Punk Lives!
I often talk about the under-appreciated art that lies to waste in the op shops and thrift shops of the world. Beautiful work that took many many hours to complete, lies discarded, undervalued and dismissed as ‘just craft’.
It is for this reason I started the Tapysteria Hack series of work. Taking an old and discarded piece of handwork, modifying it slightly and giving it a new audience with a new appreciation.
It must be acknowledged though that there is some truly terrible craft out there. I know everyone has to start somewhere and we all make mistakes. I adore the CraftFail site for the fact that it celebrates the fact that we aren’t perfect. And lordy knows there is enough pressure in some craft worlds for perfection. As if there isn’t enough pressure from the media for us to look perfect; apparently our craft should too..
However, this doesn’t mean the bad craft out there doesn’t deserve to be mocked every now and then.
I’ve always really digged the idea of stitching graffiti. Any idea that takes a traditional art and gives it a whole new perspective excites me. But I don’t think it’s something I’d ever do myself. Like the retro computer game stuff, there’s enough people out there doing it and doing it very well. But it has got me thinking a bit about defacing and concepts of property and ownership and how they translate to craft. And I decided this piece was just ripe for it.
I found this – what would you call it – horror of a stitchery, in an op shop one day and was just blown away by how truly terribly executed it was. I’m sure the person who did it has some really good reasons why. But just as a found item, it was pretty horrific.
I decided this was definitely an example of the punk rock side to embroidery. Just forget the rules and conventions of technique. Just say NO! to even stitching and tension!
Yeah Punk Lives!!
Stitched using my bestest scrawl with the most appropriate thread I could think of DMC666 (I truly wonder if there are stitchers out there who abstain from using that colour on principle).
The original stitches are amazing. There is no uniformity of technique, tension, stitch size, direction or colour. Excellent!
I’m not entirely sure what to do with it. But thinking it might just come in handy during an exciting upcoming project I’m involved with. But it was sure fun to do!
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?
Oh Sorry, was that your land?
At long last I can present a work I finished a while ago which has been sitting in the framing pile for far too long.
For a long time I have been astounded at the amount of finished handmade work that lies unwanted and unappreciated in our op shops. Mostly they are insanely undervalued. I recently visited a store that had a tapestry frame for sale (at higher price than brand new ones!) sitting alongside a finished tapestry. Take a guess at which had the higher price. Given that the people that normally work in op shops – especially of the charity variety – tend to be older women, you’d think there’d be a bit more appreciation for the time and effort gone into some of these pieces. But sadly not.
As part of my personal goal of using less new stuff, rather, using the stuff we have more efficiently. And as part of my goal to help raise the value of craft, in particular the not practically useful ones.. I have begun a series of stitch ‘hacks’.
Taking the political ideas behind hacktivism and the open source movement in particular to inform this series, the Tapysteria Hacks will take a previously discarded piece and give it a new, albeit political, life.
The piece above was titled ‘Snowgum’ and it’s a scene from Goulburn. I’d just been through that area when I found this one so I was particularly interested in it. Initially I had some more detailed ideas for it, but decided that I didn’t want to take away too much from the original work. I found this rolled up and stuffed under a pile of fabric in an op shop. I think it was about $3 or $4. The original work wasn’t done on a frame so it was quite stretched and distorted and took quite a lot of work to frame up – massive respect to Finer Art Services, the art framers in Seddon for the awesome work done on this, Heart! Heart!
This piece is for sale to raise funds for Lex Wotton’s support fund.
On Friday 24th October an all white jury found Lex Wotton, an Aboriginal man from Palm Island, Australia – a former prison island for Aboriginal People – guilty of ‘rioting with destruction’ for his involvement in the 2004 Palm Island uprising. On November 26th 2004 the people of Palm Island set fire to the local police station, court house and police barracks after a pathologist’s report claimed that the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee, a 36 year old local, in police custody a week earlier was an ‘accident’.
Mulrunji died in a police cell, one hour after he had been arrested for being drunk. He suffered massive internal injuries, including a ruptured spleen, four broken ribs and a ‘liver that had been ‘almost cleaved in two’ from a huge compressive force.’
The officer who arrested him, Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley, claimed that Mulrunji had fallen on stairs. A coroner’s inquest found that Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley was responsible for Mulrunji’s death, as the injuries were consistent with a beating. However, a court found Hurley not guilty for manslaughter. He has since been promoted, rewarded, and is an Inspector on the Gold Coast.
In comparison Lex Wotton has now been sentenced to six years in prison with a non parole period of two years. Despite being a democratically elected leader of his community and spending the duration of the riots attempting to keep the situation peaceful, and even negotiating safe passage for Police off the island – an offer the Police rejected.
Proceeds from the sale of this piece will be donated to Lex Wotton’s support fund to assist paying legal bills and travel bills for his family to visit.
Please join the campaign to bring global awareness to this travesty of justice