Oakland International High School is a new public high school for recent immigrants to the US. Located in Temescal, there are over 330 students speaking over 32 different languages, and most of them have only very recently arrived here. These students are all English-Language learners at the same time they are trying to learn all their high school curriculum, and many of them have never had any formal education before OIHS.
Some of OIHS’ 9th and 10th graders are coming to the East Bay Mini Maker Faire with a very cool project–a mini book lab.
With their Art teacher, Brooke Toczylowski, they have created personal Art Journals, and in World History with Teacher Verónica Garcia the students have made geography books about their home countries. They’ll show you theirs and they’ll teach you how to make some too.
This is an example journal from the students’ art class. This is used as a sketchbook and research workbook. This student is from Yemen, and has placed the US flag on one cover and the Yemen flag on the other, to tell a story about her identity and journey.
Come on down and meet some inspiring Young Makers!
Announcing the Pop-Up Maker Share Zone! Hey Folks, this suggestion just popped up from Jeff Edmonston — East Bay Dad/Maker/EBMMF Facebook friend. Thanks Jeff!
Got a great idea or presentation and didn’t have the bandwidth to apply by our deadline? Buy a ticket to the Faire and bring your project to our Pop-Up Maker Share Zone
Bring your DIY project, your hacked up wonders, your art, and your smile.
The Community Share Zone is an area where you can show off your projects and check out what your other Makers have been doing.
Amaze friends and strangers, start an impromptu circuit bending music jam, let your LEDs shine. You don’t need to have a full scale booth or fancy presentation to share your stuff at the East Bay Maker Faire, just be willing to demo and talk about your project, meet others in the community and exchange ideas. Have something awesome you made from Adafruit, Sparkfun, Make Weekend Projects, Instructables, or any of the many kit makers and idea markets that have exploded to fill our idle hours with joy? Bring it out and share your enthusiasm with others. This is not for adults only – let the kids bring their first soldering creations, bugbots, models, science fair projects, EVERYTHING!
Don’t have something to share? Make sure to come by here and see projects that people have made their very first time soldering or creating, get inspired at the Pop-Up Maker Share Zone
Crash the Faire!
Guidelines:
Table space will be provided
No consumables (food and drinks) please
No high voltage or dangerous/hazardous items please
If you have a really big project or lots of stuff, please only bring what you can carry while enjoying the rest of the fair. There is no storage space.
Please do not leave any presentation items unattended that are of personal value to you.
This is an “impromptu” or “pop-up” space that will be self-staffed by the faire participants.
You are entirely responsible for the items you bring.
If you’re coming to the East Bay Mini Maker Faire, you gotta make stuff while you’re here. What better place than our Hands-On-Everything Zone at Studio One?
Tip from the Top: plan ahead for the Swap experience and bring a shirt to screenprint, and some clothes you either want to donate or something you’ve been dying to jazz up.
Swap-O-Rama-Rama is the brainchild of Wendy Tremayne, an inspired artist/maker/yogini/homesteader. Basically, its a clothing swap, a sewing room, a hackerspace, and a series of DIY/DIT (do it together) projects. Bring along some clothes or all that extra fabric you’ve been meaning to use. Grab something and turn it into something else. Make a Halloween costume, a cape, a costume, a monster or a miniskirt. Make a stuffed animal or a tea cozy or a shopping bag, a book cover or a tutu….use your imagination or avail yourself of ours!
This year, our sewing maven CC Clark is back in action with her rotary cutters, sewing machines, notions, trims, fabrics and projects galore. In addition, workshop artists Cedar Casper (young maker extraordinaire) will teach you to make a jeans purse and Jennifer Williams will get you cutting up old t-shirts to make TARN (t-shirt yarn) you can crochet into all kinds of neat stuff. Iggy from the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse will return as well, and make cars out of old floppy disks. Remember those?
Next door to the Swap/Sewing room is the Screenprinting Zone. This is the place to take any t-shirt, hoodie, skirt, totebag or any piece of fabric you can lay your hands on and transform it into something cool. The artists and homies from Oakland’s Homeygrown collective will bring their original designs and help you create your very own work of art.
Also–thanks to 510 Families for helping promote the Faire and all our crafty efforts!
Trinity Cross is a local clothier and her small indie label, field day, offers wearables made from reclaimed materials, organic cotton, and bamboo. Everything is made, printed and dyed one at a time in Oakland.
But that’s not all–she sells her lovely, soulful clothing and accessories from a pimped out, upcycled 96′ Toyota Warrior motor home! She completely gutted it and made in to a traveling store front. All the materials were reclaimed or recycled down to the very screws.
“I kept the bed up above the cab for sleeping when I travel for shows and fairs. It’s been a dream come true and I’m not quite sure what I did before having it. “
go team!
showroom
sleeping loft
before
…more before
field day is one of the East Bay Mini Maker Faire’s 20+ “commercial makers”—crafters, artisans, and purveyors of handmade delicacies—who will be exhibiting and selling at the Mini Maker Faire. >>YES THE TOYOTA WARRIOR WILL BE PRESENT!
The faire is actually a great opportunity to get ahead of your holiday shopping! So between workshops, exhibits, rides and food next Sunday, plan for a bit of time and find that special gift or two. You’ll be proud that your present is local, maker made, unique and undoubtably fabulous.
One of the very coolest things about the East Bay is that we have serious food folk—growers, makers, bakers, eaters…Seriously, it seems Oakland is all about cuisine these days whether its our amazing farmers markets, restaurants, pop-up food truck pods, canning & jamming parties, crop swaps, eggs from your neighbor’s chickens, urban food foragers…an embarrassment of riches, truly.
If you attended the East Bay Mini Maker Faire last year, you may have been a little frustrated by the dearth of food by mid-afternoon. But fear not—we promise this year the food will be a MAJOR highlight of the day, and while we can’t promise zero lines, there will definitely be a whole lot more to choose from.
The Food Truck Alley at the EBMMF is being curated by Temescal’s own Karen Hester, a community activist and event organizer extraordinaire. Karen started Bites Off Broadway, Oakland’s first recurring food pod in an effort to push forward a mobile food policy for the City of Oakland.
For your dining pleasure Karen has put together a lineup of some of the East Bay’s finest mobile food vendors:
In addition to these “Bites off Broadway” delectable offerings, there will be multiple stands with grab ‘n-go sandwiches & yogurt & fruit, cookies, kettle corn, fresh fruit popsicles and more courtesy of the Park Day Parents Association, as well as sausages from Studio One Art Center. We highly recommend you come hungry!
For me, it’s like being a kid in a candy store— In room 1 are sewing machines all lined up in neat rows; shiny new scissors, spools of thread and heaps of fabric. Peek into room 2 and see long tables covered in crisp paper, silk screens, and brightly hued tubs of ink ready to be opened. It’s Christmas morning, first day of school, that sweet anticipation.
If you like to craft you will likely spend a good chunk of your day in the Swap-O-Rama-Rama* with us.
In the Sewing Room ALL DAY:
Clothing Swap—Donate your old adult or kid clothes; Come pick through our piles of available freebies—hack them, mod them, print on them, cut ‘em up and use them for some other project. This is the spirit of the Swap!
No Sewing Necessary:
▪ Make a Cape—be a superhero, a bat, a wizard, a princess, whatever…Halloween is right around the corner folks;
▪ Make a Tutu/Mermaid Seaweed Skirt/Hawaiian Hula Skirt without touching a needle and thread;
▪ Mod your T-shirt –you can make those fringed, beaded shirts all the cool kids are sporting; use scissors, fabric pens, glue on some bling, add beads and more.
Some Sewing Required:
“Little pocket monsters” with brilliant artist Meredith MacLeod. She’ll help get you started and supervise some machine and hand-sewing monster making. Go as simple or elaborate as you want; and if you feel the need to adopt or a Monster of hers, you may be in luck.
For More Sewing: We have sewing machines for you to use, with experienced sewers on hand to help troubleshoot, teach and inspire. Take full advantage. And if you want to really get your game on—stick around and maybe we’ll have a catwalk in the afternoon so you can strut in your new threads!
Screen Printing Room
Idiot or GeniusThese Portland based artists are designing a special one-off poster for our event! You can come and print the final color layer on the poster and take one home with you! They’ll also have their own work to show and sell, and can help you print on almost anything;
Rock, Paper Scissors Collective If you don’t know your hometown RPS from Art Murmur or from their admirable outreach work with teens, you should. These returning artists are coming with a cool new batch of silkscreens, as well as some of their member-crafted zines, shirts and paperie to sell.
Park Day Screening Zone Add some cool, original graphics to any fabric, paper or clothes you find in your visit—or even the shirt or hoodie off your back.
Probably you’re already hip to the re-claim, re-use, re-cycle thing…. and you may even be one of the many people who likes to take things and repair, hack, mod, alter or otherwise transform them into other things… This is the resourceful spirit of maker culture. The East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse is a non-profit at the center of this movement toward more creative sustainability.
Since 1979, when it was founded by two Oakland public school teachers, the Depot has been a treasure trove of arts & craft materials, educational supplies, vintage furniture, home décor, paper goods, fabric, and much more.
According to their website: The mission of the East Bay Depot is to divert waste materials from landfills by collecting and redistributing discarded goods as low-cost supplies for art, education, and social services in our Depot Store. The educational mission is to increase the awareness of school children and the general public regarding the green benefits of reusing materials.
It should come as no surprise then, that the Depot is one of our biggest supporters over here at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire! In addition to giving us carloads of fabric, yarn, cardboard, paper, inks and whatnot….they also loan us Iggy, one of their Artists-In-Residence who will be coming to the Faire and leading a very cool hands-on project converting old floppy disks (remember those?) into toy cars, pinwheels and other fun take-aways.
Besides all these artsy endeavors, the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse has a HUGE impact as both an environmental and humanitarian aid organization. The Depot diverts approximately 200 tons of reusable material from the landfills each year!
And, in partnership with the Central Contra Costa County Solid Waste Authority, the Depot distributes discarded winter clothing and other humanitarian aid supplies to crisis areas in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mississippi and Japan, as well as in our local communities.
Well, we’re not finished programming the East Bay Mini Maker Faire yet, but we can at least reveal a little of what we know will be coming to our stages…it’s really fun to see the range of talented performers who apply to participate in the Faire.
I have to say that I wish we had more stages and more time—so we could include everyone. That said—let us tantalize you with a few of the exciting acts we’ll be bringing you on Sunday, October 16…
…if you haven’t been following us on facebook or twitter, you are missing out…you might not have heard the inimitable Chicken Paw—it sure don’t taste like chicken! (click now so you’re in the know…)
The Bay Area’s Conspiracy of Beards is a 30-man choir that performs gritty, original arrangements of the songs of Leonard Cohen. Formed in 2003 through the inspiration of the late Peter Kadyk, this a Capella group has become known for their live performances at Bay Area venues such as the Cafe du Nord, the Great American Music Hall, and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as well as in bars, bookstores, hospices and various other community centers. Transforming Cohen’s simple melodies into complex 4- and 5-part harmonies, the group achieves a sound that is both robust and tender, with influences of indie rock, jazz, gospel, barbershop, classical and doo-wop in the unique arrangements the choir creates. Using the genius of Cohen’s words, the Beards inspire audiences to ponder romance, politics, sex, longing and spirituality, all amid laughter and cheers.
Well here we are, Old Tunnel Road. Our music is as varied as the expressions on our faces and covers a little bit of loving, some gospel, loose women, looser men, and a whole lotta fun.
The Blondies are a group of Berkeley/Oakland natives that have been rocking the stages of Freight and Salvage, local clubs, school concerts, and benefits in the Bay Area music scene for the past 4 years. They love writing and playing their own music but also play The Beatles and Rolling Stones covers. They are currently in the studio with Santana guitarist Chris Solberg recording their own music.
The eurostache group is a project centering around electro-acoustic real-time collaborative experiments in sound. Membership is open to anyone as our sonic concept is flexible and allows people from diverse sonic backgrounds to participate. Our key experimental technique is using unique hand-built and circuit-bent instruments in unusual combinations with traditional ones. The instruments are amplified (often with hand-built transducers) and blended with digital effects to produce a raw organic/electronic sound. Performances often include visual elements, audience participation, and improvisation, to convey story, mood, or emotion.
Part of the fun at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire is being able to hack, make and remake things into new, personalized stuff. This is truly a Do-It-Together experience. One of the many places this will happen is the SWAP-O-RAMA-RAMA.
Folks donate clothing, fabrics and notions, and come to sift through, claim new pieces, cut them up, sew them, print on them, transform them into costumes, new clothes, bags, hats, capes, and the like. We have a huge sewing room with experienced staff, sewing machines, thread, glue guns, gadgets and all the accoutrements for your re-making pleasure. And we may even have a fashion show at the end of the day to showcase all the fantabulous creations you all make.
We also have a super-fun, tricked-out screen printing room where you can print on anything you find—apparel, fabrics, paper, cardboard, backpacks, or the shirt off your back.
And in the spirit of local fun, we want YOU to help us find some cool designs to have available at the EBMMF. You can see YOUR ORIGINAL ARTWORK on other people’s stuff, and contribute to the overall joy and community celebration.
Sooooo, we’re having a contest—from now until Sept. 15th. Pease submit your designs for our screen printing competition. We’ll pick 3 winners and burn screens of your designs for the event! WINNERS RECEIVE 2 FREE TICKETS TO THE EBMMF AND A T-SHIRT WITH YOUR WINNING DESIGN plus some surprise gifts TBD. Plus we’ll announce the winning art on our website here and you’ll be marginally famous with art geeks across the Bay.
Interested? Please send your line or graphic art (for printing in one color only) to screenprint@ebmakerfaire.com and write “Screen Print Contest” in the subject line. Please attach a JPG or PDF file. We’ll contact you if we need a higher res version. So keep it simple—but share your brilliance!
Ok folks, so Brian Clonan won our First Prize Thursday when he bought 2 adult and 5 kid tickets! He gets to choose between the super cool copy of the book Geek Dad by Ken Demead and the eco chic felted cell phone cover by Rebecca Grigsby of Fresh on Monday.
Lucky winner number two, Martin Caplan wins the other…WOOT!
Ok folks–this is the last time to try to win a prize–and it’s a cool one. Have you seen Girl and Rhino Tees? You probably have, and you probably laughed, at least if you have a slightly naughty, off beat sense of humor. We’re picturing one of the tamer ones here but visit the site for the wider selection. Buy your tickets by 7pm tonight and you could win one!
The Girl and Rhino will be showcasing their smart, fun T-shirts at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire this Sunday. Come and get it!!!
This is an example journal from the students’ art class. This is used as a sketchbook and research workbook. This student is from Yemen, and has placed the US flag on one cover and the Yemen flag on the other, to tell a story about her identity and journey.
