Toronto Craft Alert

I recently mentioned that I have a few crafty zines lining the shelves of Toronto ex-pat Leah Buckareff‘s Reading Raum in Berlin.  A fair number of Torontonians and Toronto-based publishers contributed original works to this project, and I wanted to connect with Leah before the exhibition is over to explore what motivated her to take the Wunderkabinet project in this direction and some of the discoveries she has made as a result.

What is your background in zinemaking and indie-publishing?

I was never a serious zine-maker.  [...]

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Interlaced, by Anna Lindsay MacDonald; Photo by Marinco Kojdanovski of the Powerhouse Museum

A couple nights ago my pal Lizz reminded me of an incredible exhibition she’ll be taking part in in Australia in a few weeks. After checking out the exhibition’s website, I couldn’t resist posting about it here. Love Lace is a major exhibition of contemporary lacemaking practices hosted by the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia. For those of you who don’t know, the Powerhouse is [...]

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Ai Weiwei poster courtesy of dangerousminds.net

Many of us in the art and craft community have heard about the situation in China involving the arrest of renowned contemporary artist and activist Ai Weiwei. Ai Weiwei’s provocative work is often political and deeply human. For example, his recent work Sunflower Seeds consisted of one hundred million porcelain sunflower “seeds” made by artisans in Jingdezhen, which is known as the “porcelain capital” of China. This work was meant to be a [...]

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Sequined antlers by Cassandra Smith for Printshop Forever. Photo by Mike Goelzer.

I recently caught wind of Printshop Forever (thank you, Faythe), a Milwaukee-based web project that aims to connect work from the art/craft world with budding young collectors. Under the curation and administration of maker, writer, curator and thinker, Cortney Heimerl, this website and shop work together to fill a void she felt in the art/craft divide. At this point in [...]

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Since we were on hiatus during the first round of  Leah Buckareff’s (co-founder of the Toronto Church of Craft & City of Craft alike and all around crafty champion) wonderful Wunderkabinet exhibition, we wanted to make sure to give the second edition some love.  The Wunderkabinet 2 involves many local craft artists (4 of them part of the TCA team!),  so it is like a Toronto-Berlin craft art exchange program.  Kudos to Leah for making this happen, and happen so well.  For more background on the project, check out this post.

The [...]

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This is a show that I have been itching to visit since it arrived in Toronto, and I will kick myself forcefully if I miss it.  Let this be a public declaration that I will get myself to the ROM before February 27th to see these incredible works by El Anatsui.  You should too! p.s. check out this informative piece on Rabble.ca for more background on this artist & his process.

The Institute for Contemporary Culture at the ROM hosts the world premiere of El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You [...]

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