Crankie - Wind and Rain

Hard to have words for this project, but it’s an entanglement of collaborations over many years.

My mom recorded this song in 2014 before she died, and a couple of years ago (as I was falling in love with the crankie as a storytelling form) it was decided that I should make a crankie to tell the story of this ballad. I sat on the project for a few years, and then this winter rushed to get it into the world — all 30 feet of it! Hard to finish this project without getting to show it to her, but I think she’d be pleased with the collaboration through time & space.

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April 6, 2024

New album of my mothers music

A little before she died, my mom recored a series beautiful ballads with some of her friends and musical collaborators. Through a collaboration with Smithsonian Folkways, my dad has pulled together a wonderful album of my moms music throught her life including these most recent recordings. I am excited to have it finally in the world.

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April 1, 2024

Brick Walk

Brick Walk: An exploration of the dérive, London landscapes, and the psychogeography of old bricks.

This project unfolded as I walked 130 miles around London these past three weeks. It is an experiment in walking and wandering, exploring and observing, and trying to figure out why I’m so obsessed with bricks.

Brick Walk

Feb 20, 2024

Even the River Starts Small

In the fall of 2021 as oil started flowing through the pipeline that we tried so so so very hard to stop, a few of us set out to gather some stories of those years of resistance. Even the River Starts Small is a collection of stories from the movement to stop construction of the Line 3 pipeline through northern Minnesota. It features 300 pages of anonymous writing, art, and photos spanning nearly a decade, and includes reflections on many of the diverse experiences that made up this grassroots resistance.

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I am so proud of this process and this resulting book! Being a part of the team of people that came together to collect, edit, discuss, illustrate, re-discuss the creation of this collection is an experience that will continue to shape how I move through the world and collaborate with other people.

I still think about the words Genna wrote about this project when we first shared it with the world: “I hope that in our lifetimes we all continue to be a part of projects like this, full of angst and disagreement and joy and beauty. I don’t think this book will usher in the world we are all fighting for. But I do think that the type of work this team did together will be a huge part of that world - autonomous but connected, showing up because we want to build something beautiful, choosing to press on when it is hard, believing in your own outcomes and the people you’re doing it with.”

So here, a book! A labor of love from a group of young people who are rapidly learning about the world as we try and change it and find our place in it, and from a whole movement that is more complex and beautiful and terrible and sad and funny and meaningful than can be put into words — even 72,000 of them!

Grateful to Haymarket Books for publishing this collection! Thanks to them you can buy it, suggest it to your local radical bookstores, get it into libraries, and mail to incarcerated friends.

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Please reach me at dio.cramer@gmail.com