TECHstlye SoftWEAR Blurb Book

A blurb book,  TECHstyle SoftWEAR , by Rasteriods Design is now available for purchase. This collaborative project was conducted with Colleen Quen and Rick Lee in 2010. Both artists were a joy to work with and it was an inspiring project to be a part of. I only wish that the project could be a traveling installation. Colleen's gowns are now part of the permanent collection of the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles.

Dearly Beloved Forever Red Wine Label

I was in Trader Joe's the other day and saw this beautiful wine bottle and just had to buy it. I am searching for who the artist is as some one in the store told me that the design was created by a San Francisco Bay Area Artist. This Dia de los Muertos inspired bottle is so lovely and the wine is pretty good, too. Currently this wine is only sold at Trader Joe's so I may be stocking up on it. If you know who the artist is, please send me a post. I would love to include a link to the artist's page. I hope that Trader Joe's makes a poster of this design!

Library 2.0 Worldwide Virtual Conference

On Wednesday at noon I will be presenting the Slot Shelters Project in the Library 2.0 Worldwide Virtual Conference. This will be the first time I have presented using Blackboard Collaborate. Here is the link to the conference schedule of presentations.  I tested out converting my Powerpoint slides to a Whiteboard document in a vRoom at Learning Central and I finally got it working after switching to another computer, so think I am almost set. I am looking forward to listening and participating in other sessions of the conference that day.

In the evening of that same day, I will be presenting the You Are Here Street Banner Project at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View for the Rambus/KCI Innovation Award Ceremony as I will be a representative from last year's program. Here is information on the inspiring winners of this year's  Rambus/KCI Innovation Award for 2011.

Creative Compositions Student and Teacher Video Project

I created this logo about a month ago for the Creative Compositions Contest project and it is in full swing now. I have been burning the midnight oil these last few days uploading student and teacher created videos to the education non-profit site, Next Vista for Learning, a free online library of youth curriculum videos created by and for students everywhere.  Submissions are coming from all over the United States: Indiana, California, Hawaii and Michigan, to name a few. It is really inspiring to be a part of a project that invites students to creatively teach subject matter using digital video technology, their imagination and knowledge.  Here are the videos uploaded so far (47) and the submissions keep coming in. I have maybe twenty more to upload from today. There is also a teacher strand in this project. The contest deadline is November 11th: http://www.nextvista.org/tag/creativecompositions/

More information in the contest at the contest guidelines page.

Art in Embassies Calendar: Homage to American Women Artists

Today I received a package in the mail from Cairo, Egypt. It contained three U.S. Department of State calendars titled Homage to American Women Artists and my Poison Ivy Pump is featured in this calendar. A few years back this sculpture was in the Brussels American Embassy. The State Department Art in Embassies program is an interesting program for artists. I just found my bio on their site. In the future, I hope to be involved in their abroad programing teaching workshops. You can submit your bio and work for consideration on their newly designed website. The info is a link in the bottom menu bar of their site.

Innovation Textile Design Lab

 
 The San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles will be creating an innovation textile design lab in a space that is 18ft x 30ft. The space will be a multipurpose space with education programming for children and adults as well as an artist residency program.  I am working with the museum to help identify possible equipment assets and digital tools programming possibilities to incorporate. One thing I would like to see is a ceiling mounted wii remote interactive surface set up so that we can use one whole wall as an interactive projection surface. Here is a super quick video I created of such a set up. (note: I say "wii" in the video, but should be saying "wii remote")

 

I have experimented with projections on garments and fabrics in my design process for the Fusionwear SV project research blog and just discovered another textile/pattern artist, Johanna Basford, who has taught a workshop using this process as well. I really like the outline of her lesson plan.

Some great space design ideas from the Stanford dSchool:

light cube

tag for marking project materials and space

Concept Sketches for Hospital Art Installation

I have been working on sculpture proposal sketches today for a design firm that works with hospitals. These sketches are design ideas for an installation that is 30" x 42" x 1" which would be made of wire, Asian food wrappers, plastic sushi grass, silks and produce netting. The fuzzy colored areas in the digital sketches represent produce netting. If one of these are approved, I have a month to complete the piece before installation into the hospital.

pencil sketch

digital sketch

pencil sketch

digital sketch

Flowers and leaves I created for the Neonatal Department of Boston Children's Hospital a few years ago (an upholstery swatch was provided to me to match the work to. Swatch can be seen in the photo. I wish I had an installation shot, but only have this after gazing photo in my studio).

Videos for Slot Shelters

As the Slot Shelter Site gets fleshed out for this academic year, I am slowly adding videos to the site. These videos will either be screencasts of how to use digital tools for the project or will be interviews with designers.

Early last spring I began to contact designers who work and brainstorm in three dimensional prototypes to see if perhaps they would engage in assemblies. As the project moved forward, I began to think video interviews would be a more flexible and accessible sharing of info, especially for schools far away. I see a great benefit to students in expanding their toolbox of communication and brainstorming tools through model constructions and physical tests of ideas. This interview below with an experience design engineer highlights the importance of creating small scale rough models before designers build real buildings and sets.

Creative Compositions Student Video Contest!

The Next Vista Creative Compositions Student Video Contest has launched!

Deadline to enter is November, 11th 2011.
What is Next Vista for Learning? 

"Next Vista works to make learning more engaging, with a focus on helping students start strong with any topic they study. Its central project is a free, online library of teacher- and student-made short videos for learners everywhere. Next Vista believes a strong four-minute video could save students days or weeks of frustration by providing a variety of presentations on the topics that give them trouble."

Slot Shelters Large Prototype Cards

Yesterday I picked up large prototype Slot Cards from InPrintz. They did a beautiful job printing the files I created. The patterns and text on these cards come from the You Are Here Street Banner Project. In Printz also printed all the banners for that project. I do need to design the slots a bit wider for an easier fit, but these turned out beautifully and it is great to have physical models.
My daughter enjoyed assembling this with me!

Hopefully many of these cards will be made in the fall of 2012. These cards will be covered with student patterns and photos. In addition, QR codes will link to website pages of student audio and written reflections on community. The cards will be assembled into collaboratively built forts reflecting on structure/shelter needs locally and abroad. These large cards are an exploration in the development of the Slot Shelters project.