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This year's festival will show the talents of Sam Bartlett, Joel Klepac, Soulcraft Bloomington, Harmony School, Elizabeth Blackwell, Bloomington Fine Art Supply and Laura Gonzalez with their crankies. Hope to see you there April 18th from 1 to 3pm at the downtown public library auditorium! Stay crankie! order for show: Sam Bartlett with  B-A-N-J-O Joel Klepac with The North Wind Doth Blow Soulcraft Bloomington with The Dog and the Fox (made by mostly kids)  Harmony School wit

This year's festival will feature the work of We're Crankie's creator Elizabeth Blackwell, with their crankie Adventures in Space. Besides crankies, she is an interactive sculpture artist with a focus on wood toys, exploring processing grief. The Adventures in Space crankie illustrates finding your way through an eat or be eaten world. The main characters are Ozzie, a blue alien, and Unit 257, his robot cat companion. This world of characters comes from her current draft of h

This year's crankie fest will feature work by Laura Gonzalez with their crankie about iron pours. Laura Gonzalez is a metal artist currently working as the Program Manager for Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum. Previously the museum’s 2024-2025 Artist-in-Residence (AiR), she now focuses on giving presentations to K-12 schools, local organizations, and helping organize traveling foundry events and sculpture Tour n’ Pours. In her personal art practice, she focuses on exploring he

This year's crankie fest will feature work by Bloomington Fine Art Supply with their BFA Shop crankie. Their crankie box was donated to them by local artist LuAnne Holladay. https://www.bfasupply.com/

This year's crankie fest will feature work by Harmony School students with their crankie 50th Anniversary. This community scroll was drawn by students during Harmony's Art Month 2026 with We're Crankie. Inside a paper mache Rhino crankie, the first of its kind! https://harmonyschool.org/

This year's festival will feature work by Soulcraft Bloomington with their crankies, The Life of a Lotus Nut (made by adults only) and The Dog and the Fox (made by mostly kids)  Soulcraft Bloomington creates intergenerational community through nature connection, folk arts, and traditional healing arts. Both of our crankies were created by local folks during Winter classes- an adults only Crankie class, and a kids Crankie class. We create crankies each year and perform them

First attempt at a crankie in a real empty egg. I think this will become a yearly tradition. Pumpkin crankies in the fall and eggshell crankies in the spring. And of course had to dye it pink. Found the perfect place to film this video at the Helen Link Daffodil Sanctuary. Go see fields of daffodils the month of April on weekends 10 am to 4 pm. Helen Link Daffodils: https://www.visitmorgancountyin.com/blog/post/helen-links-daffodils/ Indiana Daffodil Society: https://www.i

Thanks for drawing and bearing the winds at this month's First Thursday. This scroll has been through it, rained on, wrinkled, and ripped. But tape fixes all scrolls! Thanks to everyone for helping me out when they saw me fighting the wind. Also, all community scroll videos are on our YouTube! IU Arts & Humanities Council - https://artsandhumanities.indiana.edu/council-programs/first-thursdays/index.html

In conjunction with the We're Crankie: Crankie Festival please join sister-makers Nina and Sonya from The Far Woods Creative Studio for a hands-on workshop where we’ll be storytelling in miniature; transforming basic household matchboxes into charming folk-art moving pictures that tell a story by hand-cranking a long, illustrated scroll through a viewing window.   Students Will: Build  their own miniature theater  Design and draw  a continuous narrative scroll (an analog m

Help us create a community scroll at this April 2nd, First Thursdays Festival from 4 to 7 pm at the Fine Arts Plaza around Showalter Fountain. We're Crankie will have a partner booth. The event features 95 partner booths, 25 arts vendors, 2 performance stages, and more! Hosted by the IU Arts & Humanities Council - https://artsandhumanities.indiana.edu/council-programs/first-thursdays/index.html First Thursdays is looking for volunteers, if interested check out - https://do

This year's festival will feature work by Sam Bartlett with their crankie, B-A-N-J-O Sam Bartlett learned to make crankies from watching Bread & Puppet Theater productions as a teenager, growing up in Vermont. For the past 25 years he has played a role in the resurgent interest in this 19th century entertainment form, the moving panorama. Sam has taught crankie making workshops throughout the country, from schools in Homer, AK and Corvalis, OR to summer camps in Plymouth, MA.

This year's festival will feature work by Joel Klepac with their crankie, The North Wind Doth Blow, based on the traditional song. Joel Klepac is a crankie artist from central Kentucky and regularly performs his crankies at the Moretales Storytelling festival. He has a Bachelors in Fine Art painting and also plays old time fiddle and sings. His crankies include, “Swinging Wally” about the power of music to transcend pain and struggle, “Cock Robin” based on the 500 year old ba

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Almost got to the first 100 numbers in pi

We're Crankie joins this March's Art Month at Harmony School. Students spend the whole month collaborating with local artists to create pieces for their upcoming art show: InterACTION! Art Month introduces students to unconventional mediums and gives them the chance to experience and create art in motion! InterACTION revolves around two central themes: interaction and movement. With these in mind, Bloomington artists will be working closely with Harmony students to help them

What will you make?!

No more endless wars

We were invited to be on the shopcast by Bloomington Fine Art Supply. It was a nice experience, never been interviewed in this style before. Be sure to also check out their newsletter Paint Can Press, linked belowe. They have an archieve of past editions. Thanks again for having We're Crankie on the shopcast! https://www.bfasupply.com/newsletter

Join us for a playful pop-up workshop where you’ll try your hand at creating a hand-cranked, scroll-style artwork. Offered in collaboration with Bloomington's upcoming CrankieFest, we'll dive into drawing, building, and bringing stories to life, no prior experience needed. Tickets: https://www.bfasupply.com/event-details-registration/lets-get-crankie Time & Location Feb 21, 2026, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM Bloomington Fine Art Supply, 207 S Rogers St, Bloomington, IN 47404, USA Abo

Talk of the townies now has a Youtube channel, we will be posting community scroll to there from now on. Check us out at - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnOqa0pMa3RfWCjcBZCmRLQ