Australian politics is currently on a knife edge, as we are still yet to determine which of the two major parties will form government after a tie in the general election. The inability of the ALP to win its second term, after great success in dealing with the GFC, is partly due to the leadership [...]
Posts under ‘skill’
Crafted Over Time – the other side of DIY
Faythe Levine’s documentary about DIY, titled Handmade Nation, reflected the collective craft movement sweeping the USA. This movement includes a broad spectrum of makers who are setting up small businesses, attending craft markets and engaging in craft activist events. Textile arts figure greatly, as do women. Journalist and ‘comix historian’ Patrick Rosenkranz has made a [...]
Janet DeBoos – hand-designed in Australia, factory-crafted in China
image In Australia, ceramics is under siege. Since the boom of the 1970s, the number of courses available have rapidly declined. For today’s iphone generation, the dedication required by clay-making poses a significant lifestyle challenge – it threatens to disconnect you from the ‘clouds’ of text and image that give meaning to the day. Of [...]
Karl Millard – made in India, sold in India
Karl Millard is a Melbourne metalsmith whose work has gained high profile, particularly in the Transformations exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia. He has mastered a particular method of combining metals in a patchwork pattern that is quite unique and highly regarded. As part of his interest in artisanship, he has also travelled to [...]
Time to take a front seat
image Congratulations to Simone LeAmon for winning the 2009 Cicely & Colin Rigg Contemporary Design Award which opened at the National Gallery of Victoria last night. Her Lepidoptera chair continues the creative use of recycled materials that she had forged in her classic Bowling Arm bracelets. Other entrants included Adam Cornish, Lambie Chan, Lucas Chirnside, [...]
When there’s no one left to make things
For many years, I’d been intrigued by the factory located on my route to Brunswick Station. The claim to be ‘Actual Makers of Craftsman Tailored Shirts in the European Tradition’ seemed almost medieval in a contemporary retail culture of brands. So I was quite sad to discover that it was closing down. Why? Today I [...]
The ‘Art of Making’ in Castlemaine
While much of regional Victoria is recovering from the devastation of recent bushfires, something positive beckons in the horizon. The central Victoria town of Castlemaine is home to a long tradition of making. Artisanship continues from its early days as a gold town to the present population of artists and makers who keep the foundries [...]
A third hand between craft and trade
Christine Nicholls celebrates an exhibition that brings people of craft and trades to work together. image ‘Trades’, an innovative project conceived and sponsored by Craftsouth, Australia’s premier contemporary craft and design association, was that organization’s big ticket offering for 2008. In some respects Craftsouth operates along the lines of the artists’ and artisans’ guilds of [...]
A voice for craft in the art tropics
Glenn Adamson’s first visit to Australia was engineered by the current president of the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand, Peter McNeill. On Thursday 4 December Adamson gave the keynote of the AAANZ annual conference at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. Here’s the outline: Modern Craft: Directions and Displacements After many years out [...]
Crafts and trade meet in a gallery
Here’s an antidote to the skills shortage (see Symmetry for an allied exploration of the dialogue between craft and work) Trades: Creative engagements between artists and tradespeople Opening 6pm Friday 24 October 2008 JamFactory Contemporary Craft and Design Opening Speaker: Janet Giles, Secretary SA Unions clip_image002 clip_image004 clip_image006 clip_image008 Craftsouth’s latest project, Trades, links craft, [...]
