Old School
Old School (2012)
It’s Never Too Late to Mend Exhibition – Incinerator Gallery
Bringing the technique of fence stitching into a gallery context, ‘Old School’ is a homage to the embroidery designers of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. ‘Old School’ is a reference to the little understood history of political craft. ‘Old School’ pays tribute to remix culture and those who seek to keep knowledge free.
Catching up
I haven’t posted in a while, but that doesn’t mean I’ve not been crafting. So i thought I should do a roundup of what I’ve been doing.
Let’s start with the most recent finished project: I’ve seen a few blueprint embroideries around (the first was this beautiful rendering of a Frank Lloyd Wright blueprint by Craftster member muddlepud), and wanted to make one of my own. And what would fit a textile nerd better than a part of a Jacquard loom?
I’ve also made a new cross stitch, based on one of a quote from Mythbuster’s Adam Savage. Free pattern here!
And some of the other things I’ve been up to: apart from stitching I’ve been screenprinting, knitting and sewing. Both printing and sewing are techniques i haven’t worked a lot with in a while, so I’m trying to find my way back to them. I’m also trying to get out of my comfort zone by trying new crafts: I’ve signed up to a carpentry class that starts in september (and which I’m looking forward to so much). Hopefully it’ll be inspiring and lead to lots of new ideas.
Pretty girl or riot nerd?
About a year ago I worked for one of the biggest sites on the interwebz which targets a demographic group of kids between nine and seventeen years, handling their costumer support for a couple of weeks. What I thought would be a mind numbing 9-5 job to pay the rent between semesters at Uni, turned out to be a really thrilling and interesting insight into youth culture today. After a year spent writing academic essays on cultural studies, mostly about subculture and its connection to feminism and DIY, I realised that this was a gold mine for anyone interested in girl culture.
The site caters to the idolising, fame seeking, and brand loving youngster and most of the users are girls, from all over the world. It is a mix between a game based around paper dolls and a social community where the users can chat, communicate in groups and discuss their favourite clothing brands, pop icons or basically anything. The paper doll part consists of, on the one hand, pre-made dolls and clothes based on real celebrities ranging from Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears to Kurt Cobain and Joan of Arc, and on the other your own “Me doll”, your alter ego or avatar on the site which you can make up to look exactly as you want when it comes so size, skin colour, eyes, clothes, make up, hair style and so on (as long as you keep within the socially acceptable frames that limits your choices – for example when it comes to body shape/size). It is free to sign up for an ordinary account, but to get the good stuff – buying the nicest outfits, participate in the best competitions or getting your little paws on the coolest eyeliner – you have to pay for a monthly membership and also use your parents Visa card to buy the artificial currency that is used on the site. It is basically the girl version of World of Warcraft, but instead of pretending to be a druid that uses magical positions to kill monsters you buy cute tops, shiny handbags and pretty scarves from Donna Karen.
What I find interesting about this is the subject position these girls claim for themselves in a milieu that is so connected to the female stereotype of body managing, appearance, keeping busy with making yourself up as a woman/girl, instead of using your energy to fight these stereotypes and demands. Stuff that little girls like – ponies, glitter make up, pretty dresses, boy bands, and playing dress up – are seen as cute, unimportant, commercialised and utterly harmless to society. Or as Polly Styrene, the grandmother of punk, puts it; “some people think little girls should be seen, not heard”. Being a girl is not something to be really proud of; the negative connotations of running, screaming or crying like a girl is not just expressions without meaning, they actually say something about the way we regard girls. Also, girl culture is often looked upon from a sort of “non-culture” angle; that it is just looks, an image or fad that young girls adopt one week and discard the next in favour of something new and hip. This in contrast to boy culture, or proper subculture, who is seen as lived culture where age, gender and staying true to the scene are important factors that make up cool.
I myself had (and still have) my doubts and critical thoughts about this kind of gendered, commercial marketing, targeting kids and dragging them into the consumer culture lifestyle. But spending my days answering questions from the sites users and dealing with abuse reports from its community, I discovered something that I hadn’t thought of earlier. It was what I like to call the seedy underbelly of girls, the scheming, lying, bribing, name calling, stealing, hoaxing and cheating that is raging on the site. All the things that good girls don’t do. And all this in a hyper commercialised environment, centred around looks, clothes, accessories, fame, pop culture and branding.
There are young girls coming together, creating a space and culture of their own within a pre-packaged environment, turning it into a arena of pre-teen queens forming secret gangs and cliques, using their html skills to set up mirror sites for stealing passwords, making up new personas, lying, cheating and essentially not being nice. In an odd sort of way, I found this very liberating and, well… fun. Of course I realise that little girls calling each other stuff like “you stupid crack whore” and stealing money from others isn’t a good thing. But I like the fact that this shows that they are agents in their own life, they’re not pretty dolls that just play dress up and sit quiet in a corner. Coming from a teen hood where I myself found feminism through the angry screams of the riot grrrls, a punk phenomena reclaiming the girl as something powerful, good, subversive and bursting with rage, I wish that a society that’s started to regard boy nerd culture (like WoW) as proof of creative modern youth culture, could do the same here. I think that’s what I’m trying to mirror in this cross stitch – the mash up of cuteness, cuddly cats and pastel colours together with a “I don’t owe you anything” attitude that creates its own rules and at the same time, on some level, re-thinks the whole concept of being girly.
Of course I got the quote from a Bikini Kill song.
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?
I just can’t get enough
As you’ve probably noticed by now I’m a sucker for big projects. So I just had to make another one. One more Super Mario Bros 3 map, world 2 this time. Size: 59 x 18 cm on 21 count Aida. It took just under nine months to finish (although I did mix it up with other projects during that time).
(Click for a bigger image)
And a close-up to show off the stitches. 
QRack c.1893: Votes For Women
A little while back I was chatting to the Ninja and she told me about making stop animation clips to show WiP progressions of cross stitch projects. I thought this was a most excellent idea for a few reasons. Firstly, I’m a nerd and I like making films that are a bit different. My absolute favourite film maker of all time is Len Lye who pioneered the idea of directly manipulating the film itself to create wonderful visual effects.
This is my favourite piece:
Free Radicals: 1958. It’s one of his later films. But all the earlier ones are just as cool. I often used to pay a visit to the uni library and sit down for a watch when I needed a bit of time out and some inspiration. And while they’re cool to watch on youtube, watching on actual film is of course, very cool!
Secondly, I’m interested in ways to communicate to people just how slow cross stitch is as a craft. I am constantly explaining to people that my work usually takes months to complete and people are almost always surprised. And I suspect they wonder why I keep doing it… Without going into a big explanation – I’m saving that for another time – what I really enjoy about the slowness of cross stitch is the time it gives me to meditate on the subject I’m stitching about.
So anyway here’s my first animation attempt!
While this piece isn’t a very big one, I thought it leant itself well to the idea. I used iMovie to produce it and it was pretty easy to make. Although the software has changed since I last used it and I couldn’t figure out how to do a couple of things and just gave up trying..
Here’s two imbeds. First from Facebook cause I think it compressed nicer but that doesn’t work for a few people so the second is the youtube version.
Music of the Compuriddims EP on the most wonderful JaHtari Net Label.
This piece is part of a QR Code sequence I’ve been making for an upcoming show, and it’s next in the QRack series. More on that later.
I’d love to hear what people think!
See You In Inner Space
I don’t tend to get too worked up when famous people leave this world, but the passing of J.G. Ballard certainly gave me cause for more than a few moments contemplation. A friend tweeted the quote above – which I thought was quite a sweetly ironic thing to tweet – and I thought it deserved to be immortalised in cross stitch. But certainly not a traditional design.
Rest in Peace brother.
Thanks for the inspiration.
Pattern piece 1 and piece 2 – I recommend stitching it on black aida with white and DMC666 Red floss.
I heart the interwebs
And of course titling a post as such causes the interwebs to hate me right back and trash my post. Sigh..
I wrote this great thing about how cool cross stitchers are ’cause we’re down with our roots and are ace at subverting traditional design, exhibit a, Kate Westerholt. Then I talked about how there’s this super ace pattern floating about which not only gives props to the old skool but also gets down with the nu skool in a mad sampler/pixel art/nerd joke remix.
Here’s the pattern:
And here it is in actual stitches:
And in true web styles, someone else had a go
And woah, it’s taking off now!
How freaking awesome is THAT? I’m tempted to join in the fun and do one myself, but my WIP pile would seriously scream at me..
Props Mr X Stitch for the delicious find.
Oh, and speaking of nerdcore, Elle Carpenter (of HTML Embroidery fame) is up to no good in Sweden, and the Swedes, man, they know ALL ABOUT cross stitch! Check it out.
</laziest blog poste ever>
Some finished stuff!
The thing I love the most about designing patterns is seeing what other people do with them. I haven’t seen any finished ones in a while but I just got two in two days!
Firstly, Megan bought the Question Authority pattern the other day and finished it already! Quickest stitcher in the world award I reckon! And it looks great
Looks cool in that frame too! Which incidentally is way more organised than me on that front..
Also Hali has finished the Firefox pattern!
It’s beautifully stitched and looks gorgeous on the ivory fabric. Yay Hali!
QRacks in the Land
Just before Christmas I was approached and asked to participate in The Streets of Melbourne Festival. It’s the first time this Festival has been run and it’s been designed to showcase and celebrate street culture. Be it dance, performance, music or art. The Festival was run over three days in Federation Square in Melbourne.
I decided to use the opportunity to experiment with some ideas I’d been having about large scale cross stitch works.
Given that Federation Square is a privately run space, I was a bit limited in what I could do in terms of overt political statements. So I decided to go covert.
I’ve been working on stitching QR Codes for some time now. I’ve been doing them on regular Aida fabric (14 count mostly) and they’ve been working really well. So I decided to do it large scale. This project was stitched with black and white finger knitted wool and stitched on animal fencing (which is tough to work with but has a lovely strong and square grid).
QR Codes, or Quick Response Codes are an open source mobile phone read bar code type technology which originated from Japan (download the free reader here). While the Japanese tend to use QR codes for communicating public service information ie public transport timetables. The introduction of QR Codes to Australia has largely been based in advertising (ugh).
So I’ve been working QR Codes in cross stitch as a way of exploring non-corporate alternatives to this potentially very interesting and useful communication medium.
The piece designed for The Streets of Melbourne is designed to make a very clear statement on the irony of a privately owned and operated city square. A space that, within Western culture, has traditionally been the primary space for free speech. And of course this space in particular is part of the traditional gathering grounds for the people of the Kulin Nations.
It is to the Kulin Nations that this piece, QRacks in the Land, is dedicated.
A very special thanks to Emma for support in making this happen!
