SITE: Digital Embroidered Commons at Sculpture Now!?!
Righto! Who’s up for a stitch-a-long?
Radical Cross Stitch is teaming up with Public Assembly to create a contribution to the Digital Embroidered Commons project that’s being facilitated by the amazing Ele Carpenter. We will be stitching the term SITE and we want you to help!
We’re creating an installation piece as part of the Sculpture Now!?! exhibition at the Yarra Sculpture Gallery and we are creating a craft room inside the gallery for the purposes of stitching the term together. And we’d love you to join us.
We will be in the gallery for three making sessions. Each session complete with cups of tea, baked goods and of course, radical discussion.
“SITE: Location, both as in the fact of being somewhere, and also, as in the answer to the question of “where”, that “somewhere” is. Hence, situation.”
Step into our craft room, make yourself a cuppa and pick up a needle. All welcome, no experience necessary. Join us as we embrace the radical political and artistic spirit of centuries of craft circles to unpick the big issues of the day.
xxxxx
Public sessions:
Friday 27th August 5-8pm (open session – this is the official opening of the show so will be a tad busy..)
Thursday 2nd September 1-4 (limited spaces, RSVP kids welcome)
Sunday 5th September 1-4 (limited spaces, RSVP kids welcome)
The installation is viewable as a snapshot of a work in progress at all other times
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Sculpture Now!?! will deliver a snapshot of the current thematic and conceptual influences that inform contemporary sculptural practice in Australia. The artists range from emerging to established with an emphasis on innovation and experimentation. The exhibition aspires to shed some light on the myriad of diverse trajectories in which sculptural practice is heading.
Other artists participating: Stelarc, Hannah Bertram, Rod McRae, Karleena Mitchell, Petra Svoboda, Junky Projects, Eliza-Jane Gilchrist, Linelle Septo, Lucie Hallenstein
Making it Handmade
I’m sorry folks, I’ve not really been quite up with the play with the blogging thing recently. But I’m trying to get better I promise! One really super important thing that I let slip was the fact that I’M IN A FILM! And so is Casey, and Gemma and Pip! And even better, Anna made it (mostly) all by herself!
Anna in Frankie Magazine
Making it Handmade is a documentary about:
A seditious and subversive subculture is gaining momentum in Melbourne. But rather than wielding megaphones and placards, they’re cross-stitching slogans on hurricane wire and constructing plush female genitalia from craft supplies.
Following four local women who’ve taken a seemingly staid past-time and injected it with a youthful, modern aesthetic, filmmaker Anna Brownfield shows a side of craft more closely aligned with punk DIY culture than with Martha Stewart and ‘home sweet home’ tapestries.
“I wanted to show that craft was no longer daggy but had moved into a new era and was being reclaimed by women who had been brought up as feminists.” – filmmaker Anna Brownfield
And it’s AWESOME! Making it Handmade just had its premiere screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival and was insanely popular. There was only one screening and it was one of the first to sell out. And there was so many people sad they missed out. But don’t fret, there are more screenings being planned as I type. There’s also plans afoot to take the film to other centres so those of you in far off places can see the awesomeness too.
After the screening there was a short panel with Anna, Casey, Pip, Gemma and myself and there was some nice interesting questions asked. I’ve had some amazing feedback from people since the screening. Friends have told me they had their horizons shifted once again and strangers have got in touch with overwhelming levels of inspiration bubbling out of them!
So were you there? What did you think? What was your favourite bit? My favourite bit was watching all the happy people making stuff and seeing my now three and a half year old looking little and cute as a one year old! It was exciting for her too. It was the first time Tara had ever been to the movies and she was in it! Not many kids can say THAT.
For more information and to keep up with future screening news check out Anna’s blog http://www.annabrownfield.blogspot.com I’ll try let you know too. But yeah, bit slack on the blogging..
xox
Love Is…
2010.
Such a futuristic sounding year isn’t it? Brings to mind images of spaceship looking cars, whiz bang robots, intergalactic councils of funny looking folk with tentacles sticking out of their cheeks. Possibly not? How bout a time where people use renewable energy, recycle and reuse materials as much as possible, public transport is quick, clean and efficient, our food is organically grown by local producers, and all peoples are free from oppression and discrimination. One would think that sounds more likely, but sadly it doesn’t seem to be the case.
The upcoming Australian elections seem to be about the least important things. Politicians looks and appearances, shady backroom dealings, gimmicks and media trickery. Anyone who saw the leaders debate will be astutely aware that vision is sorely lacking in this election and rather than striving to demonstrate who might be the better leader, both major party leaders seem to be stuck in the great race to the ideological bottom.
I’ve always been a firm believer in the politics of love. Elections should be a chance for the community to declare their aspirations, visions and ideals. Rather than spend time dwelling on what makes us afraid and angry. Our elected representatives make daily decisions on an amazing range of issues. They take the time to think about the stuff most of us would never be bothered to think about. And our lives flow so much more smoothly because behind the scenes our politicians work very hard on what can sometimes be insanely mundane matters.
When we chose who we want to represent us, it’s not just about where they stand on one or two issues. Just as important, it’s about how they see the future of our world and how they approach decision making as a skill.
Sadly I can’t vote in this election, but if I could, the main factor I would use for my decision making would be the candidates’ commitment to basic levels of social and environmental justice. This election is about far more than tax breaks and ‘border’ ‘security’. This election we need to elect a group of people adequately prepared to put aside the silly tricks and take responsibility for some true leadership. If we don’t, it’s our grandchildren we need to answer to.
What qualities do you look for in a leader?
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On that note, how frickin ridiculous is it that we still have to have conversations about legal equality? When we look for candidates who have sound decision making practice, a very easy indicator is if they believe it’s ok to withold basic legal rights based on a persons sexuality. And even more importantly, are prepared to stand up, be a leader, and help change the laws that discriminate. Sadly it seems too many of our ‘leaders’ have decided it’s politically safer to pander to fear and hate than to take the just path and stand up for what is right.
So when the gorgeous Ali got hold of me last year and said ‘hey I found some old patterns that need subverting and you’re just the person to do it’, I took one look at what she sent and knew exactly what needed to be done.
I had such a lovely time stitching what became affectionately known as ‘my boys’. And you can too. The pattern is for sale in our store and 50% of all sales will go to the equallove.info campaign. Because after all, love knows no borders, no religions, and most importantly, no discrimination.
xox
Rayna
p.s. you might notice things look a bit different round here. Yip, in the middle of redecorating. Click on one of the images in this post. See that? Clever huh? I got that going all by myself 
There’s more to come, keep an eye out. And please let me know if you have any feedback, I’d love to hear it.
Talking Craft and Crafting Craft
Hi folks
How are ya? Things are cruising along rather nicely in Radical Cross Stitch land; projects slowly coming to completion, babies growing nicely, plenty of baking going on. Goodness this winter is a bit chilly isn’t it? Really can’t wait for Spring and Summer to brighten our lives again.
In the meantime, there’s a couple of events coming up you should know about.
Firstly, as part of the State of Design Festival, the Craft Cartel is going to be part of a panel discussion during the Counter Point project at Melbourne Central. Together with Citizens of Elysium, Clothing Exchange and The Social Studio, we’ll be chatting about the social and environmental realities of consumerist culture and what the alternatives are. I’m really looking forward to this event, there’s some great people on the panel and it’s part of a really interesting and subversive larger project. I do hope you can come along!
(click on images for larger view)
Next up on the events calendar is SUPER TOP SECRET and I truly can’t tell you about it yet. But it is ACE!!!!!! and it’s about craft and it has some other super people involved and it’s in Melbourne on August 1st. So put that day in your diary, I swear I’ll tell you all the details as soon as I can. One word though. SQUEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! Ok one more word, POPCORN.
Flicking over in the calendar a bit the Craft Cartel are heading to Sydney in October to participate in We Craft This City at Object Gallery. We’re pretty super excited about this one! We may even be heading up a bit earlier to do some sunny, spring time crafting in the park to get people ready and excited about the show. Will let you know if that happens. But what’s definitely happening is some hard core Craft Cartel knitted dynamite action. And you can be part of the fun! Just pop over to the tutorial and grab yourself some wool. We’re trying to get the worlds largest knitted ammunition cache together. We’d LOVE you to help!
Finally 3CR subscribers would have already got your copy (I think..) but the theme of this years Radiothon was ‘Handmade Radio’ and the lovely Nicole asked me to help her make a handmade radio tutorial. Nicole did some ace instructions for a plushie radio and I contributed some patterns for some speech bubbles to come out of the radio. Pretty darn fun!
And to help with the super important efforts of keeping community radio on air, I will pledge $20 for anyone who sends me photos of their completed hand made radio. G’arn!
(click on images for larger view)
Extreme refashioning
In other news, the Craft Cartel has been a bit blimmin busy.
Last weekend kicked off the Anti-Gentrification Festy Fest in Fitzroy. We got together with Earthsharing Australia and started talking about the crazy state of our economy and what impact it’s having on creative peoples, and young people. And we thought it was a bit mad that this boom bust system which seems to be all about property speculators totally cashing in everytime a community starts making things a bit more blimmin interesting. It seems to us that the world would be a much radder place if we could all afford to make and grow things and hang out in our communities. looking after each other more. Instead we’re all stuck working stupid hours in boring ass jobs trying to pay the rent which never seems to stop going up. And don’t even think about buying a house ’cause the baby boomers have got all the land locked up and are quite content charging younger generations whatever they can to fund their retirement.
SO
Rather than sit around bitching and moaning about it or throwing our arms up in dispair that we can’t do anything about it we thought let’s get some creative people with creative brains together to try come up with some SOLUTIONS.
The festival has started brilliantly with a giant gory craft session with the old Tote hotel carpet as our chief material. Casey donned a ballgown made out of the stuff by the stupidly talented Kathryn Jamieson and thanks to some hardcore stinky branding, festivalgoers got to take home their own Tote souvenier doormat. Also on hand was a mad fun Lagerphone making workshop.
Best of all the bar was aflush with wonderful conversations about potential models for change and plenty of stories were told about histories of creative resistance against the landed gentry.
The festival continues with an exhibition in the windows of the Workers Club with the Ballgown and other crafty carpety stinky artifacts. And finishes off on the 27th at the Workers Club with the DIE YUPPY, DIE! concert and festy fashion jam.
We’re also putting together a zine of IDEAS and THINGS YOU CAN DO to smash the property monopoly that has our beautiful creative selves captive. If you missed out submitting your idea at the Festival in the weekend, you can submit an idea via our website. And we’ll pop it in.
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Also,
Craft Cartel presents:
Vogue – Bike Fashion Jam
DIY BICYCLE GEAR WORKSHOP TO KEEP THE COPS & THE FASHION POLICE HAPPY
11:00 – 13:00
Saturday 19 June 2010
Coburg Library
Cnr Victoria & Louisa Streets, Coburg
Craft Cartel, alarmed by sights of fluoro lycra clad cyclists and equally aghast at the thought of coming a cropper while partaking in our favourite form of transport, are proud to present a solution: High Viz Vogue, a DIY bike fashion workshop.
The event, which is part of the Moreland City Council Coburg Carnivale, invites members of the public to adapt helmets and other clothing bits they’d like to make roadway and catwalk friendly, or to start from scratch using supplied materials. Local designers Miss Viz will be on hand to provide guidance and there will be displays of innovative bike fashion solutions such as designer Ann Maher’s ‘biker bustle’.
The event will culminate in a fashion parade with prizes supplied by Crumpler and will be followed by a celebratory ride through Moreland to parade the new hip gear led by Sugar Spokes all female bike crew.
“We don’t think riders should have to choose between having a sore body and being an eyesore,” says Cartel co-founder Casey Jenkins, “You can look hot while you’re cycling and still keep yourself safe, we’re going to show you how.”
Free! No experience necessary! All materials supplied. Ace prizes from Crumpler to be won.
A bit of this, a bit of that
Hi folks
I’m not doing terribly well at the blogging these days since I rarely have two hands free. And try as I might, I just can’t stand the tedium of trying to write with one hand. So I have been keeping my updates in Twitter land and my new Tumblr.
Are you on Tumblr? It is FUN! It’s kind of like blogging but more asthetic. It’s almost like mini curating. There seems to be two types of Tumblrs. There’s people Tumblrs, where people just post and reblog all the stuff they like and then there’s theme based Tumblrs which anyone can submit to so long as it fits the theme criteria.
I started a Tumblr account for Radical Cross Stitch and already have a bunch of followers and have found a whole bunch of interesting people to follow. I’m especially enjoying finding all the activisty, vegany, crafty, feministy womyn out there. Tumblr sure seems to be a great way to surround yourself in like minded awesome people.
I’ve also started another couple of accounts (because I got carried away!) and these are theme based ones. Inspired by great accounts like Fuck Yeah, Owls! and Fuck Yeah, Cultural Appropriation!! I started Fuck Yeah, Granny Square.
Firstly I started FYGS because it was such a brilliantly lovely rhyme and I couldn’t believe no one had already done it. Also Granny Squares are FREAKIN AWESOME and absolutely deserve a tribute site (or ten). The FYGS blog has been set up as a community one so anyone can submit so you should totally go and submit your favourite pics.
If you need some extra inspiration, there’s a couple of cool projects online that you can check out. Firstly Little Miss Apocolypse got inspired to do a call out for radical squares to make a collective afghan. This is such a cool idea and I reckon the aim will be to auction off a final piece to fund raise for some cool revolutionary organisation. Maybe RAWA? Dunno, anyone got any ideas? In the meantime, jump aboard and crack out your crochet hook.
And if you need incentive to actually finish one, check out the Meet Me at Mikes Granny Square a Day 2010 challenge (yeah I know it’s June, but it’s never too late to start something fun!).
The irony of all this granny square enthusiasm is that I don’t actually know how to make them myself (sigh). BUT I want to! So hopefully all this excitement will lead to me getting off my bum and DOING it. I am enlisting help and the lovely and awesomely clever at doing granny square, Gemma Jones is coming over for a solstice feast and I’m going to bat my eyelashes until she sits down and shows me. Promise I’ll share my results. You should join in too! If I can, anyone can!
Since Tumblrs are so much fun I got carried away and set up Fuck Yeah, Vintage Craft (I know, I’m hours away from rehab). I’ve always wanted a space to put all the beautiful/hilarious photos in all my vintage craft books. And there’s so many clever people out there photographing vintage craft supplies and finished pieces. So I set up FYVC to celebrate the beauty in vintage craft. This is also a public blog so if you’ve got stuff to submit, please do!
Finally, there’s been a bit of fun and games going on at our Facebook Page. If you don’t like us yet, please do! We’re almost at 1000! The best bit about the Page is seeing the Fan pics that people add of their latest projects. There’s been some brilliantly inspiring stuff. Would love to see yours!
Stay tuned for some Craft Cartel newsy writeup!
xox
Don’t Hate the Media, Be the Media
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.
A new Kiva loan
At long last I got around to making a new Kiva loan! (check out my other loans here). And I’m pretty excited about this one! It had been getting hard to find actual makers to lend to, but recently there seems to have been an influx so this time it was pretty easy. But I was extra happy to find a maker who is making traditional craft for local use.
Señora Teresa is dedicated to the sale of jewelry on credit in the zone of Pampahasi. She has performed this activity for three years. She is very well known in the area and the orders that she fills are for craft jewelry for ladies who wear the traditional clothing, since they use large jewels for their hats, the fastening on their cloaks, rings and large earrings. She has some complete sets of jewels that are very pretty and expensive, all bathed in gold. She buys the jewels and later sells them in her jewelry shop.
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The loan will be invested in the purchase of rings and earrings, since she has orders for a festival that is held each year in the zone of Pampahasi. The jewels are used traditionally for the dances of the Morenada or Dances of the Dark, which is a folkloric Bolivian dance where the dancers disguise themselves in black adorned with prominent characteristics and the celebrants use these jewels for adorning their hats and to fasten their cloaks. Señora Teresa this very grateful to Emprender and Kiva for the confidence shown her in granting the loan.
Sounds like an amazing festival, I’d love to go check it out sometime!
My loan was counted towards the Etsy.com Handmade lending team, which is starting to make a bit of impression in the Kiva community. We now have 94 members and over $6000 in loans. Still a way to go to catch up to the Athiest Team that has over $2million in loans! Any Etsy peeps out there wanna join us and help top the 100 member mark?
Dear Stephen Conroy…
See I think internet censorship is silly, rather pointless, and inevitably ineffective. I would even go so far as to say that it is a policy equivalent of fucking for virginity.
Our political leaders are supposed to introduce policies that REDUCE the problems in the most cost effective way. Not flick rubber bands at problems in a way that not only makes them harder to solve but creates a whole new raft of problems in the process, not to mention costing a big bundle of dollars.
If the government really wants to deal with the problems of sexual exploitation in our society perhaps they might want to start by looking at their own policies that treat women and children like tradeable commodities. Perhaps if the exploitation of women and children wasn’t so wholeheartedly endorsed by business, media, police, our governments etc etc then people wouldn’t find the sexual exploitation of women and children so enticing.
But big picture issues and solutions don’t fit so neatly into electoral terms do they?
What gets me the most about this whole internet censorship thing is the AUDACITY of the Minister to say that it’s to help parents protect their children.
Excuse me? If I needed help protecting my kid, I’m afraid the government is probably the last place I’d look. I would much prefer tax payer dollars were spent educating parents, teachers and anyone else who has interaction with kids and computers on the issues surrounding net safety, respect for women and how to empower kids to protect themselves.
Do we seriously think rape and sexual assault would be such big problems if our kids were empowered to respect all genders. I know thinking back to my teenage years there were far too many guys who thought it was ok to treat girls like objects and even more girls who just did not have the skills to stand up to it.
At some point we, as a society, have to do something real about this issue. And sadly, despite the rhetoric of ‘Australia Says No’ I doubt it’s gonna come from the government. So it has to be up to us as parents, aunties, uncles, grandparents, siblings and friends. Anyone wanting to read more on feminist parenting might want to start with ‘Raise Some Hell’. And if anyone reading this post knows of any good resources it would be awesome if you could share them in the comments.
Finally, I urge you all to drop a line to Stephen Conroy. He really is being quite a fool about all this malarky. And the more people who tell him the better.
http://nocleanfeed.com/
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This cross stitch was hand stitched on antique linen. In between breast feeding, changing and entertaining twins and feeding and hanging out with a three year old, it took me about 3 weeks to complete. It has been framed in an antique brass frame with the original mounting board to complete the aged feel of this piece.
This piece is for sale and proceeds will go to the campaign to stop internet censorship. Maybe someone out there wants to buy it for Stephen Conroy?
You can never kill an idea
I’ve been promising new patterns for a while and here’s the first of a new bunch.
This design is getting back to some old school roots with a lovely redwork antique border. And a quote from one f my favourite films of all time, The Edukators. This quote was sprayed on a wall in the film and I love it!
And I have a guest stitcher for this pattern, the adorably ace Curegreed who you may also know from her guest blogging at Mr X Stitch about her studies at the Royal School of Needlework (for which I am INSANELY jealous). We met last year at a Craft Cartel crafternoon when she was visiting these fair shores for a wedding. And I’m so excited to be doing more work together.
You can buy it in the Radical Rags store for a special intro price of only $5, score!