Winter Exhibition opened Friday

 The Fine Furniture Woodworking program at CR opened with the first semester's work Friday January 27- just to close family and friends. A few students presented at the exhibition space as a punishment of sorts for not finishing before early January. The official public reception will be held this coming Friday Feb 3. An impressive display of hard work!

 The Swede, Anton, pours one for the Dane, Eijler Hjorth Westh [the only faculty member to have work on display also].

 Bryce presents his bench.

 Adam, with the only sort of "new media" piece. He built a nice home for his computer.

 Sarah, an impressive woman in that she had to take a leave earlier in the semester to have back surgery, presents her writing box. What a triumph.

 Dan Wacker thanks everyone for his wedding gift, a cutting board made from a piece of wood from each student's project.

 Eijler's liquor cabinet, a commission.

 Young Tom's tea cabinet.

 Another view of the tea cabinet.

VOTE

That says VOTE. I entered some drawings in an art competition via Brooklyn based org Artists Wanted and need as many people to vote for me as possible! Please show the love. VOTE and PASS IT ON. Thanks all and Happy Friday- Lana

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A Day with Karen Dalton

 My record has arrived! I follow NYC's Other Music weekly music updates and recently ordered Karen Dalton 1966, recorded in a cabin outside of the mountain mining town of Summerville, Colorado .  Being that Dalton was notoriously repellent to the live performance and recording formalities, this Karen feels like the real Karen. Dalton is a favorite of mine. Perhaps it's the Native American Oklahoma blood I share with her... this record arrived at the perfect time- when the fog is thick out front, my sniffles are beginning to dry up and I am able to sit down with my drawings. We should all be thankful that we can  still await the release of an actual record [though we usually don't], unwrap it and sit with the sleeve while we give her a good listen.

Karen with Fred Neil

Excerpt from essay inside sleeve written by Ben Edmonds:

"The effect is to make this music we are not simply listening to, but overhearing. It may be the perfect placement of an audience in relation to the music of Karen Dalton. It was not made for our benefit, but if willing to listen closely it can be

...what is inarguably authentic is Karen's connection to her music. It comes from a place beyond credentials, where all the usual man-made obstructions- self-consciousness, pretense, ideology, artifice- never come into play. There was no distance between the essence of the music and the voice that expressed it."

Lately

 Oh yeah... winter.

 Mass of clouds over billowy sea. I'll never give up my goal to effectively capture horrifyingly-huge waves. You really just can't tell how absolutely huge this set was yesterday. Biggest off-shore spray I've ever seen. 

 Backyard. These curious fungi I discovered growing to the right of our front door.

 Aaaaaaaaaah. Nearly smashed this slimy beast walking into my house.

Thumbs and I took advantage of the lull in the storm this weekend and enjoyed a cup of tea on the back deck.

Secret Santa Gift: Cashing In

 In class, the students did a $5 Secret Santa gift exchange over the holiday. We were away for most of Christmas vacation, including the night of the actual exchange. Anton, the Swede, picked Darrick's name. The gift came wrapped in a very large box and was described by Anton as "...more of an experience" and labeled something like "To the first woodworker to fly in space." Pictured above is Darrick holding his gift, a handmade "Darrick" doll attached to a sort of makeshift rocket in order to be shot through a potato launcher into the ether.

The other night Anton loaded the launcher and sent Darrick out in space. Dear Anton, thank you for knowing how to sew little doll clothes, carving phallic fruits, wearing impressive hats, getting kicked out of bars with your family and making everyone's experience here richer. Love, everyone who knows you.

New Drawing

This one has been sitting on the drafting table since before Christmas. I am greatly relieved to put a cap on it. 

Ink, Colored Pencil on Paper. 15x22"

FYI we also have a new Facebook page by the name of Rasmussen By Hand. Search it and become a fan!

Finished Project

 Completion! With time to spare before the show opens as well. Darrick is calling this a 'low cabinet', meant to be installed as pictured. Picture yourself walking through the front door looking for a nice spot to set the car keys and mail OR the perfect little house for the scotch with a few glasses. Beautiful piece.

Teak, Olive, Cedar of Lebanon and Ipe. 23"h x10"w x8"d

Digital Farm Collective

All images sourced from urbanplough.com and Places journal.

 Recently via the online Architecture/landscape/urbanism journal Places, I was excited to come across the Phoenix based artist and farmer Matthew Moore. Among other works creating an interactive-mechanized-transplanting-sculpture, large-scale earthworks and installations, Moore founded the Digital Farm Collective in which he began collecting and arranging footage of the agricultural cycle from seed to harvest. He installed these time-lapse films in markets at the Sundance Film Festival for veggie buyers to contemplate. I love the idea, as simple as it is. Without getting all preachy about local/sustainable/organic/blah/blah, one must agree that there is a certain absurdity to the fact that most people don't really know what food looks like when it grows out of the ground. On an artist's level, I can appreciate his ability to interact with the public with these arrangements. On a farmer's level, I know how enjoyable, rewarding and fundamental the raising of food feels plus how important it is that more people plant a few things and throw the scraps out to a couple chickens... then make art about it. Moore quotes his father:

there is nothing you can learn in school that you can't learn on the farm

 

Learn more about Matthew Moore.

Winter Exhibition

Darrick just finished his cabinet yesterday, more photos after he presents Monday! The show for the entire class opens at the end of the month, apparently one of the most well attended events in the area.  Come out and see the work!

LACMA California Modernism 1930-65

A remake of the October 1951 cover of the LA Times, headline reading "What Makes the California Look"

 Darrick, my mother-in-law and I all trekked our traffic loathing selves to the LA County Museum of Art to scope the long awaited CA Modernism show. Us Californians have pride for our design triumphs (especially the most easily noted mid-century style), but also a very important part of this show was the contextualization of pre and post war eras and of course how these times affected the way things were being made, who was making them and the overall taste. Interesting indeed and I was very very excited to take the beautiful catalogue home. In reading through some of the texts, I cannot help but draw a number of parallels with post-war "makers" to today's craft/DIY/made in USA revival. More on this below...  

 Richard Neutra. Chair from Channel Heights Housing Project 1941-42. This piece selected from the architects own home.

 Quite impressive that these chairs were produced with extremely cheap  materials. These days when I think cheap I think it automatically denotes a lack of innovation in the design. Darrick and I dream of being a part of the shift away from this some how, where more people can afford high-quality great looking and functioning items made by the people like us. 

 Arnold Wolff for JBL. Paragon speaker 1957. Just as I turned around to take a shot of the Charles and Ray Eames' delightful living room set up, I was barked at by a navy blue blazer. See it here.

 Gilbert Adrian. Two piece dress from The Atomic 50's collection, 1950. Stunning.

 Dorothy Wright Liebes. Chinese Ribbon textile, 1940. I am starting to familiarize myself with the important fiber artists of the time because in Fort Bragg there is an enormous opportunity to learn various hand weaving techniques. In fact, I am signing up for a rug-weaving intensive workshop this Spring and there is actually something called the Mendocino Coast Handweavers Guild. Curious.

 Our life has taken a drastic turn towards building a practice together, call it craft or whatever you wish, where the goal is to construct life as makers- precisely what many of these designers considered themselves.

by hand for the holiday

 A home away from home for us- the Eastern Sierra Nevada. My father has a humble place just across from Crowley Lake (this view is looking back towards the house from the lake)which we frequent any chance we get- also the bookends of our Southern CA Christmas. Winter 2011 has been a sort of rogue-dry season, virtually no snow at all yet. The advantage of this is that people can trek back to spaces they would normally be shut out of- namely Yosemite by way of Tioga Pass and Rock Creek (where we ran into the actor John C. Reilly with his family, made my day!). 

 A gift Darrick and I made for Christmas. Homemade skin products with high-quality oils: one encouraging relaxation, one boasting complexion enhancement and one that helps heal wounds as well as amend dry or damaged skin. Darrick cut out a home for each bottle as well as shaped and finished these pieces of black Acacia. They turned out quite lovely.

 The underside of the curves are raw edges of the wood.

Another walk up the hill behind the house that we would have never been able to do without snow shoes if it weren't for the abnormal season.