Tag Archives: Community

MAKESHIFT 2013: CHAIR WORKSHOP

May 22, 2013

CHAIR WORKSHOP

On Sunday, as part of MAKESHIFT 2013, we co-hosted a Chair Workshop, modeled after the MAKESHIFT 2012 workshop, Crafting Design, sponsored by Partners and Spade. This year we teamed up with Build It Green!NYC (BIG!NYC) and Krrb and invited an array of makers to join us for an afternoon of collaboration, innovation, and chair re-design. While our event at The Standard focused on conversation (though there was plenty of making going on as well), the chair event has evolved into a make-centered occasion where a community of designers work both independently and together through skill sharing and mutual encouragement.

The event was held at BIG!NYC’s restore facility in Brooklyn – a warehouse filled with doors, fireplace mantels, sinks, mirrors, tiles and a number of other goods, much of it vintage and antique, acquired through donations and offered at low prices for those looking to save money (and the landfill) in home renovations. Or in the case of friend Kerry Diamond (of Cherry Bombe Magazine) and her chef/partner Robert Newton, the interior of their third and most recent restaurant, Nightingale 9, was designed with salvage bought from BIG!NYC.

CHAIR WORKSHOP

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MAKESHIFT 2013 @ THE STANDARD

May 21, 2013

“Craft” might seem like it’s for the amateurs, and “fashion” for the auteurs. Yet we live in an age where creativity and innovation are increasingly found in collaborations between makers and users, crafters and designers, designers and manufacturers, and in the loosening of the boundaries between them. – MAKESHIFT 2012

The MAKESHIFT conversation began last year to discover where and how various creative industries can work together as one. The discussion continued last Thursday evening at The Standard, addressing the intersection of industries on the artisan level, where the interchanges occur, and how we can transform those intersections through innovation and collaboration for the greater good.

MAKESHIFT STANDARD_21

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10 YEARS HEATH (AND THE FUTURE PERFECT)

May 16, 2013

During New York Design Week, Heath Ceramics is celebrating their 10th anniversary at The Future Perfect, one of our favorite design stores. Friends Cathy Bailey, Robin Petravic, and Adam Silverman chose to celebrate with The Future Perfect for their like-minded dedication to good design, community, and collaboration. The display features ten Heath Ceramics designs, including an Alabama Chanin collaboration, a limited edition New York bowl (also for sale at The Future Perfect), and a wall of post cards representing 10 moments in 10 years that you can take with you.

We are super proud for our Heath collaboration to be represented in the exhibition. Drop by The Future Perfect from 10am to 7pm daily; 11am to 7pm Sunday, at 55 Great Jones Street (between Bowery & Lafayette) through Monday, May 20th.

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ZINGERMAN’S AND THE LAPSED ANARCHIST

May 14, 2013

In 1982, Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw opened Zingerman’s Delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The deli quickly became Ann Arbor’s premiere specialty foods store. As the business grew to include mail order customers across the country, Paul and Ari were presented with an opportunity to open stores nationwide and follow a traditional franchise business model. What they did instead is a great representation of the philosophies that Alabama Chanin tries to embody. Community, sustainability, and education are at the heart of the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, which is made up of eight different, semi-autonomous businesses that operate as one organization. Zingerman’s has remained firmly in Ann Arbor, building successful commerce from within the community, by the community, for the community. This year the organization will have annual sales of about $46,000,000 and employs nearly 600 people.

The Zingerman’s Community of Businesses (aka, the ZCoB) includes a bakery, a coffee roaster, a creamery that makes both fresh cheese and gelato, a candy manufactory, and a James Beard award-winning restaurant. ZingTrain, Zingerman’s business training service, offers seminars that share the organization’s approach to leadership, service, open book management, visioning, etc. They offer baking classes at BAKE, their nationally recognized baking school for the home baker. Zingerman’s also runs a publishing house, which publishes several books by Ari, focused on guiding the small business owner. You can find the titles Building a Great Business and Being a Better Leader in our online store. In the spirit of Alabama Chanin, the books were beautifully designed and illustrated by the Zingerman’s team, printed in Ann Arbor on recycled paper and are not available through mass market distribution.

We sat down with Ari Weinzweig to find out more about this unusual and innovative prototype for a new kind of business model.

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SOUTHERN MAKERS

May 13, 2013

SOUTHERN MAKERS

Two weekends ago, we participated in the inaugural Southern Makers event in Montgomery, Alabama. The one-day affair, curated and created over the last year by Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood, Matter, and E.A.T. South, celebrated Alabama-based makers and designers who focus on producing and transforming modern sustainable products derived from local traditions in architecture, food, fashion, and design. The afternoon included workshops, panel discussions, a maker bazaar, chef tasting booths, live bands, and a wealth of conversations that grew over coffee, delicious food, and locally brewed beer.

The Union Station Train Shed on the Alabama River offered the perfect venue for the 90+ artisans, artists, chefs, musicians, designers, and makers who convened for the day. The set, designed by Bell + Bragg and Southern Accents Architectural Antiques, had a distinctly Southern aesthetic, and was organized by region: Points North; Points Central; Points South. We shared a section of the train shed with friends Butch Anthony, Billy Reid, and artist Audwin McGee. Live bands, including Florence natives, The Pollies, occupied the stage that anchored the north end of the depot, set before the backdrop of windows, a wall of doors, and a constantly occupied swing that hung from the enormous roof.

SOUTHERN MAKERS

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BUILD IT GREEN!NYC (AND A PARTY)

May 7, 2013

Chair Pile As MAKESHIFT 2013 takes shape, we continue the conversation that began last year about the intersection of art, craft, making, producing, designing, and manufacturing. One of last year’s most popular events, Crafting Design: Chair Workshop with Partners and Spade, found resonance with a league of artists, designers, crafters, and makers. And due its popularity, we are excited to be curating the workshop again, this year hosted by Build It Green!NYC, on the 19^th of May, in their Gowanus, Brooklyn location, and in collaboration with Krrb. This year’s event includes a Chair Exhibition, followed by a party—both open to the public. Expect some local brew, a food truck (or two), and some surprises along the way.

Build It Green!NYC (BIG!NYC) is New York City’s only non-profit retail outlet for salvaged and surplus building supplies and materials. Co-sponsored by Community Environmental Center (CEC), which assists New York buildings with energy efficiency, BIG!NYC works to keep building materials out of landfills, using all materials where possible (much like Alabama Chanin). You can find most anything at BIG!NYC, whether it’s shutters, panel doors or refrigerators. Construction and demolition waste is a massive portion of landfill content (over 19,000 tons of building material are thrown out each day in NYC) and that waste contains pollutants, GHG emissions, and contributes to climate change and global warming. All proceeds from sales through BIG!NYC go back into supporting CEC’s environmental programs throughout the city: BIG!Compost, BIG!Blooms, BIG!NYC Gives Back, along with a variety of other projects that continue to emerge.

Our friends (and Southern Foodways Alliance cohorts) Kerry Diamond (of Cherry Bombe Magazine) and her chef/partner Robert Newton (of Seersucker and Smith Canteen) built their newest endeavor, Nightingale 9, from materials found at Build It Green!NYC.

BUILD IT GREEN!NYC

Last October, Hurricane Sandy nearly destroyed one of BIG!NYC’s reuse centers, flooding their 21,000 square foot warehouse with five feet of water. Two days later, volunteers from across the state amassed on the site to help remove the unsalvageable and clean what could be saved. With the help of those volunteers, Build It Green!NYC was back in business within days, aiding those hit hard by the storm and providing needed building materials. BIG!NYC suffered major losses as a result of Hurricane Sandy, which only reinforced their mission to extend the usability of construction materials by keeping them out of landfills.

Like last year’s chair workshop, participants in this year’s event will repurpose cast-off, found chairs into objects of beauty. And like last year, friends, makers, and designers, like Natalie, A.J. Mason, Andrew Wagner, Tanya Aguiniga, Amy Devers, and more, will be on-hand to help and participate. While space for this workshop is limited, a Chair Exhibit and party will take place directly after the workshop and are open to all. Build It Green!NYC will also be open for business during the workshop with a portion of all sales benefiting Build It Green!NYC Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. Come join us…

P.S.: The workshop is currently wait listed, but spots may open so go ahead and send us an email. We want to hear from you: rsvp (at) alabamachanin.com

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MAKESHIFT 2013

May 6, 2013

MAKESHIFT 2013

Everything we, as humans, touch, has a global impact, which is only magnified by the Internet and ease of information exchange. At Alabama Chanin we see evidence of this every day through our Journal, which allows us to easily and quickly share and exchange ideas with our readers. One idea we discuss and implement regularly is cross-collaboration, whether it is a project with another designer, like Anna Maria Horner, or a friendly game of baseball with the designers and artists of The Texas Playboys. At MAKESHIFT 2013, continuing the conversation from last year, we’ll be asking this question:

HOW DO WE DEFINE AND TRANSFORM THE INTERSECTION OF FASHION, FOOD, DESIGN, CRAFT + DIY THROUGH INNOVATION AND COLLABORATION FOR THE BETTER GOOD?

We look forward to sitting with a group of artists, makers, designers, fashion designers, chefs, writers and musicians to exchange thoughts and brainstorm ideas surrounding this question.

MAKESHIFT CONVERSATION @ The Standard is presently Wait Listed.

The conversation will be facilitated visually through decorating, embellishing, and crafting Alabama Chanin tote bags, which we will share on a Tumblr page post-MAKESHIFT (more on that to come…)

In addition to panel discussions and brainstorming, we are co-hosting a Chair Workshop with Build It Green!NYC and Krrb focused on implementing the concepts of craft and design.

Look for up-to-date posts this week and next as we share our plans and experiences. Read about last year’s events here. Start your own conversation with fellow makers and artists and share your thoughts with us here.

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DIY BLOOMERS GORE SKIRT (AND A CORSAGE)

May 2, 2013

Southern children who grow up with a healthy respect for their elders, particularly their mothers, are said to have been “raised right.” Across the south, most children (and their fathers) must have been “raised right,” because there is almost always a big to-do made about Mother’s Day. Even though new Easter clothes have just been bought, a slew of children will go shopping again for new Mother’s Day outfits; it is expected to make a good impression at church on that big day. Mom gets to sleep in (just a little) and breakfasts will be prepared and served by the children. We present our mothers and grandmothers with beautiful corsages. Often in my community, the tradition is to give carnations. It’s common to give Mother a red or pink one and to set a vase of white carnations upon the kitchen table for grandmothers or great-grandmothers who have passed away. In my family,we presented corsages to Mother and Grandmother on Mother’s Day morning.

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EARTH DAY

April 21, 2013

EARTH DAY

We celebrate Earth Day every day at Alabama Chanin through our philosophy of slow design and sustainable production methods, and have been celebrating sustainable design for over a decade. We use only U.S. grown organic cotton fabric in our designs and maintain a zero-waste approach to production. Still, the annual calendar event is always a good reminder to reflect on how we treat our environment, both at work and in our home lives.

It’s also a chance to start a new habit that might be practiced all year. This year, as part of their All Hands on Earth Campaign, the Nature Conservancy is celebrating Earth Day with a picnic. We love this idea (and the excuse to take staff lunch outside this week).

The All Hands on Earth Campaign has declared the month of April to be Earth Month, with a focus on sustainable food production. They’re asking people across the planet to consider where their food comes from and the carbon footprint that food production leaves. I try to support local farmers whenever possible, be it a trip across the river to visit Jack-O-Lantern Farms or a Saturday morning walk through the Farmers Market (which will be re-opening next month). Not only does buying local put money back into my community’s economy, but the food I buy is fresher, has traveled far fewer miles with far less negative impact on the environment, and it tastes better.

Learn more about how to host your own Earth Month picnic here. Document and share your picnic photos by tagging them with #AllHandsPicnic on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube or picnic-TNC13 on Flickr.

Learn more about food and conservation here.

Read about how the CFDA is celebrating Earth Day by promoting sustainable production in the fashion industry and follow their members (including Alabama Chanin) to learn how American fashion designers across the globe are celebrating Earth Day by searching #CFDAEarthDay on Instagram.

And if you want to keep yourself honest, take a quick calculation of your personal carbon footprint with the Earth Day Network’s Ecological Footprint Calculator.

Members of our Alabama Chanin staff will be pitching in to help keep our Florence community clean by joining a city-wide effort on Saturday, April 27th. Find out if your community has a city-wide clean-up effort you can join, or organize your own.

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PICK 5: A RECIPE FOR CHANGE

April 17, 2013

PICK 5: A RECIPE FOR CHANGE

I’ve written before about the importance of organic cotton and the residual chemical damage traditional cotton leaves behind in our land and our bodies. As many of you know, we planted and raised our own organic cotton here in Alabama last summer, and every Alabama Chanin product is made with 100% organic cotton. We are a sustainable design company, making as much use of everything we have so that we throw away very, very little. Cotton scraps become pulls for tying hair or curtains, smaller pieces are reworked into something larger. In honor of Earth Day this coming Monday, we’ve taken the EPA Pick 5 challenge to go a little deeper and consider some ways cotton can be reworked into our daily routines.

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