Text from here. Photo from here.

On Monday I got an email, followed by a phone call with Bill Harris who works for the city.

He was very nice, and said the city’s hands were tied and they tried to find a way to keep them — but they have to go.

Councilmember Lorie Zapf is collecting emails of support at loriezapf@sandiego.gov to show community backing and find a way to keep them in Clairemont. Send her your story, and let her know how much you like them!

Bill Harris gave me this statement to post:

The City is forced to announce that the Stop Sign Flowers must come down. Even with the great community spirit this effort has generated, there are just too many restrictions to overcome. City staff looked through state law and local policies trying to find some way of allowing the flowers to remain in place. Unfortunately, particularly with traffic control signs and including all other City assets, there is just no way to retain the works where they now are.

We hope that the flower-makers will work with other site owners – private businesses, other agencies, business improvement districts and community groups – to find new homes for the flowers. This is a fun program that should easily capture the imagination of our communities in other, less restricted, locations.

City crews will not remove any of the installations for the next ten days unless they become a hazard. It is hoped that those who originally installed the flowers will take that time to remove and preserve the work. Following the ten day period, City crews will be instructed to remove and dispose of anything affixed to City assets as it is seen or reported. The yarn and leaf structures cannot be saved when removed by City staff.

I will be available to answer specific questions about the City’s direction via email from billharris@sandiego.gov

For a map of San Diego street flowers go here.

See how you can make more here.

One of the sweetest things about this project is that the self-proclaimed “knitting guy” started to learn to knit “to teach my daughter. She received a “learn to knit” craft kit as a present, but the instructions were sparse and hard to understand. So, I decided to learn how in order to show her. I had thought about learning for a few years, so this was just the push I needed. That was about four years ago, and we have both been knitting off and on since.”

Also, there have been several awesome articles online about craftivism lately:

*Stir to Action piece from the Wellington Craftivism Collective
*Crafting the Future We Want over at Tck Tck Tck
*A lovely interview with the lovely Craftivist Collective over at HUCK magazine

And if that isn’t enough, and you’re STILL feeling crafty, go check out the the Blood Bag Project. Click the pic to see the gallery of submitted blood bags. You can also follow the project’s progress here

Now go and make somethin’ now, won’t ya?

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Maybe he’s just like everyone else? Not so sure on the proper definition? And where “craft” begins and “art” ends?

Just heard that one of the Craftivist Collective prints was bought for a banker and the banker emailed the giver to say thanks providing a good discussion starter with his wife. Hopefully, those discussions will turn into action and challenging the bank system from within.

This is the heart of craftivism.

Changing the thoughts of those against you, moving outside of preaching to the choir.

In keeping with a metaphor: When you’re preaching to the choir, no one new gets to heaven. I.e., you may be working, but not working hard enough.

As Craftivists, crafters, artists, one of our roles is to make people think. All kinds of people, especially those that disagree with us. As the CC quote mentions above, our pieces can work as “conversation starters,” meaning it allows both sides to enter a conversation, not a shouting match.

I love how Carrie and Nick’s work embraces the issues directly, but ultimately allows them both to back off from the creation itself as it (literally) stands in public view for passersby to make their own conclusions. It’s in that self-reflective space where someone views a craftivist work and is allowed to digest and think about a work without interruption where the (positive) revolution and change and real work begins.

Controversial double-headed elephant goes to auction this week at Christie’s in Milan

A leading spokesperson for the ever growing craftivist movement and renegade potter Carrie Reichardt, otherwise known as The Baroness, will this week see her controversial mosaic elephant sold by Christie’s in Milan to raise money for the global elephant parade charity.

The elephant was made in collaboration with Nick Reynolds, harmonic player in the cult activist band Alabama 3 and son of Bruce Reynolds, the master mind behind the great train robbery. It is part of a growing trend, started by the Cow Parade in Zurich in 1998 of getting artists to decorate resin animal sculptures that are exhibited in public places before being auctioned for charity.

Reichardt and Reynolds unique double headed elephant was originally called ‘Bunga Bunga’ – in reference to the then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s alleged sex parties. The name was considered far to political for its organizers so Reichardt was forced to changed the name to Little Miss DMT, (the drug she credits with giving her the vision for the pieces highly intricate mosaic pattern .), It is one of 50 elephants that have been on displayed through out Milan for the last few months. Little Miss DMT has been taking pride of place in front of the Triennial Museum of Modern Art.

The devil they say is in the detail, and as with most of Reichardt work, it is in the detail where the controversy lies.

As Reichardt says; “The only reason, I and Nick take part in these large charity events is because they allow you to make public art that is totally uncensored. You find that when you work for free, rarely anyone actually checks what you are doing, so you end up with total creative freedom.”

This creative freedom, along with Reichardt and Reynolds sheer craftsmanship has allowed them to recently exhibit some extremely contentious work in the public realm. Banksy may boost of getting his ‘subversive’ work into the mainstream galleries , but it is doubtful that even he could pull of such an audacious sited piece as their ‘Trojan Horse’ at Cheltenham Races last week.

As Greg Wood of the Guardian pointed out:
“’Trojan Horse’, by Carrie Reichardt, had a skull for a face and, in Reinhardt’s words, “some pretty hard-hitting facts and pictures about the abuse that the horse has had to endure at the hands of man” presented as mosaics on its body. These included a much-used statistic from the extremist animal rights group Animal Aid on fatal injuries to racehorses, a fact which suggested to some observers that the course should have paid more attention to Classical literature. A Trojan horse, after all, is generally best left outside the walls.”

So it was through craft and altruism that they managed to get their fiercely anti racing and anti blood sport piece on display along with 9 other similar works at Cheltenham National Hunt Festival last week. This life size resin horse was re-sculptured by Reynolds, and then mosaic in ceramic tiles printed by Reichardt. This included gruesome imagery, including a fox being torn apart by hounds and horses hanging in abattoirs with figures explaining that up to 10,000 in the UK will end up as horsemeat. If attacking the racing and hunting fraternity wasn’t enough, both the front two panels of the horse depict mounted police baton charging students from the recent protests, explaining the cruelty involved to the horse in such a situation.

It was not surprising then that this ‘Trojan Horse’ failed to get a single bid, when Cheltenham art museum attempted to auction it from the races last week to raise money for the RLNI.

As Reynolds wryly said, “Its not easy trying to sell a piece of art to people who approve of a sport that abuses horses, when the piece itself is a testimony to all the cruelty the horse has endured by the hands of man.”

Both now hope that some wealthy animal rights supporter will purchase the piece and donate it to a public museum so that the piece can remain in the public domain.

Hopefully in Milan, Christies will have more luck selling their elephant. But following Berlusconi resignation, and scenes of students rioting on the streets, this might prove difficult as they will be attempting to sell an elephant that has ‘La Rivoluzione e’ora (the Revolution is Now) mosaic on to all four ears.

Reichardt remains upbeat though…

“Just my bloody luck, Capitalism collapses, just as my art hits the art market…..– anyway, as a Craftivist I am much more interested in using craft as a way of spreading ideas and social justice that worrying about how much a piece can sell for.”

With their life–size ceramic sculpture of Liverpudlian Mary Bamber, which depicts the radical history of the suffragette movement, recently being purchased by the newly open Museum of Liverpool, there is always hope that both their horse and their elephant will end up where it was created to be – in the public realm.

As Reichardt is keen to point out….for her the ‘Revolution is going to be ceramicised.”

This video is from the folks over at the Craftivist Collective and features one of their recent campaigns.

What I like about this video the most is that it shows the softer side of activism. No smashing or yelling or hatred or breaking things, just some honest voices (from both sides) and some stitches and some explaining of just what this bunting is about.

For me, the personal is political, so while the what people feel passionate about and create craftivist projects for varies, the why does not. The what can be whatever you wish, as long as the why is centered on positive change that helps you, the maker, and them, the viewer. Because ideally, there is no us and them, so the positive force that is behind craftivism should run throughout, creating positive change for us all.

And might this positive change be? It could be picking up a needle right there and doing some stitching or listening to what people have to say or questioning the methods and having an open dialogue or taking the experience with you and just letting it in. Sometimes you need to act NOW and sometimes you need to listen and digest what’s going on to really take in someone else’s passionate thoughts before acting on your own. Kind of great, huh?

The caveat? Once those thoughts have been digested, they still might not agree with you or your methods. They may think it’s all a big waste of time or silly or wondering why you stitched some little thing instead of playing football or having a drink or reading the paper or taking a nap. But, that’s not the important part here. The important part is that you made them think about your actions via positive means. Whether for a minute or a year or a second or a week, the message of positive activism was there and present, it’s up to them to do the work.