emiko-o reware

This coming Thursday, Sept 10 I will be back at my alma mater Syracuse University (it’s been over 12 years!) to do my Top Ten Tips for Post Grad Success workshop for the Jewelry & Metalsmithing Dept, plus give an evening artist talk at 7pm. The workshop is only for students, but I believe the artist talk is open to the public. The talk will be held at the Comart facility at 119 Comstock Ave, Room 022 (see poster below).

emiko SU poster

I’m super excited to share my decade+ of real world experience with the students, as I often hear that Professional Development is not covered in the classroom and SHOULD be. The Professional Guidelines (co-sponsored by SNAG, Harriete Estel Berman, chair) is definitely going to be an underlying thread to the afternoon, plus interactive activities, worksheets, demos. Get ready for brain explosion!
Highlights from the lecture will be posted on this blog in the weeks ahead–so stay tuned!

LEGO Blue Steel Necklace and domino bracelet

The evening lecture will focus on my work from the last 4 years, mostly the LEGO series, so if you’re in the area, bring your buddies along for a trip down brick geek lane…..

Accessorize with Toys at Maker Faire

The first day of Maker Faire 2009 San Mateo is done and whhew! are my dogs a’barkin’! This year our Accessorize with Toys workshop is in the Show Barn, our first year out of the Swaporamarama and on our own. If you’re looking for us, we’re in the same area as the awesome Tech Shop, and situated between the Metal Arts Guild and the Metals Arts Association of Silicon Valley.
What seemed like the highest attendance of all Maker Faires, we could barely keep up with the photo taking of participants and their projects. But the photos are up on Flickr, with much more to come after tomorrow. Here are some of our favorites.

Maker Faire, here we come again, this time you will find Accessorize with Toys outside of the Swaporamamrama. I had 3 lovely years with the Swap, but thought it was time we had our own billing. Hopefully we can fit all our recycled toy bits into the space allotted (we were spoiled with tons of space and chairs in the Swap room).

So, if you’re a fan of our workshop, stay tuned for more info on where we’ll be and what we’ve got in store….

Frances, our biggest fan!

This weekend’s MakeArt: Accessorize with Toys workshop @ SF Museum of Craft + Design was a hit was kids and adults alike! The museum’s biggest turnout yet for their MakeArt workshops, not to mention there was a surprise visit from Cabrillo College. Fellow Metal Arts Guild member, Dawn Nakanishi, brought her Metals students from Cabrillo for a field trip to SFMCD. The students got a treat to have a special artist tour (by me), plus they got to play at the MakeArt table with all those irresistable toy parts donated by SCRAP. It was definitely a fun afternoon.
There were 8 kids (7 boys and 1 girl, go figure!) in tow with moms, who worked right alongside their busy bees.

Shana & I, along with Margaret, the Education Coordinator, oversaw the makers, making sure no one hammered or hot glued a finger. The wondrous UGlu saved many a project as well, stealing Elmer’s thunder yet again. The time just flew by as everyone was deeply engrossed in their projects.

See more photos of the workshop on the museum’s flickr set, and see more images from the MakeArt table on my flickr set. More images will be uploaded in the days to come.

Finally time to relive the beauty of craftin’ at Maker Faire: Day Uno. Can’t believe it was almost a week ago-egads! Happy to announce that the photos from our workshop are up on flickr (since it took me a year to upload last year’s photos…), so if you participated in our lovely event, go check out your mugshot.

Shana and I arrived at 9:30am and the lot was almost full, unbelievable-throngs of anxious makers-to-be were corralled behind the turnstiles, just waiting for the clock to strike 10am. By 2pm apparently there was no more parking, and the traffic on 101 was slooow toast.

Our little “U” shaped cubby home for the next 2 days, right before the eager jewelers descend upon us. Luckily we were early again this year and able to snag 4 tables and extra chairs to accommodate all the materials and provide workstations. The jewelry Sample board is a new addition (constructed from scrap materials conveniently laying around the apartment) to show off 3 years of jewelry workshop pieces. It was an effective lure to our table, as was the Uglu sample kiosk (generously donated by Justin of MACtac). Folks would come by just out of curiosity for the Uglu, their eyes pleading for the free samples and where they can buy it. Sadly, not available on the west coast yet, but hopefully soon.

Boy, was it BUSY all day long-standing room only for some folks (certainly for us; requiring major foot rubs by excellent boyfriend at the end of the night). Being tucked into the back corner of the Swap-O-RamaRama and next to the Bazaar Bizarre brought us a constant but manageable stream of people. We had all sorts of folks hangin out, making jewelry, sculptures, objects, embellishing clothing. Seemed to get a lot of dads with youngin’s, which was super cute (those moms that stayed home sure missed out-maker fair is more than just techie boy stuff)!

My favorite father/daughter team of the day. These two really worked together to create these elaborately decorated wood puzzle pieces; it was very impressive watching them make design decisions-I see a young artist in bloom.

Winner of the most adorable object of the day: this little soft sculpture owl. Most unique use of the jump rings-I want to make one! This gal came with her mom, and these two were the most artistic mother/daughter team.

Check our her mom’s sweet textile brooch. This family has got some art genes for sure!

The Fabulous Frances returns for Year 2 of recycled jewelry making at our table-wearing almost everything she’s made with us. What a rock star! Looks like someone might be getting grommeting pliers for christmas this year…

Next thing we know it is 5pm and everyone’s being herded out the doors-time to quickly semi-pack up and check out the rest of the Maker Faire. And lo and behold, what is this that awaits me outside, but the best way to end the day at the Faire: Matt and Funnel cake!

‘Twas the night before Maker Faire and all through the kitchen,
Every creature was crafting–and boy was it b_tchin’!
Shana and I getting ready for the Big Weekend of Recycled Jewelry Madness; going to Maker Day was just the medicine we needed to charge ourselves up for the crowds of eager burgeoning jewelers. Spent the afternoon taking inventory of the treasure tub of random collected pieces parts of toys, games, as well as investigating what each other has picked up in the last few weeks from Mission Thrift (5 Monoply games in one visit–pure gold!) and our favorite, inspirational supplier of recycled whatnot, SCRAP. Our goal: to make some new samples, namely, necklaces with the latest additions in jewelry findings from Rio Grande.

I am MOST EXCITED about this generous shipment of UGlu samples from my fellow Clevelander, Justin, over at MACtac, an adhesives company. This stuff is the greatest, non-toxic, STRONG (but not take-off-the-paint-on-your-walls strong), semi-permanent adhesive I’ve ever worked with (no small beans, as there are two tubs full of adhesives drying out in the back workroom as we speak). Shana and I met Justin a few months back at her friend Susan’s house for a focus group, where he had us brainstorm about tapes and glues. Most memorable was he stuck a full bottle of beer to the wall with this stuff and it stayed there all night. It was That Strong.

Anyhow, I really wanted to use it for our workshop at Maker, so now we have enough to hand out a package to each person–no more toxic goopy glues. Should be perfect for the kids!

Look at all the goodies (good thing you can’t see the rest of the room, it’s like a small monsoon hit)–here we are making samples, me taking way to long to make one necklace while Shana makes the cutest cat hairclip ever!

Cute in that Amy Sedaris kind of way, as Shana pointed out. Too bad we don’t have an entire bag of cat figurines….

You must see the whole picture to really appreciate its charm:

12 hours later, the suitcases are packed by the front door with care, knowing that Maker Faire day soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
Dang, I should be too, but I’m blogging instead….

Hope to see you fellow Makers in San Mateo!