TinkeringTimes

Tinkering Textiles on Facebook

It's only taken roughly forever, but I decided it was about time to have a craft page on Facebook. So here it is. Tinkering Textiles. Do head over there and like it. Here's five reasons why...

1. Because I still get that nerdy happy feeling when someone subscribes to a blog, likes a page or retweets a tweet. You can put that nerdy smile in my tummy.

2. This blog you're reading now will, as ever, have craft (and other) news of worldwide interest with some meat to it and my usual careful curatorial ways. But it takes a while to write the posts on here, and you may have noticed, sometimes I find it hard to put that time aside. So...
...the Tinkering Textiles facebook page will have more bitesized snippets. Quick posts. Which means I can share more with you as and when I find or think of them instead of missing the moment, which sometimes happens here.

3. For those of you who are UK or North West there will be more news just for you. I tend not to post local news on this blog because I know it's read by people in all corners of the world. But if you're in the market for opportunities to show, sell, compete or work in craft in the NW and UK then the facebook page is where you'll find it. Don't worry there'll be plenty of big and global craft news too, just as you'd expect.

4. Eventually I'll be moving my Tinkering Textiles shop there. Etsy's pretty much had its day for me so I'm setting up on Payvment and will be listing things I've made as well also craft and interior hardware, supplies and classic vintage offers. (There's just a couple of items now if anyone's in the market for a handmade cushion cover or Debbie Stoller's Stitch n Bitch Knitters Handbook). More to follow soon.

5. Well it's Facebook, you're there anyway right?

Of course blog posts from here will also be sent over there, for facebookers who don't follow it anywhere else. Thanks to the *almost* 50 people who have liked it so far. Can't wait to see more of you there soon. 

UK DIY report

Some of you may remember me doing a research project a few years ago called UK DIY, which spawned its own blog and a programme of exhibitions, projects and events.

Since I researched the DIY / subversive / counter culture - call it what you will - craft scene in the UK in 2006 I've been promising to share the report I wrote. It's now available over on my work blog for all to read.

To give you a flavour the contents page reads as follows... Defining DIY :: A Potted History :: Textiles :: Gender Stories :: Inclusivity & Anti-elitism :: Anti-consumerism & The Individual :: Political Crafting :: Interdisciplinary Content :: Street Crafting :: Sharing, Authorship and Currency :: Art & Anti-Art :: Entrepreneurialism :: Quality :: Exhibition & Project Potential :: Options and Recommendations

The UK DIY blog has been quiet for the past year or more but I think that's fine. It started something amazing, and now other projects, networks, blogs and more have sprung up all over the country in ways that suit the times and spaces they populate. I don't think it would be either possible or necessary to try and document it all in one place anymore, there are so many other good blogs covering the variety of activity in so many ways and that's such a good thing.

So I'm pretty much letting UK DIY go, putting it to bed, or rather taking the seed that it was and bedding it back in the soil to see what else grows from it. I already have lots of ideas that I know came as a result of that work, and I think there will be many more in the very near future...
 

Post Craft

What is post craft? Where are we in time if craft is the past? You know, I have no idea, I really don't. But at last I can share my excitement about finding out. I've been bursting with excitement about this for weeks and now I can blurt it out to the world!

I will be chairing a panel discussion at this year's Future Everything festival eyeing up the future of craft in a DIY-hack-break-down-the-walls-of-the-institution type chat with some fellow craft / future / hack heads.

The conference organiser introduces the topic thus:

"In an increasingly post-digital world, there is a move towards a pre-industrial landscape. Eased by global connectivity, cottage industries are sprouting up everywhere. People are creating their own products, services, and art. They are rediscovering the satisfaction of creating a tangible product, the process of making, the lessons from making by hand."

Now I know much of that is true (though are we in a post-digital world already? heck where does the time go?) and it echoes much of what I discovered in my UK DIY craft research a few years ago. So I'm thrilled to have been asked to be part of the panel. (I suspect I'll come away ever more confused of course, shh don't tell anyone ok?)

*That picture up there, by the way, is from Datadecs, one of the projects of one of the other panel members, interaction designer Andy Huntington. Do have a look at his website, he does some very cool stuff turning data into beautiful and fun things 

Geek Crafting

The craft planets must have aligned big time lately because there are some great opportunities coming my way in the next few months. I have come to accept that my love of craft has geeky tendancies. In fact not just accept it, but embrace it, thrive on it, be proud of it.

I was enormously excited to have been told my proposal for Cornerhouse's Micro Commissions scheme was accepted. I can't say much more for now other than it will be a project management / curation thing combining textiles and technology. I will tell you more soon, because you'll all be invited to take part...

And on a similar theme, I've been invited to lead an event exploring cutting edge craft and technology cross-over. Again I'm sworn to secrecy for now, but I am fairly bowled over that one of the other people involved is ceramicist Michael Eden, maker of the Babel vessel pictued above. It's currently touring as part of the Crafts Council exhibition Lab Craft: Digital Adventures in Contemporary Craft.

Textiles & Electronics

Through the magic of twitter I was introduced to Lynne Bruning. She weaves magic in the form of textiles and electronics. Given that I've twice researched this area I'm amazed I didn't find her before. She's a whizz with neon, nylon and pulses.

Added to that, this piece, Synaptic, is inspired by green flourescant protein; the nervous system; and cell imaging. A flick through my recent posts will show you how I feel just now about tiny scale science coming together with textiles. She describes it as "a Victorian raver blacklight evening coat" - brilliant! (Literally)

This is something I'd love to try more of myself, and though all her workshops on how to create your own conductive threads, fabrics and yarns seem to be in other countries, actually it's not that impossible. My local hackspace - Madlab - runs beginners courses in Arduino programming, which is a tiny computer board you can wire into fabrics to make it run instructions like switching led lights on and off - so if I ever have the time / money available I'm going to try and master this one, as a starting point.

You may already be familiar too, with Leah Buechley's work - probably the longest known textiles / arduino hacker; she helped develop the exceptionally appealing looking Lilypad Arduino, which was what first sparked my interest in this, around 3 or 4 years ago.

The future is *bright*

Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity

If you haven't come across TED talks yet, do scout them out. Some of the most inspiring viewing you'll find on the web.

This one stood out for me as being relevant to makers / crafters / designers (even though it's a writer talking). It is around 20 minutes but stick with it, you'll find yourself being pulled into a story of wonder, and feeling verified towards the end, no matter what your creative process is, how much of a struggle it may be, and however successful (or not) you find your outputs, work, pieces, objects - whatever you want to call them.

I'm just over here on pinterest...

Just a little note to let you know, if you didn't already, about Pinterest.

Firstly to say it's here - www.pinterest.com - like a big social, global, web based mood board. It rather niftily lets you bang a quick url into a field* (or 'pin' it) and bam - there's your image on your board. Since it links straight back to where you found it, all the credits / acknowledgements to the original owner of the image are sorted automatically - brilliant! 
*Or you can do it the old fashioned way and just upload an image.

At present it's mostly the domain of craft and decor types but I can see limitless potential for how it could be used. You can have individual boards or collective ones, depending on whether you set it so that only you can post to it, or whether you allow other people to as well.

Embroidered Digital Commons

 
Occasionally I receive invitations to show in exhibitions. Mostly I don't have time to produce the work but this was an invite I couldn't ignore...

"I have been approached by Dr Ele Carpenter (Lecturer,Dept of Art, Goldsmiths College) to coordinate an embroidery art work for an exhibtion she is organising which will be curated by artists anrdrea zapp and simon blackmoore, and be shown at the AND Festival in Manchester in October.

I need a team of creatives to embroider a series of words on to a patch. The size of the patch will be 25 x 25cm and I will provide you with the words. All the patches will get photographed to create slide show and then appear in a series of exhibitions".

I decided I could just about manage a 25cm square piece of embroidery. And I do love how the AND festival has been developing over the past couple of years so was really excited to think my little contribution could become part of it.