Goodbye for now...

With 2008 almost out the door and 2009 hot on its heels, it's time for a well deserved rest and some sprucing up to usher in the new year. Craft Victoria will be closed from today, Saturday 20 December and will reopen on Monday, 19 January with a fresh coat of paint and everything!

We recently had our staff Christmas breakfast at our friendly neighbour, Cumulus Inc. A scrumptious feast, just-right coffee and good company was a great start to the day. We also exchanged our Kris Kringle gifts - hurrah for presents! Here are some sneaky shots yours truly snuck in while everyone was unwrapping...

Carmel unveiling Steph's present - a Holly Daze tote bag (hmm, we wonder where she got that from!) and Liz with her very first work of art, a canvas print by Anika (of Sneak Design!)

Steph and her new Christmas decorations (made by Carmel, aww!), Lucy and her surprise gift pack filled with origami goodness and then some, and Trevor before unwrapping his personalised tshirt emblazoned with the words: "Accountants do it better." Forget you, Katherine Hamnett!

But let's not forget what a year it has been! We've had such a glorious exhibition schedule, starting with Cecilia Fogelberg's Super Groupie, Diana Page's Once Upon A Moment and Caz Guiney's Precious Nothing kicking off the season. After that was Craft Victoria's touring exhibition How You Make it, which was lovingly curated by Kate Rhodes. The exhibition recently passed through Object Gallery in Sydney and more recently Latrobe Regional Gallery in Victoria. It is currently in transit at the moment and it's next appearance will be at the Fremantle Arts Centre, WA which is good news for all our friends in the 8000! For the list of destinations, click here.

Next up we had Tiffany Parbs' cosmetic, Stephen Banham's typography exhibition Orbit Oblique and Jessica Morrison's Beast take over the space. Following on from it was installation/illustration genius Dylan Martorell and his exhibition Umbel Ballits which was part performance, sound installation, evolving artwork and greenhouse. We also had Occasional Tables, an exhibition of lovely woodwork from Roderick Sprigg as part of the Next Wave Festival: Closer Together in Gallery 2, and Deirdre Feeney's video installation tell the walls i'm coming in Gallery 3.

With half the year gone and with such an illustrious roster of exhibitors already, expectations were indeed high and Marian Hosking's retrospective exhibition Jewellery did not disappoint at all! Celebrating her achievements and 40 year career, it was truly a stunning exhibition. Following on from that was the launch of new Craft Victoria program A Month About Making, which replaced the Scarf Festival. There was a range of satellite exhibitions, seminars, open-bench residencies, maker events, workshops and talks, and of course the jewel in the crown that was In The Making, an exhibition of work from our professional members.

The weeks flew by and soon it was time to usher in RMIT's Urban Interior Research Group's exhibition Interior Occupation. With performances changing every day, this one kept everyone on their toes with what to expect next! A blink-and-you'll-miss-it exhibition (it ran for just under 2 weeks), it was soon time for Irene Grishin-Selzer's Love You More Than Life, Stephen Gallagher's Melancholic Nites/Arcadian Daze and Anna Davern's Buena Vista. It was yet another stunning exhibition and Anna even hosted a metal collage workshop on a sunny Sunday afternoon to an intimate group of ladies!

With not many months left in 2008, it was time for our penultimate show featuring Julia deVille's Ossuarium, our very own curated exhibition Making Sense and Tamara Marwood's a little ladylike tinkling and smearing. To end things with a bang was our annual Filippo Raphael Fresh! exhibition, a thoughtfully curated show featuring graduate students from across the state.
A big thank you to the thousands of visitors we've had over the past year and for your lovely company during exhibition openings and the like. We couldn't have done it without you! We hope you've enjoyed reading CLOG and we'll back again next year, on Monday 19 January.

Enjoy the festive season and we hope that your bellies are full, the laughter is loud and that your resolutions are optimistic. See you next year!

Love,
The Craft Victoria team.

Introducing... And Collective

Following on from yesterday's post, this week's Introducing... section features Justine Ellis and Dan Rule who form part of Melbourne-based group And Collective. Since forming in 2000, And Collective have since published 4 books so far - no small feat considering the humble beginnings of the first book, And, which was manually printed and assembled in their bedrooms.

Demonstrating a strong emphasis upon Melbourne, its history, cultural temperament and society, each And Collective publication is a lovingly curated affair. Previous books have had its pages filled with whimsical illustrations by Amy Alexander, Rik Lee, Kat MacLeod and Marc Martin, the lyrical poetics of Dan Rule, Meg Courtney and Toby Burke, Justine Ellis' deadpan approach to photography that belies a deeper sentimentality, the humour of Meg Mundell and Oslo Davis and now, musical accompaniment by artists like Saddle Back and Lee Memorial among others.

Definitely someone to watch, yours truly can't wait to see what the And Collective kids have up their sleeves next!

This is our last feature for the year before CLOG goes on hiatus tomorrow (sob!), so in the wise words of Breakfast Club tearjerker: "Don't you (forget about me)"... Yes we do love John Hughes here at CVHQ!

Googling 'And Collective' doesn't reveal a whole lot, so tell us a bit about yourselves...what inspired you to come together and form And Collective?

Dan: We’re basically a small-scale, independent publishing collective made up of old friends. We get together once in a while and make books, which tend to incorporate visual art, writing and, more recently, sound. There were originally four of us – Justine Ellis, Marc Martin, Rik Lee and me (Dan Rule) – but we’re currently working as a trio.

It was all fairly innocent at first. We were all getting to the end of uni and, from memory, we were sitting around in my backyard, having one of those lovely, naïve, passionate early twenties conversations about art. I think it must have been late 2000 or something. Anyway, we decided that we all wanted to work on something together; something that was personal and something that captured a time in our lives. None of us were all that impressed by our first forays into the freelance world. Quite naively, we decided that we should make books. There wasn’t really much of an indie publishing scene at the time – not one we were aware of anyway – and that kind of made it all the more alluring. Who made books? No one. Easy, we thought. Fame and fortune awaited.

We launched our first book, And, in April 2002. It was basically a bunch of drawings, photos and stories about our neighbourhoods. We asked a few our friends and siblings to contribute work. My sister wrote a poem about a bull-ant. The books were completely handmade and printed in our bedrooms on inkjet printers. Each book was hopelessly elaborate, printed in full-colour with gatefolds and French-folded pages and Japanese hand-stich binding. The margins weren’t so good. I think it cost us about $60 per book to make and we sold them for $40 (or $35 for students). We planned to do a run of 80 copies but we only made it to 46.

We’ve basically grown from there, managing to release book every two years or whenever we can get the funding. We released And 02 (1000 copies) in 2004, Personal Empires (500 copies) in 2006 as part of the Next Wave Festival, and A Place Tells a Story (1000 copies) – which features 25 Australian artists, writers and musicians and is based around themes of place and community – in late September of this year.

While our books still have a very personal dynamic, we seem to have become increasingly interested in thematic, project-based work. We tend to hand-pick contributors who we think will be suited to the theme, send them a detailed brief and ask them to respond however they see fit. Even though our productions have grown, we still have a very hands-on approach to our work. The books always go through a lengthy post-production process when we get them back from the printers – hand-numbering, stamping, screen-printing and so forth – so every copy has been touched by the artists.

What were some of the frustrations you encountered when publishing your latest book, A Place Tells A Story?

Justine: Unsurprisingly we encountered a few frustrations. This year has been quite a busy year for all three of us, and finding the time to get together as And Collective outside of our day jobs proved to be difficult.

Working with 25 individual contributors was a handful. While everyone was lovely and easy to communicate with, it was simply a lot more work than we expected! And of course, once deadlines get pushed and pushed, the entire project slows down. I think we found that we work best at high speed, do or die, now or never. On the other hand, we do love procrastinating over one decision!

Also, we find writing grant proposals particularly draining. Every decision, every idea, every detail is scrutinized and you begin to seriously doubt your project. We’ll fly off on a tangent and find the project somewhere else entirely and then sit down and have to rein it back to the original idea. When you keep coming back to that idea you know you’re onto something. So I guess grants are a blessing in disguise!

...and the fun parts?

Justine: Seeing, hearing or reading a contributors work for the first time! It’s rather wonderful to see how they respond to our brief. I am continually blown away by the great work they provide. It is always different and better than I imagined. It’s fun work getting a chance to work on our own art as well.

What achievement are you most proud of to date?

Justine: Each book is an achievement and a mark of time in our lives. The first book, And, was made when Marc, Dan and I were living together in Fitzroy and Rik was just around the corner. We’d get together to talk about And Collective and end up having a big boozy night talking utter nonsense. In hindsight it’s a huge achievement it was ever completed!

Who/what would your dream collaboration be?

Dan: I almost feel like every book we’ve done has been a dream collaboration. We’ve always made an effort to work with our best friends and people who we have a great deal of respect for, so you can’t really ask for more. Personally, I feel really honoured to have worked with all the contributors, from great friends like Kat Macleod, Meg Mundell, Toby Burke, Nadia Combe and Kyle De Kuijer through to people like Warwick Baker, Oslo Davis, Eve Vincent and Memuzin River and so many others. But more than anything, I’ve appreciated collaborating with the And kids themselves – Rik, Marc and Justine!

And finally, where do you see And Collective moving towards in the future? Any plans for world domination?

Justine: Our clothing line will be completed for launch next winter, and we’re launching our fragrance tomorrow… haha!! World domination can wait for now! At the moment we’re a lot more focused on producing a greater number of books per year, rather than one every two years. We’d love to start publishing books on individual artists. The trouble is there are so many great artists out there! Melbourne and Australia are rife with talent. We’ve also started a distribution arm, so we’re distributing titles by artists and publishers even smaller than our tiny selves. Hopefully you won’t be able to walk into a shop without seeing an And Collective book! Hmmm, kinda sounds like world domination…

A decidedly naked-looking book... perhaps due to the absence of a Holly Daze-screenprinted book jacket? Heehee!

Book of the Month: And Collective "A Place Tells A Story"

In the second installation of new CLOG feature, Book of the Month, we present to you And Collective's latest offering, A Place Tells A Story:

A Place Tells A Story is a book and CD project that engages with subjective notions of place and community. Via visual art, text, music and artefact, the project sees some of Melbourne's most exciting young artists map, question, celebrate and reflect upon a scattering of our unofficial community sites.

Milk bars, street corners, neighborhoods, roads; within the context of an increasingly globalised consciousness, A Place Tells A Story reconnects with locality and specificity. It explores these sites' histories and narrative; it poses questions about their future.


The wonderful people behind And Collective hold a special place in CVHQ's heart, not just because of the Holly Daze screenprinted book jacket (wink wink!) but also because their most recent publication features some very awesome contributions from some of Melbourne's most talented: Oslo Davis, Kyle de Kuijer, Meg Mundell as well as 22 other writers, illustrators, photographers and musicians. The book also comes with a CD containing music by Perfect Black Swan, Nadia Combe and Bird Traps (to name a few!) Mmm, interactive book...

Printed in a limited run of 1000, each copy of A Place Tells A Story has been individually rubberstamped with a unique number. Yours truly owns number 88 (hooray for lucky numbers!)... what's yours?

Here's a peek at some of the fine work you'll find inside the book:

Dan Rule

Kyle de Kuijer



Warwick Baker



Oslo Davis

The perfect gift for anyone who holds Melbourne in a special place in their heart, we have several copies of A Place Tells A Story in stock at the moment, so do drop by, even if it's just to have a peek at this marvellous labour of love!

Red Christmas window

Forget the Myer Christmas windows, have a look at our fabulously styled windows (put together by Carmel and Steph no less!) This year COUNTER's Coloured Christmas goes red. You could say we're going feisty for Christmas, but that would be redundant!

Drop by the shop to view our wall of Red Christmas goodies, featuring work by Gregory Bonasera, Kris Coad, Brydie Dyson, Nina Ellis, Milly Flemming, Holly Grace, HandMadeLife, Lucy Hearn, Iggy and LouLou, Wendy Jagger, Lisa Kearns, Anette Kortenhaus, Felicity-Jane Large, Maiike, Vicki Mason, Red Cloud Designs, Sneak Design, Udder Toys and many, many others! For a full list, click here.

Not to rush you or anything, dear reader, but do hurry, only 3 more shopping days left to get gifts!!

Fresh! 2008

As promised, here are some images from current exhibition Fresh! for all of you who aren't able to make it down to CVHQ. Fresh! is also our last exhibition for the year and closes this Saturday, 20 December, so it's well worth dropping by for a gander!

For more images and information as well as a pricelist, click here.

Valissa Butterworth, Diploma of Arts (Ceramics), Holmesglen Institute of TAFE

Paddy Melons, black porcelain, nylon rope

Functionalitea series, porcelain

Stephanie Martin, Diploma of Arts (Furniture Design), RMIT University

Skirted Seating, sheet aluminium and leather

Alyshia Boddenberg, Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours), VCA, University of Melbourne

Untitled (3 works using a variety of materials such as blu-tack, carpet, pins, paper clips, rubber bands and bandaids)

Crystal Dunn, Bachelor of Design (Fashion), RMIT University

Imagine Luxury (Part of Lifestyling Project), Supre singlets and book

Ka Ho Li, Bachelor of Design (Industrial Design), RMIT University

White Widow Jewellery Collection, teflon tape and silver

Robert Dumaresq, Bachelor of Industrial Design, Monash University

Switch Commuter Bike, aluminium and carbon fibre (it folds to a third its size in under a minute!)

Amanda McKenzie, Bachelor of Fine Art (Glass), Monash University

Stilled Life 1 and Polemic, cast glass

Kate Vivian, Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours), University of Ballarat

Modified Landscape

Aly Aitken, Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art - Painting), RMIT University

Tobi Clark, Bachelor of Design (Fashion) (Honours), RMIT University

Tyvek garments

Chloe McColl, Bachelor of Visual Arts (Metal and Jewellery), Monash University

Untitled, found porcelain

Tim Smullen, Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art - Gold and Silversmithing), RMIT University

Sarah Deed, Bachelor of Fine Arts (Sculpture), RMIT University

From left: Resin Duck, Wax Bunny, Plaster Kitty, Bronze Bunny, Wax Kitty

Fresh! 2008 winner, Ka Ho Li

Ka Ho Li was the very deserving winner of this year's Filippo Raphael Fresh! Award. His work consisted of a contemporary reinterpretation of mourning jewellery, and a very novel one at that! Entitled White Widow Jewellery Collection, Ka Ho's jewellery explores the concept of the grieving process:

"I don't see an interest in death as morbid, but the acceptance that death eventually happens to everyone. I am fascinated by the use of jewellery and items to express grief and mourning.

"I created the White Widow Jewellery Collection using teflon tape (commonly used in plumbing). My jewellery allows the wear to interact and perform with the piece. The act of peeling the dressing surface represents one step closer to recovery and each layer represents one day.

"Grief is truly a noble emotion, the last gift of love and respectful behaviour."

Here are some images from Ka Ho's work currently on display at Craft Victoria. His work will be on display until Saturday 20 December, which is also CVHQ's last trading day, so do drop by for a visit and to say hello.

Photography by Elizabeth Wilson

MATERIALBYPRODUCT In House Show!

On Thursday evening, MATERIALBYPRODUCT conducted their in-house show at Craft Victoria. The show lasted for about half an hour and presented their latest collection, Template (SS/09) to the soundtrack of CVHQ's iPod on shuffle. Using one model (Crystal Dunn, who incidentally is also part of the Fresh! exhibition), Chantal and Susan would undress and redress her after each outfit. A truly stunning performance, yours truly will leave you with some images from the show rather than blather on about how amazing it was...

And the closing outfit: an amazing dress featuring beautiful draping detail, skilled craftsmanship and great taste!

Admiring the dress.

For more details, contact Chantal or Susan from MATERIALBYPRODUCT by emailing info@materialbyproduct.com If you missed the show last week (how unfortunate!), fret not as MBP will be conducting another in house show at Milly Sleeping in Carlton. For more details, visit their website

Summer reading...

With our last day of trading almost here (CVHQ closes next week, on Saturday 20 December) and CLOG going on hiatus, we thought we'd make sure our wonderful readers had something else to read during the upcoming Summer months. We're always thinking about you, dear reader!

Recently published was our annual publication, Craft Culture. Instead of its usual hardcopy format, this year Craft Culture goes digital! Hurrah for technology. Craft Culture features a selection of 22 thoughtfully-written and thought-provoking essays by respected writers such as Kevin Murray, Robyn Phelan, Ramona Barry and of course, CVHQ's very own, Nella Themelios.

You can access Craft Culture by clicking this link. With 22 articles to read, if you read one a day it'll be just in time to welcome Craft Victoria back when we reopen on 20 January!

For our voracious readers out there, we've got another recent publication up our sleeves for you. Notions of Space is a hardcopy magazine that was jointly organised by Craft Victoria and RMIT School of Architecture and Design. Available in digital format as well, click here to access this wonderful publication.

Also up for your viewing is the RMIT Design Archives Newsletter, which is accessible here, and last but not least, Janelle Dunstan, our wonderful Library Intern, has put together a catalogue of the contents of our library! This is great news for all you students and knowledge-hungry people, the Craft Victoria library (which was established in the 1970s) is a great resource for all things to do with craft, art and design.

In 2009 we will be upping the ante on our collection, so expect many new and fabulous publications. To use the library, you will need to make an appointment to visit during weekday open hours. Please note that publications may only be viewed at Craft Victoria. This is because we are not set up to lend, though of course, yours truly would be very pleased to assist you!

Introducing... Shannon Garson

In this week's edition of Introducing... , CLOG is proud to feature ceramacist, Shannon Garson. Hailing from Maleny in sunny Queensland, Shannon is a maker dear to CVHQ's heart. A lady of many talents, Shannon is not only a ceramacist, but an author too!

This is our penultimate interview for the year, so savour it folks! Happy Friday and happy reading.

In the beginning...
I began my career as a painter completing a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 1993. My degree concentrated on conceptual art and as a reaction against this I then started decorating for a ceramicist in Brisbane and learned to throw from there. From the minute I started throwing I knew I wanted to make fine, white vessels.

When I first started my studio in Maleny it was hard. Working as an artist is a solitary occupation and it took me a while to get used to this. I was still cooking for a local cafe but then I was accepted for a NEIS scheme run by the government to set up small businesses and I quit all the part-time work and concentrated on ceramics. The hardest thing was the "marketing" which is a grand word for approaching galleries and meeting people. I hated that at the beginning, but I looked at successful artists and realized that I just had to knuckle down and become good at it. There are parts of every job that are boring and horrible- the marketing is the part of an artists job that I find the worst.

The achievement I'm most proud of is...
Persevering through the obscure beginning stages, the poverty stages and the having children stages and still loving my job. And actually I'm really proud to be able to say that I make my living as an artist. Art is my career and my income and contrary to the precious artist stereotype I have found that being professional has made my pots stronger. When a pot hasn't been selling it is tempting to think that the philistines out there don't really "get it", when I've really looked at these pots and broken them down to their formal elements such as line, composition, form etc I've always found that the ones that consistently haven't sold are weak in some areas. It is pretty harsh in the marketplace but it can be your greatest asset to making good work.

I've also published a book...
My Book! This is a book (pictured below) I've published through Blurb.com, an online publishing house. I mainly published this as a catalogue of the work I've done with excerpts of essays I've written interspersed throughout. I thought it would be a good thing to give prospective galleries and collectors of my work. I do quite a bit of writing for journals etc.

Back in the mists of time I was doing a Masters degree in contemporary literature. I feel very strongly that artists have a responsibility to the art community and the wider community to talk about what we do. As a young artist I craved information and insight into the lives of working artists. I also think the arts community can be too isolated, most people don't understand what artists do on a day to day basis and how the arts illuminates our thoughts feelings and actions. If you are able to speak (and not everyone is) you should make time to share your experiences.

My soundtrack while I work is...
I'm addicted to Radio National. Lately I've been listening to Chet Baker's beautiful songs and trumpet, Sia, The Old Crow Medicine Show and gospel music from the 40's and 50's - my favourite is The Soul Stirrers singing Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb!!!!!!

A day in my life would entail...
Wake up as the sky is turning from grey to blue and listen to my daughters marauding around the place demanding milk and toast. The bedlam of breakfast, doing haystack hair, throwing food in lunchboxes, thinking of what I'm going to do in the studio. Thinking about capturing some little thing I've seen on the surface of a pot. Everyone out the door ... Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye! Sit at the table with a cup of tea and look at my diary, sketch shapes of pots, read a cookbook. Ignore the messy house and walk straight downstairs into the studio. Throw pots. The repetition, porcelain sliding through my fingers cool and creamy.

Decorate. Come upstairs at about 1 for lunch, thinking furiously of what shopping to do for dinner. All the time thinking in nanosecond snatches about pots, how artists fit into the world, how to get a particular feeling into a vessel, should I apply for a competition or grant?Sometimes the kiln is on at about lunch and I run up and down the stairs in between all this, turning it up until 9 or 10 at night.Speak to husband for three or so seconds. Sleep.

I admire the work of...
I love Jane Sawyer's terracotta and hakeme brushwork pots and the English potter Joanna Howells. They both capture the sensual delight of making pots.

If I could anything in the world tomorrow…
I'd love to go to Japan and study calligraphy brushwork. This might be more of a project for contemplative old age so, with the family, I'd go to Italy and stay in Orvieto for 6 months eating, looking and living.

Shannon's lovely book.