The mother as an artist. Disbanding the myth of the artistic sanctuary and a space to create.

Two and a half hours of embroidery, feeding, changing, entertaining, and cuddling.

Photography: Marcus Salvagno
Editing: Karl Fitzgerald
Music: Line of Flight – Revolution Void

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This piece was created for “It’s Never Too Late to Mend”.

The Making and Baking.. was born out of a desire to contribute to the conversation about the value of handmade.  All too often purveyors of handmade goods find themselves having to justify their prices in the face of mass production of consumerables.  Comparing a uniquely designed, handmade piece of clothing against a one of thousands, sweat shop produced item shouldn’t even happen, yet it does. And far too often makers are left to defend their ‘high’ prices, when the reality is that the mass producers should be the ones explaining their prices. This Is Handmade is a brilliant video project which works with this idea.

The Making and Baking.. was also inspired by observations of gender within the arts. As a mother and an artist I rarely have the luxury of uninterrupted creative time, I share my creative space with small children and I have to manage gallery time with childcare.  These are not really issues that phase me as my children are my muses and are very much a part of my practice. What interests me is the different status that artists attract due to their family status. Certainly my experience and observation of group shows is that it’s the single guys who get the most time and attention paid to their art.

Luckily for me, my practice tends to attract similarly radical curators and art workers so my colleagues have always been open to supporting my children being present and part of my art. However, I know this is not reflective of the art world as a whole.  Hopefully this piece will plant some seeds for people to think about the way they value art workers as parents.

Thanks again to Marcus, Karl, Hannah, Jose and the kids for helping put this piece together, arohanui xx

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Greetings Premier Ballieu

I read with great sadness at the decision by your government to scrap the State carbon reduction target. Victoria is one of the greatest polluting regions per capita on the planet. And we need to be moving forward not backwards on solutions for climate change.

I am part of a number of active organisations in Melbourne’s West, working hard to create sustainable, localised food, energy and clothing options for our community. Not only is our work making a major difference to the lives of people involved in our activities, but has a ripple effect across our whole community as more people grow their own food, get out of their cars and onto buses and bikes and invest their money on locally made items.

It is so inspiring to be part of a movement of people working to make the world a better place.

So it is even more disappointing to read about the head in the sand attitude your government is taking towards sustainable policy, especially in relation to energy production.

I urge you to:

• Reinstate the carbon reduction target
• Support clean energy
• Bring an end to coal fired power

Your government has a responsibility to take action on climate change. I want you to take action to cut pollution and support a safe climate future for my family.

Warmest regards

Rayna

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Ahoy me hearties! Land pirates straight ahead!

Oh to be a speculator.

It must be such a great life buying up blocks of land, sitting on them for a few years watching the community grow and the infrastructure develop, then when the time is right, flip them off for some easy capital gains. Even better when the land isn’t in your suburb so you can externalize the problems that vacant land creates like weeds, rubbish, vandalism and housing affordability pressures. Even better when the council has a rates system that charges on land and buildings so the blocks around yours with houses and businesses on them have to pay more than you do.

Well, just ’cause the council thinks it’s ok for all these pirates to be sailing around our hood, looting the bounty created by our communities, doesn’t mean the Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle does.

We’re sick of looking at these blocks. We want a re-imagining of how we use land in Maribyrnong. We want to address housing, sprawl, waste, food security, transport, health, community gardening and play.  In our separate lives we work on these projects but are daily undermined by the pirates.  We want the people of Maribyrnong to join with us in starting the conversation about the blight on our suburbs that is vacant land and what the Council plans on doing about it.

Currently, they don’t see it as a problem.

So, we ask the question “What else could go here?”  We are surrounded in blank canvases and we call on all citizens to spend some time thinking about what better ways we can use this land. Let’s keep animals, let’s grow food, let’s grow trees, let’s build parks!

Have you an idea? Put it on your closest fence tonight! Or get some chalk and write your ideas on the footpath! Use your imagination people, our communities are in our hands.

Love + rage

MRCC

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Y’know economics can be really boring. All that lingo, boring white dudes and acronyms. Anyone would think they made it boring on purpose so we wouldn’t pay attention to how much economics is the single greatest driver of our planets destruction. And anyone who thinks this has nothing to do with craft oughta read this.

What we really need is economics with wicked beats, and plain speak. Then maybe we would pay attention and sort this madness out before our lovely planet is unfit for habitation.

Oh wait, here you go.

Watch. Share. Agitate.

(check out the fence stitching)

http://realestate4ransom.com/

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Every now and then you stumble across something and think ‘gee, I’d totally tattoo that on myself’.  Well, this year I had one of those moments and went with it.

I’ve always thought I’d wait until I was at least 30 before I got a tattoo. I had that gut instinct that if I did something like that before then I’d most probably end up regretting it. I was a fickle young thing.

So for the last couple of years I have seriously contemplated a couple of ideas. I did get very close to a cross stitch design. Figured I needed to stitch it up before embarking on actual ink. And after I had done that, decided it would be a bit big for what I wanted.

I’m a collector of old craft. Either finished pieces or the things people use to make with. I have lots of old needle cases and needle books. Tons of old needles, wool winders, thimbles, you get my drift. A couple of months ago I bought this simply gorgeous antique souvenir sewing kit. It didn’t take long for me to realise that THIS was what was going on me forever.

Click here to see the other images of the box. It is such a delightful object, I am going to treasure it for a very long time!

I’m the kind of person that believes in the importance of signs. It’s crucial to remind yourself of the messages you hold true. Some people hang stuff on the wall, pin things to their office cubicles, embroider samplers, paint on footpaths. I have a small affirmation stuck on the inside of my wardrobe door, I have pictures on my walls, and a vast collection of button badges I can pop out for the right moment.

It’s Never Too Late To Mend, is very much a motto for me. I apply it to craft, politics, our lovely planet, my relationships and communities. And now I proudly wear my motto on my arm to help me keep on track for the rest of my life.

A massive thanks to Matt Gordon who was working out of Down to Earth Tattoos for his beautiful work. He was so much fun to hang out with!

And another massive thanks to Mark Burban for the great pic. I did some really great work with Mark and will be revealing more on that project soon!

Now, get mending!

xxx

rayna

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It was a perfect Melbourne Autumn day when a bunch of lovely folk got together in the Iramoo Community Centre to embark on an epic wee apple sauce making session.  See the EcoLiving Centre where my studio is has a huge apple tree outside.  A random act of inspiration hit me when I saw hundreds of apples going to waste.  My inner desire to waste not want not led me to start a sauce making day. I couldn’t think of a lovelier way to introduce myself to the locals and kick off the residency.

Coincidentally there was already a community swap meet in the progress of being organised so the two events were merged and a community day was born!

Wyndham Vale is out in the sprawling meetropolis on the edge of Melbourne.  And it’s a rapidly growing area with Wyndham Vale having the  highest  population growth in the country last year.  But like all suburbs filled with busy working people, struggling to grow a strong sense of community.  That’s what I love about community kitchens, they have a fabulous way of bringing people together.

So a group of like minded folk gathered in the kitchen armed with peelers, knives, measuring cups and wooden spoons. (hint #1 have lots of peelers!).  Soon the smell of cinnamon was wafting through the centre.

There was a bouncing castle, a swap meet, a brilliantly awesome coffee cart and a mental note to my love to take photos of these things next time!

Once we got the first batch cooked and jarred and the next bunch on the go I did a short chat about myself and the craft I do and then got into our Gocco session.

We were blessed to have the very awesome creative talents of Pilgrim from Draw! Pilgrim for our label design.  And she’s agreed to have this label up as a free pdf download. Click here to download a nice printable version. It’s set up to fit most jar sizes.

I managed to give a very clear example of how NOT to do gocco first up!  See we had this great design that was designed for two colours on each print.  BUT in my nervous flustered rush to get it done I FORGOT to lift the plastic layer up before sticking on all the tiny bits of foam and then squeezing on all the ink. (hint #2 when running workshops take deep breaths and double check your steps!)

Sigh.

We probably could’ve figured a way of reusing that screen but I decided that time was ticking away so I just grabbed another and we got into it.  We decided to keep it simple this time and not do the different colours rather do one label in each colour. I think they were feeling a bit sorry for me!

The first print was gorgeous! There was a hearty round of oohs and aahs and everyone was mad keen to give it a go.  And I dare say there was a significant level of gocco converts in the group!

After some drying and cooling time, it was finally time to decorate the jars and they look HOT!

A heap more cooking and sterilising and stirring and printing and chopping and gluing ensued and before we knew it we had a bench covered in yummy scrummy jars of sauce. If anyone wants the recipe I’ve posted it at the bottom of this post.

And how chuffed were all the attendees to take home some jars? Yip, pretty blimmin chuffed.  I for one went straight home and cranked up a roast pork and it was DELICIOUS.

Overall, the day was a brilliant success. What was most satisfying for me was bringing together a bunch of like minded people who are all based in the West and working in various ways on issues of community, environment and sustainability. But whom in most part didn’t know each other.  Many great conversations were held and it was fabulous as a facilitator to be floating in and out of conversations about cooking, politics, climate change, gardening, parenting and economics.  Even more exciting for me has been watching everyone connect on Facebook post event and continuing the conversations and collaborations.

The other aspect of the event that I was really happy about were the people who didn’t attend but still contributed.  There were people contributing apples and jars all week even though they weren’t able to attend.  I’m really looking forward to starting the next stage of the residency and meeting even more awesome locals!

Massive thanks to all who attended and made the day such a raving success.

xox

Rayna

APPLE SAUCE RECIPE
Preparation Time
10 minutes
Cooking Time
20 minutes
Makes
750ml (3 cups)
Ingredients
1kg granny smith apples, peeled, cored, coarsely chopped
100g (1/2 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
185ml (3/4 cup) apple juice or water
1 tbs fresh lemon juice
2 x 7cm cinnamon sticks
1/4 tsp mixed spice
Method
Combine the apple, sugar, apple juice or water, lemon juice, cinnamon sticks and mixed spice in a large saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring, for 3 minutes or until the sugar dissolves.
Increase heat to medium-high and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes or until the apple is soft. Remove from heat. Remove cinnamon sticks and discard. Set aside, uncovered, for 5 minutes to cool slightly.
Transfer apple mixture to the jug of a blender or the bowl of a food processor and process until pureed (we didn’t bother doing this, just cooked it a bit longer and mashed it in the pot). Place in a clean saucepan and stir over low heat until heated through.
Notes
This apple sauce will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 days.

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Four weeks and buckets of rain and sunshine later, our garden has completely transformed!

Firstly and most importantly, presenting our fabulous new chickens!  This is Susan.

And this is Patti (who refuses to sit still for a photo..)

They’re both very happy hens and were laying less than 12 hours after moving in.  We are loving the fresh eggs!  Needless to say, Tara is pretty stoked about her new friends, or as she calls them ‘our two mums’.

Post blitz, we’ve done quite a bit of work to their space.  We had to move the house and construct a chook fence to keep them away from our neighbours (bless them..).  And we’ve put in the beginnings of an orchard.

Their wee garden is coming along nicely!

I’ve started stitching on the fence – the ladies approve!  Hoping to do more on it over the summer.

And the rest of the garden is coming along amazingly

our new garden beds are going crazy, and as you can see we’ll be harvesting out of them very soon

We’ve had our first potato harvest and they were super yummy.  Even made some potato bread.  It was so delicious there wasn’t even time to take a photo of it…

Everything is growing so green and luscious.  We’ve been eating fresh spinach every day and the tomatoes, beans and capsicums are all flowering and starting to produce fruit.  There’s some seriously awesome salads coming up.

So finally we have a wonderful kitchen garden and outdoor dining area.  We had our first proper test drive this week when some of our good friends came over for a BBQ

And everyone approves!

Finally – and I’m not even showing you everything, there is SO MUCH going on in our garden – I made a little hanging strawberry garden out of some old formula tins and some jute string.

Plant pots are a great way to reuse formula tins.  Just whack some spraypaint on the sides to cover the ugliness and away you go.  Hanging them is a great way to fill up underutilised spaces.  They’re the perfect size for strawberries.  Can’t wait til these babies take off!

So our medium sized Melbourne block is currently growing: potatoes, garlic, countless varieties of tomato, chillies, capsicums, spinach, zucchini, beans, eggplants, carrots, spring onions, kale, strawberries, chives, rosemary, basil, lemon thyme, sage, pineapple sage, oregano, cress, lemon balm, parsley, chamomile, liquorice, comfrey, figs, plums, lemons and nectarines.  Plus of course the chickens.  And we have HEAPS more space to use.  And we probably spend about 5-10 hours a week pottering around attending to weeding, pruning, staking, harvesting etc.

The increased value of our quality of life? Priceless.

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Watching our friends’ garden grow since has been so exciting to watch so when we were offered the opportunity to have our own garden blitzed, we couldn’t be more thrilled!

As readers and friends will know, 2010 has not been the easiest for us.  So we couldn’t have been happier to learn something amazingly GOOD was going to happen to us!

We had the amazing design help of Angela, Amanda and Mara, who worked with us to come up with a great plan to transform our garden.  And one slightly boggy Sunday in November about 50 people rocked up to our place and made our dreams a reality.  We had a pretty strict policy of buying as little new stuff as possible.  In the end the new stuff we bought was dirt, sand, gravel, some chicken wire, screws, nails and a gate latch.  Everything else was dug out of our shed, brought by people on the day or scavenged from around our neighbourhood.   I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

BEFORE:

DURING

Pre-gardening stretches led by the awesome Lex. Coupled with the chi kung session after lunch, we cemented our role as the neighbourhood freaks

SERIOUS mud.  We had a clear day but we’d had a months rain the day before and this area was already pretty thick with clay.  MASSIVE respect to the people who worked on this area!

Chook house construction.  Utilising our old outdoor table, a few wooden pallets and an old cabinet unit.

Garden bed construction, featuring the old top of the outdoor table.

Planting!  It’s always the highlight of a blitz, putting in the seedlings everyone brought at the end of the day.

Halfway through the morning we decided that since we had such an awesome turnout we’d do the nature strip too.  Fully planted out with indigenous grasses, small shrubs and ground covers.

And at the end of the day, everyone was EXHAUSTED!!

AFTER

My favourite recycled material was the inside of an old screen door.  We knocked it out of the frame, turned it sideways and attached it to the side of our courtyard frame.  Perfect climbing frame for our happy wanderer!

Arguably the world’s coolest chook house!

Little window sill gardens for the chooks, drip watered from the chook house roof.  Now planted out with marigolds, cress and strawberries.

And arguably the worlds first pallet chook gate with a nice mesh on the actual gate – a perfect cross stitch canvas!  I’ve already stitched a small heart on it and planning a lot more.  I’ve also planted beans on the right side to grow up the timber.  And I just noticed the first one has sprouted today!

Well I reckon that’s enough pictures for one post.  The blitz was just over a month ago and the place has grown so much.  I’ll do another post with updated photos so you can see the transformation. EDIT: it’s here.

But before I wind this one up I just want to say how amazing the permablitz community is.  The Melbourne Permablitz organisation just had it’s 100th blitz (we were #98).  So that means 100 gardens at peoples houses, community centres and gardens and school gardens have been transformed into food producing spaces all thanks to the voluntary hard work of people who truly believe it is possible to turn this world around if we just roll up our sleeves and just bloody get on with it.  And no one got paid, and everyone had yummy food and great times and learnt lots and met new people.

And if that’s not revolutionary then I just bloody don’t know what is.

Our biggest love, thanks and eternal gratitude to everyone who turned up and mucked in.  Can’t wait to repay the favour at your house!

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As readers of Radical Cross Stitch will know I am a big time fan of Melbourne community radio station 3CR.  There is nothing like turning on the ol’ wireless to hear people from my own communities talking about news and issues that are relevant to me and the lives of the people around me.  And it’s even better that I never hear any loud voices screaming at me to quickly empty my pockets into the hands of giant corporate consumerist empires!

So I didn’t hesitate for a second last year when the fine folk there asked me to contribute to the 2010 Seeds of Dissent Calendar.  I still consider that piece to be my greatest stitching achievement so far and I was super happy over the weekend to finally pick it up from the framers after a 12 month hunt for the PERFECT vintage frame.

Well I promised that I’d make the pattern available and at long last it’s now in store.  And if you hurry and grab it over the next couple of days it’s half price (sale ends Friday).  Proceeds go straight to 3CR! If you don’t already know the 3CR Radiothon is on NOW! So you should pop over to their website and become a subscriber. The theme for radiothon this year is Handmade Radio and subscribers get a copy of CRAM which contains a fab pattern to make your own radio! Including some wee cross stitch embellishment patterns from me.

Need more reasons to love 3CR? Check the spunks in this wee clip

3CR Radiothon TVC 2010 from 3cr on Vimeo.

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