Feel free to join us at Caroline Collective and bring any other craft that you’re working on and hang out with us if you already have something planned for your sweetheart, or prefer to keep your heart close to your chest. Kids welcome!

Bring a craft. Share a craft. Learn a craft. Make a craft.

Thanks to Katie Mahoney for the great idea to hold this special Craft Night.

WHAT: Craft Night for Valentine’s Day 2010

WHERE: Caroline Collective, 4820 Caroline, Houston TX

WHEN: February 8th, 2009, 7-10pm

WHY: Bring a craft. Share a craft. Learn a craft. Make a craft.

About Craft Night

Craft Night was, in its 2008 inception, an after work hours event to come and share your craft project with other crafty people in Houston. Later, it evolved into crafters teaching a specific skill or a non-profit visiting Caroline, providing food and drink and enlisting the help of the community for one of their own projects.

Beverages are encouraged (we have a refridgerator), ipods loaded with music are always welcome and your attendance is requested.

Our lapsed weekly series, Craft Night, was (we felt) a great place for creative types to meet, work on their projects, and/or teach craft to others. We’ve seen scrapbooking, drawings, knitting, a duct tape fashion model and even Caroline Collective co-founder Ned Dodington’s soon-to-be-installed-at-Lawndale¬†hanging grass spheres.¬†In some special cases Craft Night’s have helped other organizations on large projects, for example, ¬†Fresh Arts CD wall, Spacetaker‘s painted light globes and The Orange Show‘s sugar skull decorating workshop.

With this holiday season approaching we feel it would only be appropriate to give you something to celebrate, right. away. A little head start on that tree trimming, light hanging, gift knitting and decoration making. A bit of quality time with an expert who can show you the components of a truly awful Christmas sweater. Some group therapy forming lumps of clay into the shape of small forest creatures to use as gopher bait.

Wait. What!?!

Yes, that’s right, Christmas sweaters. Matthew Wettergreen, who wears a hand-selected ludicrous Christmas sweater every. day. of. December. to raise money for charity will be on hand to help you design the worst sweater possible for your office Christmas party or family gathering. A short presentation may or may not be involved.

OH! You meant the gopher bait. Aha. We see.

Well, this year’s Fresh Arts and Glasstire fundraiser is entitled “Be The Ball” after everyone’s favorite golf film, Caddyshack (don’t look at me like that, Happy Gilmore doesn’t have Bill Murray). This yearly event continues to be one of Houston’s finest and raises money for Houston’s art scene. It’s sure to be a night of bad golf clothes, Rodney Dangerfield shtick and inevitably, someone showing up as The Gopher. Fresh Arts needs a little bit of help shaping some clay into the form of squirrels and other small rodents to be used as centerpieces at the event. If you’ve seen the movie, you know what we’re talking about. If not, see figure 1.

We do not expect that shaping the animals will take very long and we really just love to see all the crafty people being creative. So bring your craft projects over to Caroline Collective on December 1st starting at 7pm and if you feel like it, make a squirrel, if not just know that we love to see you.

WHAT: Holiday Craft Night at Caroline Collective
WHEN: Tuesday, December 1st, 2009, 7pm – 11pm
WHY: Learn the art of the bad Christmas sweater / form clay into forest creatures / work on craft projects

If you are a Houston company who will be attending SXSW and needs help putting together your own schwag, please bring it to Craft Night and we will help you assemble it.

WHO: Anyone who wants to hang out, meet people, make stuff!

WHAT: Help us assemble SXSW promotional materials: origami.  Help other Houston companies assemble their promotional materials.

WHEN: Tuesday, March 10, 2009, from 7-10pm.

WHERE: Caroline Collective, 4820 Caroline, Houston TX

SXSW can be a daunting but rewarding experience. Houston @ SXSW is a series beginning the 1st of March preparing the Houston community for achieving the highest level of success at SXSW and celebrating those attending the conference.

Events:

Bandcamp: SXSW PREP, March 1st, 1-3pm, Caroline Collective, Houston bands prepare press materials and online presence for SXSW. Event link here.

Craft Night: SXSW, March 10th, 7-10pm, Caroline Collective, Help Caroline Collective prepare their schwag materials for SXSW: origami! Event link here.

CC/Werkadoo Business Class: Resume/Portfolio Preparation, March 11th, 6-10pm, Caroline Collective, Learn what your marketable skills are and prepare your resume/portfolio. Event link here.

Pre-SXSW Party at Caroline Collective, March 12th, 6-9pm, Caroline Collective, Meet other members of the community attending SXSW from Houston. Event link here.

Houston Party I, March 17th, 12-9pm, Gruv Austin, Celebrate and spend time with other Houston community members in tech, music and film

Houston Party II, March 18th, 12-6pm, Gruv Austin, Day party with Houston musicians showcasing

Houston Party III, March 19th, 12-6pm, Gruv Austin, Day party with Houston musicians showcasing

IndieHouston.org Day Party, March 20th, 10am-10pm, Co-Lab, 613 Allen St, Austin TX, Day party with IndieHouston.org. Event link here.

You’ll also get the chance to make your own memory books for the installation. Feel free to bring magazines, pictures, maps, to use for your memory book. Diverseworks also needs 4,000 books, buttons and high heels for the exhibit. If you have any you would like to donate, please bring them to Caroline Collective on Craft Night.

Make sure to wear something you don’t mind getting dirty! We are busting out the spray paint and hot glue gun.

The first Craft Night of the 2009 marks the beginning of one of Caroline Collective’s 2009 initiatives to log hours of volunteers who donate their time. Reported hours will be used for submission to regional and national service awards.

WHAT: Craft Night with Diverseworks for House of Mind

WHERE: Caroline Collective, 4820 Caroline, Houston TX

WHEN: January 20th, 2009, 7-10pm

WHY: Help Diverseworks create works for their largest installation to date

More information about House of Mind is available below or on the Diverseworks site:

Pat Graney
House of Mind
Installation on View: Jan. 30- Feb. 21, 2009
Performances: Jan. 30 & 31, Feb. 5 – 7, 2009
7:30 pm
Commissioned by DiverseWorks with Dance Theater Workshop and NPN
DiverseWorks Main Gallery, Project Space, and Theater

Internationally renowned choreographer, Pat Graney, makes a grand return to Houston as she takes over DiverseWorks’ entire building with her latest exhibition and performance House of Mind. In an amalgamation of female memory, collective unconscious, and family and cultural histories, Graney creates an expansive kinesthetic sense of her work that takes the audience on an intense and thought-provoking journey through her past, her mother’s battles with Alzheimer’s and the quirky imagination that Houstonians saw in The Vivian Girls (2005) and Sleep (1998). The public is invited to tour the installation, a multi-sensory experience that physically manifests aspects her mind, and then experience a choreographed performance, in which each viewer’s experience will be as unique as memory itself.

The installation for House of Mind will be on view during gallery hours. Admission is free and open to the public.

If you would like to purchase tickets to the House of Mind performances, go to www.diverseworks.org. Tickets are $15 for general admission, $10 for DiverseWorks members and $8.00 for students and seniors. Seating is EXTREMELY LIMITED, so please reserve your tickets NOW!

About Craft Night

Craft Night was, in its 2008 inception, an after work hours event to come and share your craft project with other crafty people in Houston. Later, it evolved into crafters teaching a specific skill or a non-profit visiting Caroline, providing food and drink and enlisting the help of the community for one of their own projects.

In 2009 Craft Night will continue to provide crafty manpower to non-profits/orgs but will additionally expand to teaching creative skills while making items and goods which benefit service based organizations, creating such usable items such as clothing or household goods. As an effort to give back to our members, several of the craft nights for ’09 will relate to healthy living or making functional objects.

Additionally, we plan to begin to logging volunteer hours at Craft Night and other service based Caroline events for submission to local and national service based awards.

Beverages are encouraged (we have a refridgerator), ipods loaded with music are always welcome and your attendance is requested.

We are well on our way to the world’s largest CD curtain thanks to the following crafters:
Angela Molledahl
Jennifer Mathis [aka aluminum foil guru!]
Nicole Haagensen
Ed Onecic
Sean Boyd
Jason Armstrong
Jenni Rebecca Stephenson
Erin Nies
Matthew Wettergreen
Ned Dodington
Danielle Eley

Mirror Ball Facts:
Friday, December 5, 2008
Tickets available by calling (713) 850-0939
Ticket prices start at $125 – Sponsorships available

Visit the Fresh Arts Coalition and Glasstire sites for more information.

Image: Fresh Arts

This Tuesday after NetSquared, stop by Caroline Collective for Craft Night, where Fresh Arts Coalition and Glasstire will be creating decorations for their annual holiday soiree that raises funds to bring the most spectacular progressive arts to Texans. Come by to contribute to a colossal wall decoration made from your old CDs and form creative table sculptures out of aluminum foil to help Fresh Arts and Glasstire prepare for a glittering celebration of all things reflectacular.

A little bit about Mirror Ball:

The blow-out bash, this year themed Mirror Ball on Friday, December 5, has become one of the season’s most memorable, photographed and popular events thanks to inventive themes and entertainment, unique locations,approachable ticket pricing and broad appeal.

Refreshments and good times will be provided.

The details:

WHAT: REFLECTACULAR CRAFT NIGHT

WHEN: Tue, Nov 11, 7-9PM

Mandy Says: Come out to Caroline Collective and help us assemble the world’s largest [ok, maybe not] CD wall to decorate the walls of Adicke’s Studio for Mirror Ball.

For more information on Fresh Arts or Mirror Ball, email Mandy@fresharts.org.

Wanna know what The Orange Show is all about?

The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art is a non-profit organization, founded in 1980, to preserve and present works of extraordinary imagination and provide people the opportunity to express their personal artistic vision. Our programs for children and adults unclude hands-on workshops, music, storytelling and performance, the award-winning Eyeopener Tour program and Houston’s most popular public art event – the Art Car Parade & Festival. Our internationally acclaimed stewardship efforts preserve two of Houston’s most famous cultural icons The Orange Show Monument and the Beer Can House. Our archive and library are used by students, scholars, the media and artists.

The Orange Show will be providing all of the materials to make our festive decorations, as well as hooking us up with some tasty St. Arnold and good tunes. All you need to bring is yourself and your craftiness.

The lowdown:
What: Dia de los Muertos gala workshop

When: Tuesday, October 28, 7-10pm

Cost: free!

For more information about The Orange Show and all the great stuff they have going on, check out their website.

Image: California Digital Library

ALSO: Please bring in all your plastic grocery bags to Caroline tomorrow night, and we’ll take them out to use at our craft table at Culture Collision on Wednesday night (related post).

And, of course, we’ll be showing the presidential debate, as promised, on the big screen outside starting at 8pm. As with last week, the screen and equipment are generously provided by our partners in this event, IndieHouston.org. Bring food, drinks, and friends, and come watch the next installment in this polical showdown.

About Craft Night

Every Tuesday night at Caroline, we’re holding Craft Night. Craft Night has in the past been a time to get together and work on all those weird projects that have been sitting in the corner.

Examples of some of the original Craft Night projects:

• Oven baked pulped cardboard for disaster relief bricks.
• A scrapbook of polaroids taken every day over the past three years.
• Paper cut outs for an eventual miniature puppet theatre.
• A watercolor painting of the Fail Whale.

So bring your yarn, cardboard, splatter paint or those handmade cds that your band is still trying to put together. At the end of the night we’ll take pictures of the projects to post on the web. At the end of the month we’ll hold a Show and Tell with GRAND prizes for the best project as selected by a rigorous panel of judges (we haven’t decided yet but YOU is a pretty good guess).

Beverages are encouraged (we have a refrigerator), ipods loaded with music are always welcome and your attendance is requested.

———-

In the coming weeks we will have people into Craft Night teaching how to make durable cloth out of plastic bags, panniers, and a return of Evan O’Neil (evanoneil.net) to provide hands on experience with silk-screening.

Bring in your old hard drives to Caroline for a future Craft Night where Matthew Wettergreen will teach you how to make wind chimes to add some musical quality to your exterior porch life.

About Craft Night

Every Tuesday night at Caroline this summer, we’re holding Craft Night. Craft Night has in the past been a time to get together and work on all those weird projects that have been sitting in the corner.

Examples of some of the original Craft Night projects:

• Oven baked pulped cardboard for disaster relief bricks.
• A scrapbook of polaroids taken every day over the past three years.
• Paper cut outs for an eventual miniature puppet theatre.
• A watercolor painting of the Fail Whale.

So bring your yarn, cardboard, splatter paint or those handmade cds that your band is still trying to put together. At the end of the night we’ll take pictures of the projects to post on the web. At the end of July we’ll hold a Show and Tell with GRAND prizes for the best project as selected by a rigorous panel of judges (we haven’t decided yet but YOU is a pretty good guess).

Beverages are encouraged (we have a refridgerator), ipods loaded with music are always welcome and your attendance is requested.