Need some crafty action this weekend? Go to the Alternative Art Market in Pasadena!

L.A. Artist Melissa Moss

Melissa Moss is a local artist whose paintings and story offer visual and spiritual inspriration. How many of us have crafty or artistic talent and long to use those talents full time? Here's her story: "I used to take the slow lane into work. I didn’t care if I was inhaling the fumes of a semi if it meant I would get to work later. Each day my soul seemed a little heavier. In 2002, my amazing husband helped me realize that not only was I miserable at work, I was miserable just thinking about going back. So after a few freak outs, I left the publishing world to study color psychology and during my course work, discovered my true passion…painting. Color is my primary artistic element. I’ve studied the meanings and associations of colors and their subtle shades and tones and use this knowledge to convey the mood of each painting. After living in Chicago and New York, I’m currently happy living in sunny Los Angeles." You can lift your mood here: www.melissamoss.etsy.com

Thanks to Sonya Nimri and everyone who came out...

it was a good time. We loved meeting everyone and crafting with you. A BIG thank you to Sonya Nimri who came out and showed everyone how to make awesome jewelry! Another thank you to Lori Petitti and friends from Hip Line Media who came out and gave us info about the upcoming Swap O Rama Rama that they are hosting on June 28th! You can read more about the Swap O Rama Rama here : www.hiplinemedia.com/html/news.html You can see pics of the May meetup on our myspace page. We'll see you all next month!

TOMORROW!!

Hey everyone, our next meetup will be at 7pm on Tuesday May 27th at Saints and Sinners Lounge in West L.A. This month's meetup will feature author and all around crafty lady Sonya Nimri hosting a bead demo. Sonya is the author of "Just for the Frill of It" and the new "Beadalicious". You may also know her from her fun website www.sonyastyle.com


L.A. Craft Mafia Meetup!
Tues May 27th 2008 @ 7:00pm
Saints and Sinners Lounge
10899 Venice Blvd
W. Los Angeles, Ca 90034
www.SaintsAndSinnersLounge.net
There's plenty of parking on the neighboring residential streets

Jennifer Perkins from Naughty Secretary Club shows us how to make our own Resin Bracelet!

Jennifer Perkins is our crafty hero since she always gives such good crafty business advice and manages to be so charming. Ms. Perkins has a book coming out soon so keep an eye open for it at your local bookstore. All the instructions you need to make your own Resin Bracelet are right here. Go grab your old ice cube trays and copies of your favorite old pics because this is going to be fun!
*NEW* Naughty Secretary Club Resin Bracelet

Los de Abajo Printmaking Collective - Drawing the Line

Kay Brown • Judith Durán • Antonio Escalante • Emelda Gutierrez • Chie Izuma • Sojin Kim
José Lozano • Poli Marichal • Don Newton • Marianne Sadowski • Victor Rosas

The Avenue 50 Studio is proud to present the Los de Abajo Printmaking Collective in an exhibition of experimental prints. In Drawing the Line, the Collective merges the centuries-old medium of printmaking with non-traditional media. Their groundbreaking techniques challenge traditional conceptions of printmaking.

Each of our artists is enamored of line. At times playful, the lines Kay Brown and Emelda Gutierrez utilize takes the edge off misfortune, drawing us into a whimsical world. While Judith Durán juxtaposes the celestial with the emotional, questioning our capacity to admire or feel, José Lozano discusses hidden demarcations, uncomfortable feelings, unease, and desconfiansa. Chie Izuma finds the natural formation of line in our bodies to be of utmost interest. Her imaginative combination of clay with paper identifies the organic lines surrounding us. Antonio Escalante, Poli Marichal, Don Newton and Mariana Sadowsky look at line through political eyes, speaking, respectively, to the US/Mexican border; the environment; political line; and line as an absurd division in landscape. Sojin Kim speaks metaphorically about drawing lines to distinguish us from others. Victor Rojas is concerned with how divisions in our mind create social divisions.

Drawing the Line is indicative of this group's determination to experiment and take printmaking towards a more provocative direction. Please join us.

Avenue 50 Studio, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit art gallery
131 No. Avenue 50
Highland Park, CA 90042

May 10 through June 8, 2008


Avenue 50 Studio hours:
Tue-Thurs 10:00-12:00; Sat-Sun 10:00-4:00 or by appointment

Latino Student Film Festival on May 17th 2008

It's today!

The Latin American Cinemateca of Los Angeles presents the 1st Annual Latino Student Film Festival. The one day festival is open to student filmmakers in the Los Angeles area to screen their work in a community environment. Student filmmakers from middle school to college are eligible to submit their short films (up to 10 minutes in length) in the categories of animation, documentary and narrative/non-narrative. All films will be screened MAY 17TH at Abraham Lincoln High School Auditorium 3501 N. Broadway Los Angeles 90031.

Mamacita's Market Saturday May 17th 2008

Mamacita's Market is tomorrow at Ave 50 Studio. What is Mamacita's Market?

" Well Mamacita's Market is not exactly a store, it is a traveling Market place that works with different locations and is orientated for women. It is a venue for designers and artist to showcase their products and work. Shoppers and trend setters get to purchase orginal, designer jewelry and clothing from the designer. What makes this special is that these are products that aren't available in the everyday commercial shopping malls. These are artists and designers that usually make one of a kind pieces or a series and you basically have to get it while it hot."

Vexing - Female Voices From East L.A. - Starts Tomorrow!

VEXING: FEMALE VOICES FROM EAST L.A.

PUNK
May 18 - August 31, 2008
Opening reception Saturday, May 17

Claremont Museum of Art
In the Packing House
536 West First Street
Claremont, CA 91711

PHONE: 909-621-3200

The Claremont Museum of Art is pleased to present Vexing: Female Voices from East LA Punk from May 18 to August 31, 2008. The Museum will host an opening reception at 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 17th, with live performances by Vexing artists Teresa Covarrubias, Angela Vogel, Lysa Flores and Alice Bag (Museum Member’s reception begins at 6 p.m.).


The burgeoning punk rock music scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s in East Los Angeles provided an electrically charged, creative climate. This scene created an atmosphere where performance mixed with poetry, and visual culture was defined by an aesthetic and an attitude. Artists and musicians interfaced and blurred the lines of actions, documentation, photography, sound and style. Taking its name from the all-ages music club The Vex, once housed within East Los Angeles’ Self Help Graphics and Art, Vexing is an historical investigation of the women who were at the forefront of this movement of experimentation in music, art, culture and politics, while exploring their lasting legacies and contemporary practices. This documentary-style exhibition will include photo, video and audio archives of the era as well as studio work encompassing painting, installation, writings and performance.


In an artistic environment fueled by exchange and experimentation, music played a pivotal role in defining new images of self. This exhibition documents a vital moment of artistic and musical interchange in Los Angeles, with women staking out a position between and within punk rock, East LA and the downtown art scene. Vexing not only considers their significant contributions to the cultural landscape of LA, but also examines the multiple scenes and identities they negotiated. These women have also served as a model for subsequent generations interested in alternative social movements as a platform of expression, as well as the post-identity conceptual practices of today.


Participants include musicians Alice Bag, Teresa Covarrubias, Angela Vogel, Monica Flores, musician and artist Exene Cervenka, artists Diane Gamboa and Patssi Valdez, photographers Dawn Wirth, Louis Jacinto, Linda Posnick and Frank Gargani, recording label founder of Fatima Records Yolanda Comparan Ferrer, printmakers Richard Duardo, Jessee Vidaurre and John Miner, and filmmaker Jimmy Mendiola. Representing a newer generation of artistic producers influenced by these women are musician/artist Lysa Flores, artists Shizu Saldamando and Sandra de la Loza, photographer Chris TV, performance group Butchlalis de Panochtitlan, and bands The Sirens and Go Betty Go. Vexing also includes special concert footage and interviews courtesy of Pete Galindo, Willie Herrón and Lysa Flores from the forthcoming documentary on The Vex, and an excerpt from the forthcoming documentary “Eastside Punks” by Jimmy Alvarado, Pat Perez and Jake Smith.


Research and reproduction support provided by the Chicano Studies Research Center at UCLA. This exhibition is co-curated by Pilar Tompkins and Colin Gunckel. A catalog will accompany the exhibition, with essays by Josh Kun, Michelle Habell-Pallán, Isabel Castro-Melendez, Colin Gunckel and Pilar Tompkins.

The MONSTER series!

Oooooh...new work from I Wish I Had a Penguin Friend! This awesome linocut is part of Morgan Lee Kessler's MONSTER series. The series also includes Dracula and Frankenstein. Be sure to pop by her site to buy one before they're all gone!
iwishihadapenguinfriend.blogspot.com

Mucha Muchacha's interview with Kelly Malouf

Kelly from Kelly Malouf Designs interviewed Nichole Moraila from Mucha Muchacha. Be sure to check it out.

kellymalouf.com/blog/2008/05/10/my-interview-with-nicole-owner-of-mucha-muchacha/

Mucha Muchacha Jewelry from L.A. Craft Mafia will be at Renegade Craft Fair - San Francisco

I'm so excited that my application was accepted and that I'll be a vendor at Renegade Craft Fair-San Francisco! Renegade Craft Fair - San Francisco is happening on July 12th and 13th. What is Renegade Craft Fair, you ask? "The Renegade Craft Fair is a unique DIY event held 4 times a year in Brooklyn, NY, Chicago, IL and San Francisco, CA. RCF has gained a reputation over the last five years as being the biggest, best and the most well-known of all the DIY craft fairs out there. Each individual fair draws hundreds of applicants and tens of thousands of shoppers from all over the country and abroad! At the RCF you'll find all sorts of cool handmade stuff ranging from comic books to craft kits, silkscreened posters to reconstructed clothing."

I can't wait!

our etsy store!

Our etsy store is here!

losangelescraftmafia.etsy.com

Please consider purchasing something so that we can continue to put on more free events, newsletters, vendor listings, etc!

Los Angeles Craft Mafia May Meetup with special guest Sonya Nimri

Hey everyone, our next meetup will be at 7pm on Tuesday May 27th at Saints and Sinners Lounge in West L.A. This month's meetup will feature author and all around crafty lady Sonya Nimri hosting a bead demo. Sonya is the author of "Just for the Frill of It" and the new "Beadalicious". You may also know her from her fun website www.sonyastyle.com


L.A. Craft Mafia Meetup!
Tues May 27th 2008 @ 7:00pm
Saints and Sinners Lounge
10899 Venice Blvd
W. Los Angeles, Ca 90034
www.SaintsAndSinnersLounge.net
There's plenty of parking on the neighboring residential streets

See you there!

Book Review: Beadalicious by Sonya Nimri

As both a jewelry designer and a collector of vintage jewelry, I love Sonya Nimri's fun and simple approach to DIY jewelry design in her new book, Beadalicious. She encourages her readers to recycle old jewelry into something fresh and new in their own style. Sonya arms them with the know-how to complete every project in the book and includes a brief education on beads, tools, jewelry findings and best of all, techniques for jewelry construction. Jewelry styles range from funky to minimalist and the simple instructions allow for beginners to complete any of the projects. My favorite designs are the "Bohemian Wrapsody Ring" and "Amber Drops" earrings. Infused with a sense of whimsy, many projects in the book offer related side bars with recipes for things like "Queen Bee Soap" and "Moroccan Mint Tea". There is also an "Extra Goodies" section where you can find instructions to make things like a headband made out of buttons or your own romantic beaded hair comb. This book and the fun projects inside will make gifting to your favorite people a snap!