Northeastern Illinois University Art Gallery...

FAST FORWARD

October 5th-30th, 2009

The Reception for the show will be held this Friday October 16th from 6-9pm

Looking beyond the somber events and recent conflicts in the US and abroad, "Fast Forward" proposes an alternate future based on themes of community, unity, and human collaboration. While recognizing the impossibility of utopia, the artists' work focuses on the possibilities of our collective efforts.

Artists include Alyson Beaton and KJ Bradley, Sun Choi, Janet Ecklebarger, Harold Mendez, Ellen Rothenberg, JAM: Marianne Fairbanks and Jane Palmer (Noon Solar), Christine Tarkowski, and Renee Prisble Una.

About Northeastern Illinois University Art Gallery

The NEIU gallery is located at 5500 N. St. Louis Avenue in building E in the northwest area of the campus. Parking is free in parking lot F the night of the reception only. The Fine Arts Center Gallery is a visual exhibition space committed to showing innovative works of art in all media within a pluralistic, culturally diverse setting. Please call 773-442-4944 for gallery hours and more information.

Come see our Fall line at Accessoiree, October 28th

Please come see us at this event sponsored by the AIBI. We will be showing and taking pre-orders on our Fall 09 line for Holiday delivery.

Most Amazing Textile made with Spider Silk!!

This 11-foot-long cloth is woven from the thread of golden orb spiders will be at the American Museum of Natural History starting Thursday.

What makes it amazing you ask?

-Only the females produce the silk, which is renowned for both its striking saffron color and its tensile strength (five to six times stronger than steel by weight).

-the spider would then be placed in a harness, with 23 others, and sit more or less patiently as a spool tugged the rest of its web out in continuous threads that could sometimes stretch as long as 400 yards before the spider had given its all.

-Not one thread ever broke on the loom — it’s that strong!


For a link to the entire article featured in the New York Times click here


source:

By RANDY KENNEDY

Published: September 22, 2009

Noon Solar + Shawnimals = 100% biodegradable Forest Spirit Ninja

We are excited to announce a fun collaboration with our friends and local Chicago toy business Shawnimals. We have partnered with them to make a limited edition of organic, naturally dyed and all biodegradable Shawnimal ninjas. The ninja is super cute and great for kids or toy collectors. This edition is limited to 100 ninjas, so get 'em quick!

http://www.shawnimals.com/forestspirit

Photo credit: Shawnimals

The Forest Spirit was once a regular Forest Ninja that literally became one with the forest – made up of everything organic around him. The Forest Spirit plush is made with:
• Organic cotton/hemp body and thread: Fleece 55% hemp 45% cotton • Stuffed with kapok tree fiber: An all-natural fiber pulled from the seed pods of the kapok tree (Tested & endorsed by Immunology Lab Environmental Health Center in Dallas, Texas) • Natural wool mask and leaves: 100% wool felt naturally dyed • Wooden eyes: Bio-degradable and natural • Hemp cord: Used for the hang tag and Leaf Satchel • Non-toxic glue: Used to adhere mask and eyes • 100% recycled paper tag printed with soy-based ink • Handmade in-house by Shawnimals • This special Handmade Edition is limited to 100pcs

Now more than ever it's important to consider the impact we have on our environment. The Forest Ninja project is as much an exploration of the organic and sustainable materials available as it is a new addition to the Ninjatown line. By supporting the companies that produce such materials, we hope to raise awareness of what's available, and new ways to use them. In addition, we know that every component that goes into the Forest Spirit is completely bio-degradable – it won't sit in a landfill for thousands of years. The Forest Spirit came from the forest and it can become one with it some day!

Also check out the great Forest Ninja post on Treehugger

Jane and Marianne Profiled in Time Out Chicago for Earth Day

Earth angels

In honor of Earth Week, we salute a few of Chicago’s solar-powered, park-loving, garden-growing gurus. They might even persuade you to join their cause.

By Madeline Nusser

MARIANNE FAIRBANKS AND JANE PALMER
Job Fresh out of art school in late 2004, this dynamic duo started Noonsolar, an ecofriendly design company that makes solar-panel-covered bags, which carry your belongings and charge your cell phone and iPod. “One of our goals was to make our product fashionable,” Fairbanks says. “Solar panels are associated with a crunchy vibe. We wanted to incorporate them with the urban day-to-day.”
On the side Both are gardening enthusiasts. Palmer keeps an all-organic native garden while Fairbanks made a raised bed and aerates and reseeds her lawn.
Favorite green buys Center for Green Technology’s dirt-cheap composting equipment, native plants at Grand Street Gardens (2200 W Grand Ave), the natural cuisine of Lula Cafe (2537 N Kedzie Blvd, 773-489-9554).
Eco-tip “We have a lot of friends who garden,” Palmer says. “We do seed sharing or seedling sharing—giving unused seed packets to friends.”

Source: Time Out Chicago

Museum of Sustainable Style

We are excited to take part in this wonderful event next week. Come check out our new bags and lots of other sustainable design!

Here are the details:

When:Daily 12 p.m. - 6 p.m. (October 2 through October 5)

Price:Free

Brickermade Studio,1109 W. Fulton Market, Chicago, IL 60607

shibori ties

We've been super busy over here at noon creating our fabrics for our Holiday line, due out in late November. While Marianne was out on the west coast honing in on her natural dye skills, I was preparing the fabrics for dying with the traditional Japanese tying method of shibori. This wad of tied fabric is about 8 yards of an organic hemp/cotton blend. It's been bound and tied with rubber bands. When we dye the fabric, the dye will absorb only into the exposed areas of fabric. This will create our pattern. The rubber bands will also create a resist, making white lines through out the pattern. I love this part of the process, the twisting and tying of the fabric. It's an exhausting but rewarding use of my hands. After it's dyed, and I remove the rubber bands, the cloth will have a "memory" of where it's been tied, and it will look like an entire landscape of mini-mountains. We will then press it lightly, but allow some of the memory to remain, and make some new totes with it.

jane