#craftivists

If you haven’t yet started following the @Chi_Arts_Boyz on Instagram you need to head over there and take care of that. These two young men took one of my Craftivism workshops last summer and have quickly become two of my favorite humans on the planet.

Their work and commitment to learning this art form is unmatched. They even helped me facilitate a Craftivism workshop recently.

I want to share one of my favorite stories though. Alan, one half of the Chi_Arts_Boyz finished this amazing piece after 3 months of stitching...

AMAZING right?! He wanted to sell it and asked for an assist. I wanted to be sure he got a fair amount for his work. We talked about how to price work, where and how to sell it, target audience, etc. In the end, we decided to hold an auction on my Instagram page.

We started the auction at $50 and hoped to get $150 for the piece. Within minutes, bids were up to $400! The bidding got intense and climbed for days. CBS got word of the auction and even did a little story on it! 

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2018/02/07/positively-chicago-aspiring-artist-auctions-off-heart-embroidery/ 

The auction ended with a winning bid of $1711!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Talk about a jump start to a burgeoning artists career! I could not be prouder of Alan and Maurice. Show them the instagram love y’all. 

=)

London Fashion Week: Craftivists Are The Peaceful Sustainability Activists The World Needs To Know About

‘Changing our world a stitch at a time.’

  With all the craziness of London Fashion Week and the amount of garments produced it is inspiring to hear about this soft activism.

A peaceful group of activists has been putting hand-written notes in the pockets of garments on the high-street in the name of ethical fashion.

The self-titled ‘craftivists’ are advocatesof the ‘who made my clothes…

Today Zoe and I will be doing a brief presentation at the State Library NSW on the Hub and our digital making workshops, as part of the “Makers and craftivists” seminar.

Libraries play such an important role in so many communities, and I’m aware of a big shift in thinking that’s been emerging in the space over the past few years, reimagining and reframing perceptions about what libraries can be. (Some might say “returning to” the original conception of what libraries were intended to be.) One thing that’s emerging is the idea of maker spaces within libraries, something highlighted by Warren Cheetham from Townsville Library in his talk at the Makers Place recently.

The program for today’s (sold out) seminar looks great, and it’s disappointing that we can’t attend for longer today. With speakers like Jessica Pigza (New York Public Library), Rebecca Conroy (dhub/dlab) and our friends Joy Suliman (Irresistible Learning) and Mel Fuller (Three Farm), it is going to be a day full of insights I think…

We see libraries as holding a lot of potential in our work moving forward, so we’re delighted to be part of the dialogue.

We’ll be continuing this theme in Brisbane on 2 June when we present at the State Library of Queensland as part of the Digital Literacy Forum. From my perspective it’s really promising to see the idea of digital making featuring in the conversation around digital literacy. As is probably evident in our recent posts, we see great value in digital making as a means of motivating engagement with digital technology, moving beyond using technology to making new technology.

On Tuesday I took part in the new project by Craftivist Collective - called Craftivists Garden.  You can find out more about the project here Craftivists Garden.

The workshop took place at The Make Escape a free craft night in Hackney, London, UK.

The idea of the project is to knit, crochet or stitch flowers “while reflecting on the importance of wellbeing and what we need in order to flourish”.  The flowers will be a part of a garden installation which will be unveiled in January 2015.