Screw your Facebook event invite. The rock poster is alive and kicking here in D.C., and poster maker and Crafty Bastards veteran, Anthony Dihle wants you to know about it.

Civilian Art Projects is presents its second exhibition of music-based posters following last summer’s Screams & Screens exhibition of artists from across the country. PAPER JAM: The Art and Grime of the East Coast Rock Poster includes the works of 27 artists from the East Coast. The exhibition will open to the public on Friday, June 12, 2009 and will be on view through June 27, 2009. Public exhibition hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 12 to 6 p.m. There will be an opening reception for the artists on Friday, June 12, 2009 from 7pm to 9pm.

James Heimer

Paper Jam features a cross-section of artists, designers, and printmakers who make music posters. The exhibition is limited to East Coast postermakers, ranging from New Jersey to Virginia, and is intended to shine the spotlight on what is going on here, in our own backyard, in a world increasingly de-emphasizing local focus. Organized by artist Anthony Dihle, the exhibition stages the most fun, interesting, and experimental work from the area.

Ana Benaroya

According to Dihle, “both well-established and newly emerging artists are featured. Their methods of production range from high-end offset lithography to silkscreen to Xerox, and their styles are equally varied, from the rock poster standbys of skulls-n-babes to experimentation where text and form are pushed to convey music using symbols and abstraction. Bands represented extend from internationally known acts to garage bands making their debut show. Most of the work is home-brewed, by the artist, and merges the illustration of sound and lyrics with the requisite need for a poster to simultaneously advertise a show and commemorate it.”

Triggered largely by a renewed interest in live music and analog sound, the recent revival of poster art is being made possible by the availability of imaging software, adaptability of silkscreen to at-home methods, and a burgeoning community of postermakers who share ideas, resources, viewing spaces, and markets for their prints.

Artists in Paper Jam include, Ana Benaroya, Jordan Bernier, Rick Bowman, Chris Cernoch, Kate Crosgrove, Anthony Dihle (Dirty Pictures), Jefferey Everett (El Jefe Design), JP Flexner, John Foster (Bad People Good Things), Jeff Fry, Tim Gibbon (Dynamite Printworks), James Heimer, Adam Juresko, Edward Kelley, Daniel Kent, Chris Kline, Nick Kulp (Undercover Zero), Large Mammal, Robb Leef, Drew Liverman, Magick Outlaw, Nick Pimentel (Planaria Design), Gregory Pizzoli, Post Typography, Brian Potash (Devilish Ink), Public Domain, and Warm.

Tim Gibbon

There is a really great gallery of the work presented at this show over at the Civilian Art Projects web site.

Are you sad that there is only one Crafty Bastards Fair this year (October 3, Adams Morgan, why haven’t you applied yet, slacker?). The craft gods of D.C. have your back and are providing you with Handmade Mart this Sunday in Silver Spring.

Bring the family for a unique one-day shopping experience along Ellsworth Drive in the heart of Downtown Silver Spring. The Handmade Mart will feature more than 50 craft vendors selling handmade goods, awesome live music, and hands-on workshops will be held inside the Pyramid Atlantic Store all day! Bring your own T-Shirt to screenprint an official Handmade Mart Tee and learn to make jewelry. Pyramid Atlantic will also be hosting fun art activities for the kids. The Floating Lab will also be doing live demonstrations and hosting cool activities from their Floating Museum truck at the intersection of Ellsworth Dr. and Fenton Ave.

Be sure to check out the live music on the main stage:
12:00pm -12:30pm Pash
1:00pm - 2:30pm The Paul Green School of Rock Music
3:00pm - 3:45pm The Aquarium
4:15pm - 5:00pm Yell County

You can check out all of the Handmade Mart vendors and fabulous sponsors on pyramidatlanticartcenter.org, and see vendor profiles on the official Handmade Mart blog at handmademart.blogspot.com.

What: Handmade Mart
When: THIS SUNDAY, May 31, 10am-5pm
Where: Downtown Silver Spring, MD, Ellsworth Drive (between Georgia and Fenton Ave.)
Questions? Email handmademart@gmail.com

Download the vendor map!

Debbie and Kim at Handmade Mart are having a Vendor/Volunteer Party at the Pyramid Atlantic Store (924 Ellsworth Drive, Silver Spring) on May 21 (this Thursday) from 7 pm to 9 pm where you’ll get to mingle with cool, crafty folks, have a drink, sign up for shifts, tour the event site, get more info, and (THE FUN PART) screenprint your very own Handmade Mart tee shirt! The design will be printed with red ink, so bring a light-colored shirt for the best results.

If you interested in volunteering, you can totally show up to this event. If not, be sure to check out the Handmade Mart on May 31st from 10am to 5pm in Downtown Silver Spring. Many many Crafty Bastards veterans will be on hand.

Our friends at the Philly City Paper are hosting a trunk show this weekend.  The show will feature 150 or so vendors including Crafty Bastards vets El Jefe, Squidfire, Tigerflight and more.  From Philly CP’s site:

Join us in Philly’s largest open-air market for a celebration of 150ish emerging artists, crafters and designers

hand-made crafts * hot new designer
wholesale designer clothing and accessories
food * booze * music * more

Saturday, May 16
11 am to 4 pm

For vendor opportunities, call 215-735-8444.

Applications for Crafty Bastards 2009 are now being accepted. The deadline to apply for booth space is July 5, 2009.  Get more info and submit your Crafty Bastards application here.

There is a $10 non-refundable application fee. The jury will review and score all completed entries on various criteria from design and craftsmanship to saleability and alternative subject matter.  Applicants will be notified of their status by July 20th.  If accepted, the booth fee is $120 and will be due July 31st.  The vendor list will be announced in August.  Crafty Bastards will take place Saturday, October 3rd from 10am-5pm.

In the past we have received between 300 and 400 applications for the 100+ spots available at the show.  Vendors from previous years are not given special consideration or guaranteed a space at this years’ show. All applicants are strongly encouraged to submit clear images and descriptive work statements.  Tina posted some craft show application tips here and here.

Questions?  Send them to craftybastards@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Hello Craft will be showing the highly anticipated, indie craft documentary film, Handmade Nation! To celebrate, they are giving away a pair of tickets to the Friday, May 1 showing at 8:30 p.m. To enter the contest, simply email hellocraftcontests@gmail.com by 5pm Wednesday 4/29 and tell them why you love handmade. The words Crafty Contest should be in the subject line. The winner will be notified via email on Thursday 4/30. Tickets can be claimed at the box office Friday evening.

Screening Location & Time
Theater J at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center
1529 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036
Friday, May 1, 8:30 p.m. - Tickets can be purchased for $10 online now!

What is Handmade Nation?
In 2006, first-time filmmaker Faythe Levine traveled 19,000 miles to document what has emerged as a marriage between historical technique, punk culture, and the D.I.Y. ethos. Handmade Nation gives viewers an inside glimpse into the fascinating world of the indie craft community through interviews and footage of crafters in their natural habitats – work studios and craft fairs. Featured crafters include Jenny Hart, Nikki McClure, Knitta’ and Deb Dormody, just to name a few.

This post originally ran on the Etsy Storque.

Five years ago I totally didn’t have any crafty friends. I toiled away in my living room each night, making stuff without any clue what I would do with it. And when I finished something, I stored it in our extra bedroom until the spare bed became this weird pile of strange stuff. I felt like my making had no purpose and I had absolutely no one to talk to about this. There were no support groups for the likes of me: people who were addicted to making with no real end game for the products. I remember being obsessed with picking up trash to make into collage art, stealing rubber fishing lures from my dad to make into necklaces, looking at a seat belt from a junked car as if it were a prize. I was upcycling before I had a word for it, and to my non-crafty friends, I was just a little wonky.

I had no idea then that my life would totally change, and that not only would I meet someone like me, but that my life would end up full of friends like me. These are not just acquaintances, but real, amazing friends: collaborators and co-conspirators and comrades and colleagues. The importance of these friends to my craft is one thing. I love that I know who to ask when I can’t find Gocco supplies or where to go if I need advice on a craft show application. I love that my friend Beth knows just want to do with an old sweater and that my friend Sara knits me the best scarves with bumpy yarn every year.

But it is the importance of these friends to my actual life that has taken me so by surprise. When my family recently went through a tough medical diagnosis, my crafty friends were delivering groceries and stopping by to teach my twins to sew and sending me encouraging text messages. I never imagined it, but I have found myself surrounded by community, and that is the most fabulous part of the handmade revolution for me. I’m not just a weirdo making things while I watch TV anymore. I’m one of many weirdos making things while we watch TV.

And this is why I am so excited about the Summit of Awesome, my latest project with Hello Craft. After years selling at and organizing craft shows, I wanted to help create an event that is about more than just gathering to sell our wares. It seemed to me that selling at craft shows leaves little time to actually socialize, forge friendships and learn from each other. And my attempts at gathering crafty friends to just “hang out” always seemed to be foiled by the business of real life. I am so excited that I get to help provide other people with the venue to infuse their lives with new crafty friends; to hang out with neat people, while learning from some of the most inspiring speakers in the crafting community.

The Craftnotes with Sublime Stitching’s Jenny Hart and Etsy’s CEO Maria Thomas are in themselves exciting, but we also have 30 more speakers lined up for seminars, workshops and demos. And if you can’t make the event, the Etsy Virtual Labs will be covering several of our seminars. We’ve also just added single day passes if you cannot make the whole weekend of awesome.

Here are the details:
Hello Craft’s Summit of Awesome will take place in Washington, D.C., May 1-3. The Summit is designed for artists and crafters, from dabblers to business owners, and includes the D.C. premiere of the Indie Craft Documentary, Handmade Nation. We also have fun social “making areas” planned, as well as the first ever Handmade White Elephant Gift Exchange and Swap! You can check out the complete line-up of speakers and register online at hellocraft.com.

I can’t stress enough the importance of gathering together to learn and share in the same space; how I think these types of events will help deepen the bond of the crafting community and spark new and innovative ideas on the direction of the handmade movement. And dude, you need more cool friends, right?

Hinckley Pottery, which as been making fine pottery for the Washington area for more than 40 years, will be holding its 18th annual student show at its studio in Adams Morgan on Sunday, April 26, 2009.

More than two dozen experienced students will display a years’ worth of artistic labor for sale to the public. Their pots make wonderful gifts for Mother’s Day or any other occasion. Come meet the potters, enjoy a delicious spread of food, and find the perfect presents for housewarmings, Mom, graduations, weddings or yourself.

All of the pots are meant to be used and enjoyed. They are lead-free and almost all are dishwasher, microwave and oven safe.

What: Hinckley Pottery Student Show
Date: Sunday, April 26
Time: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Location: 1707 Kalorama Road NW, Washington DC
Web link: http://www.hinckleypottery.com/events.htm

The first annual CraftWeek DC takes place April 22 – 26, 2009. A citywide celebration of crafts in our Nation’s capital, each day offers activities focused on every craft medium from ceramics, fiber, glass, metal to wood, and includes exhibits, artist demonstrations, gallery receptions, lectures, plus other activities. Two nationally recognized studio craft events will also take place – the prestigious juried Smithsonian Craft Show and the James Renwick Alliance Spring Craft Weekend, including the Masters of the Medium symposium featuring the five master artists.

CraftWeek DC is a unique opportunity to see studio crafts at their best and meet the makers, from internationally recognized artists to up-and-coming artists exhibiting for the first time at the Smithsonian Craft Show. Events celebrate as well, the growing community of artists and galleries in the Washington, DC area involved in creating and showing sculptural and functional objects.

Many events are free and open to the public, including:

Demonstrations of technique and work by DC area art jewelry, ceramics and glass artists at Red Dirt Studios, Flux Studios, Blue Fire Studios, DC Glassworks and Sculpture Studios, and Washington Glass School, Gateway Arts Community, Mt Rainier, MD. Work by the ceramics and jewelry faculty at Corcoran College of Art + Design and Studio 4903 will also be on display at Blue Fire Studios and Flux Studios.

In Georgetown, Maurine Littleton Gallery is showing work by noted glass artists Richard Marquis, a Master of the Medium, and Dante Marioni. Jewelry by metalsmith/jeweler Mielle Harvey is at Jewelers’werk Galerie. A ceramic cup invitational showing the work of many artists is a fun event at Cross MacKenzie Gallery. In Potomac, Artists Circle Fine Arts is showing work by John Garrett, an experimental artist who applies textile technologies and imagery to various materials.

Near Dupont Circle, Foundry Gallery will show kiln cast and lampworked glass by instructors and students from the Washington Glass School. On Capital Hill, five Washington-based artists will show work in ceramic, glass, metal and mixed media at Capital Hill Art & Frame. Shows at the Target, Scope and Enamelist galleries at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, will feature local artists working with reclaimed material, ceramics and enameled metal.

At KORUS House, Embassy of Korea, a special event highlights the artistry of contemporary Korean and Korean-American metalsmiths and makers of art jewelry.

On Saturday morning, April 25, the James Renwick Alliance and the Smithsonian American Art Museum host a symposium at which artists honored by the Alliance’s Master of the Medium award will speak on their life in craft. The panel is moderated by Michael Monroe, Director of Curatorial Affairs, Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, Washington, and former curator-in-charge, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum. The honorees are: Warren Mackenzie, an influential ceramics educator from Minneapolis, Minnesota; Richard Marquis, a pioneer in the American studio glass movement and one of the first to incorporate Venetian glass techniques into contemporary studio glass; Norma Minkowitz, a fiber artist and pioneer in turning the feminine art of crochet into a medium for sculpture; June Schwarcz, noted for her exquisite skill with enamel and metalwork; and David Ellsworth, a leading figure in the American turned wood movement.

For event dates, times and locations, and events requiring admission fees, see http://craftweekdc.com