Colouring in the city
If you went into the city in the weekend, it’s quite likely you saw something a tad unusual. You may have seen a garden in a strange place, a performance that left you scratching your head or a group of people doing something a bit odd. Or you may not have even noticed at all as a group of silent people walked past you, experiencing the sounds of the city without making any of their own.
It was a fantastic weekend of interventions by all the artists involved in the Interventionist Guide to Melbourne. Did you see or hear anything over the weekend? I’d love to hear if you did.
As for the radical cross stitch component, there were two interventions over the weekend. The first was a cross stitch on an existing grid on Lonsdale Street, just near the corner of King Street. There is a beautiful old blue stone building there which is currently a barristers office, but in one of its manifestations was the home of the Seabrook Wine Merchants. Fittingly – at some point in time – a grape vine was planted outside the front and over the years has been trained up the side of the building. To help it along the way, a wire grid was attached to the side of the building.
This is what caught my eye.
During the G20 trials I spent a bit of time in this area and I noticed just how few children were around this part of town. During the week most of them are in school I realise but even small children are noticeably absent. And gee, try taking a pram through court security.. In the weekend this part of the city is a ghost town.
I decided this spot was perfect for a bit of commentary on the invivsibility of children in the urban space.
All the times I’d visited this space previously there wasn’t any greenery on the grape vine. The last time I went past there was a very small amount. So I was delighted to see how much had grown on it. The vine created a perfect frame for what I’d planned to do!
There’s a few more pics on our Facebook Page if you wanna check them out.
The next stage of operations was the Melbourne Bicycle Beautification Society Outing in Flinders Lane. Normally this is a site rich in bicycle basket bounty but Sunday there was very few. So rather than sit there and stitch baskets as they came and went, participants were armed with a zine including instructions, a needle, wool and a thank you tag and sent around the city to find baskets in other places.
Each zine kit had wool to make one of these
And one of these wee tags to say thank you to the owner of the bicycle for being a cyclist
Hopefully I get some more pics from participants over the next couple of days. Were you one of them? Where did you find your basket?
The zine with the instructions and all my thoughts about the issues of intervening in the city will be online for download soon. In the meantime I have a couple more kits with all the bits in them left to giveaway. If you’d like to win one just leave a comment below and tell me what are some of the things you think about when you’re walking through cities.
Overall, a wonderful weekend! Massive thanks and congratulations to Lynda for her brilliant curating. This has been a wonderful show to be a part of and I do hope we get to work together again soon.
Bicycle Beautification
So what are you doing on Sunday?
This weekend is the Interventionist Guide to Melbourne weekend of interventions. The artists will be out and about on the streets creatively intervening with the city. Or as the Craft Cartel blog puts it: an interactive artistic wake-up call to confront all that is predictable and boring in our city.
Initially I was gonna keep mine to sneaking about putting bits and pieces up in strange places for people to find. But I got convinced that it would be much more fun to do something where other people can join in.
So…
The Melbourne Bicycle Beautification Society in association with Radical Cross Stitch and the Interventionist Guide to Melbourne are on a pilgrimage to reward Melbourne’s cyclist for their contribution to leisure, saving the planet, looking good and stopping oil wars.
In an effort to encourage spontaneous and uncontrolled acts of creativity, we invite participants to learn the art of bicycle basket cross stitch.
Materials and instructions will be provided during this casual afternoon of direct action against the pervasive boring of everyday life.
Participants need only turn up to Flinders Lane near the corner of Degraves Lane any time from 2pm until about 4.
This free event is part of the Interventionist Guide to Melbourne intervention weekend. Artists will be out and about from the 17-18th of October encouraging and even inciting random acts of public creativity. For details on other artists and how to engage in their interventions visit http://interventionistguide.org
Not brought to you by any government department or arts funding organisation.
RSVP on Facebook
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?