Article 8

Sofia Fitzpatrick

website@moadoph.gov.au — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 03:03:00 +0000

Sofia Fitzpatrick website@moadop… Fri, 10/12/2018 - 14:03

Sofia Fitzpatrick is a Sydney-based artist, who was born into a family of creatives.

From as early as she can remember, Sofia could hold a pen and this is where it all started, drawing. When she left school at 16, Sofia got her first job drawing illustrations for history books. After that she began collaborating with her paternal grandmother, artist Dawn Fitzpatrick, who created ‘cloth-art’ using the techniques of applique-quilting, painting and drawing. After spending time living overseas and working as an artist making hand-painted tiling, Sofia returned to Australia.

Today, Sofia Fitzpatrick specialises in creating wearable art and boutique hand-carved jewellery made using lost-wax carving techniques. Her work has been featured in publications such as Skull Style and Rock Star Chic: the dark side of high fashion which feature works from over a hundred of the world’s most influential contemporary artists and designers. Sofia has also been showcased in a number of exhibitions and collaborations that have seen her gain international recognition for her raw and beautiful skull-inspired designs.

Sofia Fitzpatrick

English

Australia

Australian, Swiss

I am passionate about human rights because we are all on this planet together. We need to look out for each other. We are all one, all connected. What we do to others we are doing to ourselves. For me that also extends to animals and the planet itself. We are made out of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen atoms and other elements that were created in stars over 4.5 billion years ago. Homo sapiens and every other animal, as well as most of the matter on Earth, contain these elements. The eyes floating with stars symbolise that we are all made of stardust!

I began the work by writing out the text on the fabric with chalk, then stitching over it with coloured thread. It took a long time to stitch. The writing was quite tedious, but when I got to the free style of stitching the eyes and the stars, I really started enjoying myself.

UDHR Article

Article 8

Quilt

Red quilt

Di Ellis

website@moadoph.gov.au — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 04:16:59 +0000

Di Ellis website@moadop… Mon, 10/15/2018 - 15:16

Di Ellis is a printmaker and hand-sewer. She received a Bachelor of Fine Art Printmaking (Honours) from RMIT, Melbourne, in 2008.

Her practice explores costume, identity, place and social position.

Clothing offers the luxury of transformation and with this, a corresponding set of assumptions and behaviours. Dress encompassing amulets, tattoos and scarification is often dictated by cultural nationalism, political alliance, class, gender, age and religious constraints and whether we dress in fluoro ‘high vis’ garments, the uniform of the tradie; lycra, the fabric of choice for the gym junkie and athlete; or shroud our bodies in religious garb, underneath we are all the same a fragile cocktail of DNA. Costume, like a chrysalis, provides metamorphosis giving us all the opportunity to sartorially transform.

My other craftivist projects include Bimblebox, the fight led by Jill Sampson to save birdlife from a Queensland coalmining catastrophe; the Overwintering Project, bringing attention to migratory shore birds, overseen by Kate Gorringe Smith; and two projects of solidarity run by Gali Weiss with women of Afghanistan.

Di Ellis

English

Australia

Australian

My father instilled social conscience in me and in my own small way, I like to contribute to the forces of good through collectives driving social and political change.

Being a conscious recycler, I chose fabric from a 1970’s Australian Family Circle magazine kit. I remember my mother bringing the magazine home as a change from the Women’s Weekly. It was dedicated wholly to the comforts of family life, and elevated homemaking to a status of importance in a time of bra-burning and equal rights for women. I was searching for cloth that spoke of my home, and I felt its history, synthetic fabric and muted colour talked of growing up in the bland ‘safe’ cocoon of 1970’s suburban Melbourne.

Epacris impressa, common heath in its pink form, is from my home state of Victoria. I see it often while out driving; it colours the roadside from autumn to spring and I know that, like gum trees, I would be sentimental for it if displaced.

UDHR Article

Article 8

Quilt

Green quilt

Darci Lenker

website@moadoph.gov.au — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 05:24:59 +0000

Darci Lenker website@moadop… Mon, 10/15/2018 - 16:24

Being an artist, parent, and good human make up the biggest part of Darci Lenker. She splits her time between creating, trying to make a difference, and raising the next generation to do the same. Her biggest craftivism project was 365 Days of Food, where she embroidered and gave away 365 tiny foods in exchange for a donation to help hungry people.

Darci Lenker

English

United States of America

American

The Central Park Five were five Black and Latino teenagers who in 1990 were wrongfully convicted of assault, rape and attempted murder. Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam and Korey Wise were interrogated for over 24 hours. Their coerced confessions were used to convict them. DNA evidence did not match. Appeals were unsuccessful. In 2002, someone already serving a life sentence confessed to the crime. The group sued New York City in 2003, but the City refused to settle until 2014.

The US criminal justice system failed them. The police were corrupt and racist; the media sensationalised and exploited them; the judges did not allow evidence.

At the time of the crime, Donald Trump took out ads in major New York City newspapers calling for the death penalty. He tainted public opinion so there is no way the teens could have an unbiased jury. He accused them even as he ran for President—years after they were found innocent.

UDHR Article

Article 8

Quilt

Blue quilt

Libbertine

website@moadoph.gov.au — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 05:47:02 +0000

Libbertine website@moadop… Mon, 10/15/2018 - 16:47

Maker of things that question, it is all about extremes with me. I am bound to question structures of all kinds. This is manifest in a number of ways, mostly in a passion for the freedom of sewing-machine sketching and embroidery, but I am also fascinated by geometric metal structures. The hard and the soft path is the one I tread (I am also either dieting or overeating). I have just finished my second year of a Contemporary Design Crafts BA at Hereford College of Arts.

As a teenager I decided to reject modern society. I had never felt included and so the natural step forward was to separate myself from it, and to become what is now called a New Age traveller. What I was seeking was a greater connection with nature and my environment, and a less materialistic approach to life. I lived sustainably and worked hard for the little I had. It was not a lawless existence but nonetheless I was persecuted and hounded by both the general public and law enforcement. It was a small glimpse into the world that many experience to a much higher degree.

Around me today I see the dehumanisation of people who are struggling, people who need our help, in many cases because of the crisis in their own lands created in some part by the leaders of ours. It scares me to see that humans do not know how to learn from the mistakes of the past and it saddens me that we are likely to see this suffering magnified in the coming years. I have spent a considerable amount of time fostering the skills of others and helping people to develop their moral fibre, within an educational setting and the creative realm and with my own children.

At last I decided that it was also important to foster the same within myself. Tired of holding my tongue about inequality within the workplace, home and wider world, I began to use my love of craft to give a voice to others who perhaps don’t have it. I use thread to explore the narratives of others; I find reward in expressing other people’s voices, hearing them and drawing the threads of their tales into breakable threads of soft canvas. The process of free-motion sewing allows me a simple approach to quickly express these tales.

Sharing this experience with fellow fibre artists across the globe is incredible. Seeing the blocks come in and being posted up on social media made me feel a unity and connection with others I had not encountered. Seeing the depth of skill and context was truly humbling and inspiring, and to have my work woven into a whole gave me a great sense of pride and achievement.

Libbertine

English

England, United Kingdom

English

After Grenfell Tower burnt down, I was outraged to discover that six months earlier, the Grenfell Tower Action Group had posted about their fears a fire would result in serious loss of life. Everyone was too busy or uncaring to look at their concerns. When I watched the tower burn I could see their souls escaping in the smoke; I was very affected and I knew I needed to represent this terrible injustice. The cladding was cheap and put there to make the tower look better as it was in the eyeline of some very expensive properties. The gas lines ran down the stairwell, the only escape route. These lives were deemed less consequential than others.

I cannot wait to see the finished quilts. This international project represents a chapter in history. It should be recognised as a work of protest and unity, and as an indication that the will and the compassion to address our problems does exist.

UDHR Article

Article 8

Quilt

Yellow quilt