MARIA ON A LEASH
We have it going on!
Still need to clean things up. Awaiting a 24 volt converter from China. Should be here any day now. We need a really long extension cord until then. Peter and I will work on calibration this coming weekend.
Show & Tell
occasionally subtle

Kaledo Art
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
NASA
No title available
ojovivo
sheepfilms
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda

ellievsbear
Stranger Things

❣ Chile in a Photography ❣

blake kathryn
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
todays bird
Monterey Bay Aquarium
trying on a metaphor
Cosmic Funnies

@theartofmadeline
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seen from United States

seen from Germany
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from Italy
seen from Russia

seen from Singapore

seen from Côte d’Ivoire

seen from Netherlands
seen from Netherlands

seen from United Kingdom

seen from United Kingdom
seen from Brazil
seen from Brazil

seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
@wecustomize-blog
MARIA ON A LEASH
We have it going on!
Still need to clean things up. Awaiting a 24 volt converter from China. Should be here any day now. We need a really long extension cord until then. Peter and I will work on calibration this coming weekend.
mass produced
Much of what we've looked at with we/customize has been objects mass produced by large corporations and the people who use those objects as blank material. But objects have been produced in large quantities well before assembly lines and international corporations.
Song Dynasty ceramics were made in great quantities and have since been transported all over the world. With the general exception of repairs we're not generally discussing how to modify such work, but the process of making a large numbers of any object does create a type of efficiency/intelligence/muscle memory in the maker which influences future production.
-Sean Olson
An L.A. exhibition shows how a Brooklyn-based tattoo artist set up shop with Mexican inmates, built new tattoo rigs, and documented the results in photo-accurate paintings.
-Scott Moulton (yes I know the exhibit is closed but I am still finding stuff that I want to post)
Late Nights, Toychestra, Drum Machines, Fast Cars and Free Days! That’s how we roll! It’s all about you being behind the wheel of your own customized museum visit. Come late, make and listen to music, learn about the Padrinos Car Club or take a turn on the Mechanical Drum Machine. This weekend is packed full of fun choices. On Friday, May 31st the we/customize gallery and the entire museum is open until midnight! On Saturday, June 1st make some noise with Lexa Walsh, her Remix Station and members of Toychestra as well as Tim Phillips with his Mechanical Drum Machine. But wait, there’s more…On Sunday, June 2nd, the monthly Free First Sunday, we’ll have Padrinos Car Club members and friends sharing their love of cars by featuring two customized hydraulic cars: a 1964 Impala and a 1970 Caprice. Act now(Or act hrough Sunday) and we’ll triple the offer by bringing Oakland artist Shawn HibmaCronan and the 1963 Ford Falcon Deluxe Club Wagon he has been meticulously transforming into a mobile work of art called "Love, Inertia and the Pursuit of the Perfect Stance", into the mix. This weekend is gearing up to be “Indie 500” legendary. Swing by www.wecustomize.org and stay up to speed! See You There! Oakland Rover
Late Nights, Toychestra, Drum Machines, Fast Cars and Free Days! That’s how we roll! It’s all about you being behind the wheel of your own customized museum visit. Come late, make and listen to music, learn about the Padrinos Car Club or take a turn on the Mechanical Drum Machine. This weekend is packed full of fun choices. On Friday, May 31st the we/customize gallery and the entire museum is open until midnight! On Saturday, June 1st make some noise with Lexa Walsh, her Remix Station and members of Toychestra as well as Tim Phillips with his Mechanical Drum Machine. But wait, there’s more…On Sunday, June 2nd, the monthly Free First Sunday, we’ll have Padrinos Car Club members and friends sharing their love of cars by featuring two customized hydraulic cars: a 1964 Impala and a 1970 Caprice. Act now(Or act Friday through Sunday) and we’ll triple the offer by bringing Oakland artist Shawn HibmaCronan and the 1963 Ford Falcon Deluxe Club Wagon he has been meticulously transforming into a mobile work of art called "Love, Inertia and the Pursuit of the Perfect Stance", into the mix. This weekend is gearing up to be “Indie 500” legendary. Swing by www.wecustomize.org and stay up to speed! See You There! Oakland Rover
Getting Past Done: What to Do After You’ve Finished a Big Project
Panorama of we/customize after the final customizer in residence.
With an article by Dustin Wax about what to do at the end of a project. I guess you can see where my mind is at right now.
There’s no feeling in the world quite like the mixture of triumph and sadness that comes after finishing a project you’ve been working on for months or even years. On one hand, you’re done and can finally release your finished product, whatever it is, into the world. On the other hand, though, completing a big goal leaves a little emptiness in your life, like sending your kids off to college — one of the major driving forces in your life is gone. . .
-Sean Olson
-photo by Johnna Arnold
Lisa Solomon, this week’s Customizer In Residence, teaches a visitor an acrylic pouring painting technique. The menu of skills she is sharing includes: framing artwork professionally, basic, basic photo editing, crochet, and much more. --Jorge
Handshakes
Tonight Justin, who has been documenting we/customize since before the project was we/customize, will be collecting people's handshakes. Exploring customization in the realm of social interactions, Justin will be learning handshakes from visitors and recording themon video with the ultimate goal of translating the moments into drawings.
-Sean Olson
I Will Be Your Surrogate Grandparents and We Will Shake On It!
Your Beebaw or Drampaw never taught you how to crochet? Your GanGan or MeeMaw forgot to show you how Shrinky Dinks work? Did you share a secret or unusual handshake?
Lisa Solomon, this weekend’s we/customize Customizer-in-Residence will fill in for them and Justin Limoges will present his community building project, "The Handshake!" Join us in the studio with Lisa sharing her appreciation for fixing, altering, and repairing items that her grandparents taught her. Lisa’s desire to take things apart and see how they work will be evident in the studio this weekend as she offers the chance for visitors to choose from a menu of her skills and receive customized lessons. From lamp wiring to sushi making, Lisa will be around to offer the supportive and loving hand that only a grandparent can provide.Then recreate a handshake from your past or be introduced to a new one!
Join us for Lisa’s lessons and Justin's shakes in the gallery and look for me docked on Level One by the koi pond for additional lessons. We’re around this weekend, Friday, May 24th from 5 pm to 8 pm then again Saturday and Sunday, May 25th and 26th from 1 pm to 4 pm.
Oakland Rover
learning
Throughout the we/customize project we've gotten caught up in the exchanging ideas and skills within and between social networks. There isn't a focus on how we learn informally from the people who are close to us when we're young. This has made it easy to overlook that many of our skills were planted by those willing to take time to teach us even when we didn't realize that was what was happening because we were having fun.
This image is from a grandparent doing just that. He developed a project with his grandson that is fun at its root, but in the process of sharing his passion the grandfather is also teaching his abilities and aesthetic eye.
-Sean Olson
Varied programs this last weekend in the gallery. Here is a time lapse of the gallery.
- Sean Olson
Ever made jewelry out of a hard drive? Deb Berl's custom jewelry making project represents the Hacker Moms design for re-use community at the we/customize gallery studio space this weekend.
These Are The Breaks...
And the theme for this weekend's we/customize Customizer-in-Residence series, "Design for Re-Use; Making Breakage Beautiful" with Daniela Rosner.
What does it mean to make refuse poetic or remnants elegant? Join Daniela as she examines the interplay between technology, handcraft, and the creative communities around them. With guest artists Wendy Renz, Debra Berl, Miwa Ikemiya and Miriam Dym in rotation from the maker community she'll lead us in a hands-on exploration of what can be done with redundant, discarded or "obsolete" materials. From disentegrating chairs spun into succulent garden beds and e-waste turned into elegant jewelry, Daniela will show how objects can have second and third lives.
Make this weekend your big break by bringing in broken things to transform into something alluring and new. We're in and around the studio Friday, May 17th from 5 pm to 8 pm and again Saturday and Sunday, May 18th and 19th from 1 pm to 4 pm.
--Oakland Rover
Here are two shameless embellishment projects. They just add a little something to transform the original into something totally new.
-Scott Moulton
Jay Nelson makes amazing vehicles, submarine interiors and treehouses. You may have seen his structures at Mollusk Surf Shop, or Voyager in the Mission.
Scott Moulton
In Make-Do Objects, Collectors Find Beauty Beyond Repair
Great article in The New York Times about collectors focusing on reuse. Plus a nod to the ebbs and flows of our culture implicitly showing some of the history of the need to make do and maker culture.
-Sean Olson
Miriam Dym’s Logo Removal Service is in full swing at the we/customize Low Bay gallery. Come check out the art of simultaneous logo removal and creative replacement. —Jorge