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!
Reminder: Wellington Talk Tomorrow!
See you there!
Patch Your Pants! Smash The State!
One day I’ll make it to this:
Revolutionary Craft Circle, Thursday October 30th, 7-9pm
Get your craft on and get down to Loophole on the 2nd and fourth Thursday of the month for a Sewing good time! No experience necessary, spontaneous skill-sharing predicted, bring a project you have or start something new! Patches available by donation, BYO pants/clothes to sew, other DIY Projects welcome. Sewing machine available to use. People of all gender identities welcome.
At Loophole, 834a High Street, Thornbury, Melbourne. Say hi from me!
Mosaic Liberation
Those of us in the craftivism world often use our skills to demonstrate solidarity in a public way with those that either don’t have a voice, or have an exceptionally marginalised one. Craft has such a mainstream appeal, it can open up issues to a wider audience than the normal activist audiences that some issues get ghettoed into.
One such issue is the racism of the prison industrial complex. If you live in the suburbs it can be easy to forget or not even know about the living hell that many, mostly indigenous men, are experiencing in prisons across the world.
The prison industry must love all the fear that politicians like to whip up about how unsafe our streets are. The more people demand longer sentences and the abolishment of parole, the higher the profits of the private prisons go. And the higher the cost to society. In the 2006/2007 financial year the cost of housing each inmate in New Zealand was $92,000. If the goal is to reduce crime, you can not tell me that is the most effective use of that much money.
In America aka the land of the Free, there is 1 adult in prison for every 100 adults. A country with 5% of the population has 25% of the world’s prison population. And of course the prisons are all privately run. So the more people in prison, the more corporate profits. And to make things even sweeter, most states don’t allow prisoners or even former prisoners to vote. And when you think about the fact that only about 1% of the prison population in the US are ‘white’ you can quickly see how this human rights tragedy is offensively racist beyond belief.
Which leads me to the point of this post which is to celebrate the new work of The Baroness.
A spectacular new mosaic mural has been unveiled on the outside wall of the Treatment Rooms in the west London suburb of Chiswick to raise awareness of African-American men confined in the notorious Angola prison, Louisiana.
The artwork, which took four months to create with help from a dedicated group of activist artists, decorates The Treatment Rooms, home of street artist Carrie Richards, aka The Baroness, and her partner Mr. Spunky. The mosaic is inlaid with 3D ceramic pieces and tiles that The Baroness has printed on herself. Having studied ceramics for the past 6 years, she is now about to transfer any image onto tile to add incredible detail and complexity to her work.
The mosaic depicts the so-called Angola 3 – Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox and Robert King – men wrongfully convicted of murder at Angola prison in the 1970s and who subsequently spent decades in solitary confinement. Though Woodfox’s conviction has been overturned, and Wallace’s recommended for such, both men remain behind bars.
The extensive work is also dedicated to Kenny ‘Zulu’ Whitmore, who has similarly spent 33 years in solitary confinement at Angola, where the majority of inmates are black and will die inside its walls.
The Baroness is personal friends with all of these political prisoners and has recently become spokesperson for the London Chapter to support the Angola 3. This mural follows on from the Luis Ramirez Wall – which was a mosaic mural in memory of her first prisoner penpal Luis who was executed by the State of Texas. She continues make mosaics infused with social and political commentary, and she’s The Treatment Rooms as the UK’s only ceramic adorned house of resistance.
The only freed member of the Angola 3, Robert King –who spent 29 years in solitary confinement and was released in 2001 after his murder conviction was overturned – attended the unveiling on June 21. One of the purposes of his stay in London was to launch the Free Zulu campaign. He spoke to a crowd of 150 artists and activists from the UK, Europe and North America who have rallied around the causes of the Angola 3 and Zulu.
Robert King spoke to Zulu after the unveiling and Zulu said he now had hope in his heart. He has since seen pictures of the unveiling and is overjoyed by the support reaching him from the UK.
Isn’t that the most awesome thing you’ve ever seen? I for one, am inspired.
Because this piece is not only beautifully designed and executed, but it deals with something important. With all the effort the creative community puts into making stuff, you’d think we’d be able to spare a bit more time and creative energy for the things that really matter.
www.thetreatmentrooms.org
www.angola3london.org
www.freezulu.co.uk
Hoist your vision people
Most people understand the power and strength of a flag. When it comes to a symbol, nothing can be more powerful. Flags can inspire love, rage, war, hate, pride, revolution and knowledge. Flags are designed at the most simple level, to communicate a message or an idea with a quick glance.
Flags are used as a way of communicating and rallying, remembering and honouring.
And flags have a wonderful crafty history.
Often when you learn about a flag, in particular a flag representing a nation, you learn about what the design means. But often the story behind the flags creation is forgotten. A classic example of this is the Eureka Flag. This flag is an exceptionally powerful symbol in Australian culture. And despite being over 100 years old, still fires enormous passion and dedication to the cause of working people.
And it was made by three women.
In 1854 Anastasia Withers, Anne Duke and Anastasia Hayes were delivered a design of a flag to be made for an upcoming rally. As observed by Val D’Angri who conserved the flag for the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery:
“It must be realised that the Eureka Flag would have been made in haste, in adverse conditions, and with inadequate materials and equipment. As a consequence, the flag is quite irregular in outline and dimensions, but the workmanship executed by the seamstresses who sewed the flag under those conditions is magnificent.”
I want to acknowledge that this flag has had a troublesome past, and the racist associations with the flags history are shameful. I don’t think that history is cause to dismiss this flag, but it needs to be acknowledged.
Of course it has taken a long time for the role of the women sewers in this story to be recognised.
Another flag however has not only a much more revolutionary purpose but the woman who created it is well remembered.
You may have noticed on the DIY Page that the first image is a flag
This is the Bulgarian April Uprising Flag made by Rayna Knyaginya. The text on the flag translates to ‘Freedom or Death’. Nice sentiment, I can agree with that! And Rayna Knyaginya has an amazing story of struggle as well as creating such an important part of Bulgarian cultural history. I think it’s particularly awesome that after the state failed to crush her she went on to be a maternity nurse!
I also want to draw your attention to a more modern flag. The Tino Rangatiratanga flag aka the Maori Sovereignty Flag hasn’t been around too long but has had an incredible history so far. Check out this great piece on the origins and some of the recent controversies surrounding the Te Haki as told by Native Affairs on Maori TV.
So the point of all this story is to draw your attention to a little initiative the wonderful people at Adbusters have started.
We invite you to create a flag – free from language and well-worn clichés – that embodies the idea of global citizenship
Go read all the details and find out about why they’re doing it and why you should get involved.
While I’m not a fan of the whole One Flag title, it sounds a bit U2ish to me, I think it’s going to be interesting to see what comes out of it. And I reckon we need a whole rash of crafty entries. We should take this opportunity to reconnect with our crafty flag roots.
And I reckon we should actually make them. Adbusters has got this whole digicentric entry criteria which I think needs to be challenged. In fact, I’m going to. I’ve got a vision for this flag thing. And if I can get my shit together to make it. I’m gonna make it IN REAL LIFE. ‘Cause you can’t tell if a flag is any good or not until it’s fluttering!