Here’s what we’ll be looking for at this weekend’s Crafty Wonderland at the Doug Fir (830 E Burnside): Maple makes earrings, rings, and bracelets from used skateboard decks. If you skate you know that 1.) skateboard decks are beautiful laminated maple and 2.) skaters go through them like candy. So anyone recycling decks is doing right. That pretty wood, by the way is buried 90% of the time beneath a screened graphic on the bottom (also art until it’s eaten off on the first grind) and black grip-tape on the top. (Remember artful griptape applications? Late 70s early 80s?) But it’s there.
From what we can see of Maple’s jewelry, the pieces stand alone as interesting graphic pieces, while acknowledging where they come from in subtle ways, like the bangle that has a little curve to it like the concave deck it was cut from or the earrings (below) that still have a little piece of the skateboard graphic on the backs. (Is it still good without the backstory? always an important question. Here, it looks like yes. We’ll have to see and touch to find out for sure.)
40 artists and “crafters” (Crafty Wonderland’s word, not ours) will be showing at the Doug Fir Sunday May 13 from 11-4 PM. Free and all ages.
WHAT TO DO NOW?