What is Wordstock?

Wordstock is Portland’s Book & Literary Festival
Wordstock is an annual festival of books, writers, and storytelling in Portland, Oregon. To date it has hosted over 550 writers, who have read and performed for nearly 55,000 people at past festivals. Wordstock features ten author stages, a book fair with over 150 exhibitors, a special children’s area and children’s literature stage, a series of workshops for writers and for K-12 teachers, a special broadcast of Live Wire!, the popular public radio variety show, featuring writers from the festival, and more.

Wordstock events take place October 3rd, 6th, 10th and 11th.  Visit Wordstock for a schedule of the events.

DIY Lounge teacher Addie Kay Boswell will be reading at the Oregon Convention Center’s “Target Children’s Stage”
Sat, Oct. 1oth: 12:00
Sun, Oct. 11th: 1:00

Below are a few selected photos from Megan Klepp’s mosaic classes.  Klepp currently teaches Beginning Mosaic, Grout and Finish Your Mosaics and Scrap Glass Mosaic House Signs at DIY Lounge at collage.

Above is a photo from Addie Boswell’s Paper Cuts class.  In this class students learned how to make finely rendered paper cuts in black and white and three-color.  These designs could be created from a favorite photograph or a simple drawing and mounted on white board or glass to display at home.  These were great techniques to learn for making works of art or creating your own children’s book designs. 

This class doesn’t have any future times scheduled.  But, you can let us know if this sounds like a fun class and we’ll work to get it listed again in the coming months!

Pain Has an Element of Blank by Lorna Nakell

DIY Lounge teacher, Lorna Nakell, will be giving an artist talk about her exhibition Flying at Night on Saturday, July 18th.

Where: Beppu Wiarda Gallery
319 NW 9th Ave.
Portland, OR
When: 11:00am
Cost: FREE

Nakell teaches the upcoming class Affirmations and Aspirations: Collage on Canvas, July 25th from 10:30am-2:30pm.

Second Annual Neighbors Night Out Celebration seeks participating local artists

Tuesday, August 4th, 6-8pm

Set up:  5:15 p.m., ready to go by 6pm.

Participating merchants:  Murray Hill Town Center merchants, Big Al’s and Gramor

Participating Neighborhood Associations:  Sexton Mountian and Neighbors SW

Neighbors Night Out is a community celebration to bring people together to enjoy music, art and other offerings by local merchants.

There is no cost to the artists to participate and no commission will be taken on sales.  Deadline for application is Friday, July 24th.

For additional information, call Rhonda Coakley at 503.707.5123 or rhondacoakley@comcast.net

(Note: This opportunity was taken from the City of Beaverton: Arts News and Events newsletter.  DIY Lounge is not responsible for any inaccurate or misleading information regarding this post.  Our goal is just to share with you opportunites that we find in hopes that all artists can thrive.)

Below are photos from Lorna Nakell’s class Affirmations and Aspirations.  In this class students focused on setting goals for the future as well as the positive attributes they wish to manifest in their everyday lives.  They wrote these down, then created a “vision board” (a collage on canvas) to put up in their home in order to help visualize, in a more concrete way, the life path they wish to be on.  The class also included a basic arylic painting and collage demonstration as well as one-on-one instruction on acrylic mediums, composition and color use.  This class is available again on June 27th.

Five students working dilegently on the backgrounds for their collages.

A work in progress.  This student had chosen a color palette to use and was working on adding paint details on top of her images.

This student used a palette knife to scumble over her canvas creating a nice orange texture.  Her writing is set next to her painting as a reference for imagery.

This student cut out organic shapes and used a nice balance of bold color to create a dynamic composition which moves the eye around the canvas.

A black laser cutout of the Eiffel Tower was used as a collage element in this painting.  This student also incorporated some money she had collected while visiting other countries.  The focus of her collage, as well as many other students, was on travel.  Maybe because they were sensing the onset of summer.

DIY Lounge’s own Cathy Pitters rocked her craft skills in this year’s Chair Affair event!  Below is the sassy stool she decorated.

The Chair Affair is an annual auction/fundraiser put on by the Community Warehouse.  They are a volunteer-based nonprofit agency that collects and redistributes donated furniture and household items to local people in need, at no cost to them.  On Thursday, April 23rd the talents of over 80 local artists featuring chair-related art that includes jewelry, paintings, pottery, fabric, and of course, dozens of fabulous chairs were used to raise money for this great organization. 
 
Pitters is the owner of  BossaNovaBaby (which she runs out of her flamingo pink craft bunker) and co-organizer of  Crafty Wonderland, a monthly art & craft event at the Doug Fir Lounge.  She is also one forth of the women’s collective PDX Super Crafty, and recently wrote a how-to craft book entitled Super Crafty.  Pitters currently teaches at various  kids camps through DIY Lounge.

By Lorna Nakell

On Sunday, March 8th I took the Silk Screening 101 class at DIY Lounge at collage on Alberta.  This class was taught by Nicole Cipriano.  I have a small amount of print making experience but have always wanted to take a silk screening class to learn more techniques for printing multiple images.  This was a great class for someone like me with a small amount of experience, but also for those with no experience.  Because the class size was so small (only 4 students) we all received a good amount of assistance with the process. 

The four hour class gave me enough time to make several prints.  I used the time to experiment with a variety of papers.  I was so happy with the outcome of my printed design that after the class was over I integrated two of the prints I made into a project I was working on outside the class.  Below are photos from the class as well as a painting I made incorporating the prints as a collaged element.

Students printed on cotton fabrics as well as paper.  Nicole made fabric inks and other water-based inks available for experimentation.

Nicole built our screens for us and prepped them with photo emulsion.  This is my screen with a typewriter image all ready for inking.

One of the students is practicing putting emulsion on a screen with a rubber squeegee.

This was the setup Nicole designed for burning the photo image onto the screen.

This is the finished painting/collage I made in the weeks following the class.  It incorporates two of the silk screen typewriter images I made in the class.

Create an original design or tagline for Community Energy Project’s new reusable tote bags! Winners will receive a free bag featuring their design that’s filled with conservation materials. Your design should be square and should have enough resolution to print 9×9 clearly. The design should be family-friendly, and must be either black and white or two-color. Please email if you would like an electronic version of our logo. Community members, volunteers, and staff will vote on the designs. The winners will receive a tote filled with conservation materials with their design and tagline on it.

Please mail your submissions to: outreach@communityenergyproject.org or bring to Sherrie Smith at 422 NE Alberta Street, Portland, OR 97211. Deadline: 3/31/09.

(Note: This opportunity was taken from the Regional Arts Commission web site.  collage and DIY Lounge are not responsible for any incorrect content related to this posting.)

Feast your eyes on a fascinating indie craft documentary that will be playing at the Museum of Contemporary Craft.

Show Times: Friday, April 3, at 7:30 pm and Saturday, April 4, at 12 noon at the museum. Get your tickets now before they sell out.  Purchase tickets

Friday: Join director Faythe Levine for the Northwest premiere of Handmade Nation, the documentary companion to the book Handmade Nation. Tickets to the Northwest premiere include a Handmade Nation tote bag filled with crafty goodness. A brief Q&A with Levine will follow the screening. Doors open at 7 pm. Please enter at 720 NW Davis Street, 2nd Floor. ($25)

Saturday: Join director Faythe Levine for a screening of Handmade Nation. Doors open at 11:30 am. A free panel discussion with director Faythe Levine, Susan Beal, Jill Bliss, Kate Bingaman-Burt, and Garth Johnson will follow at 2 pm. Participate in a Crochet-a-thon with artist Mandy Greer from 4 to 6 pm. ($10)

Also, Sunday April 5th is Crafty Wonderland’s third birthday and the director of Handmade Nation, Faythe Levine, will be there signing copies of her book.  We hope to see you there!