Chicks on Speed theremin update

If you're going to be in Wolfsburg, Germany this Friday 27 November, you should make your way down to Kunstverein Wolfsburg to see Chicks on Speed perform with the tapestry that was woven earlier this year during their solo exhibition at Craft Victoria. Best of all, it's eintritt frei! (free entry)

The tapestry was woven by some very nimble fingers at the Victorian Tapestry Workshop and then turned into a theremin using a high-tech theremin transformer at the Theremin Institute in Moscow.

In the meantime, here's a video of the theremin tapestry in action.

Introducing... Emma Greenwood

Following on from yesterday's post, today's Introducing... features the full-length interview with Shoe Show exhibitor Emma Greenwood.

Long-time readers of CLOG may remember an interview we did the Emma sometime last year. It was one of the first interviews we ran on CLOG and it's great to interview Emma again almost one year on!

Emma also has a blog filled with updates, projects, news, the occasional ultrasound update (congratulations Emma!!) and even a link to her talented son Leo's Lego blog. He is only four years old and he already puts most of us to shame with his mad Lego skills...

Happy Friday everyone!

Could you tell us a bit about yourself, where you grew up, what you studied at school?
Growing up in Adelaide I was a very academic lass until Year 12, when the pressure got too much and I discovered the art department. After that I did a four-year Visual Arts degree, majoring in printmaking, but then in my final year discovered sculpture and became hooked on three dimensions.

Upon completing your Visual Arts degree, what prompted the move towards shoemaking? Was it something that you’ve always been interested in, or was it more of a spur-of-the-moment decision?
Once I graduated I worked as a bike messenger for almost three years. When I felt the urge to study again, a friend and I wanted to start a street wear label, so we signed up for Apparel at TAFE.

There was also a handmade footwear course, which piqued my curiosity so I enrolled in both fields, thinking that the apparel would be full time and the footwear part time. The enrolment was bungled; I ended up doing full time footwear and completely fell in love with the sculptural process.

It immediately felt like an extension of my fine art training, an opportunity to refine and apply lateral thinking, and most of all an excuse to use hand and power tools, transforming raw materials into practical, sculptural pieces of art.

The shoes that you make are quite theatrical in design. Could you please tell us a bit more about where you derive your inspiration?
Well I’ve never been a minimalist and do tend to research my designs more in terms of key features. I’ve been drawn to costume books from history and film and really enjoy all the details, techniques and character design. Lately I’m obsessed with a Star Wars costume book, from Episodes 4 – 6 - to work on a project as vast as a three-movie period would be an amazing experience.

My other inspirations are diverse, including royal and military regalia, decorative patterns from many cultures, art and history, and both pop and hip hop culture.

Using traditional textile arts such as crochet, embroidery and knitting, and combining these skills with leatherwork in a contemporary way is something I enjoy seeing evolve. I’m big on technique, and often teach myself new methods just to get the look right.

You’ve been working with shoes and exhibiting for over 12 years now. How do you think your practice has evolved in this period of time?
The first 7 years of my career resembled an informal apprenticeship, as I worked in established studios making shoes by hand in Adelaide, Sydney and finally Melbourne. During this time I was able to hone my skills, experiment with many different materials and styles, and learn about small business.

Since embarking on my own I have introduced an accessories range and concentrated on my shoemaking in a very specialised sense, making exhibition and experimental pieces, alongside more commercial bespoke work for clients, friends and family.

I used to prefer to make handmade sneakers, customised for graffiti artist pals, and over the years have got this down pat. Lately I feel a bit more like a grown up, so I’m making more refined styles, not entirely girly, but with more feminine details. That said, I am currently working on a pair which are pink and gold, really not my colours, but my sub-conscious is commanding me to make them!

In comparison with the other Shoe Show exhibitors, you are the only shoemaker who works on their own. How does this affect the way you approach your artistic practice?
I do envy the cross-pollination of ideas that working with others can bring, plus being able to share machinery must be a bonus, but I can be a bit of a control freak! As a shoemaker I have mostly worked alone, occasionally sharing spaces with others; jewellers, graffiti artists, and musicians. Shoemaking is quite grubby though, generating a lot of dust, noise and stink from the glues, so I’m now working in a customised home studio.

I love working from home, previously having a studio outside the home meant that the time spent travelling and the extra expense just never added up. I like being able to walk out into the backyard with a cup of tea, having put the laundry on, and do a few hours at the workbench. Also my son is not yet at school, so when he’s at home it’s easy for me to grab a bit of time in the studio.

Do you see shoes more as ‘fashion’ or ‘art’, or both?
They can, of course, be both, but in my practice I like to create them as art. I don’t get much satisfaction from producing a run-of-the-mill style with minimal flair, I’d much rather imbue my work with thorough attention to detail, in terms of design, materials and construction.

There are so many stages in the production of handmade footwear, and each process is tailored and time consuming. The skills involved take so long to master, and are art forms themselves, often there’s a need to re-invent processes for particular styles. There is a huge amount of problem solving required, as well as patience, persistence, maybe even a certain pathology!

One-offs are easier to produce as art, such as the pieces I’ve made for Shoe Show, inevitably once you get into production runs a little bit of the magic can be lost. I generally sample something outlandish which satisfies my more-is-more ethos, but then I’ll refine it and offer a less embellished version. It can be a fine line between creative indulgence and commercial survival.

And finally, “If I were a shoe I’d be…
…a transformer shoe, which could morph in-between states: from a smart, stylish and highly customised sneaker, to a hand-carved platform geta with embroidered tabi socks, which then folded out into an elaborate yet elegant golf brogue with quilted tongue flap, then to a sleek high heeled lace-up piece of brilliance with tartan details.

Honestly it is too hard to name one shoe, I would have to be a shape-shifter!

Photography by Richard Brockett

Studio visit: Emma Greenwood

This week, here's a look into Shoe Show exhibitor Emma Greenwood's Coburg studio, conveniently nestled in her very own backyard.




Check out the Open Bench Residencies label! Remember when that happened? It feels like an age ago...

A shoe last

Extra large work table for extra large creative outputs, custom built by Sam (Emma's partner). Pictured on the table is Shoe Show work 'Tron' - it was just a work-in-progress back then.



This is what it used to look like:

Machinery


...and there was even an adorable cat running around Emma's studio!

Sketchbook

Inspiration - books on Star Wars costumes (that's George Lucas in the blue paint there!) and military regalia

Come back tomorrow for Emma's full-length interview on Introducing !

Photography by Richard Brockett and Kim Brockett

Craft Hatch November wrap-up

Last Saturday's Craft Hatch was our busiest yet with around 600 visitors to the market, which was no doubt due to the fantastic quality of makers involved in this month's market. It was a bustling affair, with plenty of smiles, happy visitors and even some brown sugar biscuits on offer (courtesy of this delicious recipe)

On behalf of everyone, thank you for coming down to the market and making it such a wonderful affair. We'll see you at the next one on Saturday 12 December, and then again at the State Library on Saturday 19 December for a special Christmas market involving 28 makers, a lot of them who will be participating in Craft Hatch for the first time. But more information on that later! For now, here's how the market went on Saturday.

Wooden brooches and earrings, along with handmade aprons by Gemma Johnson.

Nancygirl leather accessories and cards by Sue Manski. Watch out for Sue at the upcoming Christmas Craft Hatch market at the State Library of Victoria!

Laser cut wooden brooches by LabthreeOfive.

LabthreeOfive consists of seven architecture students and they recently won the New Craft/Healesville Sanctuary brief to design a series of animal-themed coasters with pop out badges for the Zoo. Congratulations guys! You can check it out here.

Limited edition prints by Dawn Tan.

Do check out Dawn's blog, where she's written some kind words about the market. Aw, thanks Dawn!

The very exciting debut of Tasty Pixel digitally printed cushion covers by Sheena McKinnon.

Helping Sheena out on the day was her buddy Raph of Design Droplets. Raph has also written a lovely article on the market which you can view here.

Jewellery by Tara Lofhelm, a recent NMIT graduate and part of the current enCOUNTER exhibition SNEAK

Super cheerful felted accessories and homewares by Melinda Hawkes

Sharon Russell was back and better than ever with more knitted goodness. She was also knitting some golden lightbulb cosies for an upcoming Christmas window display at enCOUNTER. Keep an eye out for it!

Thanks for making it such a great day everyone!

A very different animal

Ready to give help.

Those familiar with my place high up in the trees and whom may also have glanced of late at the pages of my artists’ books and postcard collages know that there feature many animals, many birds. My tailed or feathered protagonists often out of place, oft too large for their present surrounds. They scale rooftops, climb cathedral spires; perch high on the mast of a ship on maiden voyage do my central characters. Sometimes they saunter nonchalantly past a city square. Sometimes they tiptoe or creep. And all the time they afford me chance not just to play with scale and humorous, I hope, foreign juxtapositions, but to convey feelings of awkwardness and oddness. They are out of place, not just in urban environment or strange land (the mountain lions home range is not Brussels), but also in feeling. Being animals, in form, they are easier to relate to. One is not distracted by the dissimilarities because there are so many. I am not covered in fur, with claws for fingertips and a tail to serve as rudder on mountain climb. I am so different that I look only at what the animal is doing in its new environment. It is on the sidelines, watching. It is looking for a safe place to curl. It is passing undetected. It is slinking through the city unseen. It, like me, feels the odd one out.

It was worth it if only to see the stars scuttle across the shore.

Fearful of losing them, time and time again.

It’s okay; your secret is safe with me.

In addition to what you can see here and in gallery two, I invite you to peer over my shoulder, I have tiny moving visuals captured with iPhone's aid for your amusement. But be forewarned, I am no filmmaker, seemed merely easiest way to share with you a book or two whose pages you cannot turn for yourself.

Over My Shoulder (I)
Blinking in the light

Over My Shoulder (II)
Eager for the old joys once more

Enjoy your eve, G

Congratulations to Katie Jacobs, PAN Gallery Award winner

Our heartiest congratulations to Katie Jacobs, who took home the PAN Gallery Award last Thursday evening! Katie's entry, a pair of cast porcelain vessels/bottles taken from a silver birch tree from her backyard, was deemed best in show by ceramacist Jane Sawyer.

Curator Anita Cummins with winner, Katie Jacobs

Thank you to all who came to the opening and who made it such a wonderful affair! Be sure to check out the PAN Gallery blog for more coverage, and to view more photos from the evening, click here.

Curators Kim Brockett and Anita Cummins

The PAN GAllery Award is on until Wednesday 25 November.

Photography by Richard Brockett