Author: Sue Tyler

The end of Craft as we know it.

Open now and on for the next few weeks is Nan­aged­don at ROAR! gallery.  Nan­aged­don is the end of craft as we know it and its not-for-the-faint­heart­ed 😉

Many of the of the artists involved learnt how to craft from their nanas and using those skills they are trans­form­ing craft into art.

 

This isn’t tea cosies with a twist or styl­ish scarves (both of which we love) but a re-take on tra­di­tion­al craft meth­ods, giv­ing us anoth­er way at look­ing at and using craft.

 

Nanan­aged­don releas­es craft from it’s nor­mal, com­mon and accept­ed uses draw­ing it into the realms of con­cep­tu­al­ly dri­ven art.

 

Some of today’s edgy, and rad­i­cal thinkers are part of Nan­aged­don and they are also shar­ing their skills with you at two pub­lic work­shops:

 

- On Sat­ur­day August 29th take a fam­i­ly pho­to­graph along to ROAR! and trans­form it using some embroi­dery tech­niques.

 

- the fol­low­ing Sat­ur­day – Sep­tem­ber 5th take along some old plas­tic bags and you’ll learn how to trans­form them into jan­dals.

Both work­shops are by gold coin dona­tion

 

So get your craft on or just head along to ROAR! above Real Groovy Records in Upper Cuba Street from now until Sep­tem­ber 12th

check out the web­site for open­ing hours

3 day CraftWeekend

We’ve already told you about

• The hand­made nation screen­ings on Mon­day
• The out­door knit tag­ging action planed for Sun­day
• Sat­ur­day pick for Crafty­ness is.….

.…. The Island Bay Craft Vil­lage!

It’s  show­cas­ing a gor­geous range of bags, jew­ellery, choco­late, cup­cakes, clothes, pho­tos, toys, brooches, scarfs, pot­tery, ceram­ics and more.

Head along to the Pres­by­ter­ian Church at 88 The Parade in Island Bay from 10am till 4pm on Sat­ur­day 8 August to sup­port NZ busi­ness­es and be part of the bustling atmos­phere.

If you can’t make it this week­end, don’t despair – the Island Bay Craft Vil­lage hap­pens on the sec­ond Sat­ur­day of every month!

Fence action

Right now you can check out the start of the Out­door Knit fence action on the cnr of Vivian and Bute Streets.

As love­ly as 3 hearts are, that fence is still pret­ty ugly. Fences as a gen­er­al rule are. So in an attempt to make some­thing awe­some out of some­thing that is a big fat waste of land at the moment, Out­door Knit are get­ting their craft on this Sun­day, and every­one is wel­come to join in.
 
Head your­self over to the fence on the cor­ner of Vivian and Bute St in Welling­ton, and join stiX in weav­ing hearts of all sorts of colours into the fence, all the way along the Vivian St side of the fence.

You total­ly don’t need to know how to knit. And Out­door Knit are sup­ply­ing the yarn. All you need is fin­gers.

Check out the event planned for this Sun­day over at Out­door knit.

Handmade Nation

Trav­el­ing across the world to sold out crowds, it is Wellington’s turn to check out Hand­made Nation!

Hand­made Nation is screen­ing twice at The Para­mount the­atre on Mon­day August 10th. Each screen­ing will fea­ture guest speak­ers, and a spe­cial Craft Show­case of local ven­dors.

Vis­it the Welling­ton Cre­ative Web­site for full details.

fabric, fabric , everywhere

After a bril­liant launch in April, Fabr ic-a-brac is back!

Here’s your chance to pick up fab­u­lous vin­tage, unusu­al and mod­ern fab­ric, but­tons & pat­terns. Fab­ric-a-brac promis­es  a huge range of fab­ric styles – from off­cuts of uphol­stery fab­ric, to style‑y leather and tons of vin­tage

So head over to Brook­lyn Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre this Sat­ur­day from 12 noon till 3pm. We rec­comend get­ting there bang on noon as we know from last time the ear­ly bird does score the best fab­ric haul.

Fab­ric-a-brac also fea­tures a stall rais­ing mon­ey for Mary Pot­ter Hos­pice. Any­one can donate for the table just pop along to any of the places list­ed on the web­site.

Now park­ing is pret­ty tight so con­sid­er catch­ing the bus and since you are up that way drop into the pent­house and catch some film fes­ti­val screen­ings.

When: 12noon – 3pm, Sat­ur­day 18 July
Where: Brook­lyn Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, 18 Har­ri­son St, Brook­lyn

More info head over to the Fab­ric-a-brac web­site.

The big freeze

This Fri­day June 5 is World Envi­ron­ment Day, and in our fairy cap­i­tal city, and in oth­er spots around the coutry hun­dreds of peo­ple will “freeze” togeth­er to show unit­ed action for cli­mate change.

The Freeze is set to kick off at 1pm for just five min­utes.

Right now the loca­tion is all secret squir­rel, but stay tuned

Nick Pot­ter, Per­son­al Assis­tant to Mr Freeze and lead co-ordi­na­tor of a team of vol­un­teers, says

“If there was ever a time for you to get involved — it’s now. 2009 is a cru­cial year of action and in Decem­ber, a new glob­al cli­mate treaty will be nego­ti­at­ed in Copen­hagen. We need to come togeth­er and send the mes­sage that glob­al agree­ment is essen­tial and that bold and urgent action is need­ed.”

And look you can even check out last year’s freeze, on the you tube.

I’m think­ing stand­ing in the mid­dle of the road is not the most ide­al place to freeze, so as the girl guides used to say, be pre­pared.

Peo­ple can join the Freeze and find out more at www.freezenz.wordpress.com

It’s funny season in the City

It’s Com­e­dy fes­ti­val time in the Cap­i­tal.

Per­son­al­ly I think the tim­ing is always quite impec­ca­ble as win­ter has just hit and with it comes the win­ter blues. There are loads of amaz­ing local acts and also some bril­liant inter­na­tion­als.

Now nor­mal­ly the inter­na­tion­al acts like to include a lit­tle local con­tent to make the crowd love them more. Often it’s lim­it­ed to jokes about wind, jaf­fas and Aus­tralians. Sam­my J is clear­ly the excep­tion to the rule, and to prove it he’s even been mak­ing some extrem­ly cute videos.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQG1pRpTF‑c]

You can catch him at Down­stage from tonight.

My hot local tip is the The Come­di­ettes.  Emma, Jim and Sarah were amaz­ing at the fringe fes­ti­val with their stand up show. Sarah’s been win­ning a few com­e­dy com­pe­ti­tions late­ly, so you now she’s going to bring the gig­gles.

YAY for fabric!

There’s a fab­ric fair/market on tomor­row in Welly called Fab­ric-a-brac — come along to buy or to hock your too-big stash of fab­rics off to some­one else.

Or just come for the cof­fee!

Email Josie for info about reg­is­ter­ing for a stall, or check out the blog.

Hope to see you there, it should be fun! The idea is that peo­ple take a table at the event, and sell all that cool vin­tage fab­ric, those but­tons, pat­terns and sewing-relat­ed items that they are just nev­er going to get around to using.

Some peo­ple get some cash, oth­ers get some great fab­ric at bar­gain prices. Hey presto!

12noon — 4pm,  Sat­ur­day 18 April

Brook­lyn Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, 18 Har­ri­son St, Welling­ton