Craft Cartel Podcast Episode #7
This episode of the Craft Cartel podcast is a recording of a recent event we hosted in Melbourne called ‘The Revolution is Handmade’.
The first half of the ‘cast is a talk by Rayna and it’s titled ‘The Fabric of Resistance’. This podcast is kinda like Radio With Pictures ’cause you can follow along with the talk with the slideshow below
The musical interlude is a track called ‘Memories’ by Shorti RV (whom I can’t find anything about online, I’m guessing she’s Sydney-based, if anyone knows anything about her can you leave a comment? xox)
The second part of the show is the talk by Dr Joyce Stalker from the University of Waikato, Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand. Dr Stalker talks about fabric crafts and political change. Don’t have the slideshow online sorry, but hopefully will in the future so we’ll update this when happens.
And as always we’d love to hear from you, comment below or drop us a line. And don’t forget to check out the archive if you’re new round here.
The best way to listen to the podcast is to subscribe and download today!
We really don’t like advertising very much round these parts, so if you like what you hear, please make a donation to help support future episodes. It’s what an add-free world sounds like.
p.s. we’re having some serious issues with the plugin that manages our podcast so if you have any problems downloading this please let me know.
Ace.
Crafting for a reason
Here’s some late night linky love. So late in fact, I didn’t finish this post until the morning!
My new favourite Etsy store is culturerevolution. Not my favourite store of all time, that’s still Jellyshoe Rebellion, who now have a Facebook Page become a Fan! Anyhoo it’s cause of this super outfit (which I’d never wear, but love anyway)
” It is made out of a recycled t-shirt and striped knit fabric saved from the scrap trash bin… Be environmentally friendly and fashionable at the same time!
Join the Revolution! Recycle, ReUse, Revolution!”
Speaking of which, when was the last time you crafters out there stopped and had a breather and thought about the processes you use to create your works of genius? Do you think about the reasons you craft? What gets you started and what keeps you making? If you’re like me and into thinking about this stuff a lot, I urge you to read “10 qualities of slow cloth” at Red Thread Studio. It just made me want to run in to my craft room and start making stuff so I could sit there and think about making stuff!
For those of you out there who like to make nice things for other people, you might want to check out a couple of posts that highlight crafting for a cause. Firstly the wonderful Mikes crew have started the Softies for Mirabel Auction. You can go start bidding on your favourite softies now and all the profits go to the Mirabel Foundation who are ACE! There’s still room for more softies. So if you want to do something for some kids who will seriously appreciate, jump over and get on board.
If softies aren’t really your thing then All Natural Me has a great list of a bunch of causes that you can craft for. I especially like the Goods for Girls idea. I’m a huge fan of reducing dependence on wasteful corporate products. So I am a huge raving fan of cloth pads.
I always thought moonpads would be yucky and surfboardy like those big horrible pads you got when you were a kid. But cloth pads are so soft and cuddly and comfy. And infinitely better for the planet. They’re easy to make too or there’s a ton of people selling them online. I recommend the Moonpads Store. Lovely product and lovely service. And you can buy seconds (which don’t really have anything wrong with them) for cheap!
And speaking of crafting for good, we can’t forget what comes before the crafting and that’s the designing. And I just found this super inspiring website that all you designers out there should be subscribing to. It’s called ’101 Things Designers Can Do To Save The Earth’. They’re up to 109, so I’m pleased they’re not limiting themselves (although there hasn’t been any posts in a little while…) There’s a ton of useful and interesting links on there and I reckon it’s definitely not just designers that will find this site useful.
Finally a bit of linky love for my own project. I’ve been busily adding more stuff to the Fabric of Resistance wiki. There’s actually a ton of pages on there now, wee! I recommend you go click on the Random Page link on the left and see some for yourself. And hopefully get inspired to add your own things. If you want to help out with a task that really needs doing, visit the community portal and look at the task list. I’m going to start doing some crafting for a cause projects next!
So there’s a ton of stuff to keep you inspired! Anyone else seen any great conscious crafty projects recently?
xox
Fabric of Resistance – The Wiki
A little while ago I mentioned a new project that was about to begin at Radical Cross Stitch and now it’s time to share it with you all.
The Fabric of Resistance project has been started as a way of recording, archiving and celebrating the awesome herstory of craft based resistance. Originally I was just planning on running a series of profiles of activists, activist groups and campaigns but the more I thought about it the more it make sense to set it up as a wiki.
So http://radicalcrossstitch.com/wiki is the new home of the Fabric of Resistance project. There is only the bare bones of the project up at the moment but I figured now was a good a time as any to bring others on board if they were keen to help out.
I’m about to start building a task list in the community portal so if you’re keen to help, that’s probably a good place to start looking.
But the major piece of help I need is getting the word out there, which is where you come in!
We need this message to go out far and wide to uncover and collect our radical craft past and present. Please write about this on your blogs and tell your friends, activist groups, craft groups, women’s studies departments, grandmothers, customers, anyone you can think of. I’ve drafted a general email below, but feel free to add your own bits.
And have a look around! There’s not much there yet but I’ll be adding a lot more content over the next couple of weeks. And of course, you should too!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Please help spread the word
The Radical Cross Stitch Posse are proud to announce the arrival of their new baby. Out of the clicks of the needles and the desire to celebrate our wonderful creative communities and internet archive of the herstory of radical craft has been born.
The Fabric of Resistance is a non-heirarchical community created archive and celebration of radical craft action and organisation, past and present. The wiki style archive has been established as a resource for radical craft practitioners, historians, students. Fabric of Resistance is a tribute to the creative resistance which is often marginalised by both crafters and activists, yet has provided the visionary spark for great uprisings, revolutions and major social change
So we have started this wiki as a public archive of profiles of activists who use(d) craft as a way of communicating their ideas, resistance and vision. And at some point in the future, all these stories will be collated into a book.
This wiki is a constant work in progress. So this is a call out is for the stories of women and men you know in your community who use craft as a form of resistance.
Please add your stories, preferably with images. We want to know names, dates and issues. But we’re especially interested in the stories behind the work. Tell us about the design processes as well as the creation process. If you want help with questions to ask people let us know.
And please don’t hold back because you think some information you have is not significant enough. Even if you just remember someone’s name from some protest back in the day, add it in because it might be a good lead for some else to follow up on.
Finally, please pass this information on to people you know who might want to help collect these stories. We need this call out to go as far and wide as possible.
Love and rage and solidarity
http://radicalcrossstitch.com/wiki