Study in thrift

I found this collection of saved threads in an old sewing box which I bought at a market in France. The care and attention that has gone into saving such small amounts of thread, reminds me of how thrifty we once were with materials.

Craft in crisis?

I was recently asked to attend a workshop day at Plymouth College of Art, exploring craft and sustainability. It seems that Craft is having a sort of crisis of confidence. Apparently, there are fewer students enrolling in applied art courses and some in the craft world are questioning what their shared ideology is, in todays world.

I don't particularly align myself with Craft, but rather exist more as a designer and researcher who 'makes', but it seems that alot of the discussions happening in design around sustainability are clearly of interest to Craft.

Included in the workshop was a potter, a furniture maker, a book maker and a glass-blower. Some of the talk was around 'skills', and the very valuable skills knowledge that craftspeople have. In light of the fact that a more sustainable model of living will no doubt have to include a more 'skilled up' population (maintaining home energy systems, food growing, repairing objects and clothes), the craftsperson has alot to teach us.

Richenda was a glass blower for many years, but is now part of the Transition Town Totnes group where she runs community-led arts projects. One project involves her taking a group of people into the woods for a walk. They have all been asked to bring five tools with them and they are instructed to make something using their tools and any natural materials they come across on their walk. The objects are then displayed in an exhibition at the end.

This is a great example of an exercise in using all those skills which we dont often get to utilise living a modern, technologically-advanced lifestyle - being observant, having attention to detail, and experimenting.

Also, showing the objects in an exhibition promotes the idea that objects made by hand, using natural materials made by non- craftspeople can be beautiful and functional.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/anyroom/

Dream & Awake

Dream & Awake are a fashion label of simple vintage dresses which have been re-worked or had some kind of 'design intervention'. There is a lovely website, with experimental fashion photography. You get the sense that these dresses have already had a whole story and by buying one you are buying into a sort of mini-narrative.

There is also a 'photo gallery' of all the dresses they have worked on and photographed, as a memory bank of "the moments they [the dresses] were once part of".

You can also rent dresses from their showroom which I think is in Paris.

Re-thinking clothes lines

It is not a very well known fact, but most of the environmental impacts involved with textiles and clothing actually happens during the washing, drying and ironing stage, when we are living with textiles and caring for them.

Most focus is often placed on the production stage of textiles, whether its the pesticides involved with cotton production, or the water and energy usage during the weaving, spinning and finishing stages. But the cleaning and drying of our clothes and textiles needs to be re-considered, and requires some 'joined up thinking' by machine manufacturers, clothing designers and even psychologists.

There have been some recent campaigns such as Marks & Spencer's 'Wash at 30' campaign, which are helping to shift our domestic behaviors. But more needs to be done and the next focus by government and industry is apparently going to be on encouraging people to use line drying more, rather than tumble dryers.

How can we make line drying a cool thing to do?

I'm a big fan of line drying and have never used a tumble dryer. It helps that I love all the accessories involved in line drying like pegs and washing baskets - in Australia where I grew up, you even get a trolley on wheels which your washing basket slots into, so you can wheel it down to the clothes line at the bottom of the garden. Of course, in Australia, there is a trusty round clothes line in the back of every garden. But how do you encourage people to line dry in the UK, where the weather is not ideal, and not every one has accesss to outdoor space? 

At a recent Defra event on the environmental impacts of clothes cleaning, we workshopped some ideas. One idea would be that we need to redesign indoor clothes racks. Like those Victorian pulley-system ones that you secure to the ceiling to save space.  But someone needs to also offer some sleek and groovy ones, for other types of taste. It would also help to start to build in spaces in new homes for indoor line drying.

The main point I took away from the event was that trying to encourage sustainable clothes cleaning practices is all about behaviour change, and as I said above, will involve the collaborative know-how of the many different players involved.

Art and the everyday

For years, I've have had in my possession a magazine cutting of an amazing rural property in Pennsylvania. There was a rambling old house with several out-buildings and sheds, all semi-derelict but somehow being kept upright by the owners creative ingenuity, love and care. There were also all these wonderful semi-permanent tent structures which were comfortably stuffed full of beautiful vintage bed linens and antiques. It turns out that the owner of this property is the poetically named J. Morgan Puett, a fashion designer and artist, and the property is called Mildred's Lane, named after the last remaining owner who died there aged 87, having lived alone without electricity or running water.

Puett has now made the property into an 'artists colony' where many different artists come to live and collaborate together on projects, happenings and exhibitions. Working as a sort of big art project in itself, Mildred's Lane is an attempt to collectively create new modes of being in the world - whether its questions about our relationship to the environment, systems of labour, or forms of dwellings.

"As a participant at Mildred's Lane these issues will be negotiated through the rethinking of one's involvements with food, shopping, making, styling, gaming, sleeping, reading, thinking and doing".

I love the idea that the everyday is rich with meaning and can be a focal point to explore creativity, beauty and sociality. Upcoming projects include an experimental apiary developed with Puett and local bee keepers and a project exploring the land on the property through map making, gathering wild foods and explorations in constructing 'dwellings', both traditional and experimental.

Images: www.mildredslane.com

Craft production

Having talked alot lately about the growing interest in how things are made and how one could participate more in 'making' processes, it looks like some of the most interesting shows at the Milan Furniture Fair last week were 'making' events.

Craft Punk was a show of young designers, either alone or in small collaborative groups, who were involved in 'onsite' craft production.

Simon Hasan was boiling leather, apparently the way they used to do it medieval times, and wrapping the softened leather around objects and furniture.

Sarah Becker was stitching and 'customising' left-over remnants from the Fendi leather goods factory (Fendi were the sponsors of the show).

Studio Glithero were creating beautiful ceramics using a special light exposure technique which turned the white ceramic a deep blue, and using sprigs of flowers to create a silhouette. Aptly called 'Brief moments of happiness', the objects created were simple and poetic.  

Creating the work in-situ like this, reveals the slow, hands-on and experimental nature of craft production and offers a more low-fi and alternative vision to the normal products and events on show at such a major design festival.

Images: www.designboom.com

slow design

There is a Slow Down London festival on at the moment encouraging Londoners to slow down their pace of living and appreciate the simple things in life more. There are talks, feasts and 'slow' walks around London.

Our urban interest for all things 'slow' also extends to design. Slow design and what this could mean for designers is being explored by several organisations and thinkers. Slowlab, who seem to be like a 'testing laboratory' for the ideas of slow design, have developed six principles. These include ideas such as reflection ("slowly-designed artefacts which induce contemplation and reflective consumption")and participation ("designs which embrace ideas of conviviality and exchange").

As I mentioned in my last post, there are many products and initiatives which are encouraging consumers or users to participate in the design process, whether its learning how to alter or adapt your existing garments or being able to choose which design you would like printed on a tshirt you are buying.

As part of the Slow Down London Festival, wallpaper designer/maker Linda Florence ran a workshop on 'Slow Printing', demonstrating her print techniques and allowing people to get involved in the screen -printing process.

I was also impressed by an exhibition at last year's London Design Festival, by furniture designer Tom Dixon. He exhibited a collection of chairs he had designed in collaboration with upholsterers George Smith. The exhibit showed the chairs at the many stages of construction, with several upholsterers working on-site. The beauty and craftmanship of the chairs was revelaed in a simple, effective way.

All of these events and initiatives reveal the hunger and inquisitiveness that we have for learning how a product is made or how a craft skill is demonstrated.

Image: www.tomdixon.net