serious kink in this year's schedule and help is needed to make sure The Sweetie Pie & Reverend make it out again this year. I could go on and on, but I think you should just watch this video and let Becky tell you all about it! Then, visit her Kickstarter project and back this project while getting something great in return!

Some Time

I went to Canada for 2 weeks. It seemed like 4 days.