los angeles « Rise Industries | Interdisciplinary projects since 1999

That Ship Has Sailed

posted by Jeremy on 2010.10.29, under art, culture, exhibition

Early last month I stopped by Machine Project in Echo Park to check out the ship that was rumored to have been built inside (and through) their small storefront space. The opening was packed, with crowds spilling out onto the street, and as soon as I strolled in I could see why – there was in fact a rather large ship taking up most of the space inside.

The ship, an installation by Josh Beckman called Sea Nymph, served as the site for seven weeks of maritime themed programs. Events ran the gamut from crocheting jellyfish, to lectures on navigation or pirates (the hacking kind though I believe), to a puppet show about Moby Dick. Unfortunately, that ship has now sailed, as it was taken apart last weekend. So – if you have not yet seen Machine Project’s majestic sailing ship, you will have to be satisfied with these here photos and videos.

As per their usual mode, Machine managed to cram art/craft/academics/tech and pure joy into an ambitions project, and then stretch it out over a couple of months of interesting programming. Take this as a lesson – if you can get to the next seemingly crazy thing they put on in there, you be sure not to miss it this time.

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A visit to the Renegade Craft Fair

posted by Jeremy on 2010.07.27, under culture, design

This past weekend Michele and I biked over to the Cornfields park in downtown LA (well, it’s now called the State Historic Park, but I don’t think that generic name is going to stick) to check out the Los Angeles version of the Renegade Craft Fair.

The fair was a giant conglomeration of craft booths set up in the sunny park with a great view of downtown, and we spent a few hours getting sunburned and checking out seemingly endless options for letterpress, T-shirts, handmade everythings, jewelry, and on and on. Our friends from Reform School were there, as was Elinor of Krank Press with a very pro looking booth. I found a little stuffed rain cloud I liked for some friends, and left inspired to get back to work on printing and jewelry projects.

I shot some random photos, since I was mostly too busy browsing to document – so here are those. If you want to hunt down any of the stuff, there are links to all the different makers via the Renegade Craft site here. The fair hits different cities too, so you can check to see if its coming to a site near you.