Something wonderful is at the Exploratorium through September 5th. StrandBeests: the Dream Machines of Theo Jansen are up and running for you to experience for the first time in North America. Jansen is a physicist-turned-artist who has been designing self-propelled machines since 1990. His lifelike complex contraptions, called beests, have evolved to survive harsh beach environments. Jansen's Strandbeests have inspired artists to create their own beest versions and the Exploratorium has invited these artists to share their works on Thursday July 7th from 6pm-10pm at the After Dark BYOBeest night. The TE+ND Rover will be there along with Corey McGuire's collaboration Automata Equis, Adam Savage's Pedal Powered Beest and Scott Parenteau's TinSpider. If you're in town I hope to see you there.

The Mark VI is up at the Portland Museum of Contemporary Craft until it closes in April. The museum is one of the oldest of its kind in the US and it's closing is a real blow to Portland and the craft community. I love this museum and am honored that my work will is showing there with the rest of the work created by craft artists at the CARPA, Joshua Tree residency. If you didn't have enough of a reason to visit, now you have a deadline.

Marnia Johnston giving a demo at CARPA, Joshua Tree 2013