Photo Biography
or where I've been Part 2
Creations and Exhibitions and Happenings I've been part of.
In 2010 I was part of a group exhibition called 'Unravelled' at the Red Poles Gallery in Willunga, in which we were asked to unravel a favourite or purpose bought jumper, and then turn it into a tea cosy.
I picked a lovely green hued jumper from an op shop, pulled it apart, and then turned it into 'Ermintrudes Tree Cosy', cause it ended up looking like a tree from the Magic Roundabout. I crocheted over wire to get it to keep its form, and as you can see, it can be used in a variety of ways.
I didn't take a photo of it at the exhibition, (that I can find anyway) but I did take a few of the other pieces I had in there, like those big wool bags, that went for more money than anything else I've ever sold!
In 2011 we relocated to the Hippie capital of Australia, Nimbin. We travelled up to the Rainbow Region camping as we went, 8 of us in our van, heavily pregnant with Zarra.
We were luckily in time to house sit for a fellow blogger that I'd never met in person before, Sally Ariad, and we instantly felt like we'd known each other forever.
And we got caught and held so gracefully by Nimbin. We hung out at the pool for 5 weeks, and unbeknownst to us at the time, we met most of town. We got a house at Billen Cliffs Community from the couple that used to run the Organic Shop in town, Anna and David, based on how they felt us, rather than the pieces of paper we had. But it wasn't available for a few weeks.
Robb Road Community generously welcomed us into their community house for the period inbetween, and then we moved onto Billen, that had been lovingly left mostly furnished, and were given beds by Darcy of 4 loaves.
Just in time to birth at home, having met our midwife only weeks before. And very honoured to receive a welcome party at the pool. Where locals had done a whip around for clothes, toys, books and gifts, as a starter kit :)
In 2012 I helped organise a book launch at Nimbin Birth and Beyond for 'Birth Journeys', a collection of positive birth stories compiled by Leonie MacDonald, in which I shared the story of the empowered caesarean I had with the birth of Balthazar.
We did a one off market stall at Nimbin Markets with our beautiful and exeptionally talented dear friend Selkin, who is now the proprietor of an amazing crafting and artisan fibre shop in Tasmania.
Our beloved Toyota Commuter van died, along with its back up, and after a short stint of extremely successful crowdfunding, we bought out Coaster bus that we promptly dubbed Flo.
And I vastly enjoyed two individual occasions with beautiful friends of ours, who stopped in spontaneously and ended up swept into a photo shoot. One time it was accompanied by Currawong drumming and other friends who were there at the time, one of which was our beloved Red Lauren.
In 2013 I wrote a blog post about our market back in S.A., Coincidentally, a few days after the Nimbin Markets managers had resigned. Within half an hour of the post being out, we were contacted and asked to take on Nimbin Markets.
We caught it at the end of a 6 year period of going downhill, according to all the accounts I've heard. And a trail of market managers who wanted to imprint their mark. Bringing our Community Capacity Building Skills to the fore, we did our best to accept and deal with everyone as sovereign people, removed all the rules and regulations, and became the closest thing to an Anarchist market we could.
People came and went, and the shifting of the vibe was a delicate and amazing process. The stage saw a few incarnations on its way to becoming a free space to jam, perform, express and delight, and saw some amazing international performers as well as locals.
We reinstigated the vision of the town market being the oldest form of community on the planet, and everything being Handmade, Handgrown, Fair Trade and Recycled.
In the beginning it was too hard to have a stall with my little boy pack, but then Griffyn got his first job babysitting the boys, so I had a stall at nearly every market.
Rain, hail or shine, our Little Big Mob turned up to every market and helped folk set up, played with the other kids, and we all had an absolute blast.
We had a special Solstice Market at the end of 2014, and we were very fortunate to be able to host Nimbins Inaugural Day Of The Dead in 2015, with the gorgeous women of Death and Beyond running the incredible workshops and ceremonies....
2013 was actually a very busy year apart from taking on Nimbin Market, we experienced the best and worst of community living, and ended up moving more than we would have liked to as a result of that.
At the beginning of the year we packed ourselves into Flo, and headed to Queensland for Dragonflight Festival, which was an awesome gathering with a large representation of homeschooled kids and parents.
We moved into a hoarders mansion, and did a big makeover, which involved building a verandah surround, kitchen, and shelving out of bamboo, growing a huge amount of love and respect for this versatile and quick growing plant. We also realised we were Wombles, I went through an Ectopic pregnancy, and that was the house where we learnt how to make rope.
Later in the year I helped organise a non-genderist and non-ageist Blessingway at Ponyland, which taught me a lot about how the stereotypes of 'men and children wanting to take over' was actually crap.
And we moved into another house with spectacular massive Fig trees, that inspired me to want to drape fibre art all around and over them, and I created my first yarn bombing experiment.
In 2014 I took part in the first Annual Blue Knob Farmers Market Fibre Festival, and was thrilled to bump into Megan Jack again, and meet other exciting fibre artists.
I did my first ever talk while spinning, before a whole bunch of people, and it went well. I had beautiful and elegant older ladies of Nimbin compliment me on my outfits, and tell me that I'd inspired them with my spinning talk.
I made a beautiful yellow and orange creature, that ended up going away as soon as it was finished to the beautiful Lisa Storm, a wonderful soul sister. I also had a brief stint of making dread cosies....
I ran my first informal crochet session with 3 friends and 3 of my kids, out under the Guava tree, and it was a huge amount of fun, with two beanies coming out of it rapidly.
And I spent most of the year trawling through everything I'd ever written since spinning, along with every photo I'd taken, which is a vast oceanic amount. Putting it all together with patterns that I created, and photos that our whole family helped to make, to get my second book - 'Post Phyber Philosophy - Conscious Crafting' ready in time for the book launch at Sustainablility Alley, for Nimbins show.
We had cheese and crackers and goon, so it was a real book launch :) My book is saved on memory sticks, and then sold in little crochet pouches, that are necklaces as well as finger puppets. And also sold as a digital book on Etsy.
2015 was another jam packed year, as I finally crafted my own tools, and spun and crocheted two rather spectacular costumes for our first attendance at a Mardi Grass.
I followed both outfits through the whole parade, jumping the barricades and playing super model photographer, and got caught up in a rather beautiful moment between my mostly nude model, a beloved elder of Nimbin, and the local constabulary.
The Staghorn Costume went on to have a stand created for it, just in time to dress the stage of the second annual Blue Knob Farmers Market Fibre Festival. I did another spinning talk, wearing the headress creation that connected me up to my Frsylan genetic memories, and totally tripped me out. I called it The Friesian.
I also got invited to perform a spinning and fibre workshop in a beautiful yurt, and had an absolute ball. Loved connecting with the beautiful circle of friends that had invited me, and loved being able to splash my creations about such a picturesque setting, and feeling moments of inspiration and ideas taking hold.
I was part of a group exhibition at The Channon Art Gallery called Small Things, which was hung by the ex curator of the Australian National Art Gallery Fibres and Textiles section in Canberra. The opening had the only free wine I've seen at one of these gigs and I was stoked! Told lots of bawdy artistic stories and laughed a lot, and Currawong and I went over very well indeed with the predominantly queer crowd.
I finally bought an Ashford Knitters loom, and realised that I've known the basics of weaving since I crafted my own Navaho loom back at the church in Macclesifeld, and in taking to it like a duck to water, I wove and spun an incredible amount within two weeks of starting off.
I also crocheted and knitted my first phallus and foreskin, as part of creating Sextapusses, to fit with all the other pusses that had been coming out, starting off with the two in the Small Things exhibition. As well as a crochet cow skull, that was the first peice of Bus Art, especially finished off to go with the new paint job for Flo, at the end of an extreme process of rust removal and fixing by Currawong and our hippie redneck mate.
I got to attend and run workshops at my first Weave and Mend Festival, after having been invited to come to the first one 10 years earlier, and dreaming of it ever since. Setting up our Soulpad with the Spider web that fits it perfectly....and that I crocheted before we bought the tent :)
This was also the year that I stumbled across a PDF with a description of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that floored me, as I fit completely in ways I didn't even know existed as a 'thing' And that helped me realise that the knee injury of my 'father knee' that never stayed healed, despite the different therapies I'd tried - was psychosomatic. And started off another round of healing. Took some gentle counseling and realised that Currawong and I have healed in so many ways, but not in our ability to create safe homes and lasting friendships, and started to focus hard on this.....making a home visualisation board was a start :) Along with a crocheted cave home....
There was the most incredible surge of lush creativity erupting out of me in those last years, now that the intense days of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding were over.
I like to think of everything that came out of me at that time, as the example of the incredible harmony that can come out of complete chaos....