Crysta Goes Visiting, Issue #74, Winter 2020

By Crysta Coburn

In this column, Crysta Coburn writes about crazywisdom-esque people and happenings around Ann Arbor.

A Time 4 You Bath and Spa Treats with Adrian Leek

It is vitally important to make time for yourself and get back to you on a regular basis. But that can be hard, especially with how busy our lives are, and when you throw parenthood into the mix, when you are responsible not only for yourself but for your children, devoting time to only you can feel selfish and that much more difficult! 

Ypsilanti-based A Time 4 You Bath and Spa Treats to the rescue! It was actually Adrian Leek’s family that guided her to learning about naturally and simply made bath and body products and launching her own business. “When I became a mother I was very, very particular about what I put on my baby for skin care, but mostly drawn to mixing my own oils for relaxing and calming effects using lavender, chamomile, and olive oil for after bath and bedtime,” Leek shared with me. “My kids LOVED the massages, and I loved knowing that I was able to make something so healthy and enjoyable for my kids.”

About starting her own business, Leek said, “When my second child was diagnosed with autism, it changed our lives...but I was already on the right track with my pursuit of natural hand-made products. With my son’s condition, it was all the more important that natural products were used because so many sensitivities come along with autism. On the flip side of this lifestyle is that we tend to live such stressful lives, and I’ve found it necessary to make a conscious effort toward self-care. A Time For You Bath and Spa Treats was created to help inspire others to stop and not only enjoy a moment to ourselves, but take better care of ourselves...so we can continue to care for the people and things that we love.”

I asked her about how she learned to make her products and where she finds the ingredients. She said, “Research, a love for these kinds of products (natural and simply made), feedback from people that use them, and of course...trial and error. My ingredients come from a mixture of places, my focus is on high quality, responsible, and clean materials.” At the moment, she sources many of her materials online and is “looking for a brick and mortar location to buy materials.”

When I asked Leek why self-care is so important in her life, she answered, “I have learned over the years that it is necessary to consciously try to balance our level of stress with something calming, positive, and relaxing. I believe that these things are imperative to keeping our balance and allowing us to continue with the necessary things that we find important to us.

Leek is hoping to have her products on boutique shelves within the next five years. In the meantime, find A Time 4 You Bath and Spa Treats on Etsy and at local farmers markets.

For more information visit www.facebook.com/timeforyouyes or ATime4YouBathTreats.etsy.com. Or you can email time4youyes@gmail.com. 

Read related article: Crysta Goes Visiting, Fall 2018

Bunny and Smooch and Deborah Secord

After growing up in Canton, Deborah Secord studied theater at Eastern Michigan University “and stayed in the area afterward for the artsy, quirky, creative community that Ypsi offers.” It is through theater that I met Secord. She starred in the workshop production of my husband Greg’s play Whatever Happened to Captain Future? with the Ypsilanti-based Neighborhood Theatre Group.

Then, when Greg and I were vending at our area’s newest book festival Booksilanti, I learned that Secord is more than a talented actress—she makes delightful handmade jewelry, too! Each piece is made from the pages of children’s books. As her sign read, “Beloved books go from trash to treasure.” I couldn’t resist buying a pendant featuring the Mad Hatter from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, for which I have received several compliments since. (It was a tough choice between that and Winnie the Pooh!) Secord learned to make jewelry through trial and error and watching YouTube videos. “I went through a lot of learning what didn’t work before I figured out what did!” 

When I asked why she chose books to make her jewelry, she answered, “I just hate to see books get thrown out—especially Children’s books. [...] When you are a child and you discover a love of reading, certain books just speak to your soul and become a part of you—at least that’s how it was for me. I can still remember how certain books smelled, the warmth of the sun on my back as I lay on the floor in front of the window with my pile of books, the feel of the pages of certain favorites, rough paper smoothed to soft over a thousand re-reads. I have so many books that are falling apart because I read them over and over again. To be able to carry that book with me when it’s no longer readable, to save it and give it new life as a cherished piece of jewelry makes me feel like it’s getting some of the love back that it deserves.”

In addition to acting and jewelry making, Secord also enjoys spending time with her family and loves to bake. “I made rainbow layered unicorn cakes for my daughter’s first birthday this summer and have done golden snitch cakes, pizza cakes, roller skates, and more!” The name Bunny and Smooch is inspired by her daughter and her daughter’s toy bunny. “My spare time and fun time is generally spent hanging out with my family. Most days we like to cuddle up on the couch and watch Great British Bake Off, HGTV, or old episodes of our 90s favorites like The Nanny and Mad About You. Weekends are spent running around Ypsi, camping throughout Michigan, visiting fun and funky art shows and festivals, and catching up with friends.”

In addition to selling at the occasional festival, Secord’s jewelry can be bought online through Facebook. 

For more information visit www.facebook.com/bunnyandsmooch or email bunnyandsmooch@gmail.com. 

Reflexolo-chiTM Healing with Greg Knollmeyer

According to the Reflexology Association of America, “Reflexology is the application of specific pressure by the use of the practitioner’s hand, thumb, and fingers to a reflex map resembling a human body which is believed to exist on the extremities.” Reflexolo-chiTM was developed by Gloria Zimet as a gentler, less penetrative variant that incorporates the body’s life energy (chi). The impact of reflexolo-chi can be felt as quickly as the first session. I decided to investigate this myself, and I made an appointment with local practitioner Greg Knollmeyer. 

I have a painful tailor’s bunion on my left foot that I was eager to address. Knollmeyer explained that there is a long list of ailments that can be tackled with reflexolo-chi, such as stress, headaches, joint pain, PMS, allergies, digestive disorders, and so on. My chief concern was my bunion, however, which I could feel quite sharply as I limped into the office and hopped onto the table. Even while resting, my foot throbbed.

Rather than press on my foot, Knollmeyer manipulated my toes and lower leg to make adjustments, starting with the problematic left. (It reminded me a bit of a chiropractic exam I had many years ago in California, and now I wonder if that doctor perhaps had some of this training.) For anyone with sensitive feet, this is probably a better route than traditional reflexology. 

I felt my body slowly loosen up, and the ache in my left foot gradually faded away. Knollmeyer was also easy to talk to and happy to answer any questions and concerns that I had. When he was finished with the left leg, he lifted my foot, moved it around, and invited me to get a feel for how the left side of my body felt. Aside from pain-free, I felt more connected from top to tip.

Learn more at Biodynamiccranialsacral.com

“Okay, good,” said Knollmeyer, and set down my left foot. He raised my right foot and asked the same question while moving the foot gently in all directions. I was surprised by the stark contrast. My right leg felt hollow and disjointed. Knollmeyer worked on that side until my whole body felt whole again.

After the session, I asked what I could do about my foot pain in the future. Was there anything I could do about my shoes?

“Shoes are a corset,” he answered. Having worn several corsets, I knew exactly what he meant. He suggested not sticking to only one pair of shoes. “If possible, change shoes halfway through the day.” That way my feet wouldn’t get stuck in a position they found uncomfortable.

Knollmeyer also showed me a simple exercise that I could do to slowly get my turned out duck feet back in parallel alignment. Walking and standing with feet turned outward stresses feet and knee joints, just to name a few. Which I wish I had known when I went to physical therapy for mysterious knee pain a few summers ago.

I was impressed by the results of my first visit. The pain was gone! Not forever, but it was a relief to walk around the rest of the night pain free. And I feel better armed to get my body back in alignment and pain free in the future.

To learn more or make your own appointment, visit gregknollmeyer.com, call (734) 678-9508, or email gk@GregKnollmeyer.com. 

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The Art of Humanizing Robots: An Interview with Cre Fuller

By Cashmere Morley

 In the heart of Ypsilanti is an artist’s studio that feels, at times, both rooted in the future and the past. Glass eyes of various colors stare at you from every direction. Dentures riveted into metal figures bare wild grins. There is a nostalgia here; a feeling of things lost and found again. But there is also a sense of creation, of assemblage. It is a peek into a modern-day Dr. Frankenstein’s mind. A human-meets-robot dreamscape brought to life in rivets and metal. This is Cre Fuller’s studio. 

Christopher “Cre” Fuller, 46, didn’t plan on building tin creations for a living. In fact, when he graduated from Mt. Pleasant High School, he went into building chimneys with his father, and later, working at Whole Foods when he moved to Ann Arbor in 1997.

“Like most corporate jobs, it could be frustrating, but I valued my time there,” Fuller said. “From there, I went to Plum Market, in a similar capacity, and tried my hand at the wholesale racket. I’m good at helping people and being honest and genuine. Wholesale was a bit of a smarmy… you kind of have to be greasy. And I wasn’t good at that.”

But he was good with his hands. After saving money and leaving that job to invest in himself and his art, Fuller decided to spend time chasing after a job that would be more fulfilling.

“I think I’d had every creative hobby under the sun. Around 2000, when I bought the house I still currently own, I spent all my money on the house, so I just needed an art. I had seen things around, you know, people making humans and robots out of junk and trash and whatnot, so I just decided to try my hand at it.” The first robot Fuller created was around 2000, 2001. To date, Fuller guesses he’s built around 600 robots. He’s best known as the guy that makes the “Tin Angry Men,” a name he’s trying to distance himself from. His web presence only bares his name, and no mention of the moniker, since Fuller doesn’t feel it fits his creations anymore.

“At the time, I set up a little spare bedroom for all my glasswork and jewelry making. As I went along, I would make these little robot creations. I never took it too seriously. They were just little gag gifts and things like that.” Fuller said. “But I’ve always liked taking things apart, as a little kid, seeing how the guts work. What does what. So taking things apart wasn’t a stretch for me. And then just kind of reimagining what those parts could be once you have them unassembled, or disassociated from their previous purpose, whatever that purpose was,” Fuller said.

“I tend to gravitate toward vintage aluminum, I can get the look of it that I want, I can either keep it brushed and have it kind of dull and matted, or I can polish it, into a chrome-like shine. It has that mid-century vintage feel already, and a lot of the things I prefer to use, is early century stuff.”

Fuller frequents places like Recycle Ann arbor, and local antique shops to find his goods, though he admits it’s been a bit harder to find pieces as of late since he’s “depleted the local supply.”

The Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area welcomed him and his creations with open arms. “In Ann Arbor, people value art,” Fuller said. “And in its soul, it’s got people that respect and applaud the art. Ypsi has this humongous heartbeat of art and people who appreciate and applaud it.”

His work can be assembled quickly, if Fuller has the right parts.

“If I have all the stuff just sitting there, I can get a simple piece done in a day,” Fuller said. “Taking the time to let paint dry, and to let glass eyes cool, I can get a small piece done in a day. But sometimes, I’ve searched for those parts for a year. A huge component of this, of any assemblage artist, is their pile of goodies.”

While he does consider a lot of his work as “assemblage,” Fuller also admits that not all of his work falls under that category in art shows, so “found art sculpture” is also an acceptable way to describe what he creates.

If you look at his work, there’s a sense of past-meets-future. “I think I was just trying to make that ‘50s version of a future robot. You know? Certainly, a departure from the modern take of robots. That’s what I really wanted to do: [embody] the romance of the vision of the future. When I first started doing this, I wanted them to look like vintage robots from the future. Cross between a little bit Star Wars, a little bit Mystery Science Theatre. I was always a fan of MST. The guy just made robots from crap laying around the shop, and that’s exactly what the deal is over here.”

For a vision that personifies parts of the past, Fuller’s work seems to capture the minds of young and old in the present. “I was surprised by how much of the population were into robots: whether they knew they were, or they found out they were from looking at my work,” Fuller said. “Certainly, young kids, boys and girls, all love it. The lamps I make, I try to make them touch sensitive, to turn them on. The kids love that. So do comic book nerds, movie geeks, sci-fi people. I consider myself part of the tribe there.”

But his work doesn’t stop at robots. Fuller considers himself an artist and event-organizer, who describes himself as a “jack of all trades, who can handle just about anything,” with other projects including Dypsi, an indie art far in Ypsilanti, and simple, vintage-looking light up signs for personal use as well as business. Fuller has made signs for Side Tracks and Wurst Bar in Ypsilanti.  

Fuller said, “When I’m working on a piece, I like seeing the personality develop and unfold. Right when I’m done with one piece, I put it on a shelf, and I turn around and start on the next one. I like seeing them come to life. And I like moving on to the next one. And I like learning from the last one. I think it helps the evolutionary chart, if you line them all up, you can see how they all progress.”  

One of Fuller’s muses is H.R. Giger, the Swiss artist most recognized for his work on the film Alien.

“He was just a weirdo and had a dark style, all that biotechnical stuff. It struck a chord with me as a kid.” Fuller said. “When I’m looking to build something, I’m looking for shapes, maybe some texture… just something I can remove from its original purpose and misplace it. Maybe I don’t see it right away, maybe later.”

As of late, his work has taken on a different feel, thanks to the glass eyes and dentures he’s inherited from friends, family, and locals who fell in love with his work.

“I started getting dental molds, plaster casts, usually used, all busted up,” Fuller said. “I think I was discussing this at one of my Dypsi shows, and one of the onlookers said, “Hey, I have some of my father’s old dentures. Would you like those?” and I’m guessing he doesn’t need them anymore… so I was like sure.”

Fuller said he hung onto those dentures for a few years as he gathered the right parts and pieces for the robot he wanted to make. “I waited until I had a couple of cool pieces to go with it because I thought those were special,” Fuller explained. “It helped normalize that person’s life.”

 “People were like ‘what the hell is this guy doing?’” When I completed the piece with the dentures, it turned out really, really good. It was one of my favorite pieces. It was creepy, it was cool, I felt like I had made a complete piece. I was happy with it. I ended up finding her email, sending her a picture of the piece, telling her, ‘I finally got around to using your father’s dentures, I hope you approve, had a lot of fun…’ and she just loved it, her uncle ended up buying it for her. When I talked to her, she ended up sending me a picture of her father, and I swear to god it was so creepy, how much it looked exactly like him. It was an old man, bald, kind of gaunt, and that’s exactly how the piece ended up looking. I was like… get this thing out of here.”

But the dentures weren’t the beginning of wild part-human, part-machine creations. “The one with my aunt’s glass eyes, that was the precursor to starting to get really weird with it,” Fuller said. “My aunt has a glass eye, apparently you have to get them replaced because your physiology changes, so she has some glass eyes and I was like, “Aunt Sally, you have to give those to me,” because she was talking about throwing them away, I thought that was absolutely crazy, you don’t throw away glass eyes.” Fuller said. So he decided to incorporate them into his work.

“She’s tickled pink about me using it. It was the gateway of getting super weird. Then the teeth… the way the whole thing came together. Kismet-ly looking like him. That was probably the weirdest thing I’ve ever made.”

For Fuller, there’s a humanness to what he creates. “You can go online and buy [glass eyes or dentures] and there’s a million of them out there. But that’s not the point of what I do. I’ll search eBay for some stuff, but things like that I don’t want to buy. It’s not the point,” he said.

“The way I make something personal is like if you have a certain piece of kitchenware that grandma used to use. Something that has her soul in it. His or her soul. A lot of the times, I’ll find an old biscuit cutter where the wood’s all worn away. I just picture someone in the 50’s, 60’s, little old grannie or whoever, cutting biscuits out with love, wanting them for her family or grandchild, so that love, that energy is in that handle. When I look for pieces, I look for stuff like that. Pieces with scuff marks, the handle that has seen so many biscuits cut. It’s hard to make something look like someone, but there are ways to instill their soul in something.”  

To see more of Cre Fuller’s work follow his Instagram @crefuller or visit him online at www.crefuller.com. Contact Fuller at tinangrymen@gmail.com

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