news / diana kane

Mark your calendars!

Mark your calendars!

The famed and always fantastic PS 321 Holiday Fair is around the corner and I can't wait to see you all IN PERSON! This market is wonderful– full of luscious gifts from excellent designers and makers, and the added benefit of supporting one of our local public elementary schools. I can do all my holiday shopping here, very happily. Well, maybe here and the Park Slope Food Co-op, whose holiday delicacies compel me. The PS 321 Holiday Shop is Saturday December 2nd, from 10am-5pm. Don't miss it!

I'll have lots of JEWELRY, as well as the beloved Feminist tee shirts, especially for kids and babies... Start them early, and they'll change the world. FWIW: they already are.

I'll also have various and sundry other goodies. TBA.

My hands have been busy, for which I am grateful. 

silver and gold handmade hamsas

Silver and gold handmade hamsas, made by me

All I want to do these days is make things! It's like all the deferred creative energy of the last few years is spilling out all at once. Some of that energy has been diverted into my current obsession: Ceramics.

After a 30 year hiatus (no clay since high school, where I took the available studio and instruction for granted) I've been spending hours reacquainting myself. Man it's fun. 

Ceramic cups, with violets on them

Mother/daughter cups.. sweet, right?

That, plus a long term quilt project: a hexie quilt, my first quilt of any kind, and utilizing the English Paper Piecing technique, also new to me. It's exciting and challenging for me to work on a project that will take me at least a year. It simply will, because that's how long it takes. I'm usually more of an instant gratification person, so I'm enjoying surrendering to the process, and the time it takes.

Quilting a hexie quilt on the train.

Working on my Hexie quilt on Amtrak last month

I'm happier when I'm making things, but I've felt conflicted about adding to the world's "stuff". Most everything I'm making is utilizing jewelry supplies and fabric pieces I already have, and that in itself is gratifying. These bits and bobs are fulfilling their (current) destiny, which feels good. 

Let me know if you are looking for anything in particular, and I'll see what I can do :)

xDiana

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Here we are, update 4/20, COVID-19, day 9 million

Here we are, update 4/20, COVID-19, day 9 million

Hi all,

We've been closed for five weeks now. 

What have I been up to? Probably the same as every owner of every business you pass on the street who has been mandated closed: trying to figure out how to save my store.

That and making masks and sourdough, because I'm a pandemic cliche. I'm getting pretty good at both.

Thank you all for the support, the online purchases, the gift certificate purchases and the words of encouragement. Keep it up! It means the world.

I'd be lying if i said what we're facing isn't dire.

Sending big love to all. Stay safe! Stay home! Wear your masks! Shop local.. online

xDiana

PS, if you're local and want sourdough starter, I'm happy to share

Dr Laura Melville

Dr. Laura Melville, Emergency Physician at Methodist and a girlfriend of mine for 17 years, picking up cloth masks to wear on her bike commute

Nobody in my house is wearing real pants, but we are clapping and cheering for essential workers at 7pm each night

Strangest and most tragic Spring in my 25+ years in Brooklyn, but still beautiful

 

 

 

 

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New Year, new store :)

New Year, new store :)

We're up and going, so clean and bright and fresh, and flush with new, and new to us, merch. The lucky finds include pieces from Rebecca Taylor, Tucker, Archerie, Layla, Erica Tanov, Madewell, Matta and so much more. Come take a looksee. Find our buying and selling guide here

Portrait paintings by Jenny Belin

feminist tees and buttons

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Later, 2018.

Later, 2018.

Here we are at the end of 2018. It was a fast-forward kind of year here in DK-land. So much happening in the world and so many moments of feeling both powerless and powerful. There is pleasure and purpose in realizing that although things are broken, we each individually can make them better.. and when there is SO MUCH room for improvement, you can dig in wherever you want, it ALL helps.

To wit: we expanded our collaboration with artist Jenny Belin, showcasing more of her portraits of feminists, including more contemporary women: gun-control activist Emma Gonzalez, writer Rebecca Solnit, artist Amy Sherald, professor Anita Hill, and more.  We created buttons of many of them, so you can carry their images out into the world, because REPRESENTATION MATTERS.

feminist

In October we hosted the glorious Turning The Tide: Blue Wave Project from the Pen and Ink Brigade, a collective of women artists and illustrators. We raised over $8000 for voteriders.org, ensuring that people who needed assistance getting to the polls would have it. The artworks were spectacular, as was the opening party :)

This year I dug into it all by co-creating Persisticon. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do. It's a passion project: a social enterprise full of art, laughs, love, and making a difference in the world. Our ultimate goal is the election of pro-choice progressive women, but along the way we seek to foster community, provide platforms for funny women, support our local small businesses, make some art, and have fun. Here's the award winning poster Johanna Goodman did for the first Persisticon event, held in late March at the Bell House in Brooklyn:

When I started this post I planned to include a bunch of pretty new things from the resort collections pooling on the racks in the store.. but it's gotten so long I'm just gonna make another one...

Wishing you and yours all the blessings this world has to offer, and looking forward to seeing you in 2019. 

xDiana

 

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The Power of the Screen



Our latest in-store project: screen printing.  We spent our Friday afternoon creating Diana Kane tote bags.  Don't be intimidated by the screen;  join the fun.  The initial process may take some time, but once your screen is exposed and the image is on it, the possibilities are endless. No clue how to expose a screen? No worries.  Places like Brooklyn's Gowanus Print Lab are totally happy to help you out (i.e. do it for you). We had fun experimenting with mixing the inks.  Working with black, silver and gold ink, we watched them work their magic and overlap to create beautiful textures unachievable with any other medium.

Don't forget to cure your ink.  Heat setting with an iron is essential to guarantee the ink will not wash off.

Happy printing,

DKxx


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