Marybeth's Jacket - A True Story

As seen in the Wall Street Journal: Bamboo is RAYON
This is great, because the Wall Street Journal has lots more readers than I do. The WSJ's Christina Binkley reports on "eco-rayon". (Maybe that should be EEEK!-o rayon.)Picking Apart Bamboo CoutureThe Best of Nice White Lady on the topic.

Pimp Cups and Soulcraft
My Advanced Material Culture class took an interesting turn this week: we made pimp cups. (For those of you unfamiliar with these artifacts, look here, here and here.) The genesis of this project was my request for someone to share a craft with the rest of the class. I'd made this request at the beginning of the semester, but no one stepped up at the time. They claimed not to know how to m

Artifacts of Loss -- and Survival
My Craft and production class is discussing Jane Dusselier's amazing and heart-breaking book, Artifacts of Loss. Dusselier uses material culture -- arts, crafts, gardens and other creations -- to describe and analyze the lives of Japanese-Americans in WWII concentration camps. One of the questions I've been mulling over is whether any handmade objects survived from the Nazi concentration camps. So far, I have found only this:Eva Klein David — Clandestine Crafts That Saved Lives

Spring course: Simplicity and Anti-consumption in American Life
It's only October and barely fall, but I am working on my new spring course on Simplicity and Anti-consumption in American Life. The Craft and Production course is going well, considering attendance has been cut by a third for the few weeks and yesterday was even worse (5 students out of 11 showed up!). The size of the class is a bit disappointing, but that's probably a function of the prerequisite and the craziness of all the AMST upper level being offered at the same time. Here's my pitch for the spring course:AMST498C Consumer Culture: Simplicity and Anti-consumption in American Life (Spring 2010 W 4:00pm- 6:40pm)Prerequisite: AMST