The Making and Baking of Banners and Biscuits

Timelapse:

The mother as an artist. Disbanding the myth of the artistic sanctuary and a space to create.

Two and a half hours of embroidery, feeding, changing, entertaining, and cuddling.

Photography: Marcus Salvagno
Editing: Karl Fitzgerald
Music: Line of Flight – Revolution Void revolutionvoid.com

The Making and Baking of Banners and Biscuits from Rayna Fahey on Vimeo.

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This timelapse piece was created for “It’s Never Too Late to Mend”.

About

The Making and Baking.. was born out of a desire to contribute to the conversation about the value of handmade.  All too often purveyors of handmade goods find themselves having to justify their prices in the face of mass production of consumerables.  Comparing a uniquely designed, handmade piece of clothing against a one of thousands, sweat shop produced item shouldn’t even happen, yet it does. And far too often makers are left to defend their ‘high’ prices, when the reality is that the mass producers should be the ones explaining their prices. This Is Handmade is a brilliant video project which works with this idea.

The Making and Baking.. was also inspired by observations of gender within the arts. As a mother and an artist I rarely have the luxury of uninterrupted creative time. I share my creative space with small children and I have to manage gallery time with childcare.  These are not really issues that phase me as my children are my muses and are very much a part of my practice. What interests me is the different status that artists attract due to their family status. Certainly my experience and observation of group shows is that it’s the single guys who get the most time and attention paid to their art.

Luckily for me, my practice tends to attract similarly radical curators and art workers so my colleagues have always been open to supporting my children being present and part of my art. However, I know this is not reflective of the art world as a whole.  Hopefully this piece will plant some seeds for people to think about the way they value art workers as parents.

Thanks

Marcus, Karl, Hannah, Jose and the kids for helping put this timelapse piece together, arohanui xx