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This Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 from 9pm to midnight at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!

Project: Popsicle Stick Freeform

$2 processing fee, please

Tonight we’ll celebrate the lowly popsicle stick.
Usually it helps you snack on a frozen confection. TONIGHT it becomes googly-eye puppets, log cabins, godseye holders, frames, trivets, whatever you can think of, by golly!
Very freeform, very suave and always chic, and for less than a gallon of gas!

“Oh but I’m not very crafty.”
Oh my goodness go the sighs and moans, the exasperated dirge from my solar plexus, as I drag you across the floor to the supplies already.

CraftNight has nothing to do with you being crafty, and everything to do with the ceasing of fretting and the beginning of making.

Touch just about anything near you right now. The overwhelming odds are that it was most probably built by robots, grown by others, sewn and assembled by nimble hands very far away, fabricated in factories, farms and laboratories.

The source of how things come to be escapes us.

We are so removed, so modern and adrift, the origins of our everyday items go unnoticed, unappreciated and unknown.
In this day and age, a thing built by you (and not “the man”) is not only unique, but rare and precious… dare I say even a form of activism!

How many people can say that they made something today?
Go ahead, tell me your popsicle stick sculpture doesn’t look the way you visualized it, tell me how it looks crooked or off-putting or weird, tell me of your new creation’s imperfections.
“Screw-ups” are perfection in disguise.
No urban movie billboard, studio-recorded top 40 schlock or glossy airbrushed centerfold pin-up is going to agree with me, they will refute your ill-attempts at creation and whisper in snarky voices “You’re doing it wrong.”

Well I gotta tell you, person reading this e-mail, beautiful, captivating foxy person,
that you are doing it RIGHT at CraftNight.

Arrive, get a cocktail, glue some sticks together and become one who takes a moment to understand the joys and agonies of the construction of things, of craftsmanship, of art!

And yes, I care about you very very much, because a one-time showing of Annie Hall is playing at the Arclight and I’m missing it to watch your ass drink cocktails and be creative, so for the love of Mary, throw me a bone here, come in and say HI!

See you at the craft table,
JP Craft Captain

www.crafthead.com

www.akbarsilverlake.com

www.juliannaparr.com/timestamp

Preemptive Horn Toot: Go see my work, it’s up until Sept. 20th! TIME STAMP

This Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 from 9pm to midnight at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!

As you may know, CraftNight completely eschews aggressive ambience featuring the display of incredible skills, feats of strength, balance, coordination, grace, or near perfect performances. As a matter of fact, things like perfection and competing under intense pressure are the reason CraftNight was invented.

We’re just going to ask you to paint a little wooden trinket on Wednesday. Most of the trinkets reflect the diversification of popular modes of transportation, but there are a few boxes and other intriguing items to paint as well. Curious? Thought so.
There will be no qualifying for team finals or individual event finals in Wooden Trinket Painting this year, as it is a winter sport, so no worries, you can just relax.

In rhythmic cocktail drinking however, here are the rules:

Control of the Apparatus: The bar patron should keep the cocktail stable, and should look as if she/he has complete control of it. Dropping the apparatus is a deduction. If the cocktail falls off the table or douses another crafter’s project, more penalties are incurred.

In addition to responsible drinking habits, we also encourage, in the Akbar Dance Rectangle Arena, choreographed routines with leaps, jumps and turns, and pirouettes. If you have your own hoop, ball, club or ribbon, feel free to use it, and if you wish to perform in true historic Athens-style (nude), no one will complain. Please be advised that there will be no judging sequence on good form and execution, we’ll just assume you do this sort of thing for fun.

Please no vaults: Not even the strongest pour in any Akbar cocktail has been able to unleash the gravity-defying fervor and kinesthetic awareness needed to propel one’s person off the counter into a handspring double front half-out.

And this just in, Mary Lou Retton, the most popular athlete in America and head of USA Gymnastics, will be unable to attend CraftNight after all. She was going to give us a “CraftNight workout” and promote the benefits of proper nutrition and regular exercise, but had a prior commitment in China that couldn’t be cancelled.
She says hello and don’t forget to practice your cocktail warm-ups, she’ll be back next year!

See you at the Craft Table!
JP Craft Captain

www.crafthead.com

www.akbarsilverlake.com

NO CRAFTS TONIGHT!

I’ll be hanging, prepping, painting, building TIME STAMP for your perusal tomorrow night!
That’s right:
This THURSDAY, August 7th, 2008 from 6pm to 9- 10pm at the LAGLC’s Advocate & Gochis Galleries, is the opening of TIME STAMP EXHIBITION!
Just to be sure, you go to the right building, we’re talking about
The Village at Ed Gould Plaza
1125 McCadden Place Los Angeles, CA. 90038
(323) 860- 7302

Dear friend, if you were ever curious or wanted to “swim in a bowl of JP” as my ultra-friend, Carey Bennett, put it… this is your chance.

Come and see ten years of my work, and make some of your own postcard work in the COZY ART RUMPUS ROOM aka Supernova Eleganza.
See the “WALL of CRAZY” as coined by Toxic Titty Superstar, Clover Leary.
Bring quarters for the vending machine, get souvenirs at the show, and climb aboard an arts wonderland.
All ages welcome, bring EVERYBODY! Bicycles welcome too!

Our Nation’s Foremost International Traveling Poet, Jen Hofer, says of the show

“Here the personal direct address goes public, opening the embrace of its communiqué to include each of us in a whimsical, serious, sincere, radically open everyday collectivity. Here the interior spaces of a particular life are exteriorized within the vulnerable, brave confines of an ongoing series of small public missives.”

If you want some previews of some of the over 1,000 little drawings and paintings, go to the TIME STAMP WEBSITE and check it out. All postcards will be available for perusal sometime August 7th.
No originals will be sold, they belong to friends and family, but if you want to buy prints, those will be available, as well as a soon-to-be-released self-published BOOK!

Come see me, I’m so excited, I can’t stand it.

LOVE!
Julianna (JP) Parr
Craft Captain

This Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 from 9pm – midnight at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!
Project: Globe-Shaped Paper Lanterns!
$2 processing fee, please

Note: Extra Items at the end of this Craft Bulletin, read on, or skim to the bottom!

Awhile ago, I brought in these other paper lanterns… and they were kind of a disappointment. I mean, you couldn’t even conceive of putting a lightbulb in them and illuminating anything, they were that ridiculous. They were more of a decorative ambition, anything but functional. I didn’t plan it that way… sometimes crafts, you make them, and the results don’t exactly adhere to one’s expectations. Silly, to think that a “lantern” would convey something that holds flame or bulb, but again: That’s how deep-seated it is over here at CraftNight, bending the rules, outfitting your urban life with
intricate and confusing zen koans disguised as easy and harmless art projects.

But honestly, this year, I found these little lovely-roundy lanterns, the globe kind that can be painted and decorated and YES! Illuminated! They’re no bigger than your head, smaller than a basketball, but holds much much more than a tennis ball (on a good day.)
You could make yours look like a big eyeball, or a ladybug, or an orange, or you could paint a comic strip on it about cats who are siblings, or you could scrawl a musical composition on it so that a piano player would have to get really perturbed trying to turn it clockwise and play while sight-reading. Or, you could play an extremely short game of soccer with it, you decide, it’s yours!

The identity of your new paper lantern awaits you at our neighborhood oasis, be enlightened (har de har) and make one this Wednesday!

See you at the Craft Table!
JP Craft Captain

www.crafthead.com

www.akbarsilverlake.com

GOTHTOBER!
Don’t get all bunged up trying to write some totally detailed whatchamacallit presentation for what you wanna make, just APPLY! NOW! I don’t care if you want to make us watch a dried bean all afternoon, sounds like a good idea, send your APP by August 8th!

And get your questions, like theme, how to do things and more RIGHT HERE!

And one more thing: CRAFTNIGHT WILL BE CLOSED NEXT WEEK!
WHY?!?
I’m having an ART OPENING! Come see real live art! I’m super arty, I want to prove it to you, believe me, if you wonder what I’m doing when I’m not being a Craft Captain, this might give you a pretty good idea. So please, come if you can, here’s everything you need to know for the TIME STAMP EXHIBITION.

Hey hey, want to know what the gothtober theme is this year? Find out by clicking HERE,
and find answers to lots of other questions on that very same page! Remember: you don’t have to be technologically advanced to make a Gothtober piece! We can help you and give you tips and tell you how to make your piece come to fruition!
So step right up and APPLY HERE!
You get a shirt, you get a party, and lots of other fun geegaws, and worldwide fame. Applications due August 8th

Now onto our regular program:
This Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 from 9pm to midnight at AKBAR it’s CraftNight!!!
Project: Beer Cozies
$2 processing fee, please

This seems to be one of America’s greatest products (made in China, of course) widely used by the populace to keep one’s alcoholic beverage at optimum temperature. It works on all kind of beverages from rootbeer to orange crush or something really froofy like Mike’s Hard Lemonade but ultimately: it’s used for the love and protection of beer.
In Southern California, we like to call them beer cozies, but over in Texas, they like to call them “koozies” and I hear that in other parts of the world they’re known as “can huggers” or “flagon graspers” and even the exotic “libation squeezer.”
Beer cozies have been made from neoprene, plastic and even stainless steel, but ours that we offer tonight are fashioned out of what we like to call “cell foam.” Unadorned cozies in every color of the rainbow (including pink) will be here for the taking, so bring your ideas and make someone you love a cozy today!

See you at the Craft Table,
JP Craft Captain

www.crafthead.com

www.akbarsilverlake.com

PS- I’m having an art opening August 7th, would love to see you there.

PPS- Omigod, one more thing: Resonate/Obliterate: a showcase of solo performances is happening July 24th at 8:30pm at Remy’s on Temple (2126 W. Temple St. near Alvarado) with Ron Athey, Julie Tolentino, Franko B and Juliana Snapper. $25 – 50 donation, all proceeds benefit Praxis Mohave Performance Art Bootcamp! RSVP 323 661-0322

PPPS- Shotgun turns FOUR YEARS OLD! Big “Fruits & Flowers” anniversary party! Take your handsome beer cozy over to the Eagle at 4219 Santa Monica Blvd. Silverlake, CA 90026 and tell them hello from Akbar and CraftNight!