Craft Guerillas and the World Wide Web

My friend Renee Blackwell has just started blogging and has thought of a brilliant idea to harvest the power of the blogs......
"I'm having a great give away. No strings attached, whatsoever! You are welcome to pass this blog offer along to friends, co-workers and family. Here's the deal...Go to my website: reneeblackwelldesign.com Go to the "stackable ring" page- Pick one stackable ring you would love to wear, (stones only), choose your size and e-mail me these details along with where it should be sent. Anywhere in the world! (You don't need to go thru' the ordering process...just an e-mail with mailing address...)

These will be sent from Australia on Fridays.... This offer is good until August 12th."

This is a real offer, Renee thought of it as a way of connecting with people who might like her jewelery throughout the world. What I really like about this is that it subverts the gallery/commercial system that all artists are supposed to be desperate to be part of. The Internet has broken open this system and put the economic power back into the hands of artists.

Taking your work around to galleries and shops used to be an expensive and humiliating exercise. Ten years ago when I first set up my studio I would travel long distances and set up meetings with "retail outlets" and when I got there they would have the meeting outside on a bench, or not be there and tell me to come back tomorrow or any number of other depressing scenarios. I once went to a lot of trouble to set up a meeting in Byron Bay (400 kilometres from where I live) and the shop owner suggested I meet her at the side of the road at a place bizarrely named Billienudgel (!) and show her my pots from the boot of the car.
"....oh you'd like to show me your art and talk about me stocking it....Why don't we meet here....in the MIDDLE OF THE SAHARA DESERT?"
I didn't do it but the fact that someone would think it is Ok to treat professional artists this way is outrageous.

Selling direct subverts all this. The only trouble with selling direct is that it is hard to get an audience. That is where the Internet comes into it's full power. I call those who practice these subversive activities "craft guerrillas"

Craft Guerillas Unite! Dependence on the system or voluntary poverty is not our fate!

Craft Guerrillas of the World Unite!

Craft Guerrillas of the World Unite!
Any one interested in acts of spontaneous creativity has to read about the adventures of the "Thin Lamp ".
This lamp was created by a designer who is simply named Guerrilladesigner . This artist believed that the "Thin Lamp" deserved a place at a prestigious competition opening at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, they neither entered nor were invited to be part of the fabulous event. In a move akin to something out of a Mission Impossible movie these brave and intrepid designers smuggled their lamp into the event an displayed it on a drinks table while they recorded the whole thing on their mobile phones and swigged heaps of free cocktails!
I love it!

Taking the power to show your work into your own hands is something that artists and designers need to do more of.... don't let the bureaucrats and so called sponsors get you down. Spontaneous creativity could become a virulent outbreak!

Handmade - the heirlooms of the future

I recently heard about "The Compact" an environmental movement that started in San Francisco . In order to combat rampant consumerism Compacters vow that for one year they will not buy anything new.

The Compacter's blog is full of interesting issues about consumerism, from the ethics of having pets to questions of shipping secondhand goods across the country versus buying local. I think these are really hard questions and often wonder how does craft and in particular making pots fit into the ethos of consumerism?


Consumers are my bread and butter- if it wasn't for people wanting beautiful, handmade things I wouldn't be able to pursue my profession and put my rather specialized skills to use. I think all craft guerillas should espouse a craft guerilla version of compacting- buying household goods and presents handmade locally rather than dropping in to Ikea or a department store. If everyone replaced their broken coffee cups with locally produced ware and bought their wedding gifts from local jewellers , local economies would benefit . You would save money on petrol, and add to your local skills and "creative capital".

What can we call the movement to buy local, handmade products and shun foreign imported ones? Rather than "Compacting " I see this movement as an expansion, a connection with real people, not factories, a way to appreciate the time it takes to create the things we use everyday. Thoughtful consumerism.

I love handmade things and mostly try to support those I know and who live locally, but supporting interstate and international handmakers is also important. I think the main thing is to buy infrequently and for posterity. Handmade items are the heirlooms of the future.

Absolutley beautiful handprinted fabric by Australian artist Julie Patterson for her company "Cloth". Based in Sydney.

To old age

The Garth Clark Gallery in New York is having a retrospective of American potter Beatrice Wood. This runs from the 12th of September to the 4th of November. Beatrice Wood lived a crazy life and potted her way into old age. This is a photo of her looking fabulous and tough behind the potters wheel as an old lady. I love seeing photos like this- I hope this is me when I am old.



This Beatrice Wood chalice is a celabratory item. There is a sense of upward movement and dynamics in this pot which makes me felling like standing and "Charging my glass".
"To old age, hard work feasts and good company!"
Cheers

craft guerilla hero

I have to write more about Alleghany Meadows who I mentioned yesterday and his fantastic Art-stream Gallery.

The Art-stream Gallery is an old Airstream caravan converted into a beautiful ceramics gallery. Through favours from friends, custom cabinet making and sheer imagination and wit Allegahany Meadows has created an American mini institution, Artstream travels around the country to farmers markets, universities and conferences bringing beautiful pottery to all sorts of unexpected places. To say Art-stream is an instititution denies the fact of it's clever unpredictablity. This is a subversion of the gallery system.
Allegahany Meadows is this weeks craft guerilla hero!

Artists! Speak Up

Derek Jarman, filmaker, gay rights activist, writer and gardener, lived in a little fisherman's cottage on Dungeness, a lonely spur of land sticking out to sea in southern England. HIV positive and eventually dying of AIDs Jarman created an amazing life-affirming garden out of the rocky shale surrounding his cottage. Full of sculptures made of beach junk, vegetables, stones and rare flowers collected from seeds in hedgerows and by the side of the road, Jarman's garden and life is an inspiration to all artists.

Jarman's final diary is called "Smiling in Slow Motion" and is a record of his final days of living. Even when bitterly ill Jarman was still raging at political injustice, speaking out about hypocrisy, making films and paintings and planting seeds. When I feel that the life of an artist is a hard one, or wonder what kind of cruel, indifferent world we live in, I think of Derek Jarman's courage and fierce, burning creativity in all areas of his life.

Guerilla Craft

I've just come back from a couple of days at Verge- the National Ceramics Conference in Brisbane. It was very exciting to catch up with old friends and meet new people. I especially appreciate these events for the fact that younger artists are exposed to the older (wiser!) generation. It was great to speak to icons of Australian pottery such as Kevin Grealy and Johanna Demaine about their careers and history in the ceramic community.

Michael Keighery was part of a panel talking about the future of ceramics in Australia and I think his comments could apply to all areas of craft and art. Keighery was saying that although there is less and less funding available and colleges and art departments are closing and consolidating artists have to get out in the public and not just rely on government funding to make a living or to create new work.

I think that in some ways our reliance on government funding and grants has taken art away from the everyday life and created a self referential niche of grant junkies and bureaucrats. This can be depressing for new artists trying to break in to the funding cycle and creates an exclusive feel to the arts which turns many people off. I think grants are great but you don't have to get grants to make it as an artist what you need are clients, patrons and supporters- to this end I say don't try to break into the government funding cycle, try to break away from it.

Hold craft guerilla events in your local neighborhood, open studios and street stalls are a great way to expose your work to locals in the environment where it was made. Blogging is also a great way to get your work out and create your own virtual community. The Mob Store in Brisbane hosts a tiny jewelry workshop and these craft guerrillas are on the front line fighting back control of their own craft destinies through competitions, home sales, and unusual venues such as Reverse Garbage. The Yellow House in Brighton (UK) opens every weekend in May for the Brighton festival and promotes five or six artist by turning the entire house into and exhibition space for a month. Craft is robust enough to be out in the world buffeted by the winds of change and excitement. Guerilla craft events can be a lighthearted way of engaging new people and compliment a gallery based practice.