Visible Mending Workshops (in-person)

I continue to throw spaghetti at the wall >> a short film on cycle commuting, a fun fine art print up for grabs, a BTS video, and a sneak peak at November's radical postcard. Plenty going on.

Hello fair newsletter folk,

It’s so nice to be writing to you again.

When friends ask me what I’m up to right now, I’ve started saying:

I’m having a year of throwing spaghetti at the wall, to see what sticks.

I’ve been in a deep hole of burnout and creative stagnation for a few years, and I’m finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but… I’m not seeing a clear pathway of where to go yet.

Alongside regular photography gigs, I have lot’s of ideas, projects and protypes emerging - no worries there, ideas come super easily. What I do know is that I want to find the intersection of what fills my creative cup and what the world needs to create a better future, and huddle in that space doing the work that is mine to do.

So here’s some spaghetti I’ve been throwing against the wall recently:

I’m hosting 2 visible mending workshops here in my studio in nipaluna/Hobart in November. If you are in my local area and have a pile of mending, but don’t know where to start, I have so much inspo and lots of new mending skills for you.

You can find the workshops here.

I made a short film called How we get from A to B intentionally [being a single car family w/ bikes] which aligned with October’s bike-themed postcard for the Radical Postcard Club called ‘On Your Bike’.

I’m loving learning how to make longer-form videos, though I’m thinking about taking a break for a few months. Summer gets too busy for my liking - so I’m making a call early to ensure I’m not frazzled, come autumn.

I want to give these films a proper amount of time and attention to make sure the work stays meaningful rather than pumping out shallow content just to satisfy the algorithm. Despite all the advice to keep the momentum going, I’m more interested in making work at a sustainable pace for me these days.

So I think I’ll make a few fun mixed-media micro-films (Shorts and Reels) over the summer. I’m looking forward to that.

It would be amazing if you popped over to YouTube to subscribe to my channel, it’s such a small but helpful thing that I’d be so grateful for.

You can watch the film right here:

Speaking of YouTube, this month I also made a behind-the-scenes studio video available to everyone. (It was previously just for patrons.)

It’s called: Making the 'Make Beautiful Trouble' postcard

You can watch the behind-the-scenes vid here:

In parallel to releasing the BTS video, I listed a fine art print of ‘Make Beautiful Trouble’ on the most beautiful A3 cotton paper on my online shop.

It’s the bees knees, I’m so chuffed with it.

• Printed with archival ink on 100% cotton rag (museum-quality paper)

• Printed at A3 (29.7mm x 42mm) with full bleed to the edges

• Printed with care in nipaluna/Hobart, lutruwita/Tasmania

• Individually signed

• Shipped in a cardboard tube mailer, wrapped in tissue paper - using as little plastic as possible

Need something fun/beautiftul/future-forward for your wall? You can find it here.

So the Radical Postcard Club is cruising along so well. There are 47 of us in the club now, which is amazing to me.

This month we’ve been all about riding bikes, for fun, freedom and/or to commute while feeling smug about leaving the car in the driveway.

The postcards are now being locally printed here in nipaluna/Hobart on 100% recycled paper. Which is an excellent evolution for the club.

In November our postcard theme is mending (my favourite!)

This postcard is a photo of a textile artwork I did a little while ago, that says:

Mending is a quiet act of rebellion, you can do from the couch.

If you’re into couch-bound acts of rebellion, you can subscribe to the club before November 1st to get this mending rally cry delivered to your letterbox.

You can find the membership options and offerings here (you can also join in for free.)

If you’re already a paying or free patron, I’m sending a huge THANK YOU to you. Without your support, I wouldn’t be able to play, explore, make art regularly, or incubate ideas.

The club is definitely the most wild, and most meaningful handful of spaghetti that I’ve thrown at the wall this year, and it’s slowly beginning to stick. I can’t believe it really. I’m so grateful to each of the club members for rallying around this project.

Well, I guess I’d better wrap up here, and continue trying to find that intersectional space to huddle in to do the work that is mine to do.

If you’ve suffered burn-out, I’d love to hear what happened on the other side. Was it back to business as usual? Or did the thought of that make you want to go back to bed? Did you eventually find a pathway that felt right?

Catch you next time.