Hasta La Ideas

California artists get inspired by family weekend retreat at the Ace

For one weekend every spring, several dozen families gather at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs for a weekend of crafting. This is no ordinary organized school event with well-meaning preschool teachers sharing cute art projects to keep the kids busy while parents lounge by the pool. The brain-child of Karen Kimmel, Crafting Community brings together artists, kids, and creative parents looking for a meaningful weekend sharing their mutual love of hand-crafted arts. This year Undefeated, Splendid, and Kid Concierge joined the artists to develop projects using fabric, wood, leather, rope, paint, shaving cream, plants, and even cookie dough.

The first crafting community weekend that began in 2008 with a few participants has grown to include more than 70 families. “I have always wanted the event to feel like a party in a friend’s backyard,” says Kimmel. “The programming came from my fascination with traditional crafts and my desire to collaborate with innovative artists and artisans, but the workshops are almost a means to the end of carving out unstructured, creative time for our busy families. We want our families to set their own pace at the weekend – to really savor the vacation time, be present with their families, and indulge their artistic minds.”

The heart and soul of the project can be traced to Kimmel’s ability to attract charismatic artists. This year’s participants Cathy Callahan, Clare Vivier, Rene Holguin, and Tanya Aguiniga shared their expertise with the families and found inspiration to bring home to their own work in return.

Cathy Callahan was asked to base her workshops on projects from her book “Vintage Craft Workshop“. “The Macrame project just seemed like such a natural fit for Crafting Community,” says Callahan. “The parents had fond memories of doing it when they were young and it’s a great crafting skill for the kids to learn.” She loved finding two dads at her station making macramé plant hangers. Callahan searched down pieces of colorful vintage wallpaper for a mobile making workshop that kept the attention of both kids and parents cutting shapes and laying out the placement for balance.

Handbag designer Clare Vivier attended her first Crafting Community two years ago with her son Oscar. This year Vivier’s focus on recycling and material use led to the creation of a wrapped leather cuff project that captivated the attention of the kids and parents. “I knew I’d do something with my scrap leather,” says Vivier. “Bags require too much sewing so I thought this would be a great alternative.” Once back in LA, Vivier returned to the work left to ready her first store, opening soon in Silver Lake.

For RTH‘s Rene Holguin, this year was his first experience with Crafting Community. Holguin brought his leatherworking skills and piles of leather shapes and tools for a family crest project. “I feel it’s so beneficial, for kids and adults, to work with their hands,” says Holguin. “I’m a fan of family traditions. I thought, this being a family weekend, it was an opportunity to bond beyond a family’s everyday connection. It was great to see the dads with their kid on their lap, talking them through it, and working on their crest.” Holguin had such a positive experience at the event that he’s currently looking into opportunities to share his workshop with inner-city school kids.

Back for a second year, Tanya Aguiniga talked about finding time in her busy schedule to spend the weekend in the desert. “I participate because I love the idea of having local artists lead crafting projects with families,” she says. “I worked in Art Education years ago and have not had much of an opportunity to work with children until Crafting Community. Each year, as I work on my Crafting Community project ideas, I discover new methods of working more efficiently as I problem solve the steps for my workshop.”

For one of her projects Aguiniga ombre-dyed strips of Splendid fabric that hung dramatically from a rack for a necklace-making workshop. She also developed a series of modernist henna tattoos. “I was in India this past summer, and I was trying to get a henna artist in Jaipur to give me a minimalist tattoo. He didn’t understand, so I came home, bought some henna and did it myself. I told Karen the idea, she loved it and then I began dreaming up cool designs to tattoo on tiny tots. It was pretty amazing to tattoo babies, pregnant bellies and grandmas.”

Aguiniga is busy with June shows at the Architecture & Design Museum LA, the California African American Museum and Freehand Gallery, as well as one in July at Marine Contemporary. She can also be found staging Public Crafting: The Political Act of Weaving throughout LA as part of the KCET Artbound project.

Kimmel is set to collaborate with the Santa Monica Art Museum and local Southern California schools, and will launch a new Kimmelcolors stencil set this year. Her Crafting Community artists are back at work in their studios inspired to keep teaching and creating.

Heritage Irish potato spirit from a one-man distillery

Resurrecting a rare Irish spirit in the Bay Area is no easy feat, and distiller Salvatore Cimino isn’t the most likely candidate either. The third-generation distiller is of Sicilian descent, and decided to try creating the potato-based “poitín” (pot-cheen) at the behest of a friend who presented him with a heritage recipe. Having experienced some success with a duo of Prohibition-era rye whiskeys, Cimino created “Signature Poitín” as part of his one-man distilling operation 1512 Spirits. His methods bring a new meaning to the phrase “hand-crafted”, overseeing the entire process in a 700-square-foot space.

A barber by day, Cimino named the distillery 1512 after his shop, working on his spirits during off-hours. Using 95% potatoes, Cimino begins by juicing the spuds and cooking the liquid over a direct flame. He then adds hand-milled barley and cooks his mash, leaving it to ferment for three or four days. The mixture is separated by hand and double-distilled before it is proofed at 104. The process recalls the heritage of Irish farmers who would make this spirit with local materials and resources. While the Signature Poitín is high effort and low yield, Cimino is sticking to his artisanal guns.

Poitín—Irish Gaelic for “small pot”—isn’t a delicate spirit. The flavor is robust, heavy on potato with floral notes thrown in between. While some will find it too raw and one-dimensional, others will appreciate the honesty of flavor that comes through, which is similar to that of a single-varietal vodka. Fans of the poitín enjoy it in a hot toddy, warm it up to expose the floral flavors or drink it neat alongside oysters. The drink is a true eau de vie—more likely to wake you up after a meal than tuck you in for bed.

The next release from 1512 Spirits will feature a rare wheat whiskey, which has been aged in ex-rye barrels. With batches that are limited to around 85 bottles, the level of craft goes well beyond single-barrel whiskeys. 1512 Spirits’ Signature Poitín can be found at select retailers and online through Cask Spirits.

Russell Houghten nous présente sa nouvelle vidéo appelée “Open Horizon”, du même titre de la bande-son composée par Richard Houghten. Avec des images du désert conjuguées à des images de skateboard, le rendu simple et très efficace est à découvrir dans la suite.

Previously on Fubiz

• Wait for It Skateboard
• Fingerboard Spirit
• Black Skate Series

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Repurposed skateboards and recycled cutting boards handmade in Southern California

by Liz Cebron

On a recent visit to the made in America brand collaborative Shelter Half, we discovered Stormy Monday Goods—thoughtfully repurposed and redesigned skate and cutting boards, branded with a simple thundercloud and given a second shot at life. These one-of-a-kind creations are the labor of love of Neil Harrison, a Southern California native who, after nearly two decades in the industry—first at Quiksilver, then helping friends get a “little brand” called Volcom off the ground—decided to slow down and work with his hands.

Stormy Monday was conceived during a trip to Portland in late 2006—Harrison was in the Pacific Northwest visiting friends, one of whom had reshaped a couple of used skateboards and was drawing on them as an art project. Harrison made one for himself and after that, he was hooked. “I was really into the idea of re-shaping a board—not only because it gave me the opportunity to work with my hands, but also from a conceptual standpoint—I liked the idea that a used board could get back on the road again, so to speak.” Upon returning to Southern California, Harrison started collecting used boards from his friends in the skate world, team managers and team riders, who tended to have stacks of used boards laying around and with the underlying ethos of “Recycle, repurpose, reuse,” Stormy Monday was born.

All of your goods (with the exception of the surfboards, which are made in Hawaii) are handcrafted in California. Can you tell us more, specifically, about the process?

First is my least favorite part, stripping off the grip tape. Some tape is friendly and peels off in one to three pieces. Sometimes it breaks into a million bits and pieces. Once the grip is removed, I trace a shape pattern on to the board and cut it out. Then I smooth out the edges and brand the “3 Bolt Storm Cloud” logo on to the boards. Next is staining, painting and completing the rails and wheel wells. The wheel wells are one of the trickiest parts because you’re doing one at a time and you have to match them to each other as close as you can. Sometimes I’ll let boards sit for a little while before I do this part as I try to get myself psyched up to do them—you can ruin the board very easily after all that work. Each board is then number stamped, signed and logged in the book. Every board to date has been logged, including the cutting boards and now our surfboards (dropping this spring).

The process of creating cutting boards or cheese boards is very similar to the skateboards. I work out of my friends’ woodshop in Santa Ana and sometimes they have woods that are deemed “undesirable” for cabinets because of knots, sap or mineral streaks. I’ll also find scrap wood that someone leaves out on their yard for pick up. If I can’t find any wood via those two sources I’ll go to the lumber yard and buy their “damaged” wood. It’s perfect because those characteristics or flaws in the wood make our boards interesting looking and unique.

Speaking of the cutting boards, it’s not the first thing that comes to mind alongside skateboard decks and surfboards, but in your case in seems to work. Why cutting boards in the mix?

It certainly wasn’t on purpose to have them in the mix. It was a happy accident if you will, and they have only come to be part of the mix somewhat recently. It was only after I saw some scrap woods that I thought I could make nice cutters for some friends and after making a few, realized how much fun it was working on them. Then I thought it’d be funny to add to the skateboard order form.

After that, I started getting orders from friends and then eventually stores. There’s the whole thing that’s happening right now where people want to know the story behind the product and/or know the person or persons who are making them and I think that’s what’s great about where we’re going as a country, not as whole, but on this very intimate underground level and it seems to be slowly effecting the grander consuming audience.

Your logo is really interesting, how did that come to you?

The logo and name were inspired on that same visit to Portland. Jake had a simple cloud painting that he had made. It was a puffy cloud with three bolts of lightning floating beneath it and the word Monday at the bottom. So Monday was the original name, then I added Stormy to make it sound heavier. I started working up stylized versions of Jake’s cloud painting—I wanted it to have a Native American look and vibe to it, like a modern version or a petroglyph. Simple, strong and to the point.

Can you tell us a little more about your background—where you grew up, how you got into all of this (skateboards, surfing, etc)?

I was born in Bellflower and grew up in Buena Park—home of Knott’s Berry Farm. My mom loved to go to the beach and she would take us to the OP Pro, which, at the time, was the big surf contest in Huntington Beach. I was just boogie boarding then but after watching the guys surfing in the contest that was all I wanted to do. I was starting to skate around this time and honestly don’t remember how or who turned me on to it but it just found me. Skating was obviously more obtainable for an inland kook such as myself, so I was a skater first, surfer second. We had this ditch behind a drive-in that was close to my house and we skated that thing every day—it’s all I could think about in class! We were surfing the ditch walls before we learned how to surf real waves.

After I graduated high school in 1988, I moved to the beach and my friend got me a job working in the warehouse at Quiksilver. Over the next couple of years, I went from the warehouse to the art department, and then into the design dept. Around ’92 I left Quik and took up with some new friends to get the brand Volcom off the ground. I worked there as design and art director for about 15 years and left in 2006. I laid low for a few years, worked on an avocado grove I owned with some family at the time, and did some freelance design art projects here and there. Then last year my friend Danny called and asked if I’d like to stop fooling around and turn Stormy Monday into a proper brand. And here we are.

Stormy Monday currently sells skate decks for $125 and completes for $225 through Shelter Half, with denim and Hawaiian made surfboards on the horizon. For direct ordering and more information see Stormy Monday directly.

Warm water wetsuits built with an innovative recycled polyester fabric

Having mastered innovative wool-lined wetsuits designed for near-Arctic conditions, Patagonia unleashed their research and development team and returned to their Southern California roots with the recent release of the R1 warm water wetsuit. By taking everything they knew about building suits for cold water and applying it to warm water, Patagonia was able to swap the merino wool for a specially developed recycled polyester blend to create a wetsuit unlike any other currently existing on the market.

Designed specifically for surfing non-frigid spots like those in California, Hawaii and Australia, the R1 is a thinner, less restrictive and less insulating alternative to its wool-lined big brothers. While the insulation has been cut down, the material construction itself is still top notch. Patagonia enlisted a renowned—and rather secretive—Japanese mill to produce the unique grid pattern using a circular knit machine only found on the island nation. “If you were to take our R1 wetsuits and flip them inside out and compare them to our wool-lined suits, you will notice that we have not taken away any attention to detail in terms of construction, seam-taping, gluing, bonding, and stitching,” said Patagonia wetsuit developer Billy Smith.

After researching bamboo as a possible fabric option, Patagonia found the production process to be too wasteful, as nearly half of the heavy solvents used often end up as environmental waste. So they chose to develop the recycled polyester, a clean, low-energy intensive fabric previously unused in apparel. This recycled polyester makes up 100% of the R1’s exterior while the grid-lined interior is made up of 50% recycled polyester mixed with virgin polyester and spandex.

To aid in the development process Patagonia builds all prototypes on site, from patterning to construction. “Being a quarter-mile from the beach and surrounded by some of the world’s best point breaks and beach breaks has helped tremendously in the hands-on R&D process. As a team, we are able to build prototypes, surf, make adjustments, and do it all over again the next day,” says Smith.

The always forward-thinking Patagonia sees the use of recycled polyester as an advance in wetsuit design and Smith indicates that the development team has been experimenting with several different knit constructions and blending techniques for potential use down the road. That said we’re already looking forward to what Patagonia has in store for 2013.

For more information on the R1 check out this comprehensive video or head to Patagonia online and check out their full range of warm and cold water wetsuits.