I (heart) craft by Simone Jones

10 Things I Love About Craft

Ever since Cate asked me to write this blog piece I’ve been running round in circles trying to decide how to distil everything I love about craft into a succinct post. I’ve given up and decided to list 10 of the many many many things I currently adore.

1. Abby Glassenberg

What’s not to love about these quirky characters? Each of Abby’s birds (left) has its own personality, with some created out of recycled material, leading to kooky text appearing through ruffled feathers. I’m also quite fond of Girl Savage’s http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=32631 feltidermy works (right), which bring a new twist to the huge design trend at the moment for fake animal trophies.


2. Cupcakes + Baking

I’m loving the cake decorating arts at the moment. Check out Eugene and Louise Bakery http://www.eugene-and-louise-bakery.be/, and locals the Cupcake Company http://www.thecupcakecompany.blogspot.com/ and the Cupcake Parlour.


3. Trixie Delicious

Trixie Delicious refers to her work as vandalised vintage, a saying that neatly sums up her process of subverting stock standard chinaware by over painting incongruous text. Full of wit and cheekiness!


4. Yu Chun Chen

This artist beautifully juxtaposes the coldness of silver and the warmth of sewn, furry, textural growths.


5. Silhouettes

I know silhouette’s are “so hot right now” but I always love anything that plays with shadows and outlines. Particularly appealing are these Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre http://silhouettemasterpiecetheatre.com/ works by Wilhelm Staehle.

The Queensland Lace makers Guild

Walking into the Brisbane branch of the Queensland Lace makers Guild monthly meeting, you know you are in the presence of greatness. This varied group of women (and one man) get together once a month to sit, chat, eat and make beautiful lace.

Striking me most about the group, and really about all of the guilds I made contact with for Craft Revolution, is their commitment to their craft. The only gentleman in the group is the guild librarian, and so each month he packs up all the guild owned books on lace (I’d say there would be at least 100), puts them in his car, and drives the books from Ipswich to South Brisbane to the meeting. Then at the end of the meeting he packs them up again and takes them home until the next month. Group members come from far and wide for their monthly get together: the Gold Coast, Caloundra, Bribie Island, Ipswich and perhaps farther afield, many of the members are in their 70’s and 80’s, but still they hop on the train, lace bag in hand and come along to meet with their fellow lace lovers.

Talking with the members of the guild they all tell me different reasons as to why they make lace. Firstly, and most obviously because they love this incredibly intricate and unfortunately fading craft practice, but there are many other reasons besides- one, which is of great importance is the social component of the guild. Once a month (and there are small more localised groups that run weekly as well) meetings give members the chance to come together, talk about their lives and experiences, have a cup of tea and lunch together, and share their love of lace. Some members find the detail of lace making a little to taxing on the eyes and hands some months, but they are all still there, knitting or some other craft in hand, joining in and catching up with friends.

The lace makers are not a traditional bunch, some work in highly stressful jobs through the week and their craft offers a retreat from their busy lives on the weekend, others are raising children full time and guild meetings are a welcome monthly escape. Many though, are now retirees and this is a lovely opportunity to focus in on a craft they have loved for a long time, but while working and raising children often didn’t have the time to really enjoy.

There are many different types of lace: bobbin lace (which appears to be the most complex practice one could imagine); needle lace; tatting; crochet, and I am sure there are hundreds more that I am ignorant of. All of these making practices look extremely difficult and detailed, but also incredibly beautiful, and I did feel a little disappointed that I had never learnt such wonderfully precious skills during my time at school as many of the guild members had.
Guild members found their passion for lace making in many and varied ways, some were shown by their grandmothers and mothers, others learnt at school, while many just observed someone else doing it (demonstrations were presented each year at the old Warana festival, or lace is often demonstrated at Heritage events) and decided they would like to learn. I can understand this desire, seeing the lace makers in action, hearing about their passion for the craft and also experiencing the warmth and kindness of the group I too would like to be a part of all this someday.

Cate Brown is the curator of the Craft Revolution exhibition at QUT Art Museum. She met with various Brisbane guilds to create the show.

Images: Brisbane lace makers in action, 2008, photographs by Cate Brown

UMBRELLA COLLECTIVE STORY…..


The Umbrella Collective is a group of five Brisbane artists working in the handmade crafts. The Collective is Shannon Garson, ceramicist, Rebecca Ward and Liana Kabel, jewellers, Florence Forrest, toys, and Kylie Johnson, poet, designer and ceramics. We have joined together to exhibit and pool our joint resources.

Our group has been slowly forming over years of connections through crafts, art, education and friendships. - Rebecca and Kylie actually went to school together and Kylie and Shannon went through the formative years doing our Bachelor of Visual Arts at QUT.

Shannon met Rebecca about 6 years ago at a Chinese restaurant when she and her partner were trying to think what to do about wedding rings for their up and coming nuptials. A mutual friend had just been telling them about a jeweller he knew "who made jewellery out of silver and pebbles and recycled things" when in walked Rebecca to get her take away. Their friendship has been strengthened over the years through mutual admiration of each other as artists and a shared passion for food!

Florence met both Liana and Rebecca through Craft Qld. She says
"It was one of those fateful meetings where you know you've found like souls." Florence had also made an independent contact with Kylie via their shared love of poetry so it was a case of "it’s a small world after all" when we discovered how we all knew one another. We all ended up coming together, discussing our feelings about the state of the craft arts in general and acknowledged a need to find an independent path to professional success.

What binds our friendship is the unshakable belief that we can develop ourselves professionally and become commercially viable while maintaining the passionate nature of discovery inherent in the artist's way. We instinctively knew that we had to find that pathway ourselves as there were few in a position to guide us. We decided to support each other and form a collective that was circle of trust within which to share new marketing ideas and knowledge. We would be there to guide each other through the numerous finer points that arise when dealing with the big world including the virtual world of new technologies that we have embraced. Interestingly, we have found that along with simple practical information, the other main component of our success has been weening ourselves off the idea of the poor starving artist that often stands in the way of most artists accepting the professional responsibilities involved in selling art.

Many artists say that they just can't handle the commercial side of things, that it is somehow grubby or too complicated. Most of the time it's that they have been shown how to make art, but not how to be a professional artist and go beyond the making stage. In contrast The Umbrella Collective has embraced this particular aspect and as we have discovered that it is yet another area into which our creative abilities can be applied.

Working together as a group is another challenge especially for such individuals who are accustomed to very solitary work environments. The putting on of group shows often tests our relationships as the pressure of the big event comes closer. These are moments, however, when our true love for each other holds the threads together and we come back together with a renewed spirit having learnt more about ourselves and about group dynamics.

We have supported each other with friendship and professional help through the birth and early years of child-raising, chronic illness, and relationship breakdowns. The Umbrella Collective has been something we have been able to count on as a source of strength both professionally and on a personal level.

We have serious meetings but also fun events where we all get together and drink champagne and laugh our head's off. Going to one another's launches and professional successes and celebrating individual achievements within the group provides satisfying highlights throughout the year.

Every Christmas we have an event annual event where we launch
new products and meet our friends and supporters. Last year at our "Delightful Things" event Shannon Garson, ceramicist and jeweller Rebecca Ward launched their range of porcelain and silver jewellery called "Nibble". Florence Forrest launched a new, (and very topical) toy called "Rain Berries", beautiful hanging drops of rain in indigo cotton fabric, perfect gentle, whimsical pieces of art for hanging above a baby's cot.

This coming year poet/artist Kylie Johnson is launching her book of poems "Count Me the Stars" published by Murdoch books. Liana Kabel, known as the "Tupperware Lady" continues to spread her particular brand of recycled, contemporary plastic jewellery around the world with exhibitions in America.
Shannon Garson will exhibit her major new series “The Magnolia Project” in Sydney. Rebecca Ward’s recycled glass jewellery is being featured in a Brisbane City Council recycling campaign. Florence Forrest continues to exhibit around the world and her “Snow Walkers” are going to Purdue University in Indiana, America this January.

The Umbrella Collective is exhibiting as a group at KickArts in Cairns and the Maleny Art Gallery. Something we are all excited about is holding the first “Umbrella Collective Invites You…” a networking event for arts and industry workers. We are hosting an evening of fun for artists and industry workers in Brisbane at a cocktail bar. The aim of this event is to create a place where other artists can meet each other and find out about professional issues, (such as how to start their own collectives!) Workers from other creative industries such as Universities, film, photography, theatre and journalism will also be attending. The Umbrella Collective believes that by sharing their knowledge and creating connections artists can build sustainable, creative practices with threads running from the studio practice throughout the whole community.

You can see more on the Umbrella Collective
blog.
http://umbrellacollective.blogspot.com/
We also all have blogs and
websites of our own where you can get a taste of our individual
approaches to life , love and art! We are

Florence Forrest
flying star toys
http://windbagandthunder.blogspot.com/

Shannon Garson
Porcelain
http://strangefragments.blogspot.com/

Kylie Johnson
paperboat press
http://instinctandgrace.blogspot.com/

Liana Kabel
plastic girl jewellery
http://www.lianakabel.blogspot.com/

Rebecca Ward
jewellery
http://rebeccathewrecker.blogspot.com/

This is our website it is full of photos of our latest work and information about each of the artists.
http://umbrellacollective.blogspot.com/

Image: Kylie Johnson, 2008. Cloud Brooches, ceramic.

I (heart) craft with Rachel Fry

HANDMADE MAKES MY HEART SING!

I can’t articulate it better than this. To discover something that has been created with heart and soul truly makes my heart sing!

I’m an Italian girl who comes from a long line of women who loved and regularly participated in crafting handmade goodies. My childhood days were spent crocheting, sewing and drawing through which I gained many happy hours of creative fun. It also gave me the experience of independence at an early age. I chose my own fabrics and designs. I chose what colour and design my crochet blanket would be and then I was the one to make them…very empowering!

As well as being Italian, I’m also a Taurus and there’s no escaping the influence this has over me. I love being surrounded by beautiful art and objects, colour is important and quality is essential.

These are the reasons I created a store that showcased and celebrated handmade. Cherry Blossom was a store that had an emphasis on Australian creatives, quality product and that essential ‘make your heart sing’ factor. Over the 4 years that Cherry Blossom traded I had the absolute joy of selling and promoting handmade products. I also discovered the beauty of meeting and knowing the creator of the goods.

My absolute favourite handmade goodies are my UDDER (http://udder.typepad.com/) softies collection made by Fliss Dodd. Each one is individual and LOVINGLY handmade. They are unique and beautiful and I’m completely crazy about them.

My world, both inner and outer would be a soul-less and empty experience if I could not surround myself with art and product made by loving hands. I feel deeply connected to the beauty and creativity in our world each time I discover a new item that is infused with this love.

I am a woman who is grateful that I can create and support handmade goods. I’m also grateful that I can share this love with like-minded souls who also create and support handmade.

Supporting or creating craft, in all its forms opens up a deeper connection to self and to others. It’s a winning formula I think to creating a more positive and beauty filled future for humanity. We can save our world, one handmade crafty item at a time!

Exploring the Revolution with Kevin Murray

How to Broadcast the Quiet Revolution

It was a typical grey Flinders Lane winter afternoon, with the sunlight straining between the ANZ and Telstra towers. I was passing by the window at Craft Victoria, as I had done thousands of times before.

Something caught the corner of my eye. Next to the window was a power point. At first this seemed unremarkable. There are power points everywhere in the city. But there was something strange about this one. For a start, why was it on the outside of the building? Couldn’t anyone plug in and use the electricity for free? So who would pay for it? I looked closer. It didn’t seem an ordinary power point. I ran my fingers over it—this power point was actually made of porcelain.

It was craft! Someone created a ceramic tile, cast from a power point, and attached it to a wall as an act of ‘craft graffiti’. Eventually, I tracked down the perpetrator—Honor Freeman, a ceramicist then based in Adelaide. She is one of many Australians practicing ‘poor craft’, an application of craft skills to materials and spaces on the street. As an act, it feels almost revolutionary, albeit in its own quiet fashion.

When we think of revolutions, scenes come to mind of crowds storming bastions of privilege. Oppressed peoples take their destiny in their hands to radically re-order society, overturning hierarchies.

But alongside these ‘active’ revolutions are alternative forms of social change. The Italian communist Gramsci created the phrase ‘passive revolution’ to describe the American alternative. Fordist factories channelled workers desires towards individual aspiration rather than collective action. Brands like Coca-Cola make generational change a matter of consumption rather than riot. Nowadays, we suspect any revolutionary push as just to be just another marketing gimmick. We’d call it a McRevolution.

That’s why the recent introduction of DIY values in the crafts has been labelled a ‘quiet revolution’. The take up of crafts like knitting in the 21st century are about individuals taking destiny in their own hands and seeking change in an immediate way. It’s an alternative to buying something in China with a Hallmark prefabricated message.

But there’s a danger. While flying under the marketing radar, the ‘quiet revolution’ carries its own risk. Its humble aspirations can create a comfort zone that is cut off from the outside world. The ‘Bambi craft’ now proliferating in design boutiques shows where this might lead.
In design we are now seeing the emergence of a new global consciousness. Cooper Hewitt’s Design for the Other 90% promotes designers who are creating solutions for those living in the third world. While a responsible alternative to the rampant consumption of much celebrity design, this movement does locate creative control very much in the metropolitan centres. Like Make Poverty History, it assumes a passive position for those living in necessity.

Craft’s ‘quiet revolution’ is well positioned to reverse this arrangement. We have already seen the capacity of Australians to work with traditional craft communities in developing product. We are not dealing just with the problems of the third world, but also its increasingly rare and valuable asset – how to make something by hand.

It’s the dilemma of any craft. When asked for her advice to aspiring writers, the late Susan Sontag said, ‘Several things. Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world.’ We all have to find a space somewhere between the bench and the window.

Kevin Murray is a craft writer and curator – see http://www.craftunbound.net/.

Image: Honor Freeman, powerpoint, 2008

Craftie stories with Mel Robson

When did you begin making craft?
I’ve always been a bit of a crafty one, for as long as I can remember really – when I was a kid I used to make really ugly furry bean bags and tie dyed doona covers and really bad patchwork quilts! And those black painted boards that you would hammer nails into and then twist glittery string around them to make psychedelic patterns (I was a child of the 70s)?!! Now THAT was good craft!! But crafting for a career…. I started studying ceramics 11 years ago, and practicing professionally about 5 years after that. (And I don’t make fluffy bean bags anymore… yes, a real loss to the craft world.)

How did it become your career?
I had become very bored with my job as an English teacher and was really just casting around for something else to do. As part of that process I enrolled in a night class at TAFE to try out a bit of pottery and after my first class I quit my job and enrolled to study ceramics full-time. It was a bit of a bolt-of–lightning-from-the-sky moment. I never really expected it to become my career, but after 5 years of study I figured I should at least give it a shot. And it seems to have worked out ok!

What appeals to you about ceramics?
I was initially really drawn to the idea of making functional objects, things that people could use. I felt that if I was going to fill the world with more STUFF I may as well make it useful stuff. That’s still important to me, but over time I have become interested in the endless possibilities that ceramics offers for exploring broader ideas. There has been a nice synergy between my long interest in the domestic sphere and the incredible scope ceramics provides to explore that. What also appeals to me about ceramics is the endless possibilities the material affords, its versatility. It’s a material you can constantly learn from, struggle with and delight in. Its impossible to get bored with it!

Who's craft work are you really enjoying at the moment?
Oh where do I start!! Hmmmm…I have long been a fan of Kirsten Coehllo’s ceramics and was recently given 2 of the most beautiful pieces of her work – a cup and a bowl. I have never drunk so much tea in my life! They just beg to be used. I once wrote of her work that whenever I saw it I wanted to hold it to my cheek – the smooth surfaces, the cool, beautiful glazes, and her forms are so refined and unfussy. There is a real art (or should I say craft?) in bringing form, finish and function together the way she does.

What do you think is the future for craft?
I am hopeful for the continued vibrant existence, development and survival of the crafts. The (very unfortunate) closing down of some departments and schools certainly creates challenges for this, but also provides opportunities to create alternative models for learning and other innovative and exciting ways for people to engage with craft. It’s often through the big challenges that the big breakthroughs come.

Is craft a revolutionary act?
Craft is made in and exists in many different contexts, but yes, I think Craft can be a revolutionary act. A lot of today’s craft practices and maker’s approaches to craft could be considered revolutionary in the sense that they are consciously, as the curatorial rationale for this exhibition states, rejecting the dominant culture of consumption and the loss of community, and re-engaging with cooperative and traditional approaches to making. Certainly recently there has been a strong reclamation of craft in response to the (crazy) world we currently live in, and I think that’s fantastic. But I don’t think craft is by its nature necessarily a revolutionary act. I think it is more of an innate act. I think humans always have and always will make things by hand, for a whole lot of different reasons.

Log onto Mel Robson's blog at http://www.feffakookan.blogspot.com/

Images: Mel Robson, Homeing pigeons, willow, 2008; The Absence of Objects, 2007; Precious Little, 2007.

The Real Deal

Below is an essay I wrote associated with the Craft Revolution exhibition. Please read, respond, debate, question and tell me what you think!

The Real Deal

Recently I heard an interesting take on the Australian film industry. This sector insider outlined that he thought the Australian film industry would never thrive until Australians learnt to love their culture. He said film industries that are successful, such as those in Korea, India and the USA, are so because the people there truly appreciate and are proud of their culture. I thought this was a really interesting point, and quickly saw his meaning - most Australian films explore stories of abject, outsider characters, or take the mickey out of working class Australian lifestyles.

Not unique to Australia but a comparable circumstance is the denial and the degradation of craft. Some within the sector rail, fight and push for recognition, asking at all costs to not be associated with ‘country craft’ or ‘cottage craft’ and won’t accept that this is part and parcel of the craft movement. We, as writers and theorists on craft wax lyrical about the beauty, and deep meaning of a pot or a bowl, as Robert Cook put it, though this seems to demean our case further. Cook (2004) writes, “Craft objects are propositions. Even knowing this, I can never get the balance right. I focus on the material, make a hash of that, and then over-compensate by over-intellectualising, or being overly categorical with the signification”.

We often seem to strive to be in the fine arts, but we’re not, we are in the business of craft. Craft comes in many forms: parochial, traditional, historic, contemporary, and sometimes ‘fine’. I began curating Craft Revolution with very high notions of what craft is - that it is careful, slow, a rejection of a fast paced lifestyle, it is anti-consumerist, it is personal, and connecting. And craft is all of those things, but it is also kitschy, local, and sometimes very ugly; and accepting all of these things would be a revolutionary act.
Craft can be contentious. It can explore notions of race, colonisation and history, all of which are on display in Craft Revolution, and this can be done with great depth and eloquence. Craft can question feminine constructs; the current loud and proud return to craft by young women could be seen as an ‘up yours’ to old notions of femaleness and domesticity (Spencer; 2005). Initially, when women were fighting to be heard we had to get out of the kitchen or the sewing circle, and enter new spaces and claim them. Now, we can exist in new spaces, traditional spaces and in between. Craft offers one way of doing this.

Craft creates community. Who could deny the beauty and kindness of the Queensland Smocking Guild’s ‘Sew Precious Gowns’ project, for which they smock tiny gowns for premature babies who don’t survive their early arrival, but leave this world clothed in a garment so lovingly made by a collective of compassionate, benevolent women. Craft is historic. Stories, yarns, journeys and histories are woven into baskets, or sculpted into and painted onto pots. We can dig a piece of gold jewellery out of the dirt, and this can reveal something of the history and lifestyle of people who lived thousands of years ago.

I won’t say that design is a vague label (Riedelbauch; 2004). You may well think it is, but how does rambling on about the perceived pointlessness of another practice help us at all? And we can start yelling about how craft is as important, and perhaps more historic than art, but where would that get us?

The real deal is with loving craft, all of it, because it is spectacular. Even kitschy cupi doll toilet roll covers are made by someone who skilfully knits a doll sized skirt and then stitches it carefully so it fits the dimensions of a toilet roll. But, yes, I agree, they are not my favourite items and the aesthetic difference between them and a paper thin Mel Robson ceramic bowl with her grandmother’s recipes decaled on the inside could not be more profound.

This marked difference though means that we don’t have to get into a dirty debate over the meaning of the word ‘craft’. Craft is both an object and a practice (Attiwell; 2004), and we cannot prevent people from associating things we don’t like with the term. All we can do is accept it, and keep making beautiful objects with dense meaning and also understand that there is something lovely in women coming together, enjoying a cup of tea and making toilet roll covers. It’s not the same kind of lovely as a beautifully set, classic cut Barbara Heath ring, but ‘craft’ is just a word isn’t it. The real revolution of craft will begin if we can get over all of this, learn to love craft, and accept the many facets of craft culture. Then we can begin to deal with a real issue, like the fact that glass and ceramics schools are closing left, right and centre, and soon there will be nothing left to debate about.



References:

Attiwell, S (2004) Untitled, Craft Australia National Forum 2004 Papers.

Cook, R (2004) Zero to one thousand to nothing, Art Monthly Australia, #172 August, 2004, www.artmonthly.org.au

Reidelbauch, G (2004) What's in a Name?, Craft Australia National Forum, 2004, Papers

Spencer, A (2005) DIY: the rise of low-fi culture, Marion Boyars, London