Artist Profile: Meagan Claire Hall + Sasha Barr = Wonder Thunder

Tell me a bit about yourself name, location, affiliations, personal stuff.
Wonder Thunder is a collaborative effort between Meagan Claire Hall and Sasha Barr, two Tennessee transplants living in Seattle, WA. We're proud parents of a grey tabby cat named Fatty, Sr.

happy vegetable reuseable bags - red

Apart from creating art, what do you do?
We enjoy fermenting pickles, making yogurt, baking, summer bike rides, planting plants, and trips to Goodwill. Sasha has a BFA in Printmaking from the University of Memphis, works as a freelance designer/ illustrator, and is part of the art department at Sub Pop Records. Meagan has a BFA in Fibers from the Appalachian Center for Crafts, is currently studying herbal sciences, and runs another Etsy store, Asteria Gems.

mini prints - set of 9

What first made you want to become an artist?
It runs in our families. Meagan's mother is a metalsmith and her father once moonlighted as a blacksmith. Sasha's parents have degrees in printmaking and ceramics. It's in our blood.

little forest pillow - orange

Please describe your creative process how, when, materials, etc.
All of our illustrations start out with pen and paper, and are digitally manipulated for screen-printing. We buy fabric in bolts and screen-print our illustrations directly onto it. The fabric is then ironed, sewn, and assembled into the finished products.

carrot placemat - set of 4

What artists have influenced you and inspire you to create?

Obviously this could be a HUGE list, so we'll keep it short and simple. Jim Henson creations, Edward Gorey, Evan Hecox, Tyler Stout, Cayce Zavaglia, and Harry Whittier Frees!

mini octopus pocket friend plush

Where else can people find your work?
We currently sell online, in our Etsy shop and in a number of stores across the USA:

20Twenty- Ballard, Seattle, WA
Bluebottle Gallery and Store- Seattle, WA
Fontanelle, Portland- OR
Sugaree's- Murfreesboro, TN
Renegade Handmade- Chicago, IL
Schmancy- Belltown, Seattle, WA
Tender Loving Empire- Portland, OR
Wholly Craft- Columbus, OH
Young Blood Boutique and Gallery- Atlanta, GA

Visit the Wonder Thunder Blog

All photos are by and copyright of Wonder Thunder--they were real nice and let me borrow 'em--thanks, guys!

Good People: The Power House Project

The Power House was started by the Design 99 duo, Gina Reichert and Mitch Cope in March of 2008 with the purchase of one house and two empty lots totaling $4,900. These properties were purchased with the kind help of family members and friends.

What is a Power House?
The Power House intends to be a stimulator and not an end in itself as a singular art object. The house is a broadcaster of potential ideas and a place to plug those ideas into. It will be used as an interactive site, by Mitch, Gina and their neighbors. The Power House is meant to be a symbol for creativity, new beginnings and social interaction within a neighborhood.

upcycled free paint - renovation begins

The house is meant to act as a cultural catalyst and an opportunity for cultural exchanges through workshops and residencies. It will also provide lessons in wind, solar, and sustainable strategies by implementing these systems and introducing them to the community. Installations in the landscape will be the first outward sign that draws attention to the facility and its mission. The exterior skin of the house itself will also exhibit unique characteristics and 'green' materials and strategies appropriate for the Michigan climate. Power House will serve as a showroom both inside and out.

Why create a Power House?
The communities of Detroit have been hit hard economically for many years now. Prior to the foreclosure crisis the property values in Detroit had been extremely low, and they have hit an all time low due to the current real estate market. There has always been a need for low income housing, but often what is called low income is not really that affordable to purchase or sustain. The Power House is designed to prove that it is possible to take advantage of the housing crisis and produce super efficient, self-sustaining homes all for under $99,000. By taking advantage of today’s housing crisis, the Power House Project can help people to rethink their city's aged and decaying housing stock and bring the homes back to life.

neighbors help plant a community garden

Long Term Goals
As the foreclosure crisis hits all around them, with house after house going vacant and vandalized, they began to strategize ways of making positive changes. In 2008, Gina and Mitch purchased a bank foreclosed house in Detroit for $1900 (originally valued at $85,000), almost on a whim, simply to try and take control of their immediate surroundings which were quickly destabilizing due to a spike in foreclosures. Since the house had been scrapped- all its electrical, plumbing and heating systems stolen- the idea became to work with the house in a way that turned a negative value into a positive asset by reinventing the house as a Power House.

Positive Ideas + Interactive People = Healthier Neighborhoods
The Power house Project was designed to stimulate communication and action within an otherwise challenging but unique Detroit neighborhood by way of mining out the existing positive and productive aspects of the neighborhood. The Power House is designed to be a space where people can feel comfortable to share their ideas, knowledge and expertise about the fundamentals of neighborhood living, i.e., gardening, house work, new technologies, safety, and so on. The Power House is also designed as to be magnet for gathering whether they be neighborhood resources, energy, social change, story telling or simply a place to produce and view art and culture.

candidates for future power houses in the neighborhood

Future Power House Projects
Each Power House will be capable of creating enough energy for its own consumption and produce enough excess power for at least one neighboring home. This is feasible due to the extremely low cost of purchasing property in Detroit and the amount of available small single family vacant homes in Detroit. A certain percentage of each Power House would also function as neighborhood hubs by producing not only electricity but also a new point of identity, gathering place of creative exchange, thus a new type of neighborhood where undesirable homes become experimental factories for community action and power.

Currently they are in the process of bringing other artists in to help set up a small neighborhood radio station and sculpted landscape work.

Learn more about the Power House project and Duo 99 HERE.

Info and photos in this post credit to Design 99 and the Power House Project.

POE Blog...featuring Pfeiffer Photos

Exciting news for this morning...we are the newest featured artist(s) on the Photographers of Etsy (POE) Blog! Please visit the blog and take a peek at the photos from our Etsy shop that regular contributor, Ann Wilkinson, chose to include with our interview.

Carnation Cafe by Tina - Pfeiffer Photos 2008

But wait. You might be wondering, "What is POE?" Do allow me to explain.

In addition to offering a wide array of handmade goods such as jewelry, stationery, and clothing, Etsy is a wonderful place to buy top quality photographic prints!

The Photographers of Etsy (POE) Street Team is dedicated to getting the word out about the talented photographers selling their work on Etsy. Our aim is to inform the public about methods, styles and types of printing available, so that they will have tools to make educated buying decisions. We are a community of photographers who support one another by sharing experiences, techniques and helpful tips and tricks.

Icon by Tina - Pfeiffer Photos 2008

POE Slogan: "Practicing the Art of Stopping Time"

Please visit Etsy and search for "POE team" to discover all the beautiful photography our team has to offer!

Team Shop: PhotographersofEtsy
Search for items from this team: POE Team

Old & New by Tina - Pfeiffer Photos 2008

Other places you can visit POE on the web:

POE YouTube Channel

Poetic Pixels

Flickr Group

Talent Database

Indie Public

MySpace

Facebook

Blog

Ning

Orange County / SanDiego POE

POE - Motor City

POE - PDX (our local group in Portland, OR USA)

POE - Ma

tina's whimsy revisited

I have always been an artist. Before I fell in love with photography, I tried a bit of many mediums. Drawing, watercolor, rubber stamp art, decoupage, assemblage, jewelry design, and my eventual favorite, collage.


t 2 b:
Dream a Little Dream, 2.5" x 3.5" - ACEO Collage, Open Edition
Love Many Things, 4" x 10" - Original Collage on Canvas Board

Techniques of collage, were first used at the time of the invention of paper in China around 200 BC. The use of collage, however, remained very limited until the 10th century in Japan, when calligraphers began to apply glued paper, using texts on surfaces, when writing their poems.



t 2 b:
The Wild Joys of Living, 8" x 10" - Original Collage on Canvas Board
Inspire, 2.5" x 3.5" - ACEO Collage, Open Edition

The technique of collage appeared in medieval Europe during the 13th century. Gold leaf panels started to be applied in Gothic cathedrals around the 15th and 16th centuries. Gemstones and other precious metals were applied to religious images, icons, and also, to coats of arms.


t 2 b:
Retro Green Girl - 11 x 14 collage on canvas board
Life Requires Beauty - 2.5 x 3.5 ACEO Collage, Open Edition

In the 19th century, collage methods also were used among hobbyists for memorabilia (i.e. applied to photo albums) and books (i.e. Hans Christian Andersen, Carl Spitzweg).

The term collage derives from the French "coller" meaning "glue". This term was coined by both Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in the beginning of the 20th century when collage became a distinctive part of modern art.[1]



t 2 b:
Ladies Bingo Night - 4 x 5 collage on canvas board
We Can Claim Ruffles all for Ourselves, 10" x 10" - Original Collage on canvas

I used to offer my collage work in an Etsy shop, known as tina's whimsy. I sold a handful of my items in the two years that the shop was alive online but then I discovered I was spending far more time trying to sell and less and less on the process of creation. And so I stopped altogether--the selling and the creating.

The pieces displayed in this post are a handful of my collage works from 2004-2007. I plan to begin some new work in 2009, and would love your comments on these. Let me know if you'd like to see more and I will include them in a future post...thanks!


[1] Wikipedia 2008.

collages displayed are all copyright tina's whimsy 2004-2007.

A Silver Lining

The Irvington Artist Market (IAM) was not all that we had hoped it would be. We did not make the sales we had hoped for due to low attendance of the event. We're chalking this one up to limited advertising by the event organizer (it was their first time out), cloudy weather in Portland and the long-established Bite of Oregon event happening downtown on the same weekend.

We have learned that shows and markets are a live-and-learn kind of experience and each time we attend we learn what works...and what doesn't work. We were pleasantly surprised by the variety of the other artists and crafters who participated at the market and impressed with the quality of their work. I am including a list of the names and contact info for those vendors we connected with at the end of this post in case you're in the mood for eye-candy and maybe some handmade shopping!

Our booth did look fabulous thanks to a few yards of Ikea's Lena fabric I had stashed away months ago for another project. Our photo album idea worked out nicely and caught the interest of a shopper who asked for our business card. Judy has plans to open a small gift shop in the uber-hip Mississippi Avenue district here in Portland this fall. She loved our photos of local city dwellers and architecture and is interested in opening a wholesale account to sell postcards of our work which gave us a silver lining for a cloudy day.

B.Hive Designs - handmade clothing for baby, kids, men, women...in shops and on Etsy.

Stubborn - modern jewelry handmade with stainless steel, aluminum, silver and opaque resins.

Molly Muriel - homemade natural soaps and vegan soy candles in found glass.

tiny forge design - handmade silver jewelry (also on Etsy!).

Meme Cosmetics - 100% handmade, 100% natural cosmetics.

Dave Sage Designs - handmade furniture using reclaimed and salvage woods.

Octavine Illustration - another Etsy artist offering journals, paintings, notecards & more.

Refashioned by Lisa - New fashions and bags made from reclaimed clothing and fabrics.

The photos included in the latter part of this post were used by permission and are the property of the individuals that create these fine art and craft items.