YARNS: a community arts project

I am working on a most exciting project with DADAA Inc! To coincide with the Fremantle Festival and the International Arts and Health Conference 2012, we are knitting and crocheting like crazy to yarn-bomb & cover the Fremantle Street Doctor Bus!

Super creative, talented and lovely artist Minaxi May and I are heading up the team of community members to join in. The project is very broadly about using the arts to promote health and wellbeing - making art keeps you healthy!

There is still much knitting and crochet to be done, so please join in! You can join us for FREE workshops (all materials provided) 11am-3pm Wednesday to Sunday at our Knitting Hub, 125 High St Mall, Fremantle. It is a great place to just hang out, have a chat, and make a square. Hope to see you there!

k2CLOUD

I have an exhibition coming up!! It has been a huge lead up - my collaborator, Elizabeth Marpole, and I have been knitting and crocheting metres metres to create our huge installation!

Our exhibition will be at Paper Mountain in Perth, and the artists there have been supportive and fabulous. The opening is next week, and the exhibition goes for 10 days. Here is a bit more about our project ....

K2CLOUD brings knitting and crochet into the 21st century through large scale sculpture. It is an interactive transforming installation, using only repurposed paper and plastic.

The installation, created by Elizabeth Marpole and Lex Randolph, begins with a White Opening. Using basic colourful materials, we are inviting the public to help transform the space into a brightly coloured room over 10 days. A disco will be held at the completion of the process to celebrate the transformation.

The title of our project references the visible formation of frozen water crystals in the atmosphere – a cloud.In much the same way as why skies are blue, clouds are white because their water crystals are large enough to scatter the light of the seven wavelengths (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet), which combine to produce white light. Our ‘cloud’ will begin white, and over the exhibition period will be transformed to reproduce all the colours of the light spectrum.

We also made a fun stop-motion animation to promote our project, and to raise funds (yes we are still accepting pledges at http://www.pozible.com/k2cloud if you are keen to support us) :)

If you in Perth, please drop in, say hello, and help us transform our cloud into a colourful cave!

collage

I have been exploring art-making of the cutting and pasting kind - collage! It is quite meditative, and I find it much easier to create pictures this way, with a little drawing involved sometimes. I am also a fan a affirmations, and random acts of kindness - hence some of the slightly cheesy sayings ...!

a card for my mama :)

crafternoon invite!

parcels in the post!

This time I was sending the parcels. They are FINALLY sent off!

Some copies of my zine, to lovely crafty friends.

And a beanie (jut in time for the English Spring - sorry Ben!). The Keen's Curry Powder is for his curried egg sandwiches - the only, way to have them! Keen's was always on the shelf in my parents kitchen when I was a child, so I know it well :)

a granny a day ...

... makes me sing hooray!!

I am joining in with Pip, of Meet Me At Mikes fame.

I don't know if I will get a granny done EVERY day, but I am going to try.

Head over here to join in too!

a new community project

Today I started a new project. I was approached by the team at Town of Kwinana to run a few yarn bombing workshops at their new (and totally awesome!) youth space - the Zone. I had great fun, and met some great fun young people. Everyone learned to finger-knit. I decided to leave a little gift there, to see who notices it before I return next week .... :)

It is actually a granny square made by the delightful Emi!! It got left in Perth with a tub full of yarn (which is also coming in very handy!) I think it looks super here!

Spinning a Yarn

One of reasons I was inspired to get our my french knitting (and the reason I remember how to do it after all these years!) was a show I saw a few weeks ago the the Perth Fringe Festival.

Ms Polly Ester and Ms Poly Mer - the Plastic Bag Ladies of the Sea - put on a super cool and intimate show called 'Spinning a Yarn'. Inside the Fringe Festival Gardens there is a little wooden tent, draped with colourful yarn creations. A tiny door opens, and the audience - a maximum of 8 fit inside - squeeze in. Absolutely everything inside is covered is knitting!! It was an amazing experience! They told stories and chatted, and as each little knitted sea creature came out they shared with us how plastic is destroying our marine environments. Sad, but true.

We also all joined in to knit on the large knitting loom you can see in the middle of the space - the plastic vortex.... (aha! with that reminder I can now figure out all loom based knitting, including my french knitting!

You can check our more about the show, the concept behind it, and the wonderful presenters on their facebook page.

french knitting

I knew she must be hiding somewhere .... and I finally found her!

Her name is Frankie, and she is a French Knitter!

But can I remember HOW to french knit?!?!

If you fancy trying some french knitting, here is a tutorial you might find helpful :) 

MEN make music

In Perth it is Festival time!! I visited the Festival Gardens of the Perth International Arts Festival on Sunday night to see MEN. It was most amazing!

cd and poster that i purchased on the night

I danced non-stop, and was literally in the front row - I could touch the stage from where I stood! It was mind blowing getting to see JD Samson up close, performing and dancing and smiling! And a few of us stayed after the show and had a conversation with JD!!! It was an experience of a lifetime for me.

These photos taken by a most awesome friend, and rad dancer, Alex. Thank you Alex!

Their music is political, with roots in Riot Grrl and Punk music, with more of an electronic bent now. You might like this song - I do!

surprises in the mail

I arrived home to some surprises in the mail!! 

The Arlene Texta Queen playing cards and postcards are from my GG :) And the makedo kit I won in a competition! On their facebook page, they asked what you did as a kid, just for fun. My winner answer read: when i was a kid i made beautiful crazy bird wings from old tube-shaped post packs and flew from the old fig tree in my backyard just for fun! :)

get your 'stache on!

I got the most exciting surprise in the mail today! And envelope arrived on my desk at work, and this is what it was ......

Thanks so much Danni and Molly for thinking of me! (ps - these are 2 super inspiring creative types, you should click the links and see what ace things they are up to! oh and danni makes amazing jewellery too!)

knit the beach

Knit the Beach is a community project I have been working on with the City of Stirling for their Summerset Arts Festival.

I was absolutely astounded by the number of knitter and crocheters and beginners who were interested joined in and created the most colourful pieces for the project. Thank you!

Two community workshops were held, and I was unable to facilitate them, as I was in bed sick :( but never fear, the lovely Annie Rawle took over the workshops - thank you Annie! Annie is a super lovely person, and an amazing textile artist. She sells some of her creations here :)

On install day, I headed out to Scarborough Beach, and with the generous help of about 8 committed people, we installed metres of colourful creations!

The amphitheatre where we installed all of the work was the location for a number of Festival shows, with huge crowds getting to experience Knit the Beach! You can see more photos on my facbeook page and on the Knit the Beach tumblr blog.