Business Card Homage to Ed Keinholz

Cut out one for yourself. For my latest exercise in vanity I made these “business” cards. To me they’re an homage to the great artist Ed Kienholz. Kienlholz was part of the “Cool School” art scene in 1950s Los Angeles. Some “experts” say Kienholz was doing the more-famous Rauschenberg’s “combines” before Rauschenberg himself. Ed was a renaissance handy man who made a living early in his career doing all sorts jobs from plumbing to carpentry. He had a pickup truck with “Ed Kienholz – Expert” painted on the doors. If he never made a piece of “art” in his life I would still consider this a masterpiece. I’ve displayed similar verbiage in a similar way on these cards. With my steelworker roots I can’t help feeling a kinship with the man.

I had them made at Zazzle, and I’ve always been happy with their service. That said, I’ve found that it can be tough to get the color to match on their “indestructible” card stock. Despite my choice of material I wanted the cards to appear worn and roughed up, like an old work truck. I found some brushes for Photoshop that made this effect pretty easy to achieve at Ubersuper. For darker colored areas I inverted the effect to make the wear areas lighter. Seemed to make sense. I like how the crease turned out, but I think some of scuffs and dirt are maybe a too little subtle.

Take a look at the late great Ed Kienholz doing who knows what atop the “expert” pickup. Genius.

Three Tomatoes from the Garden

More stuff from our garden. Vegetables are just so photogenic. They look good enough to eat. Click ’em to big ’em.

Snuff – Tweet Tweet My Lovely

It’s my birthday, and I’m celebrating by posting one of my all-time favorite records, Tweet Tweet My Lovely by Snuff. It’s not even my favorite record by Snuff. I’m playing it as I write, I’m only on song number 6, and it’s given me goosebumps at least as many times. Snuff is the most soulful punk band that ever existed. These cats are the real deal, they know how to have fun, but they also know how to make some of the most poignant heavy music you’ll ever hear. And the details! Everything is perfect: the gang vocals, the crescendos, the speed, etc. Layer on some Hammond organ and trombone, and then seeing them live and it’s more exciting than I can describe. I’ll save the live show for the next Snuff record I post.

Don’t believe me? Don’t be ridiculous. Check out the snippets at AllMusic.

Then go to Snuff at MySpace. Then get all the Snuff history at Wikipedia.

Goosebumps. Goosebumps.

Tree House the Hard Way

And by “hard way” I mean this: This tree house is supported only by the tree. Sure, there’s a ladder there in the middle, but that’s not structural. I had read in a book about tree houses that a proper tree house did not have any posts in the ground supporting it. All tree, all the time. I built this at our last house, for my kids. Even though we didn’t have many tree options, and that it wouldn’t be that high, I was determined to build the real deal, not some simple elevated “tree fort” that only used the tree as another post in the ground. Here’s to the hard way!

I would go into the details (you know I would) if I could remember much about it. There are some great resources online. You’ll surely find them once you start looking. Keepin’ it real in Asheville.

T

Jenny Sigler – Handmade Crocheted and Felted Purse

(Click for big)

My mother, Jenny Sigler, made this crocheted and felted purse for my SIL, Kellie. Jenny/Mom crocheted this purse without a pattern, because she is a complete and total risk taker! Then, she felted it by washing it in very hot water. I know nothing about this “felting” but she says the object will shrink by about a third, and that it makes the weave (sorry if that’s the wrong word) of the yarn somewhat obscured. To finish it off she added some grosgrain ribbon to the strap so it wouldn’t stretch out. “Who dares, wins” and I think this purse turned out super-nice.

More by Mom

Wedding Rings by Eason Price

When Mary and I got married, almost 18 years ago, we had our wedding bands custom made by goldsmith Eason Price. Eason died a little too young earlier this year. When I called him about making these I told him that we had some general ideas about what we wanted and that we were getting our inspiration from an old book about Celtic art. He said “Yeah, I have that book. Come on down to the shop and we’ll talk about it.” I didn’t believe he actually had the book, because I hadn’t even mentioned the title, so I brought our copy with me. Sure enough, Eason had the exact same book: Celtic Art – The Methods of Construction by George Bain.

We picked out a bird-like creature we liked and Eason added a simple knot pattern. He made some sketches, we approved them, and after getting our sizes he went to work. He used white gold. We wanted platinum but at the time it was almost twice as expensive and way out of our budget. Eason put black enamel in all of the carved lines. I remember asking if the enamel would last. He assured me it would, but he didn’t know the ring and I were about to spend the next eight years working in a shipyard as a steelworker. All the enamel is long gone. I’m just happy to still have the finger.

Here’s the page with the birds we liked:

And the book, “lavishly illustrated with line drawings and photographs”:

Nomadic Furniture Book, DIY Cardboard Chair

Nomadic Furniture by Hennessey and Papanek is a fantastic book. I’ve had it so long I can’t remember where I got it. I also have volume 2, and I believe I got that from Alibris. The first book came out in 1973, so it’s got that crunchy style DIY flavor, right down to the hand-written text in ALL CAPS, even the page numbers are hand-written.

From the cover: “How to build and where to buy lightweight furniture that folds, inflates, knocks down, or is disposable and can be recycled. — With many easy to follow illustrations.” I think that sums it up pretty well. Obviously, the shopping sources are pretty stale. But many of the ideas are timeless, a few even have the potential to be stylish. Maybe the most timeless, and practical, information included is in the section “On Human Measurement.” The authors list some ergonomic starting points for chairs, tables and more. Click any of three thumbnails that follow for much larger images.

If you’re itching to make your own nomadic DIY furniture check out this cardboard chair. If you’re feeling really creative maybe you can try to make it out of sheet metal, or a flexible plastic. That probably wouldn’t be consistent with the recycling and nomadic ethos of this book, but it might be badass. Click it to big it.

Let me know in the comments if you like this stuff and I’ll post more projects from these two books.

Pixies — Surfer Rosa

Surfer Rosa is a great, great record. It was the Pixies’ first full-length album, but it’s only 32 minutes long. Perfect. Pretty much everyone I knew at the time was digging this. A year or two later when their major label debut Doolittle came out they suddenly became huge. I had a friend at the time, Bill Rogers, who was introduced to the Pixies through Doolittle, and he loved it. Then he decided to pick up Surfer Rosa, because he was, as he put it, a “completist.” In fact, I’m pretty sure I learned that term from him. Bill was not happy with Surfer Rosa. He said it was “too loosey goosey.” Bill’s music taste was broad and deep, and I really respected his opinions on music. But I couldn’t disagree more.

I was recently reminded of this great when re-watched the equally great movie, Donnie Darko. The film ends with my favorite song from the album, “Where Is My Mind?” Double greatness.

More about Surfer Rosa by the Pixies

Mars Sigler — “Monster Buddy” Plush Toy

Eleven year old (almost 12) renaissance man Mars Sigler has embraced a new medium: handmade monster toys. He is calling this product line “Monster Buddies.” The fellow pictured here is named “Marky” and he is the second original, sounds better than “number two,” in a series Master Sigler has dubbed “Locker Buddies.” Toys in the “Locker Buddy” line are small enough to fit into a school locker.

Mars learned his pattern making and sewing skills from his mother, but the creative concepts are all his. Always innovative, Mars opted with “Marky” to put the seams on display, essentially turning the toy inside out, even though the fabric isn’t. The light blue element below the simple line mouth is actually fabric drool.

In an interview today Mars revealed that he intends to produce more “Monster Buddies” and begin selling them in various outlets in the near future. Master Sigler said at this time he has no plans to sell the first two “Monster Buddy” creations.

New Letter Pillows Into Production

I’m going blind! Try staring at this stuff for a few days in a row and you’ll know what I mean. We are working on a print that will be used to make 16″ square pillows. The front of the pillow will have one large letter, and the back will have a similar pattern with a tiny anvil in the middle. I’m pretty happy with the way the graphics have turned out. These were made in Illustrator with one part multiple strokes and ten parts each of pain, suffering and tedium. It was worth it!

The letters were manipulated quite a bit to get the stripes distributed nicely. Some of them have clunky corners in spots, but I dig that because too much perfection can be boring. Depending on the letter’s shape it can be difficult to tell where the origin is.

They are already at the printer and we should have the fabric soon. Then, the real work of putting them together begins…

Any questions about how these are being made? Just post a comment.