Sauce and swap!
I am pleased as punch to announce the first event for my residency project at Iramoo “Sauce and Swap!”
On Saturday April the 30th, we’ll be saucing it up with apples from the tree at the EcoLiving Centre. And we’ll be making labels with a Gocco printer so if you’ve never used one before it’s your perfect opportunity to come give it a go! Draw! Pilgrim has done the label design and it is GORGEOUS! She also did the poster, isn’t it great!
At some stage between peeling, chopping, stirring, sterilising and printing, I’ll be giving a little introductory talk about my craft and what sort of stuff I’ll be getting up to during the residency.
And there’s a community swap meet going on as well. So bring all your unwanted (but good!) stuff and swap it for some other stuff. How rad is that?
If you are planning to come, please try and bring some jars. We need small sauce jars and lids, no more than 300ml in size. And if you can get the labels off before you come that will save us a heap of time on the day.
Don’t forget to help us spread the word amongst the locals. I’ve started meeting people, but I’m sure there’s tons of closet craft/apple sauce/community radness fans out there.
See you there!
xox
rayna
Crafting a new community
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a guest post for the in.cube8r blog. Here it is reposted in case you didn’t see it. And please go check out their site. And even better, please go visit one of their lovely shops!
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever does” Margaret Mead
In this time of global environmental and economic crisis, the looming challenges can sometimes seem insurmountable, especially considering Australia is one of the biggest carbon consuming countries per capita on our lovely planet.
While the challenge to turn this around may seem enormous, it’s not impossible to meet. One of the most important and effective changes we need to take on is our relationship with stuff. Indeed it is our obsession with material things that is such a massive contributor to our environmental excesses.
While the mainstream media might still be consumed with the debate as to whether climate change is a human-created problem, or even exists in the first place, most Australians are getting on with the job and working towards solutions. From the direct action activists placing themselves between the trees and the chainsaws, to the vast hordes of cyber campaigns, to the school kitchen gardens, to earthships, the solutions are as diverse and inspiring as the communities working on them.
The craft community is no exception. While the same capitalist consumerist pressures exist within the craft world, you would be hard pressed to find a crafter who hadn’t spent some time thinking about the social and environmental ramifications of their making. In fact, many centre their crafting around finding different ways to reuse old materials or to make statements about their vision of the way the world could be.
As a community we are fantastic at cheering each other on. Of all the different worlds I interact with, none is so happy and enthusiastic as the crafters. What we aren’t too hot at is calling each other out on our naughty stuff. What I really don’t see enough in the craft world is crafters questioning the world around them, and their craft within the context of that. Craft does not exist in a vacuum. Issues of sustainability, economics, sexism, racism and cultural appropriation, homophobia and all the other phobias do impact our making. Identifying and challenging those issues need not be scary or dramatic, but it is important to do.
Sustainability is one of the easiest ways to check out our attitudes. For makers, we can firstly ask if we are really makers or are we just consumers and hoarders? We’re all a little bit guilty of stashing, but it’s good to check in every now and then and make sure your stash isn’t requiring a whole house of its own. If it is, the time has definitely come to start being an actual maker again! And of course, it’s important to check out where your supplies actually come from. No point making your own stuff in protest at the sweatshop industry when all your supplies come from sweatshops. Buying less supplies but making sure it’s locally made not only has a big impact environmentally but also makes a significant difference to the local craft community.
One of the harder challenges for those of us makers is to ask ourselves if the world really needs the things we make. There I said it. Yes, there can only be so many fabric covered button badges, beaded bracelets and wall decals. What there isn’t enough of is shoes for school children, menstrual pads for school girls and warm clothes for homeless people. I’m not saying that we have to use our craft to save the world all the time. But we should ask if our craft is directly unsaving the world. I used to make cross stitch kits. But one day I realized I was sending the majority of them to America and it seemed to be a pretty big waste. You can already buy cross stitch fabric, embroidery thread and needles in America so why post them there? Now I sell electronic copies of my patterns instead. It’s a lot less resource intensive and my customers get the design instantly. Not only am I now using less transport miles and packaging, I am providing a better service to my customers. Proving the point of environmental campaigners that doing business sustainably is not only better for the environment, but it’s a smarter way of doing things.
What our world really needs is less stuff. Not in a minimalist, bland boring kind of way. But a surround yourself in brilliant, useful, locally made inspiring stuff way. Crafters and makers have such a brilliant long history of leading the way when it comes to adapting to new environments and demands for better ways of doing things. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to see the craft scene leading the way as role models in the environment movement?
However uncertain our future is, one thing we can be sure of is our survival as a species relies on our capacity to get truly creative and embrace the challenges of a post-carbon future. Can’t get much craftier than that!
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Rayna Fahey is a local craft artist. She co-founded the Craft Cartel with Casey Jenkins and runs radicalcrossstitch.com Rayna is a self-described craft evangelist and loves nothing more than finding new ways to combine her love of craft, hanging outside, gardening and subverting the dominant paradigm.
Iramoo day 1
It was a brilliantly sunny autumn Melbourne day and I packed up some kids, a picnic lunch and some weaving materials and hit the road south. It’s a short half hour trip from our place to Iramoo and most of that is spent on the Princes Freeway. So aside from the odd crazy van wielding driver, it’s quite the nice drive. My drive coincides with the 3RRR Smart Arts show which is a most appropriate way to get me in the right space for a great days making! I was really interested to hear a review of the new Miso show ‘Les Lumieres’ which is on at the No Vacancy project space at Fed Square.
I was so jealous to hear that Miso and her partner and equally well known artist Ghost Patrol have a studio space in the City of Melbourne Buildings which is my absolute favourite building in Melbourne! But what I never knew is that this building is full of bees! Yip there’s a giant bee colony living within the walls of the building. There’s a guy who comes and collects the honey and sometimes the honey leaks right through the walls into their studio. Isn’t that incredible! Not surprisingly, bees and honey does inform Miso’s work. I’m hoping to get into town to see the show, sounds amazing.
I digress!
I arrived at the Wyndham EcoLiving Centre which is to be my new studio space to fins a wee welcoming committee headed by Gail Price who is the Community Strengthening Officer for the Council. After a wee look around in the centre we set up camp next to the playground outside to share some food and chat about potential project ideas. It was so nice to just sit outside and familiarise myself with the sounds and smells of the area. There was plenty of birdlife and I was surprised to see some inch ants! Gee, keep an eye on them, nasty buggers!
After lunch I was shown around my new studio space by Linda , the Centre Manager from Iramoo. It’s the basement of the EcoLiving Centre and it’s been used for lots of things over the years including a childcare centre so it’s all nicely kid friendly. Outside the studio is a lovely overgrown garden with a great seed raising area a compost and a small kids playground. I’m planning to take the chooks down so they can have a scratch around. They’ll literally have a field day!
I also got to hear about Shoestring Gardens who work to transform local residential gardens into food bearing gardens. Right up my alley obviously! I’m looking forward to working with them to introduce creative aspects into the various garden design projects they’ll be doing while I’m around.
There was a fortuitous moment of good timing with the decision to start that day. There’s a local quilting group that meets weekly in each others homes and this week, it was the turn of a woman Rae who lives just across the street! So I popped over and said hi and gave her a quick run down of what I’m up to. And got a short history of her group and what they get up to. I’ve promised to keep her in the loop with my activities and I look forward to meeting the group properly sometime soon.
Then it was time to pack up the car and go on a bit more of an explore. Part of Wyndham Vale is the Manor Lakes development (Dennis Family) and I was keen to check it out. Wyndham Vale is such a diverse suburb and it literally feels like driving into a different town when you cross some major roads. So heading into Manor Lakes was a real eye opener. In contrast to the modest dwellings surrounding the community centre and in the new developments to the west, Manor Lakes is where the BIG houses are. The difference in architecture and landscape design was immediately obvious. And I could understand where some community tensions would arise from. One thing that was glaringly obvious was the lack of sustainability measures. Despite an obvious high level of wealth by residents I saw no solar panels or water tanks, no sign of vegetable gardens or fruit trees and the vehicles I saw were very large. I really hope I can find some workshop participants out of this part of town.
I don’t know about you but whenever I pass through new subdivisions on the edge of cities, I always feel like I’m cruising through Lyon Estates in Back to the Future. The edges of Wyndham Vale do feel a lot like it, there’s just really beautiful grasslands where the houses haven’t taken over yet.
So finally, I’m getting psyched up to start proper next week. The studio space will be ready by then so I can start moving some stuff in. And I’ve been making some excellent contacts at the council about tapping into different resources. I’m planning on making this a resource positive residency so I’ll be using mostly found materials from around the local environment, the tip shop and I’m starting to connect in with local businesses that might have offcuts I’ll be able to use. And that’s what I’ll be spending next week doing. If any readers know any local businesses that might be good to make contact with please let me know.
Til then, don’t forget to tell any of your Wyndham Vale/Werribee and surrounds friends what I’m up to so they can keep in the loop with upcoming workshops and public crafting events.
See you next week!
Iramoo!
Tomorrow is the first day of my exciting new adventure, a three month artist residency at the Iramoo Community Centre in Wyndham Vale. For those of you not terribly familiar with Wyndham Vale it’s right next to Werribee on Melbourne’s South-Western most border. In fact the community centre looks right out over some classic western basalt plains.
It’s an interesting little suburb. Some parts old and some parts new, both in houses and in people. It’s a quiet wee spot but has a really interesting and engaged little community. It’s very much like my suburb. One of those spots surrounded in busy bustlingness so often gets overlooked and as a result has a little village feel.
For my residency I’m going to be based in the local environment centre which is tucked away in a quiet street overlooking the delightfully tranquil Lollipop Creek. I’m going to be up to all sorts of lovely mischief involving different groups within the community and using all sorts of materials from local natural materials through to industrial offcuts from local businesses. And whatever else I stumble across along the way.
Alongside the environment centre is a giant heavily laden apple tree. So to kick start the residency I’m going to host a apple sauce making day with locals and anyone else interested in coming. Details about that soon.
In the meantime, I’d love to ear if any of my readers are out that way. Or if you know anyone who lives nearby who’d be interested in some craft workshops or just plain ol play time, please pass this on. I’ll be sending out email newsletters about this project so if you want to be on it, drop me a line.
Radical Craft Intervenes
Sorry for the lack of updates round here. I’ve been busy preparing for an upcoming artist residency! Rest assured there will be regular updates once I get going. In the meantime, I was a featured artist in the latest Creative Spaces enews.
Check it out:
Rayna Fahey took up craft to ease the boredom of being confined to the house during a difficult pregnancy five years ago. Cross stitch was the most tedious activity she could think of to get her through nine long months. A political activist, Rayna had recently finished three years working for the New Zealand Parliament, which meant “it was never going to be long before the stitches got radical.” Using her existing website Rayna added a page for her radical cross stitch work, and very soon visits to the page sky-rocketed, demonstrating “there was clearly an audience for craft with a message.”
Rayna saw an opportunity to inject some radicalism into crafting circles, as well as to communicate revolutionary ideas to new audiences, and Radical Cross Stitch was born. Defined as radical due to the materials used or the message conveyed, traditional perceptions of craft are challenged, and many contemporary artists are now pushing the boundaries using the varied form.
Rayna’s craft mainly takes two forms: Traditional framed cross stitch embroidery with a radical political message, or outdoor pieces which make use of the environment such as weaving cross stitch into chain link fences. These outdoor pieces make “political statements specifically about the space they’re in.” As an elder once said to Rayna “if you’re going to talk about the environment talk about it IN the environment.”
In 2008 Rayna coordinated a “loose-knit band of revolutionaries” known as the ‘Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle’ to create a piece on a fence around a vacant corner block in Footscray. “I WANNA LIVE HERE” was cross-stitched into the fence as a response to the issue of housing affordability and lack of land supply when here was an example of the under-utilised land around the city. This work was made into a short film and featured in a full length documentary as well as appearing in various publications around the world.
In the coming weeks Rayna will commence a three-month artist residency at the Imaroo Community Centre in Wyndham Vale. Working with the various groups that use the centre to create local outdoor installations, Rayna will also be creating a major new piece of her own. Excited to get started, Rayna is the first artist in residence at the centre, which is located in an area “not normally associated with a thriving arts scene”. Her main mission will be to take her radical craft to the streets, and also to produce some ‘how-to’ guides whilst in residency, so others can get radical with their craft long after she has left her mark.
“My work really tries to get people thinking about the issues of land rights, homelessness, urban planning, sustainability and public/private divides…I try to use my outdoor craft to stimulate debate and thought.” Rayna explains. “What’s been most inspiring for me is discovering after an installation how many people in the community are passionate about similar issues…Who needs the press when you’ve got radical craft?”