Thank You For This Community- A Dinner At The Hammer

At the invitation of Women's Center for Creative Work, Craftswoman House participated in Thank You For This Community- A Dinner At The Hammer on Saturday November 26th. For the event WCCW invited nine community-driven projects and organizations to take part in creating and participating in the meal. Each of the entities provided an aspect of the dinner and event. We will spent two hours on the day of, setting up the meal together, and then sat down with each other at around 4 p.m., to discuss our individual communities and the layering of them to create a larger feminist and creative community in Los Angeles.

Participating Organizations:

Sewing Rebellion 
Everything is MedicineThank 
Thank You for Coming 
Decolonize LA 
Las Fotos Project
Project Q 
Mujeres de Maiz
Honey Power 
Craftswoman House

Ilona Berger, August 31

For this summer’s screening series at Pieter, WCCW and Craftswoman House invited LA-based filmmakers to screen and discuss their recent work.

August 31st: Ilona Berger will screen Djibril Diop Mambety's Touki bouki (1973), as well as her work in progress Kingdom of Rhythms.

Space is limited, purchase tickets ahead of time for $5, here
or pay at the door if space is available. 

Pieter Performance Space
420 West Avenue 33, Unit 10
Los Angeles, CA 90031

Ilona Berger was DP and co-writer of Cary Cronenwett’s feature Maggots and Men which was shot on 16mm and super 8mm over 5 years in San Francisco, Vermont, and Russia. Maggots and Men traveled around the world and Berger’s experimental short Spektro Del Tempo has been seen at Documenta, and Outfest. Ilona Berger lives in Los Angeles and runs a gallery and micro cinema on Hollywood Blvd called LAST Projects. Currently she is collaborating with director Jamson Silgnena on Kingdom of Rhythms, a musical journey with a Haitian zombie.

Vega Darling Monday, August 24th

For this summer’s screening series at Pieter, WCCW and Craftswoman House invited LA-based filmmakers to screen and discuss their recent work.

August 24th: Vega Darling will screen and discuss his new documentary “Lost Grrrls: Riot Grrrl In Los Angeles” (2015). 

Screening begins at 7:30pm
Space is limited, purchase tickets ahead of time for $5, here
or pay at the door if space is available. 

Pieter Performance Space
420 West Avenue 33, Unit 10
Los Angeles, CA 90031

Vega Darling is a punk rocker turned filmmaker. Vega’s work has been screened at Frameline FF, San Francisco Transgender FF, San Francisco Women’s FF, Outfest Los Angeles LGBT FF and Reel It Out Queer FF, among others. Vega is the director of Lost Grrrls: Riot Grrrl In Los Angeles and GRRRL: 25 years of riot grrrl. Vega art directed Lynn Breedlove’s film adaptation of the punk rock dystopian novel, Godspeed (2007). Vega also worked on the gay transgender prequel to Battleship Potemkin, Maggots and Men (2009), and the experimental film adaptation of Michelle Tea’s novel, Valencia: The Movie/s (2013). Vega keynoted Ladyfest Los Angeles 2013. Vega co-directed An Excerpt From the Forthcoming Documentary, GRRRL (2013), a short film commissioned for the first major art exhibition on riot grrrl, Alien She, which also screened at several film festivals. Vega co-founded Atlanta Riot Grrrl in the mid-90’s, managed the first riot grrrl/queercore band out of the American South and wrote several zines in the 90’s and early 2000′s. Vega has organized feminist, queer, trans, and punk festivals, events, and conferences including Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, Ladyfest Bay Area, and Gender Reel Film Festivals in Oakland and Long Beach. Vega is a Senior double major undergraduate student in Film and Media Studies, and Psychology and Social Behavior at the University of California, Irvine.

Karen Dee Carpenter, Monday August 17th

Still from Carpenter's You Try Living Here, 2015

For this summer’s screening series at Pieter, WCCW and Craftswoman House invited LA-based filmmakers to screen and discuss their recent work.

On August 17th: Karen Dee Carpenter will screen and discuss her work My Scarlet Letter (2004), Sarah + Dee (2007), and You Try Living Here (2015).

Screening begins at 7:30pm
Space is limited, purchase tickets ahead of time for $5, here
or pay at the door if space is available. 

Pieter Performance Space
420 West Avenue 33, Unit 10
Los Angeles, CA 90031


Karen Dee Carpenter received her M.F.A degree in Film and Media Arts at Temple University. She has produced several short films for which she has received Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships in both Filmmaking and Screenwriting. Her film, My Scarlet Letter, was awarded “Best Graduate Film” by five festivals and has screened at festivals internationally, including Torino, Palm Beach, and Brooklyn International. This film was also a Finalist in the Akira Kurosowa Memorial Foundation competition. Her subsequent film, Sarah + Dee, was honored with the prestigious Princess Grace Award and screened at several festivals, including Aspen Shortsfest, Newport Beach International and Mill Valley Film Festival.

Karen is currently in post-production on her short film, You Try Living Here. In July 2015 she was a resident at the Performing Arts Forum in St. Erme, France where she was developing her first feature film, The Measure of She (and other aesthetics).

Nicole Miller, Monday August 10th

Still from "What Happened Miss Simone?"

For this summer’s screening series at Pieter, WCCW and Craftswoman House invited LA-based filmmakers to screen and discuss their recent work along side favorite or influential work by others.

On August 10th, Nicole Miller will screen and discuss her work "Anthony Aquarius" (2015) followed by a screening of "What Happened, Miss Simone?" (2015) 

Screenings begin at 7:30pm
Space is limited, purchase tickets ahead of time for $5, or pay at the door if space is available. 

Pieter Performance Space
420 West Avenue 33, Unit 10
Los Angeles, CA 90031

August Screening Series

For this summer’s screening series at Pieter, WCCW and Craftswoman House invited LA-based filmmakers to screen and discuss their recent work along side favorite or influential work by others.

August 10th: 
Nicole Miller will screen and discuss her work "Anthony Aquarius" (2015) followed by a screening of "What Happened, Miss Simone?" (2015) 

August 17th: 
Karen Dee Carpenter will screen and discuss her work “My Scarlet Letter” (2004), Sarah + Dee (2007), and You Try Living Here (2015). 

August 24th: 
Vega Darling will screen and discuss his new documentary “Lost Grrrls: Riot Grrrl In Los Angeles” (2015). 

August 31st: 
Ilona Berger will screen Djibril Diop Mambety's “Touki bouki” (1973), as well as her work in progress “Kingdom of Rhythms.”

Screenings begin at 7:30. Space is limited, purchase tickets ahead of time for $5, or pay at the door if space is available.


Pieter Performance Space 
420 West Ave 33, Unit 10, Los Angeles, California 90031

Staking Claim Video Screening

Join Craftswoman House​ at LAST Projects​ on Thursday, May 21st for a screening of the Staking Claim Video program. The program will screen at 8pm and again at 8:45pm.

Videos by: Min Choi-kyung , Akina Cox, Clare Kelly, Mayte Escobar, McLean Fahnestock, Lilly McElroy, Christina Pettersson, Isabelle Lutterodt, Yoshie Sakai, Molly Shea, and Jennifer Stefanisko.

LAST Projects, 6546 Hollywood Blvd, Ste 215, 90028

$3 suggested donation

Lilly McElroy    A Woman Runs Through A Pastoral Setting    :52    2013

Akina Cox    Ugly Duck    3:02

Mayte Escobar    Huellas    1:17    2014

Huellas is a video diptych where the two parts have a conversation with each other. The video looks at the states that compose Mexico and the United States and portrays a sense of all those that have crossed the border as embodied travelers.

Yoshi Sakai    Britney Scale Surgery    4:14    2008

In Britney Scale Surgery, the scale becomes the patient and undergoes surgery to reverse the importance placed on weight and self-perception. The ordinary bathroom scale, which causes anxiety about insecurities in our appearance, becomes the victim of absurd scrutiny in my alternate universe.  The surgical procedure is simultaneously conducted to Britney Spears’ music video performance, as she is constantly scrutinized by the media for her debacles concerning her weight and appearance in the alternate Hollywood universe.

McLean Fahnestock    Indeterminate Form 0/0    2:47    2011  

One of the seven video murals in the Indeterminate Forms series, silent looping videos designed to be projected at a large scale. Taking their names from one of the seven mathematical expressions of infinity and playing upon the loop, each video features an athletic feat, always an extremely difficult position or move, pushed to absurdity–in this case synchronized swimmers spiral breathlessly underwater. A comment on the athlete’s commitment and prowess as well as our unrealistic expectations of continuous development. Ever stronger, ever faster.

Christina Pettersson    Legend    4:30    2009   music played/hummed by the artist

MOCA Optic Nerve XI Legend is a personal narrative originating from the 1985 movie Legend, about a young woman attempting to save the last unicorn on Earth. Borrowing the subtitles for the movie's sounds, which appear in parentheses (owl hooting) (wolf howling) (unicorn whinnying), I construct my own Pagan romance. Now the isolated sounds of gallops and cries invade my footage, and the story begins anew. What tumultuous maelstroms of good and evil unfold in sound's concentrated energies! See the woman and the unicorn dangerously trodding the rivers of darkness once again. They almost get lost in its brutality. Yet sound itself, that splendid flame of every story, burns the film down to its last song of sorrow and joy. The terrible sea falls away, and unicorn and woman emerge unscathed, the final romance of light bursting out of ashes. They become almost one. Now Legend is my soul's own imperial tune, and most true.

Clare Kelly    Solo Interiors    1:47    2013

Solo Interiors features the artist performing improvisational movement in her mother's home, on the day her ex-husband filed for divorce.

Mayte Escobar    Chips & Salsa    :30      2013

Chips and Salsa taps into an adaptation of not only videos studied through

Youtube but also the raw interpretation of the rhythm that courses through my body. There was a yearning to feel the earth on my feet. It made me feel closer to Pacha Mama (mother earth.)

Molly Shea    Misogynist Massage    6:03    2014

Misogynist Massage is a video by artist Molly Jo Shea, which was originally included as part of an immersive experience where the viewer was massaged while watching this video 2 inches away from their face. Since Feminist perspectives are often not easy ones to digest, the video takes cues from New Age self-improvement aesthetics and seeks to fluctuate from soft caresses and deliberate jabs. For the full experience rub the shoulders of the person sitting in front of you (with their permission).

Isabelle Lutterodt    Meditation on Self    1:45

unmeasured is a series of meditations that explore heartbreak within a physical and psychological landscape. The work responds to Parker Palmer's idea that when the heart breaks open it has a “new capacity to hold [my] pain and [my] joy and a new capacity to hold the same in the larger world”. The series is part of an ongoing attempt to hold the tension of heartbreak with compassion as the physical and psychological landscapes reveal moments that contemplate resolve and what “letting go” means.

Minkyung Choi    Return    3:13    2013

Return is a short episode about gazing and being gazed upon.

Jennifer Stefanisko    Unbetitelt    2:37

Unbetitelt is a Super 8, Kodachrome, b&w and hand processed. a B-movie on television, love, conflict, renewal, nature and Wagner, that was originally produced under a German alias.