Studio visit: Martha McDonald

As promised, here's a look at recent Gallery 2 exhibitor Martha McDonald's studio!

Working from her private studio at Boyd School Studios in Southbank (which she's occupied since 2009), Martha's generously sized West-facing space has wonderfully ample windows running along one side that lets in streams of light.

The dress that was part of Martha's Craft Victoria exhibition The Weeping Dress (11 March - 21 April 2011, click here to view photos of the exhibition).




Left: Pin board in a suitable shade of blue.
Right: You can just make out Martha's beautifully sturdy and reliable-looking Singer sewing machine!



Left: Detail of the knitted dress that Martha wore during her 2009 performance at Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts entitled The Further the Distance, the Tighter the Knot. Read more about the performance here.
Right: Knitting pattern for the dress (written on the wall no less!)






More work from Martha's 2009 performance The Further the Distance, the Tighter the Knot. Read more about it here.










Click here to view the full set of images.


A big thank you to Martha for being so generous with her space and time!

Photography: Kim Brockett

Hatchling of the Month: Reckless Exuberance

Our Craft Hatch artist for the month of May is Allysha Coghlan of textiles label Reckless Exuberance. A recent RMIT graduate, Allysha launched her label not too long ago with a range of products including knitted backpacks, hoods, neckpieces and headwear - perfect Autumn accessories! We first came across Allysha's work at one of the loveliest shops in Melbourne, Dagmar Rousset (157 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy) and were bowled over by the knitted backpacks (pictures to follow below!). You'll be able to get your hands on said backpacks through our online shop soon - it'll be up next week!

So without further ado, here's an interview + studio visit for you to enjoy. Enjoy!

Hello Allysha! Please tell us more about yourself and your label, Reckless Exuberance.

I completed a degree in Textile Design in 2009 at RMIT. This was an amazing adventure where I learnt so much about textiles, how to create them and the endless possibilities they have.

I always loved working with textiles, I realized this in high school and experimented with handcrafts a lot. In the textile design course I majored in knitting which I adored from the beginning. Working with yarn, colours and creating patterns and textures excited me so much.

When I finished my degree I moved into a studio with some friends and continued experimenting with my knitting but also focused on creating entire objects, which is something I hadn’t had much of a chance to do throughout the course. The process of gaining inspiration and then taking a journey into creating a functional object is something I really enjoyed.

Through this experimentation I wanted to push the idea of what knitting should/can be used for. I felt as though people use knitting for a finite purposes, when really the possibilities are endless. From this I developed an array of products, which lead me to create my label, Reckless Exuberance.

What it’s like to produce one of your products from start to finish? We’d love to hear what processes and materials are involved!

It begins with an idea., whether this be a colour combination, a product concept or a pattern.

I take this to my knitting machine along with some yarn and we play around for a while. Often I make mistakes that lead me in an entirely different direction to what I had initially imagined. My Passap knitting machine can be temperamental just as I can throughout this process and it can be slow at times but once a product is developed and recorded then I can continue on another venture. This is recreating the same product in varying colours, sizes and patterns as I generally make one-off pieces.

It’s a journey that I love for all its twists and turns. Pieces are made, joined together, embellished and finished. It’s a magical journey that is exciting.

Speaking of materials, please tell us more about the materials that you use. How does sustainability play a part in your practice?

Materials-wise its all about the yarn. I have begun using mostly wool, at least for my winter items. I get all my yarn from a local shop in Coburg called Yarn Barn [CLOG: psst, Craft Vic members enjoy 10% off at Yarn Barn!] who have the most amazing array of colours. I am bewildered every time I go there.

As I was unable to find the buttons that I desired I began making my own buttons from polymer clay. This is also a wonderful process, which allows me to explore shapes and colours combinations suited to my knitted pieces.

In relation to sustainability, aside from using natural fibres my process is a particularly sustainable one. There is barely any waste as each item it made to the right shape for the product rather than being cut and sewn. My knitting machine and linker are both manually run by me which means no power is used. All finishing and embellishments are also done with my own two hands. I value these aspects and think they contribute to the individuality and beauty of each piece.

What do you have planned next for your business in 2011?

I have just committed to working on my business full-time. This is rather exciting, as it has usually come secondary to other commitments. I’m hoping to expand my business significantly by selling regularly at markets, online and hopefully in some more retail stores. I currently stock select products in a beautiful shop on Gertrude Street, Fitzroy called Dagmar Rousset, which I hope to continue.

I am also working on expanding into fashion garments. I hope to always allow my product range to evolve and change.

What other skills would you like to learn?

I have attempted to learn how to spin my own yarn. I tried in high school but I think I would like to return to this. Handspun yarn can have such a lovely organic feel to it. It is a nice process too, taking something from such a raw form into something you can knit with.

The unique handcrafts in traditional textiles around the world offer infinite techniques I would like to learn. The embroidery of India, Thailand and South America are skills I would like to learn.

Being more of an artistic person than a business-minded person I have taken it upon myself to learn how to run my business on a more professional level. I have recently completed a business course and gained many new skills in financials and marketing. Now it is a matter of putting these skills into play.


Who are some artists or fellow makers who been an inspiration for you?

There are many artists and makers that have inspired me but to name a few, the works of Vali Myers, John Olsen, Icelandic Love Corporation, Celia Birtwell and Tamar Mogendorff have all affected me.

In relation to knitwear Jenny Kee, Rodarte and Purl Harbour have all influenced me, and my work. There are so many more but I find it hard to recollect them all.

Where do you look for inspiration?

I often find myself inspired by people and places. One of my favourite things to do is attend festivals deep in the bush where people move and dress with such reckless exuberance. In these places people are uninhibited and free in the way they move, dress and interact. I observe and become very inspired here.

People and their expressions and interactions wherever they may be are things I observe and that I think influence my work.

I find myself particularly inspired by nature too. Looking up close and from afar at the obscure elements, textures and colours that occur naturally is something I always do. Whether in the bush or even in Brunswick, where I live, there is always beautiful plants, creatures and such that present amazing inspiration.

I find the magazine Dumbo Feather with its brilliant articles and photography to be a great source. I like to look in sci-fi illustration books that I have collected and old National Geographic magazines that my father gave me. Books and magazines of all kinds inspire me. I often go to my local library to explore and find information.

And finally, what can we expect to see at the May Craft Hatch market? Any favourite products of yours that we should keep an eye out for?

At the May Craft Hatch much winter warm goodness will be on offer. Long gloves and hoods are key items for rugging up. Backpacks and neck-pouches will be on offer, both of which are functional and yet still fun. Knitted headpieces will also be available which come in all different shapes and are a great finishing touch for an outfit.

Allysha will be at the next Craft Hatch on Sat 14 May at the City Library, 253 Flinders Lane from 11am-4pm. See you there!


All images courtesy of Allysha Coghlan/Reckless Exuberance

Introducing... Ricarda Bigolin

We can't wait for our next round of exhibitions to open this Thursday, and what better way to get things started than an interview with Gallery 3 exhibitor Ricarda Bigolin!

In addition to being awesome, Ricarda is a research-based fashion designer currently undertaking her PhD at RMIT focusing on modes and ways to express a fashion outcome, both in terms of how fashion is made and how it is communicated.

For the exhibition For What It's Worth in Gallery 3, Ricarda has collaborated with Michael Spooner who is also undertaking a PhD in architecture at RMIT. Till it opens, we've included some sneak preview 'behind-the-scenes' images taken by Antuong Nguyen (who you may remember from his recent Craft Cubed exhibition at the City Library!)

This is the second time you will have exhibited at Craft Victoria (first as part of group show A Ragged Edge in 2005). Can you tell us a bit about how your fashion practice has evolved since that time? What are your thoughts generally on ‘the exhibition’ as a model for communicating ideas about fashion?

For the last 5 years I have had a variety of different experiences in fashion both commercially and creatively. This has included an internship with German/Austrian duo BLESS in Paris and then a 3 year stint as a designer for a mass market brand, before embarking on a full time PhD in 2008.

Working in extremes of fashion practice has offered me an interesting perspective on the commonalities that affect all practitioners, and the distinctions that clearly divide luxury design items and that of disposable mass appeal fashion. At BLESS it was the experience of seeing a fashion design practice explore and integrate artistic values into all facets of their work, from the products themselves to the way in which it is presented. Whilst within the mass-market sector, the way fashion is produced was the focus and the manufacturing channels of a garment, from pattern to final product, can be highly innovative. This has impacted my thinking and subsequently my practice responds to both of these areas of fashion in different ways.

The significance of the exhibition model for fashion is an area that has grown greatly within the last 5 years where more designers are using this medium to extend the expression of fashion articles. This is becoming less about the presentation of definitive or consumable things and more so the display of fashion design thinking beyond garments. For my practice I am interested in the exhibition as a way to create an environment that embodies the thinking of the work but also challenges the references and associations of fashion.

You have collaborated with Michael Spooner in For What it’s Worth. How and why did your respective research practices in fashion and architecture come together in this way? Why did you choose an elephant as the basis for the collaboration?

Our work together has focused less on a traditional exchange where the creation of all aspects of the works are shared or each respective discipline trades places with the other within the collaboration. It has instead centered around a dialogue produced from the blurred edges of each respective practice and how this can enable the way each discipline communicates itself.

We both started our PhD’s at the same time and from the outset had mutual intrigue and curiosity for each other's practice. A dialogue between us naturally developed through the exchange of links and ideas, despite the distinctions between our research and that of the disciplines of fashion and architecture. My research has involved thinking about the ways in which fashion might be expressed besides implicitly in a garment, this is complimentary to Michael’s practice which makes distinctions between building's and architecture through what is often dismissed as 'paper architecture'.

The elephant was a silent figure among many others in one of Michael’s project, depicted as strung and hanging from a ceiling in one of his drawings. The idea to use it was quite an easy one. The elephant is symbolic of the often-arbitrary nature of references and subsequently could have been any other form, this perhaps relates to designers ability to capitalize and see potential in any reference. We were also particularly excited by its use due to the many playful associations of the particular imagery, anecdotes and assumptions that are immediately conjured by the idiom of the ‘elephant in the room’.

The title of the show references Charles Frederick Worth, thought to be the first ‘fashion designer’. Your bio states that you are interested in the ‘dialogue between designer and technician as an emergent type of fashion practice’. Can you expand on this concept? What possibilities do you see for craft merging with new technologies in the future of fashion design?

The research I have undertaken in my PhD has been concerned with uncovering the role of the fashion designer in terms of the major attributes of the creative cycle in fashion and exploring how this role might be expanded. In thinking forward, it is quite obvious that designers will have to learn new ways to operate particularly due the ubiquity of digital culture and the progressive nature of manufacturing innovations and technologies that are becoming more accessible. This does not discount artisanal or hand based practice, but suggests that designers will need to find creative and evocative ways to work with these innovations to produce unique outcomes. By interrogating the craft of making clothing, designers will find ways to subvert and extend these technologies and challenge what we assume them to produce.

I have been fortunate to have worked closely with a talented knit technician (Dean Jones) who specializes in Wholegarment® 3D seamless knitting for the last year on my research projects. This has involved the exploration of several different methods of interacting with technicians. Much of this relates to the amount of tangible input a designer can have in the production and development of pieces when using advanced and technical machinery. For this particular project, I developed a way to control the data imported and in this case develop the parameters of the 'pattern' used by the technician.

Image credit: Antuong Nguyen & Jessica Brent

For What It's Worth opens this Thursday evening at 6pm.

Introducing... Elizabeth Yong of PRIMOEZA

Autumn is upon us and what better way to embrace the season than through an interview with the wonderful Elizabeth Yong of knitwear label PRIMOEZA!

Elizabeth's delicate knits are all hand machine-knitted in her bayside studio and we've currently got a lovely selection of scarves and accessories awaiting your perusal here at COUNTER. But judging by Elizabeth's experiments, we can't wait to see what she comes up with for her next collection!

For more information, be sure to visit the PRIMOEZA website as well as Elizabeth's blog - it's a great read!

Happy Friday everyone, see you at Craft Hatch tomorrow!




How did your interest in textiles all begin?
Some of my earliest memories are of sleeping over at my best friend's house. Her family lived in a mansion-like house that was filled with antique wooden furniture, cracked leather chaise lounges, heavy, earthy tableware, crisp white cottons and English garden floral prints. I was so young but I had a real appreciation for those objects, the craftsmanship and the beautiful materials they were made from.

I don't know why I'm drawn to textiles in particular. I do notice though, that textile people seem to be quiet, introspective, love to travel and are appreciative of little details, which maybe describes me.




Could you please tell us about PRIMOEZA and how it all began?
Coming to set up my label has been a very long process. When I finished school, I put myself through many years of study, trying to find something I could apply myself to. I was very, very dissatisfied for so long but thank goodness, I finally had an epiphany and enrolled in the Studio Textiles course at RMIT.

Over a further five years of part time study, I worked my way through all the electives – weave, print, experimental textiles, but felt a real affinity for knit. I had never seen a knitting machine before, and it was a love/hate experience at first. The machines can be quite intimidating, noisy and grimy. I have always loved knit as a medium but I'm not much of a hand knitter so when I discovered what you can do with them, I was hooked.

Concurrently, I was working with a small business that imports the most luxurious fabric from Europe. This really fed me, showed me what amazing contemporary products you can make with traditional techniques, and the exposure educated my eye and feel for quality materials.

Ironically, I have not fully completed the Textiles diploma. It was a course that I thoroughly enjoyed, but I could feel it welling up inside that I was ready to go out and do my own thing. When I finally took the plunge I still needed a lot of encouragement from my partner and friends. I closed my eyes really tight and jumped!

One day I may have some of my pieces made at a knitting mill. You can do a lot on a big commercial machine that you can't do on a small hand operated machine and vice-versa. However, knitting up the samples is an integral part of my process and I can't imagine designing without being hands on the machine.

Some fabric samples

Being a fashion label, how important do you think it is to respond to current trends?
Trends can be used very constructively. They can open you to new ideas and ways of looking at things, doing things. On a practical level, they can make you more accessible. On the other hand I love designers who find an unoccupied niche and then go for it. Designers with a unique vision are usually the most inspiring.

Experimental pieces

What are some things that you draw inspiration from?
The environment has a huge impact on how I feel. My current apartment and workspace has nurtured me through a lot. It's a lovely place and there's lots of green around. The beach is at the end of the street. I'm very lucky.

For each collection thus far, I collect ideas, imagery and objects to help give the collection cohesion. My greater inspiration though is guided by a feeling of melancholy, nostalgia or whimsy and a strong sense of practicality and utility.

Whose work do you admire?
I love the textile patterns and colour palettes from the Art and Crafts and Art Nouveau periods.
The knitwear of Yohji Yamamoto. His pieces can be simultaneously rustic and naive yet contemporary and complex. The design teams behind the more textile driven fashion houses like Marni, Dries van Noten, Mina Perhonen, Eley Kishimoto and Mociun.

I'm becoming more and more interested in embroidery and stitching. I am finding a lot of work I like by young, contemporary designers like Susie Cowie.

Locally, I admire Nikki Gabriel and Katherine Bowman's work because it's just so beautiful, and to watch the set up and progress of textile printers Ink and Spindle on their blog has been fascinating.

But I admire of lot of people's work. I post these regularly on my blog.

More experimental pieces

What future plans do you have for PRIMOEZA?
I have a lot of dreams for PRIMOEZA. My next step is to start constructing garments. I'm a perfectionist though, so sampling will take me a bit of time. An important goal though is to enjoy what I have and not get too anxious about the future.

Elizabeth's workspace

Knitting machine

At last but not least, tell us a bit about your lovely cats. We hear that PRIMOEZA is a combination of their names!
Primo is a red Burmese. My partner and I had just came back from a trip to Italy and someone was looking for a home for him. I ran all the way to go and get him! His name means first in Italian. Ezra (or Eza) is a smokey black Devon Rex. He's way too smart for his own good. His name means helper in Hebrew and we got him because Primo was lonely on his own.

I was stuck for a label name for ages. I was trying to think of all these interesting names but I got sick of it and so started thinking about all the things that are dear to me. I had a joke with myself that I didn't want to call it after my partner so I'd name it after my pets!

People always ask me how to say it – it's PREE-MOE-ZA.

Sometimes I think those cats are actually goblins! There is always something happening. They are both remarkably clumsy and act like dogs. Ezra in particular loves craft and craft materials. His biggest adventure was going to the emergency room at midnight after he ate a lot of cotton and wool – he does admit that it wasn't one of his smarter decisions.

Get lost in the clouds + hair-raising treats from COUNTER

To coincide with Kate James' exhibition The Work of Worry is Never Done in Gallery 2 and Limedrop's window display Silver Lining at enCOUNTER, we've got two new stand-out fashion products available at COUNTER for a limited time.



First up is a wool scarf from Limedrop featuring the signature cloud print from their AW10 Silver Lining range.

For the knit-heads out there, these scarves are made from 14 gauge 3 colour jacquard merino wool and machine knitted locally using a SHIMA SEIKI machine.

For everyone else, these scarves will improve your life hundred-fold! What better way to prepare for the dark and cloudy days of winter than with a silverlined sky draped around your neck.



Our second super special limited edition item is a selected range of horsehair necklaces by Kate James.

Kate's work incorporates various intensive craft practices such as horse hair hitching and rope making. Her laborious efforts have been translated into her jewellery range Escape from the Tower that is available exclusively through COUNTER for the duration of the show (until 24 April).


The necklaces are woven from horsehair, each with a subtle and unique design. With such a great 'tail' behind it, you bet these necklaces will be a guaranteed talking point!


Escape from the Tower jewellery range by Kate James: $96 - $198
Silver Lining Merino Wool Scarf by Limedrop: $139