Back to the Handmade

Like many people, I grew up making things. My mother taught my sisters and I to sew, to knit, to work with clay and make candles and craft things with cut paper. We made our own clothes and gifts and cards. It was fun but also necessary because that was in the days before globalization and the explosion of cheap consumer products. 

Since then making and buying handmade clothes and accessories has become a luxury because it's so time-consuming; it has, paradoxically, become more cost-effective to simply buy stuff shipped from overseas. But it's also triggered a backlash, with more and more people drawn to making and/or buying handmade product. This is at happening in the realm of Modern design at companies like Artecnica and Dosa, where you'll find contemporary craft resulting from the collaboration between top designers and artisans, who are often located in poorer countries. 

We've seen the growth in modern handicraft, evidenced by the thousands attending craft fairs like LA's Felt Club. And we are seeing the desire for hand-hewn raw materials, like clay and wood. There's a palpable desire for the authentic, the natural, even as the handmade industry is being enabled by the internet. We'll talk about all this on today's DnA, with Jenny Ryan, founder of Felt Club; Catherine Bailey, creative director of Heath Ceramics, now opened in LA; William Stranger, furniture-maker whose wood work is currently on show at the Pasadena Museum of Contemporary Art; and Brooke Hodge, Curator of Architecture and Design at MOCA.

The boom in handmade has occurred while the economy was going well, but now there's a new imperative to do-it-yourself, which is the downturn in the economy. So we'll talk next about add a dash of style to a holiday party, on little more than your imagination. My guests are the interior designers Ron Woodson and Jaime Rummerfield,  principals of Woodson and Rummerfield's House of Design, and authors of High Style, a new book about some of the glam interiors they've designed and the parties held there. Their typical client is affluent, but for DnA, they've focused on how to glam up your home on next to nothing. 

And last but not least, the multi-talented Alissa Walker, DnA's own associate producer, prodigious design writer, and most recently, co-organizer of the GOOD December program of salons, panel discussions and more. At one of those events I witnessed Alissa deliver a wonderful spoken word about designers facing the downtown in LA and, realizing we had a bard in our midst, asked her to turn her talents to DnA. So she sees out the year with look back at DnA, set to a techno beat by DnA's audio whizz and co-producer, Ray Guarna. Here is is, word for word:

Tis the season at Design and Architecture when we stop to cheer

All the stories that put the D and the A in our year.

From the Bird’s Nest to the Broad Stage, there were structures so thrilling

Tom La Bonge couldn’t choose one, but picked five favorite buildings!

 

It was a year for design activism as creatives got critical,

Robbie Conal and Shepard Fairey were kings of the posters political.

Guerrilla gardeners hit the streets, armed with seed bombs

And Fritz Haeg took a sickle to the country’s front lawns.

 

Cutting-edge technology blew our elastic minds,

From cinematic effects to Greg Lynn’s blob-tastic designs.

Good design brought us smart cars and bikes with hot wheels

But bad restaurant acoustics still drowned out our meals!

 

The Gamble House turned 100, its Craftsman eaves standing tall,

Disneyland’s it’s a small world made big changes, after all.

Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House went up for millions at auction,

For the rest of us, Charles and Ray Eames stamps were still pretty awesome.

 

Welton Becket was celebrated as the Mark Taper was retread,

BCAM came to town wearing its bright Renzo Red,

Today we praised the handmade with stuffed owls and Heath Ceramics…

But what’s this about a downturn? Now designers, don’t panic:

 

We told you that Obama once wanted to be an architect

And we think that gives design its very own president-elect

So here’s to the future and a great holiday,

From Frances, Ray, Alissa and all of us at DnA!

I hope you like the show, and wish you very Happy Holidays for 2008 and look forward to sharing more DnA with you in 2009.