This week­end the Bal­ti­more Museum of Art (BMA) will play host to the Con­tem­po­rary Print Fair. Vis­i­tors to the event can enjoy and pur­chase prints from four­teen major con­tem­po­rary art deal­ers, gal­leries and presses. The two day event will also fea­ture guided tours, artist lec­tures and a panel discussion.

Con­sult the event Web site for a full list of sched­uled events and participants

The Bal­ti­more Fair for Con­tem­po­rary Prints & New Edi­tions
Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, 27–28 March 2010 11 a.m.- 6 p.m.
at The Bal­ti­more Museum of Art 10 Art Museum Drive Bal­ti­more, MD 21218

Look­ing for some­thing to do this sunny week­end, Charm City and D.C. metro read­ers? Then why not check out the High­land­town Spring Art­fest this Sat­ur­day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Held at Mag­no­lia Designs Gallery in the Skylofts, the Art­fest promises to be a fun way to wel­come the new sea­son and sup­port local artists and craftspeople.

Artists at Saturday’s event will include: Adorn­ments by Ate­lier Beads, Elisa Shere Jew­elry, Joe Den­ni­son, Lana Bella, Robert Funk, Tigerlilyshop and many others.

Sat­ur­day 20 March 2010, 10 a.m. — 3 p.m. at Skylofts 3701 Bank Street, Bal­ti­more, MD 21224, check it out

The videos of last week’s Ignite Bal­ti­more 5 are all avail­able on YouTube; life is good.

The event itself was great; big­ger and even bet­ter than IB4.

Here are a few of the more mem­o­rable pre­sen­ta­tions:

tran­script of Brian Sacawa’s talk
Part of what I liked about this talk was the belief in Bal­ti­more he expressed– that we are not sim­ply, “Brooklyn’s farm team.” His tongue-in-cheek humor didn’t hurt either.

Wolver­ine AND Teddy Roo­sevelt in the same pre­sen­ta­tion?! Yes, please. Why do I have a feel­ing Tom has a master’s the­sis worth of notes on this topic lurk­ing in his sketchbooks.

A great, smart young woman who is work­ing hard to change the world around her.

To me, this was the most impor­tant talk of the night–a brand strate­gist talk­ing about the power of sto­ry­telling and the val­ues of the­atre being applied in business.

Liv­ing in the Balto/D.C. metro area and look­ing for some­thing to do this week­end? Well then head down to D.C. this Sat­ur­day (19 Dec) for the fourth annual Hol­i­day Booty Mar­ket! Fea­tur­ing the work of twenty regional artists and crafters, the mar­ket is a great chance to find last-minute hol­i­day trea­sures for your loved ones all while brows­ing among the beau­ti­ful fur­ni­ture avail­able at Design Within Reach. A few of the ven­dors fea­tured Sat­ur­day include:

60 bugs

de*nada

Mary Ellen Doran

Gosh­darnknit

Red Prairie

Jaime Zol­lars

The event will be held in Wash­ing­ton D.C. from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Adams Mor­gan Design Within Reach show­room. Check­out the event Web site for more details.

Images: 60 bugs, De*Nada Design, Mary Ellen Doran, Gosh­darnknit, Red Prairie Press, Jaime Zol­lars

Octo­ber was such a busy month that it’s hard to believe that we’re already four days into Novem­ber; but here we are, the day before Guy Fawkes Day the TEDxMi­dAt­lantic con­fer­ence.

I’m excited to see what tomorrow’s con­fer­ence holds and hope to have plenty to share in the days fol­low­ing the event. In the mean­time, if you haven’t already read it, there is a thought­ful arti­cle about the con­fer­ence in today’s Bal­ti­more Sun.

And if you were not lucky enough to obtain reg­istry for tomorrow’s event, begin­ning tomor­row (5 Nov 09) there shall be a live feed of the event avail­able here.

Image: Me

Last week­end, I ven­tured down to the water for the Fells Point Fun Fes­ti­val; it was the first time I had been down that way in almost five years. In all of the years I’ve been away, parts of the City have truly grown and revi­tal­ized in a way I was not fully pre­pared for.

So it was a bit of a shock to see the once cracked and frac­tured cor­ners of Fells Point com­pletely rebuilt into new homes, con­dos, cafes and busi­nesses. Whole build­ings I’d grown to love were gone, and while I was delighted to see the com­mu­nity danc­ing in the streets under a sum­mery sun, it was sad to see fleet­ing pieces of our his­tory gone.

While tidy­ing ear­lier this evening, though, I real­ized I still have a few pieces of those build­ings we lost in old photographs:

What do you think? Are there build­ings or mon­u­ments from Baltimore’s past that you miss? Are there archi­tec­tural dis­as­ters you’re glad are gone?
Images: Me

For the 34^th year in a row, the Amer­i­can Craft Coun­cil (ACC) will hold its annual San Fran­cisco show this week­end at the Fort Mason Cen­ter!

If you have never been to an ACC show, boy have you been miss­ing out! This year’s San Fran­cisco show will fea­ture 250 national artists who have trav­eled to the Bay area to show and sell their lat­est and great­est– fur­ni­ture, cloth­ing, jew­elry, décor (a list of exhibitors is avail­able on the show page orga­nized by medium).

Over the years, I have been to many of the ACC shows in Bal­ti­more and seen an AMAZING range of work and art. By attend­ing these shows, I have met artists whose work has enriched my life, enlivened my home and even inspired my own work.

Details:
• The Amer­i­can Craft Coun­cil Show in San Francisco
• at the Fort Mason Cen­ter (vague direc­tions avail­able here– but if you’ve never been there, it’s a pretty walk along the water past Fisherman’s Wharf– the view from the hill above is gorgeous!)
• Fri­day, August 14; 10am — 8pm
  Sat­ur­day, August 15; 10am — 6 pm
  Sun­day, August 16; 10 am — 5 pm
• Tick­ets are $12/person or $18 for a two-day pass. And since they’ve extended the Fri­day evening hours to 8pm, tick­ets for Fri­day night only are $5 after 5pm; a SCREAMING deal, if you ask me. OR if you know you’re going and want to save a few bucks, why not buy your tick­ets ahead of time at a slight dis­count here.

Not a Bay area res­i­dent? Fear not, faith­ful reader. There are other ACC shows around the nation through­out the year.

For the rest of the 2009 year the ACC shows are as fol­lows:
San Fran­cisco, CA Aug. 14–16, 2009
Char­lotte, NC Nov. 6–8, 2009
Sara­sota, FL Dec. 4–6, 2009

For 2010, the ACC shows are as fol­lows:
Bal­ti­more, MD Feb. 25–28, 2010
Atlanta, GA Mar. 12–14, 2010
St. Paul, MN Apr. 16–18 , 2010
San Fran­cisco, CA Aug. 6–8, 2010

Hope­fully, you can check at least one of the ACC shows in the next year!

For those of you from the San Fran­cisco Bay area, I thought I’d post a reminder that the Rene­gade Craft Fair is in town this week­end on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day. Fea­tur­ing more than 200 artists (TWO HUNDRED!!) this event is not to be missed!

In addi­tion to hand­made good­ies span­ning the spec­trum from wear­ables to con­sum­ables, there will raf­fles and work­shops. Per­son­ally, I’m espe­cially excited to see paper goods from Dandy Lion Press, jew­elry by Mama’s Lit­tle Babies (who I’ve men­tioned before), Bird vs. bird designs’ bags and Stella Nep­tune’s cloth­ing.

And do you know what the best part of all is? The fair is free, yes FREE… as in no money to enjoy a beau­ti­ful after­noon by the bay sur­rounded by hand­made good­ies and the tal­ented peo­ple who make them. So go check out the Rene­gade Craft Fair.

A few weeks ago, many of us in the Bay area enjoyed the good, clean fun of Pirate Fest. Good sport that I try to be, I actu­ally dressed up to join in on my fanat­i­cal and well-costumed friends’ fun, even going so far as to make my own pirate hat. Not to be out­done, my friend, hav­ing recently given away her own mas­ter­piece of pirate hab­er­dash­ery, decided to make a jaunty, new cha­peau com­plete with a net for fish­ing and a shark to boot.

Squish!

While I could go on at length about the var­i­ous tech­niques of pirate hat con­struc­tion, or the end­less parade of hats at this year’s fes­ti­val, I think this pic­ture bet­ter sum­ma­rizes any­thing I could pos­si­bly write, after all a pic­ture IS worth a thou­sand words, n’est pas?

Edgar Allan Poe

This past January (the 19th to be exact) was the bicentennial of his birth, and since then the city of Baltimore has been celebrating the milestone with ongoing events and exhibits throughout the year. The programming for Nevermore 2009 includes a range of events from theatrical performances to gallery exhibitions and walking tours.

The September 25 performance of Berenice at the National Museum of Dentistry should prove to be interesting and I can only imagine what his funeral service on October 10 shall be like with a number of notable "dignitaries" in attendance. Of all the happenings around this milestone though, I hope most to visit the Art of Darkness: Inspired by Poe exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art on display from October 2009 through January 2010. Autumn is, quite arguably, one of the best times of the year to visit Baltimore-- the light is golden, the leaves are turning and there are always tons of great cafes and galleries to discover and enjoy. If you've never been, there's nothing like a long October weekend getaway in Charm City, check out the City's visitor's bureau Web site for travel ideas, or ask a local, ask me!

Images: LOC Repro­duc­tion Num­ber: LC-USZ62-10610).

This past Sat­ur­day, I ven­tured up the Bay to attend the Nor­Cal Pirate fes­ti­val. Much fun was had, rum con­sumed, rat pies* eaten, sun­burns avoided…

*(ok, so it was really just beef and chicken, but rat, chicken, same difference!)

These pho­tos are long over­due, but this year’s Cal­i­for­nia Black­smith Asso­ci­a­tion Spring Con­fer­ence in Petaluma was a heck of time! The high­light this year was a visit from a trio of Ital­ian smiths — Clau­dio Bot­tero and the Stenico broth­ers, Jad­ran and Mar­tino. Dur­ing the two fea­ture days of the con­fer­ence, Clau­dio pro­duced a sculp­ture enti­tled “Casanova” work­ing with the Stenico broth­ers as his strik­ers.



Above: Claudio’s sketch… it seemed to serve more as a ref­er­ence for the ever grow­ing audi­ence, as none of the smiths appeared to refer to it dur­ing their forg­ing ses­sions



The fin­ished sculp­ture was auc­tioned off dur­ing Sat­ur­day night’s ban­quet. Just beau­ti­ful. More pho­tos from the con­fer­ence taken by the CBA librar­ian, Whit­ney Pot­ter, are avail­able here.

Set against the back­ground of the Petaluma Fair­grounds, there were plenty of tex­tural details to dis­cover as well. Here’s one of the more play­ful pieces of type I dis­cov­ered dur­ing the week­end:

Eric, the Junk’s Cap­tain

Brian with Munoz’ tall-bike

Thank-goodness for weld­ing gog­gles ran­dom “shel­ter” (Pro­nounced:“Porta-Potties”) in dust storms

The Steam­punk Tree­house

In the thick of the storm

The Shop

Some of our encamp­ment

The Esplanade is that’a way…

Behold the dev­as­ta­tion — our shade struc­ture is gone

Dusk, view from our camp look­ing towards the Esplanade

The Junk, ready for a night sail

Our neighbor’s dome under a full moon