Interviews with Creati... Kirsty Eckard Interviews with Creati... Kirsty Eckard

Hey! Maker

Today we have a special interview feature with one of our newest Full Members, Belinda Smith. She is one fifth of a NSW-based collective called Hey! Maker who are currently fundraising via Pozible to maintain a much-needed creative spark in their small town. Read on to learn more about how you can support their quest!

Can you tell us a little about each of your creative backgrounds and how the four of you met? Hey! Maker is a collective if 5 creative women who live in and around Murwillumbah. We are mothers of young children and we share the hope that we can continue to live and raise our children in our beautiful pocket of the world and be sustained by our creativity. The nexus was forged out of our concern for our town and its ever increasing vacant number of vacant shops. Inspired by Renew Newcastle, we wanted to do something positive to renew our own town.

Belinda Smith is an artist and designer working mainly in the public art field. She is particularly interested in how a wide range of craft practices can influence and inform her artwork.

Ellie Beck is a maker of bespoke and screen printed textiles drawing inspiration from her rainforest home environment. She stitches, crochets, knits, dyes and sews to make beautiful apparel and ornamental pieces.

Jo Olive is the co-founder of Olive and the Volcano with her partner. With their Heidelberg press and Jo’s fine book binding and treasure finding skills they make books and stationary from the heart.

Kathy Egan is the founder of Oiko handmade hemp textiles. With a background in costume design, she uses striking batik designs with a nature inspired colour pallet to create sustainable and ethical apparel and homewares.

Christy McLeod is the creator of Creative Village, a brand new website that connects creative people with their community through online portfolios, exhibition and workshop calendars and material suppliers. Using a Google map feature it is a hub for everything creative in our area.\

What is Murwillumbah like to live in as a small town, and what is the creative community like there?  Murwillumbah, 1.5 hours from Brisbane and 45minutes from Byron Bay, is nestled between the Border Ranges and beautiful beaches. It is a town endowed with art deco architecture and an old time country feel yet has long been a drawcard for people seeking an alternative lifestyle in the subtropical rainforests of the Tweed Valley. Its community is starting to get an urban feel with many city ‘folk’ (like me) moving here too, because we love the low key attitude. We have a highly respected Regional Gallery and a population of creatives that range from artists, designers, craftspeople, musicians, architects and landscape architects, animators and children’s book illustrators.

What is the best thing about living and working as creative women in Murwillumbah? Many, many of the creative people we have connected with are women. We bond through the learning and sharing of new skills or at market stalls where we covet each other’s creations. We squeeze in our work around our growing children and understand each other’s challenges in doing so. Life still seems pretty hectic with kids and creative projects to nurture but appreciate that we don’t have some of the pressures of life in the city. There’s a bit of extra time, I suppose. Time to stare at the mountains out the window!

Hey Maker!'s dream is of retail renewal and promotion of Murwillumbah as a destination of creativity and craft. How do you hope to achieve this? Renewal is a slow process. We hope that by drawing visitors to our workshops and events from nearby centres like Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Byron Bay people will start to see Murwillumbah as we do. We would love to host artist residencies bringing artists on the national stage to our town. We imagine craft workshops and holiday programmes that draw holiday makers and visitors from the vacation hotspots to the north and south of us. We hope that with a hum of activity local businesses will benefit, new businesses will come and our town will thrive.

You're currently fundraising through Pozible, which is a relatively new online fundraising concept - can you explain a bit about Pozible, what drew you to this method of fundraising? Pozible is a website for creative projects and ideas to raise their funding from a worldwide audience. If anyone likes the idea or project they can pledge their support and receive a reward for their pledge. A project will only be successful in receiving their funds if they meet their goal amount.

Like many creatives we love our work and profession but we don’t make buckets from it, we wanted to work without a bank loan or relying on advertising to get us off the ground. We live in a community where large sponsorship is hard to come by but there is tonnes of enthusiasm for the free workshops we have done so far. We decided upon a crowdfunding style of fundraising as we felt that it was a way of mustering support from our followers and community.

Your goal is to raise $11,700 by 22 July. How will this money be spent if you reach your goal? The money will be used to roll out a programme of creative workshops for children and adults in our town and surrounding villages. We need funds to pay for insurance, temporary leases and hall hire, artist residencies, and developing our online presence.

How can we support your cause? Watch our cute video and pledge what you can through www.pozible.com/heymaker

Let us know what you think on our facebook page or on our blog

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Interviews with Creati... Kirsty Eckard Interviews with Creati... Kirsty Eckard

Women in Art: Wearable Art

By Lauren Treiser Hi again! Jewellery is a passion of mine and there are some pretty amazing jewellery exhibitions on this month which are sure to both surprise and delight you! Firstly, there is the dream like work by Kate Rohde at Pieces of Eight Gallery as well as a very large show on at NGV featuring jewellers from around the world.

Hybrid Geology 

Image from Pieces of Eight Gallery

Pieces of Eight Gallery presents a new exhibition of Kate Rohde's resin jewellery in an installation that reminds me of a psychedelic space. Her sculpture practice, that focuses on elements of the natural world, has been applied to her jewellery.

Rohde’s collection of flowers and crystals grow out of the structure of the building itself. The steel in the gallery shop front allowed Rohde to utilise magnets to present her pieces.

The glass frontage of the gallery has been turned into a fantasy world with stalactites, stalagmites and crystals on the bottom half, and long fluoro coloured wigs hang from the top half.

The trippy colours and nature of the work make the pieces seem like they are from another planet. It is easy to forget that much of the installation is wearable and consists of rings, earrings, bracelets and necklaces (all for sale!).

Kate Rohde is a visual artist who completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2001. Since then she has held several solo exhibitions and has been part of numerous group shows. Her work is included in a number of public collections such as the National Gallery of Victoria, Bendigo Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Don’t miss viewing a short film on Kate Rohde about the making of this exhibition.

Pieces of Eight Gallery 28 Russell Place, Melbourne 11 April 2012 - May 19 2012 Free entry

Unexpected Pleasures

A truly special and extensive exhibition, “Unexpected Pleasures” is showing at the National Gallery of Victoria. It has been guest curated by Susan Cohn for the Design Museum, London. Cohn who is described not just as a jeweller but as a craftsperson, artist and designer is a famous Melbournian who has created pieces for Alessi. A lot of her work involves transforming commonplace materials into valued jewellery objects, through the injection of meaning.

Left: Doug Bucci Trans-Hematopoietic neckpiece (2010) 3-D printed acrylic resin as one interlinked piece

Right: Peter Chang Bracelet (2007/08) Resin, acrilyc, silver

For this exhibition, she stated that even though there are extreme pieces, everything can be worn. Walking amongst the glass cases I found it challenging to picture some of the pieces in action. But I love the fact that it will challenge people’s preconceived notions of what jewellery is. A good example of this is Camilla Prasch’s ring made from Silicon discs. A lot of the pieces highlight the shifting values from material worth to the personal associations that jewellery holds.

Camilla Prasch MEGA (2009) Red dyed snap fasteners, nylon thread, silicone discs Image from NGV

The exhibition is curated into 3 sections: Worn Out – celebrates the experience of wearing jewellery;| Linking Links – looks at the ways in which meaning and narratives are given to the pieces; and A Fine Line – offers insight into the origins of contemporary jewellery.

Jewellery is used to say who we are and where we belong. In "Unexpected Pleasures" there is a broad spectrum of techniques shown from newer technologies such as rapid prototyping to using found materials such as the Nespresso capsules which form Beverley Price’s necklace.

Beverley Price Nespresso Collier (2012) Anodised aluminium, plastic coated wire, fine gold

Another example of a jeweller who has pushed conceptual boundaries is Monica Brugger where she questions what jewellery is in her garments which ‘suggest’ a brooch through burnt edges, bleach and red thread rather than having a physical brooch adorning the garments.

Monica Brugger Rouge / Brandal / Soleil (2001) Fabric, silver.

This show pushes the boundaries of jewellery and may even extend Melbournians practice of wearing thought-provoking objects. I hope so!
Check out the great video about the exhibition.
Unexpected Pleasures 20 April 2012 - 26 August 2012 NGV International, 180 St Kilda Road Free entry
Lauren is graphic designer and founder of patchyrugs.com.au. She loves all things design (see her blog at blog.ilovelollies.net) and is particularly passionate about fine art, interior design and jewellery. Lauren is currently studying Gold & Silversmithing and doing graphic design on a freelance basis.
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