Barkly Street Addition
So a couple of weeks back I was travelling past the Barkly St fence and decided to jump off the bus to check out how the wool was weathering. And to my enourmously pleaseant surprise I discovered someone had added to it!
It’s not the best photo (I realised later) but it reads “I hear U’ stitched amongst the question marks! And it looked gorgeous!
Massive hellos and respect to the person who did it! Please get in touch xox
So in the weekend I headed back to get some better photos, only to discover someone had come along and cut it all off the fence. Not in any kind of nice way either, all the wool was left lying all over the ground. Hmpf.
So I cracked out some spray glue and stuck piles of it back to the top of the fence. Nowhere near as pretty. But better than it all sitting on the ground.
And still there’s no house there…
Some Interventions and an Opening
Last night saw the official launch of the Interventionist Guide to Melbourne cabinets in Platform Gallery, Flinders Subway, Melbourne. While there is a gallery space where you can go and see work, the true work is on the street, where each artist is spending the month of October encouraging and developing new ways of doing public art in Melbourne.
I have installed four pieces of work around the streets now and planning a fair few more. For those of you in Melbourne, put October 16-18 in your diary as the weekend where all the artists will be hitting the streets for performances, tours, installations and other creative bits and pieces.
Two of the four pieces have already been on here:
And here’s some pics of the latest couple.
You might recognise the last piece from here.
For this show us artists were asked to consider urban space: how it’s built, how we relate to it, how others relate to it. And for me it is very much about questions of ownership, access, power and control. My experiences of Melbourne’s CBD have been quite varied; as a worker, an activist, a resident, a mother, a pregnant woman, a public transport user, a cyclist, a pedestrian. None of those experiences have meant much control in the space so I’ve managed to experience quite varied forms of discrimination in that space.
I’m also very aware of the access issues other people face. Those in wheelchairs is a prime example. It’s hard enough getting around with a pram sometimes, but even harder with a wheel chair. You learn a whole different path of navigation around the city that able bodied people just don’t ever need to consider. Another example is the elderly. I do know people who live in Melbourne who haven’t visited the CBD in over a decade because it’s just too hard and intimidating. They prefer the relative safety of the suburbs where they can get everything they need without the (media driven) fear of the city space. And there’s of course other reasons, language especially.
This all means that there is a large amount of people who are simply excluded from that space, they are invisible.
I got wondering just how many other people thought about these issues and I figured probably not too many. Discrimination tends not to be something you think about until you experience it, and spatial experience is something that even those that experience it, aren’t necessarily aware of. The idea that our cities and buildings are designed by and for able-bodied white guys is such a given that considerations for other needs are rarely made.
I always find department stores pretty amazing in their design. If you stop and look at actually who uses a department store, women are by far the majority. Yet even their designs rarely accommodate their needs. If it’s a multi story building you will almost always find the baby wares department above or beyond ground level. So a woman with a pram is going to need to negotiate at least one floor change to get there. And given you aren’t supposed to use an escalator with a pram it can sometimes take longer to get to the department you want than to find the actual item you’re looking for once your there. And that’s if you can get through the aisles. It’s astonishing how many shops selling baby things I have been into with a pram that have aisles narrower than the average pram..
So a lot of the pieces I’m doing are talking about different peoples’ relationships with space. And also the stuff that moves through the space. Especially given a fair chunk of the urban space is dedicated to the peddling of stuff.
The piece above on the rubbish bin is one such piece. Very much geared towards encouraging people to consider how easily and flippantly we throw things away. Rather than focussing on whether you can recycle something or not, I’m more interested in people thinking about why they needed this throw away thing in the first place. It seems that so many people still believe that the solutions to climate change and the rampant abuse of our planet are decisions to be made by politicians and CEOs. While those people certainly have a role, the role of the consumer in changing their own behaviour is just as, if not more important. In a country with the highest per capita emissions in the world, we really need to start thinking about why we invest so much energy in making things just to have a short, uninteresting interaction with the thing and then throw it away. There’s got to more to life.
So these are just some of the issues that I think about when engaging with the urban fabric. And I am sure these are completely different to the issues the other artists consider. I urge you to visit the website and visit the gallery and check them all out.
And most importantly, I urge you to grab a map from the gallery and get out into the city and consider your own relationships with the spaces within and what opportunities you see for artistic practice and engagement. Then head back to the gallery and share your ideas with the rest of us!
And now for some pics of the opening. Thanks to all who came it was a great night!
The Great Xtreme Destash
With an expanding family it was time to make some tough decisions about space in our house. I made the big call and offered to hand over my craft room to be the new guest room. Then the existing guest room (which adjoins Tara’s room) can become Tara’s new big girls room.
It was a tough call to make. But when I looked at it from an efficiency perspective it was quite obvious. I don’t actually craft in there very often. I was limited to being in there when Tara was asleep otherwise a) I couldn’t watch her or b) she’d tear the room apart. So I really wasn’t in there much. And it was turning into a giant hoard room. Hardly practising what I preach when it comes to sustainable crafting.
So I decided to set myself a challenge to consolidate the room to one filing cabinet and one tall set of shelves. I’m only allowed to keep what will fit in there. This means getting rid of a heap of stuff.
Readers might remember last year Cate from Polka Dot Rabbit started the Buy Nothing Craft Month. It completely changed my crafting. Rather than buying piles of crap because I might make something out of it one day. I stopped buying and started making. It did truly radical things to my output and my savings! Other than embroidery floss and sometimes aida fabric I’ve pretty much stopped buying stuff. But I got given a fair bit so the stash wasn’t going down too far.
But now I’m getting serious!
My mission is to make, give away, or sell as much out of that room as I can over the next couple of months. And I’m gonna share the results. But to add a bit of a challenge I’m going to try not to throw any of it away. So I’m trying to find uses for all the scraps too. Given the massive environmental impacts of the textiles industry, I believe we’re obliged to at least try to find uses for our scraps. And given the resources out there, it shouldn’t be too difficult.
A little while ago a friend gave me the book Generation T – 108 ways to transform a t-shirt (warning – last time I opened their website there was a blimmin loud auto play video on it that started with an ad. I’d mute before clicking..). It’s a fantastic resource and filled with heaps of ideas on how to reuse fabric. While most of the projects do rely on t-shirts in an existing form, a fair few of them don’t. And a bunch of them don’t even need t-shirt fabric.
I’ve been inspired by a couple of projects. Firstly there’s a great tutorial on how to make an ‘it’ doll. A nice wee baby friendly gender-neutral soft doll. Given how livid the mainstream toy industry makes me, I thought it made perfect sense to get organised and make my own. Now I have a stash of future presents and stall items for markets!
The first bunch I made I used some terry towling I had lying around.
Believe it or not, I wasn’t actually intending to make aliens. It was just a fluke I picked the green fabric. And it wasn’t until I finished them I had that ‘would you look at that’ moment. I gave one to the neighbours wee boy and he loves chewing on it. The best things about them is that they can be thrown in the washing machine if they get dirty – perfect baby toys!
I decided to have another go making them but with a bit of variation.
I call these ones ‘little hugs’. Gave them extra long arms so they can give their friends lots of big cuddles. And I gave them faces; stitched on, so there’s no dangerous fally off choky bits.
I’m quite proud of them, they look really cool! And were nice and easy to make. I think all up it took me about three hours to make four of them at a time. Can’t wait to give them to some certain little people…
Next up is still a WIP. But I decided to get into my scraps bag and make something fun with all the crazy unmatched scraps in there. Another project in the Generation T book is a couple of great patterns for rugs. I decided to make a braided one as a new mat for our toilet. Our existing one is pretty damn ugly. And it’s a room in our house that needs more craft in it!
All you have to do is cut your fabric into strips, stitch the strips together (I used a zig zag stitch on the sewing machine but you can hand stitch it no problems), braid three lengths together and then using a running stitch/whip stitch, stitch the braid on the under side into a spiral. It’s a bit slow to do but it looks cool! And a great way to use a heap of fabric. I started with three lengths about 3 metres long and I’ve got a rug about 30cm wide. I need to add another couple of metres worth I reckon, to make it big enough for a loo mat.
This last shot shows the underside. The red thread is my running stitch holding it together.
This is a great project for using very different types of fabric since they get mixed up so nicely. I used everything from nice japanese cottons to upholstery fabric selvedge. It’s a fun way to remember all your past projects! Will post a pic when it’s finished.
My craft room is also supplying all the resources I need for the Interventionist Guide. Other than a roll of gutter guard I picked up from an op shop. Everything in the show is coming out of my stash.
I’m also planning to sell a few things. Mostly things I know other people could really appreciate that I’m simply not appreciating enough. All in the Radical Rags store and living in the vintage supplies section. Yesterday I listed a couple of Golden Hands books. They’re in excellent condition. Don’t think the original owner ever used them. And I haven’t either.. I’ve got a few of them to list yet so if you’re a collector and have a hole in your collection, let me know and I’ll let you know if I’ve got it.
So it’s a blimmin big mission but one I’m determined to complete. Stay tuned for updates.
In the meantime I have to share this pic of Tara. I so wish I was as cool as her 
MRCC gets more press!
The latest Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle action already got in the local paper. And to add to that I did an interview on 3CR’s fabulously awesome DIY Arts Show – which you can listen to online now.
AND today a story has appeared in The Vine about it.
Yay!
RCS in the paper
After the latest action by the Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle in Footscray, one of the local papers, The Star, wrote a story about it. Including a lovely bad ass guerilla crafter pic!
What the…
Readers of Radical Cross Stitch will remember last year when the Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle got out in Footscray and stitched ‘I Wanna Live Here’ on the fence on the corner of Barkly St and Commercial Road. Here’s the award-winning short film by Anna Brownfield as a refresher
So almost a year on and some philistine (guessing the landlord..) cut it off! Clearly not happy with the community questioning the ongoing waste of such a precious resource the local landmark was destroyed.
The MRCC was clearly not going to let this go unresponded to. So a few days later we were out again, this time armed with bright green wool and tummies filled with Pho.
What the hell is going on?
Why is this block still empty?
Why are there 11 other vacant sites around the primary school?
Why does the State Government continue to believe the outright lies of the property industry that the housing crisis is driven by lack of land?
Why do we still allow this waste of our most precious resource when there’s over 100,000 people every night in Australia with no place to live, let alone call home?
We’ve had enough.
Green Renters
Anyone who’s ever rented a place will know how hard it is to get your landlord to fix something when it’s broken. Unless you have a dream landlord – or your landlord lives with you – it can take bloody ages.
I remember living in a flat at university which was owned by a lecturer and managed by her daughter. They were pretty good landlords but were right into spending as little as possible on the place. That meant the daughters husband was made to do any alterations on their houses. He was a lovely bloke but not really that competent.
One day we were told that they were going to fix up our (centuries old) side footpath. This was great – we thought – until the work fixing the footpath broke the (centuries old) sewerage pipes under the footpath. Needless to say we went without a loo for far too long for a house of four twenty something women, and the place stunk for weeks!
Everyone has a story like this. It does seem so much easier to own your own place. But with housing affordability at its worst point since WW1 in Australia for far too many owning is just way out of the question. (And for those of you considering buying? Don’t. Read this.)
So for those of you out there in rentland who are conscious of the fact we live on a finite planet and are looking for ways to reduce your house’s impact on the earth, there is a brilliant new site for you!
Green Renters is “a blog for those who rent but still strive to lead an ecologically and environmentally sound existence”. The site is chocka full of tips on how to increase the efficiency of your home life without major renovations and also good strategies for convincing your landlord that the major sustainable renovations are a good idea.
Did you know that the home insulation rebate is turning into a properly funded thing on July 1? That means that people on lower incomes can get their home insulated for free from July 1. The grant is only for owner-occupiers but there’s a few people I know that live with their landlord, so if that’s you, make sure your lord sees this!
Green Renters is a super resource and I recommend you all take a look. Even if you do own your own home there’s a ton of good resources on how to do things cheaper and better for our lovely earth.
Hooray!
Textile Tragedies
Over the weekend I had the immense pleasure of attending the Melbourne Social Forum. It was a super inspiring weekend and I made some amazing connections with lots of people. I was there under the banner of the Craft Cartel to both run a workshop and a stall.
I had a super awesome time with the stall. Not really ’cause I sold heaps of stuff but it was a great opportunity to meet some customers face to face. And nice to sell some things I’ve had for a while. And some new things! Like my police tape wallet I made last week. Sold it to this nice young lad who’d been feeling real guilty about buying a $1.50 wallet obviously made in a sweatshop, especially since it started falling apart real quick. Not only did I help him with a new wallet made out of Victoria Police TRASH (naughty litter bugs) but I showed him how to easily repair it if it starts to show signs of wear. I’m thinking I’ll make a couple more of these and put them online for sale.
What was most fun for me running this stall was having the opportunity to talk to people about the sustainability issues around textile production. It seems that with an increasing environmental awareness there’s plenty of people who know they should be conscious of water, energy, fuel, and paper consumption but there is little awareness about the massive waste that’s occuring with textiles.
What I found was that people understand that they should be aware of the materials that new clothes are made of. There’s a good awareness of the environmental impacts of cotton growing and the benefits of wearing bamboo and hemp. But not many people realised that most of the environmental impacts of cotton production isn’t the growing of the cotton (although that is definitely a big issue!) but also in the processes of turning cotton from raw material into cloth, especially coloured cloth!
And that’s just the production of material.
What really concern me is the massively ineficient use of fabric in our society. So many clothes are being worn only a handful of times and then literally ending up in a landfill. It surprised many people to realise that only about 8% of clothes donated for charity actually get resold. Most of it is shredded for things like filling furniture. But a fair heap of it is too dirty and torn or whatever and ends up being turfed.
We need to be so much smarter with our use of fabric. We need to start by buying better quality clothes that are made from good quality sustainable fabrics and made to withstand a fair wear. We need to learn to repair the clothes we have so they last longer. We need to think of other uses for our clothes when we’re finished using them. We need to ensure we donate all wearable clothes in a nice and clean condition to our op shops so they can be sold again.
Because at the moment tons and tons and tons of clothes end up like this every year:
And that creates more of a need for the toxic sweatshop slums spreading throughout the developing world
Does that make you sick? I sure hope so.
So after plenty of conversations to fire me up, I really enjoyed presenting the workshop ‘The Fabric of Resistance’ which was about radical craft history, both contemporary and historical. And looking into the ethics of contemporary craft which really dealt with some of the issues around sustainability and production.
We had an awesome session and were super lucky to have it in a beautiful hand made Mongolian Gur. Which I sadly didn’t get a picture of but I’m tracking one down to put up here. Thanks to everyone who came and made the workshop really successful. And for those who didn’t, here’s the slideshow:
Yes, another world IS possible!
Badgeriffic
I’m getting super excited counting down to this years’ Melbourne Social Forum, which is on in just TWO WEEKS! If you’re never been to a social forum before, it’s kind of like a global economic summit but without the white guys in suits, massive military presence and counter-productive outcomes. The social forum movement arose as an alternative to the globalisation wave that was sweeping the planet at the end of the last millennium, based around the idea that ‘another world is possible’.
At social forums, grassroots activists who work in the fields of social, economic and environmental justice get together and update each other on campaigns, talk about their work and share skills and resources.
This Melbourne Social Forum there’s gonna be a pretty decent craft presence as the movement is really coming to grips with the idea that a big part of sustainability is making more of the things we use in our lives. The Craft Cartel is doing a workshop (details to come) about craftivism and some of the issues around the consumerisation of craft.
And of course, there’s gonna be a market at the social forum! There’s going to be heaps of different organisations with stalls so you can learn about all the campaigns going on and find out what you can do to support them. And there’s going to be a heap of local, handmade stuff on stalls. I borrowed a badge maker to make some more stuff to go on my stall and spent yesterday happily making mixed media badges. There’s some at the top of the post. Like? You better come to the Melbourne Social Forum!
Bikes Not Bombs
I’m proud to be finally posting this one up! This has been one of my ‘leisure’ stitches, ie a stitch I’ve not done for any particular purpose, just for the fun of it. And it’s next in my series of Tapysteria Hacks (see the previous piece for a backgrounder on the series).
This doiley was found in a Salvation Army store (can’t remember where, it was a long time ago!) and had a price tag of 20 cents.
*sigh*
That’s cheaper than a second hand McDonalds toy.
*sigh*
So I decided that it should be added to and brought back to a state of appreciation. I’d been wanting to stitch this slogan for a while as it’s one of my faves. I don’t care if it’s a bit cliché. There’s still too many bombs and not enough bikes!
I used a varieagated thread for this piece and I reckon it came out really well. I used a thread to match the border as the outline. What was quite tricky about this piece was that the fabric weave is really, really loose. So I had to be quite careful with the tension to ensure that the fabric didn’t warp.
The problem I have now is that I really don’t know what to do with it. There’s a few options:
1. frame it
2. use it as doily
3. sew a backing on it and turn it into a bike flag
4. sell it as is
5. something else?
I have no idea. Have you got any thoughts?