The Crafted Object
Making things with your hands sets up dialogues – between the materials and you, between you and the stories you imbue into the piece, and between the eventual owner, their history and what meanings they overlay onto that object. It’s a beautiful dance.
And it’s never just about the technical skill required.
Inspiring: Barbara Gilhooly {maker/artist}
Barbara Gilhooly's work is seductive in its multilayered colours, its bright patterns and flowers, its hints of mid-century style. And she amazes with her variety of mediums and breadth of skill - painting, printmaking, wire and wood sculpture, just to name a few ......
Inspiration : MonicaJ {crochet}
MonicaJ Monica Johnson's friend Jennifer used to visit her house regularly. "She saw me creating paintings one at a time, and stacking them in a corner; creating more and stacking them in a corner. And one day she asked me, what are you planning to do with all...
Inspiration : Zero Pumpkin {Pauline Teng – plushies}
The creatures of Zero Pumpkin Land live in the dark corners of Under-Your-Bed and Inside-Your-Closet, only venturing out to reveal their true selves at night. If you manage to catch one they will swear to be your friend and promise you kisses, but only for so long as...
Inspiring: Elly MacKay, TheaterClouds
I can't get over how delicate and lovely these images are from Elly Mackay, the artist behind theaterclouds. They glow like warm memories of childhood, viewed through a magical peephole. Elly is part craftsperson, part theatre-designer, and part...
Inspiration : Laurie Poast {ceramics}
Laurie Poast grew up in a little farming village in Wisconsin, dreaming of the far-off places of her ancestors and pondering the magic of craftsmanship in the workshop of her father, the master luthier Ron Poast. It was the architecture of her heritage in...
Inspiration : MeanderWorks {Marilyn Brogan, jeweller}
Marilyn Brogan's jewellery exudes peace and beauty - her gentle lines put me in mind of clouds drifting by in a bright blue sky. Perhaps it's a result of the workspace that she has surrounded herself with - a sun-filled rooftop studio with displays of cacti and...
Inspiring : Ruchika {ceramics}
Ceramicist Ruchika Madan learnt to say no the hard way, but it was one of the best realizations she ever had. "I was initially so eager for work, I found it very hard to refuse projects that I didn't want to do, or wholesale production orders....
Inspiring : Whimsy Milieu {craft}
Jacqueline Chan finds inspiration everywhere, from the curiosities of the natural world to delectable French patisserie and everything in between. Wooden rings with painted diamonds, colourful leather concoctions of necklaces with names like "Sweet Success" and...
Inspiring : Anny Schoo Clothing
Trying to choose my favourite piece of clothing from Anny Schoo is an impossible task - it's all those flowing lines and classic shapes reinvented in crispy natural linen - not to mention the delicious choice of colours to be combined at whim... Her aim...
The best of 2014
Oh. My. Goodness. There goes another year..... in all its chaotic, mind-bending glory. Disappointments, epiphanies, and serious amounts of hard slog. I'm older and wiser. And clearer on what I need to do. And that's awesomeness right there, even though I didn't...
Inspiring : karoArt {ceramics}
"Karolina Grudniewska discovered ceramics almost by accident. It all began one Christmas when she found two bags of clay under the Xmas Tree... and once she started playing with it she could not stop." So begins karoArt's introduction to her Etsy shop. ...
Inspiring : INAE {Laura Hewitt ceramics}
Laura Hewitt started her career in arts as a sculptor in mixed media. When people asked her about her work, she said she often heard herself answer, "Well, it's not anything, exactly." And thus, It's Not Anything Exactly {INAE} Enterprises was born. ...
Get art into the world! : Pots on Wheels
You know I am absolutely passionate about getting art/craft/design out into the world. So when ceramicist Adero Willard (who I featured here) contacted me recently about this awesome Kickstarter she is involved in, I had to spread the word. It's called Pots on Wheels,...
Icon : Stig Lindberg
Icon: Stig Lindberg Hellooo!!! I can spend hours ogling and sighing over the beauty of things from artists and makers throughout the ages, especially the amazing proliferation of items and artworks since the industrial revolution. So it is with the incredibly talented...
Design fundamentals: Gestalt (rhymes with Salt)
Well OK OK OK, Gestalt NEARLY rhymes with Salt, but it depends a bit on where you live in the world and who taught you about it. Anyway the question really is, what IS Gestalt and why is it important to design? Gestalt theory came about in the 1920s when a group of...
Inspiring : Sas and Fez {ceramics}
Moving between her tiny spare room that doubles as a studio and store room and the electric wheel set up in a corner of her lounge room {and thankful for a "long-suffering and extremely supportive husband who tends to turn a blind eye to my creative endeavours as they...
Etsy : Is it on the slippery slope from handmade to manufacture?
{all images are linked to their respective shops} There has been been a debate raging ever since Etsy decided to change its policies on what constituted 'handmade' late last year. Those policies now allow designers and makers to outsource a substantial amount of what...
The crafted object : Nora Leschinski ~ wood carver and illustrator
Nora Leschinski grew up in a remote mountain village in the green forested heart of Germany. It was the perfect starting point for a wood carver, and nature provided its designs for inspiration. Studying sculpture at art school opened up a whole new...
Inspiring : Doll Disaster Design
Doll Disaster Design : Jewellery Tessa Rickard collects antique, broken doll parts and heads, and is incessantly drawn to all the strange objects that time has forgotten about. It was what prompted her business name; her Masters thesis was called "From The Mind Of A...
Hot or not : cactus
OK OK OK. Well I reckon that if I've got a Pinterest board called "Love a good succulent", than you can safely assume that hey, I don't mind the odd cactus. The shapes and colours are pretty incredible - I love their chunkiness, their strange shapes and their...
The crafted object : Elsa Mora ~ papercuts
I admit it; I have been stalking the eminently admirable Elsa Mora for a few years now. Not only does she make fabulously sculptural papercuts, but her art extends into every facet of her life - she is also a drawer, a painter, a photographer, a maker of books and a...
The crafted object : A Plus Designnn {crochet jewellery}
I love these organic little textile accessories from Anda Toma (aka APlusDesignnn). They are curious and intriguing and speak to me of sealife - coral, nudibranchs and strange deep-sea creatures. Tactile and colourful, Anda crochets and beads her...
Small biz how-to : meet Uncommon Goods
How did I not know of Uncommon Goods before now? I am so very glad they contacted me, as I love finding new ways to help artists and designers to sell their work! Uncommon Goods is a platform for artists and designers from around the world to sell their work through,...
The crafted object – Pearson Maron {clay}
Pearson Maron Adam Maron and Quincy Pearson once invented a secret society of monkeys which was so secret that even the monkeys didn't talk about it, but identified each other by the particular hue of yellow in the fezzes that each of them wore. Besotted...
The crafted object : Quality ~ it’s in the details
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe famously said "God is in the details." Quality is being purposeful and attentive to all those little things that many of us rush over, and is the reward for those of us who choose to heed we see. {via RebeccaHannon.com} It's in the interiors...
Inspiring : Pendragon Shoes
Pendragon Shoes First up I must apologise for the overload of pictures I'm about to share - these handmade shoes are just too too glorious and I couldn't decide which ones I should show you first. Anyway, here goes. Inspired by myriad things...
The crafted object : Frank Ideas {jewellery}
Frank Ideas Rowan Shaw started designing jewellery because both of her kids were keen swimmers. "With training every morning at 5am it meant I was stuck in a car or by a pool a lot and jewellery was portable. At that stage it was mainly textile necklaces using...
Photography + Craft : Clemens Wirth
Clemens Wirth swears he's not a wizard despite his red hair. But I have my doubts when I look at his miniature moving dioramas and think about what has actually gone into making them. I think they're incredible. An Austrian filmmaker and artist living...
The crafted object : Su Blackwell {papercut}
Su Blackwell : papercuts In secret forests small creatures lie low and trees whisper their stories to each other through their leaves and branches. Light plays games of hide and seek with shadows as solitary wanderers search out their destinations. Birds sing quiet...
Hot or Not? Wire Wrapped
Opinion : Wire wrapped jewellery has to be one of the most abused methods of construction known to metal craft. The plethora of ugly, misshapen abominations I endured while searching for good examples to show you meant that I searched through FIFTY PAGES on Etsy...