graffiti + public art.

Lionhearted.

| Betsy

So the 2012 Olympics will be held in London. And there is concern about it ruining parts of Hackney, a shame as Hackney has been on the uptick and it needs help in ways other than what the Olympics can provide. Derelict London offers some pics of the areas in question in Hackney, along with some pretty interesting photos of the non-pretty non-touristy side of London, which most touristy people don’t see. More on this controversy from Hackney locals here and here.

Regardless of that, however, the United Kingdom has run a contest for artists in 9 areas of England (East, East Midlands, London, North East, North West, South East, South West, West Midlands, Yorkshire) 1 in Scotland, 1 in Northern Ireland and 1 in Wales called Artists Taking the Lead.

About from Realm Productions Ltd on Vimeo.

From the Artists Taking the Lead website:
Artists taking the lead is one of the major projects of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and is being developed by Arts Council England in partnership with London 2012 and the arts councils of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Twelve commissions of up to £500,000 will be awarded to create 12 new works of art across the country; one in each of the nine English regions, and in the nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The project was launched in March 2009 with a call to artists to submit their big ideas in just 400 words. Over 2,000 artists applied, spanning a huge range of artforms and incorporating some spectacular ideas.

The submissions were judged by panels of artists and producers in each of the nations and regions, to decide the shortlist.

I’m especially excited about the project, Lionheart by “crochetdermy” artist Shauna Richardson. You can see more of her work here and some of her projects here. (For the curious, yes, this is a project related to King Richard I, Richard the Lionheart! You can read more about the connection to him here on the righthand side column of the page.)

East Midlands from Realm Productions Ltd on Vimeo.

All of the projects are brilliant, you can check out the winners plus those who were shortlisted here. For more about Shauna, go check out her lovely website. There is also a post with lots of pics of her over at Crochet Creative.

Thanks for the heads up, Mary via her friend Maggie!

Way to go, crochet!

And completely unrelated, but because I LOVE koalas, and will one day get to pet one and see if they are actually soft, did you know they might be extinct in 30 years? As it may take me 30 years to get to Australia, go learn about how they can be saved, therefore helping them live and me achieve my dream!

Knittin,’ ‘Innit?

| Betsy

Last weekend there was a lovely piece in The Guardian about “yarn storming,” written by a reporter who had seemingly never knitted anything in his life, but was along to see what all the fuss was about with a knitter from Knit The City. After you check out the article, here are some lovely videos of the Knit The City ladies yarn storming around London.





Surely you’re familiar with the US knit graffiti crew Knitta, but what about people that are yarn bombing (storming?) farther afield? Many of the groups knit-tagging all over the world can be found in Yarn Bombing the book, which was released earlier this fall…a book I’ll be reviewing later on this week. (Meanwhile, check out the Yarn bombing Flickr pool!)


Speaking of public acts of craft, as of last Friday 6 of my cross-stitch pieces will be shown throughout November at Cafe Helios in downtown Raleigh, NC!

The Dream Rocket!

| Betsy

About a year ago, I heard that the amazing and talented Jennifer Marsh had an eye on her next project. Covering a rocket with crafted goodness and hope. After tackling an entire gas station (above) and a giant tree (below), what’s a ginormous rocket? Well, the other week, I was so excited to get an email that included the press release for covering that rocket- a project called The Dream Rocket! Following the amazing Gas Station Project and Tree Project, here’s a brand new project that’s as equally as inspiring!

From the website, this project aims to:

The Dream Rocket is reaching out to students, teachers, schools, individuals, groups and organizations to create and submit over 8,000 “Dream Theme” or “Visionary” panels that will be sewn together in Huntsville, Alabama. This historical 30,467-square foot quilt will represent dreams from all over the world. During May and June of 2010, (60 days) this quilt will completely wrap the 363-foot vertical Saturn V Rocket which stands in front of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center® in Huntsville, Alabama.

I also love love love what Jennifer had to say about this endeavor, “The Saturn V Moon Rocket is the ideal example of achieving a dream that seems impossible. Whether your dream is curing cancer, going to Mars, or ending world hunger, the Saturn V is an inspiring visual reminder that any dream can come true. If we can work together to put a man on the moon, we can do anything.”

Want more information? Find out more on the Facebook page, through Flickr photos, on Twitter, and the website. You can also sign up for their newsletter here.

And for all you fellow kids of the ’80s, the U.S. Space & Rocket Center® Space Camp is what the cinematic genius that is Space Camp is based on!

Let Me Ease Your Day.

| Betsy

The lovely fiber artists Rockpool Candy and My Tarpit have launched a lovely new textile intervention project called Let Me Ease Your Day.

The kickoff for the project was earlier this month, but that doesn’t mean that they’re going to stop there. They’ll be spreading goodness through the UK and Ireland for a bit, and then bringing their magic to the United States in the fall! Below is a bit of text taken from a Rockpool Candy blog post regarding the project’s Belfast kickoff, and above are a few photos taken from their website. Want more? Then have a look over here.

In times of financial worry, charities suffer. The public pull in their purse strings and stop giving. When the living is easy, our money is often given to charity to ease our consciences, to allow us to carry on our day to day lives without having to interact with needy causes and to feel like we’re doing something.

But I want society to be different.

As crafters we have skills that we can put to use and make a difference that is not dependent on the free change we have in our pockets.

6th July sees my LET ME EASE YOUR DAY project launch in Belfast. A movement that takes what can often been seen as a middle-class pass time, yarn bombing, and purposes it for the good by providing knitted, crocheted and sewn textiles to the people in our society who might just need a random act of kindness to ease their day.

It could be you.
You may be having a bad day.
You could be sleeping rough.
Your job may be in jeopardy.
You could be worried about your mortgage.
You could have lost your cat/your friend/your child.

All these things leave us feeling vunerable.

What if, during your day, you found a small item left for you by a stranger specifically to nurture you. It won’t solve all your problems, but it may just put a glimmer of warmth in your chest.

Now, you may argue that LET ME EASE YOUR DAY is still a middle class reaction to human loneliness, but surely, as makers, it’s a way that we can make a difference with textiles.

Big big love.

Graffiti’s Little Idiosyncracies.

| Betsy

I just finished the piece above, which is graffiti of the Palestinian hijacker Leila Khaled spraypainted on the wall between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Leila Khaled was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). It was a choice made originally to highlight the fact that what we may view through our own cultural lens may not be the truth. After finding out the image was of Khaled, it twisted the idiosyncratic ways of graffiti even more than I thought possible. Who is graffiti for? Does it ever mislead given cultural histories? Once finished, graffiti is left for people to individually decide on its meaning, as the artist isn’t aware to explain it.

Ironically, this is part of my ongoing International Anti-War Cross-Stitch series. So what is a Palestinian hijacker spraypainted on a wall with “I Am Not A Terrorist” got to do with anti-war? It’s another example of how graffiti blurs the lines between conversations and cultures. Does the stencil speak for Khaled herself? Obviously not, as she has been very open and proud about her actions with the PFLP. Or is it more about the keffiyeh she’s wearing like a hijab? Graffiti doesn’t lead us to explanation, it lets us define according to our cultural backgrounds.

Graffiti, the act of leaving anonymous (although sometimes individually tagged) art in public places, never truly gives us an answer. It is a soft moment of art on a sterile public wall or building. It is a drunken moment of anger or a release of what can’t be said in public or just done for art’s sake. To some it is disturbing. To others it is beautiful. But no matter what you may think about it, it is always the true thoughts of the people, not the governments or wealthy businessmen, it’s a way for people who don’t normally get their voice heard to speak out in a public forum, for their chance to speak out and fight back. It’s the pulse of the city.

I have a collection of political graffiti images and can’t find the original one I used for the piece above, but was happily able to find an earlier photograph of it. This piece I like not because of the actions of Khaled, but for the lines it blurs. To me, as an American, previously unaware that this photo was of anyone in particular it spoke of whispers and side glances and speculations. We don’t know who stenciled this image on a wall in an area of strife, what their original goal was, if they made the stencil in a hurry or passed them out to friends. Most likely it was done under the veil of darkness, a crying out of viewpoints and frustrations and a will to action- not of violence, but of art.

To me this image is about cultural intracacies and defining lines and juxtaposition. It’s remembrance of the invisible and cultural defining line of Muslim as “other.” The juxtaposition of Khaled’s photo next to “I Am Not A Terrorist” doesn’t make me see Khaled. It makes me see the faces of women who wear the chadoor and the hijab and the kiffeyeh that we don’t really actually see. While literally their faces and/or heads are covered, that’s not what I’m speaking of. We just see the clothing. The mark of “other.” Not the woman inside. The woman who is not a terrorist, despite what her clothing might speak of to you.

And on the nightly news, on stories perfectly edited with English translations on top, this defining line of “other” is marked over and over and over again. Whether it’s a veil or a headscarf or a burkha, we may not really notice, just that it’s a cultural marker. Instead of seeing this piece as an act of glorifying a hijacker, I see a piece of frustration and redefinition, a remembrance that despite what we see on the news and in the media, Muslim does not equal terrorist…despite the fact that Khaled herself was a hijacker. I see the hundreds of thousands of women who are not terrorists. But it’s left with other random thoughts and scribbles done late at night in the dark, no explanation given. We are left to think of it what we will. We are left to find and feel the pulse of the city. We are left to navigate between the media on our screens and the media on our streets.