With nature
underFOOT: A collective for honouring the land on which they stand - Nien Schwarz traces the journey of a craft collective that becomes entangled in the non-human.
The Lost Flock: A life among ancient sheep - D Wood reviews a book that argues for the revival of heritage sheep farming.
The Purun Project: Fashion offers hope for peatland communities - Myra Suraryo profiles the Purun Goods collection designed by Merdi Sihombing with the communities of South Sumatra & South Kalimantan.
making jewellery for the land - Melinda Young introduces the Trellis via her own journey of terrestrial and marine jewellery.
Between the quarry and paradise: Grafting rubbish onto nature - Lauren Downton shares her journey from the dazzling nature of South Africa to the withered landscape of South Australia, from which has emerged hybrid porcelain forms.
Alpaca shawls: A love woven from life on land - Douglas Brodie asks Louiseann King about falling in love with alpacas and the processes involved in weaving shawls from their wool.
Bonyi ✿ A seasonal gathering of weavers on Country - Freja Carmichael reflects on a gathering of weavers at Munimba-ja to celebrate the bonyi nut harvest.
Forest of Craft ✿ A map of nature’s treasures - Robin Agemi helps map a Kyoto forest, including trees used by its traditional crafts.
What to make of invasive species: Cara Johnson’s jewellery practice on the land - Cara Johnson talks to Ilka White about a jewellery practice that is in dialogue with the settler and natural worlds that she inhabits.
Psychometry: Series of PaAo ancient casting bronze hand ornaments with AR - Rudee Tancharoen cast a series of rings in Ban PaAo that were augmented by Peeraphat Kittisuwat, evoking the natural spirits that inspired them.
Tack Skogen: Beauty in the blemish - MADAM Snickeri celebrate the wood that the industry rejects, finding beauty in the stains, holes and deformities.
Of uncertain value: The fragile beauty of epiphytes - Kath Inglis's work reflects the concept "of uncertain value", reflected in the epiphyte jewels carved out of PVC.
Kuulua vuohmaan: Belonging to a mire - Ida Isak Westerberg returns to the queer space of mire in order to recover their Tornedalian identity, imprinting their tapestries with its colours.
Earth Nidus: An unnatural nature - Fan Ji seeks intimations of untamed nature in urban laneways through clay that clings to the metal grid.
Habitat: Terracotta homes for hard-working bees - Prompted by devastating bushfires, Julie Bartholomew produced cool but water-tight terracotta hives that reflect their ovoid form in nature.
Avi Amesbury ✿ Our material home - Julie Bartholomew reviews a sensory exhibition of ceramics that connects us to sand, seaweed, ash and other planetary materials.
The Bung Yarnda Observatorium - For her FLOAT residency, Josephine Jakobi makes work about and with the estuary.
When the land becomes a jewel - Yu-Fang Chi describes her Belgian residency when she applied her jewellery weaving technique to the land itself.
Biomater: Life hanging by a thread - Catalina Mena reflects on the exhibition in Chile by Clarisa Menteguiaga, Liliana Ojeda, and Paulina Villalobos, which witnesses the beauty of decay in the gallery.
Plant Power Sisterhood ✿ Dancing a basket - Migunberri artist Jenny Fraser shares writings from Phoenix Maimiti Valentine and Gabi Briggs in her new anthology, Plant Power Sisterhood.
Does the wanting monster whisper to you? - Anna Read has found a new home for her ceramics in a children's book about greed and its impact on the environment.
New Spring, Old Gods: Adornment for the people of the bear - Inari Kiuru shares the Finnish cultural roots that ground her work, reflecting an enchantment of nature.
Exile from the Forest: Craft collaboration in the time of COVID - Reflecting on his experience commissioning kāvads, Ishan Khosla writes about what a global pandemic can teach us about new ways of working with craftspeople.
The forest on my flesh - Priyanka Jain draws on ancient Sanskrit poetry and Indian miniatures to reflect a contemporary appreciation of our microbial desires.
Shedding, dwelling, making: The artist collective We Must Get Together Some Time - Gregory Pryor documents the bush encounters of a West Australian collective that is finding ways of sharing knowledge outside the formal academy.
“We are a country whose lungs are on fire” ✿ Mourning the lost trees of Turkey - Songul ARAL looks for hope after the devastation to her beloved olive groves in Turkey, caused by the climate catastrophe of 2021.
fluxed earth ✿ Garden forage vases - Kirstie Murdoch & Rye Senjen share their daily bush walk and the vases that provide a place for what we ourselves might gather.
Mother Whale and the creation of Nerrm: A Bunwurrang women’s dreaming story - Aunty Gail Koonwarra Dawson shares a creation story in which Melbourne's huge bay becomes a gift of life.
Humans as a custodial species - Tyson Yunkaporta explains how humans became a custodial species and their role to increase the connections within the world.
Entangled threads: Woven knowledge systems - Charlotte Haywood presents the Mnemonic Vegetables project that includes practices to help us remember the plant world in specific locations.
Biophilia: The craft and love of life - Helen Ting presents the evolution of the idea that humans have an intrinsic love of nature.
Heron story - Ilka White is inspired to make work in response to the bird on behalf of whom she speaks.
Chinese landscape cut-out over time - Pamela See charts the evolution of Chinese papercutting from its Daoist roots to the influence of Western landscape. From Poverty to Prosperity: Landmark Landscape Exhibition at the Huaxia Papercutting Museum in Changsha, Hunan Province, Explores the Rise of a Proletariat and their Visual Language. Over the past decade and a half, I have observed a transition in the papercuts that line the streets during the Spring Festival or Chinese New Year. Hand-cutting was supplanted by laser-cutting. Paper has been replaced with plastic. In addition to the methods of mechanical reproduction, I witnessed the position of papercutting evolve from folk to high art. Irrespective, they continue to play an integral role in this most significant of calendar observances. Introduction: From Craft to […]
Ode to Waratah: Designing mythology - Through a series of objects based on the waratah flower and its relationship to its pollinator, the honeyeater, Elliat Rich creates a mythology for understanding the poetic nature of creation.
Nature hooks - Jes John writes about earrings made by Jill Hermans for adorning yourself with a beautiful fallen leaf.
The eel as a totem and symbol of resilience - As a Burramattagal woman, Jules Christian finds an inspiring resilience in her totem, the eel.
Ayvu Rapyta ✿ A selection - Andrea Ferrari presents a part of her translation of Ayvu Rapyta, the sacred myth of the Mbya people of South America, compiled in the twentieth century by Leon Cadogan
Sophie Carnell ✿ Gnat orchid - Our December laurel goes to a jeweller based in Bruny Island, Tasmania, for a silver sculpture inspired by the gnat orchid, whose elegant form clings to the land.
Forging alliances with nature: Atlas Botánico de Chile en Joyería - Lucía Nieves Cortés shares a series of jewellery objects that activate a relationship between humans and plants in her adopted country.
Butterflies metamorphose into jewellery - Paryana Puspaputra works in partnership with a Butterfly Park to make precious jewels from the broken wings they leave behind.
Beauty from bacteria: Micro-farming batik - Nidiya Kusmaya reveals the benefits of micro-farming in ecological batik production.
long water: fibre stories - Freja Carmichael reflects on artists whose work provides a conduit for the spirit of fresh and salt water.
The case for wood - Guy Keulemans advocates for the use of timber, particularly with new technologies that preserve the structural integrity of the wood.
Peta Kruger ✿ Weaving beauty out of waste - As an act of creative resistance, Peta Kruger processes ugly plastic into fine weavings.
How dolphins guided me to rescue a suicidal girl… - Maddalena Bearzi shares a remarkable story of a circle of dolphins who led her to rescue a drowning girl, which she commemorates now as jewellery.
Bridget Kennedy ✿ A fragile beauty between the ashes - Our February Laurel goes to Sydney jeweller Bridget Kennedy, for a ring that reflects the tragedy that engulfs Australia in 2019-2020. The ring evokes the geometrical beauty of the beehive, while acknowledging the devastation wrought on the climate by use of fossil fuels.
Spider Woman’s Children: The next generation of Navajo weavers - Barbara Teller Ornelas and Lynda Teller Pete introduce us to the ancient myth and bright future of Navajo rug weaving.
Alice Whish ✿ Works from the Understory - Helen Wyatt describes some of the learnings revealed in the stunning new jewellery series by Alice Whish whose work was inspired by her Bundanon residency.
Cherokee doubleweave baskets: “The handsomest baskets I ever saw.” - Anna Fariello introduces a history of Cherokee fibre, featuring the remarkable doubleweave basket.
Al Sadu ✿ A craft tradition goes solar - Is this a future for craft traditions? Interwoven is a Chinese proposition to design a solar system that reflects the design traditions of the Al Sadu tribal rug.
He stood up! ✿ Winds of change at the Ancient Now symposium - The Ancient Now symposium heralded not only new creative pathways to China, but also a changing world view inspired by the dragons among us.
Catriona Pollard ✿ A basketmaker’s holiday - Australian fibre artists draw from the world at hand. Catriona Pollard's story shows how this adds a particular sense of place and time to the work.
Julie Ryder ✿ Hidden Sex - Canberra textile artist Julie Ryder shares her series of beautiful works that reveal the subterfuge of sea plants and parallel hidden place of women in scientific history.
Canberra’s birds in hand - Isabelle Mackay-Sim heralds a new Canberra exhibition inspired by the precious life of birds.
Baskets for lemurs ✿ An epic challenge - Our second article by Wendy Golden describes an epic fibre construction for the new lemur enclosure at Melbourne Zoo. The needs of these primates from Madagascar are met by one of the largest basket projects in Australia.
Baskets for spider monkeys ✿ Wendy Golden - Wendy Golden describes the commission to make feeding baskets for spider monkeys at the Melbourne Zoo, inspired by the teardrop nests of Oropendola birds.
Art for whales ✿ A driftwood tribute from Golden Bay - Nicola Basham describes a community project to make sculptures out of driftwood to help in efforts to save beached whales.
Louisean King ✿ Solis - Roger Saddington explores the exhibition by Louisanne King whose sculptural fabrications reflect a mourning for the loss of nature.
Daily demons and fabulous animals: In which the author finds her craftswoman but loses her cat 🎓 - Tessa Laird tracks down the maker of her treasured alebrije, a carved animal that embodies the Mexican indigenous belief in the nuhual animal spirit.
Crafting a ceramic habitat for a handfish - Not far from Hobart’s Salamanca Market, with its vendors hawking the usual arts and crafts, ceramicist Jane Bamford is creating something extraordinary.