&company reckons craft is….

We were thrilled to be a part of today’s FastBREAK, a rapid-fire talk series held once a month by Vibewire at the Powerhouse Museum. We thought we’d take the time to recap our favourite moments and share the ideas behind our presentation.

Before the working day begins, 5 diverse speakers come together to talk on a common theme (today’s was CRAFT), whilst the audience wakes up with a heady mix of great ideas and delicious breakfast served by Blackstar Pastry… So worth getting out of bed for!

• &Able’s Rupal Ismin shared her inspired marketplace and enabler for ethically produced goods.
• Meaghan McTavish of Citizens of The World gave great tips on how to tell your story with integrity and transparency (loved “don’t’ miser your cool – there’s enough to go around (ie – talk, collaborate and share, it’s good for you and for everyone else).
• Oscar from Young Henrys craft brewery championed the value of ideas – and perhaps equally importantly, taking the plunge and making ideas into your reality. Stop the talking, start the doing! A good idea and genuine passion is all it takes.
• Kitiya Palaskas shared her incredible portfolio of work as a “craft-based-designer” – love that she’s coined her own job description, so great to hear about someone who is living their dream, where “making” is their day job!
• Last but not least (we hope!) was &company’s Director, Anna Lise De Lorenzo. Here’s a recap on what she had to say:

“Craft” is a funny word. As a word that could be so benign, it’s fascinatingly divisive, and full of conflicting and contrasting definitions… For many, “craft” has become something of a dirty word, and it’s interesting to note that in the last couple of years, Craft Australia has been defunded, and Object: Australian Centre for Craft and Design has rebranded and dropped the “craft” bit.  Language is such an interesting thing. Think about the difference between CRAFTY and CRAFT. There are a whole lot of value assumptions tied up – contemporary kitsch Vs centuries-old traditions. Hobbies Vs years of training to become a professional. Decoration Vs high-quality goods. What ever you may think of all these perspectives, underlying them all is the common territory of:

• Making
• An intimate relationship with (and knowledge of) materials
• Provenance – a value placed on who made it and how it came into being.

Tools, materials and processes handed down through tradtition. Image: amazing Ariele Alasko

Whether you identify as a crafter, a maker, designer, artisan, dabbler or pro-am, whether you are a practitioner working from your bedroom, your knitting group, your business, or partnering your finely honed skills with medical science, it doesn’t really matter what you call it. Really – what’s in a name anyway?

“Craft” has such fuzzy edges, and I think that’s worth embracing – it means it’s open to being shaped by us, which is incredibly empowering, and that is why I think that craft- or making –has the potential to be down-right revolutionary… And &company plans to help that revolution along.

There is great value in connecting with the provenance of craft itself – the tradition of being a craftsperson. Once (pardon the gender bias here) you had to become an apprentice and train for years, then you became a journeyman, travelling the country touting your skills and wares. If you set-up shop you could become a Master Craftsman, which allowed you to join a Guild. The guilds were an important structure that enabled, supported and promoted craft, and the Masters were part of a special community

To dedicate your life to learning a craft seems somewhat disconnected from the general depictions of todays Gen Y – notorious for not wanting to settle in one career path (be it due to a flighty tendency or a desire to have it all). At the same time, as Portlandia so entertainingly parodies here, huge numbers of young people are being drawn to the integrity and satisfaction that comes from making – from going offline and shifting away from the mass-produced.

There is also great value in the genuine joy and satisfaction that comes from making something tangible with your hands. Of doing real “work”. We so rarely spend time now to make space in the fractured, multi-tasking online headspaces we tend to inhabit, to focus on making something. Not only is there satisfaction in the making of something, but also in the aftermath: being able to take what you’ve made and use it, gift it or sell it.

The making process for &company’s Sporks, developed for BlackStar Pastry, designed and made by Sonya Scott

There is a growing Makers Movement, especially in the US. It has grown out of the comprehensive online opportunities we have built: you can learn how to make ANYTHING online. You can access sales platforms to sell your work, and you can promote and market it through social media and more. The Makers Movement is moving production offline, but using these web tools to enable businesses based on local, batch-produced goods.

You can see tentative beginnings of this in Sydney with the success of Finders Keepers, makers selling to international customers through Etsy, but also in the local food movement, with craft beer, cheese-making, furniture making, and desktop manufacturing enabled by 3D printers.

Finders Keepers highlights something interesting in the way we make. Over the last few years, there has been a bit of a “laser-cutting-revolution” with such a plethora of etched timber/acrylic goods it’s arguably time to move on. But laser cutting has been adopted so enthusiastically because it’s so accessible – anyone with a computer can make a file, send it to a service provider, and they receive in return a tangible, lovely “thing” with a great quality of finish. But what if you had that laser-cutter in your bedroom, so you didn’t have to pay every time you sent a file, where you could have hands-on experimentation with the process and materials you use – what would happen to the designs you produce?

If you had access to a whole workshop, what would happen to your designs? If you had access to tools, spaces, facilities, and a community of experts, how would that impact your design? Imagine a work environment that is fluid, accessible, sophisticated… it would lead to an innovation explosion. &company is currently sourcing funding to establish Sydney’s first maker workshop, to make sure this happens.

visions for the &co workshop, images from Pinterest

What if you then took your making, and could shift it from side-project to day job? (Join us at our VIVID IDEAS symposium where we’ll pull that one apart!). Sydney’s creative and economic culture would be completely transformed.

How can you be part of this maker movement? Start by making something. When you make something, you immediately appreciate the work, skills and materials that go into the objects around you. You better understand the world you live in. If making things seems too comfortingly impossible for you, speak to makers, hear their story, and support them by buying their work. When you really understand the provenance of an object, you place value on how it has come into being, and you have an invested interest in objects, which makes us better, more responsible consumers.

Are you ready to join &company in the revolution?

Over the last several months, we have been working on a very special project. In Early 2012, as we feasted around a dinner table in the middle of Object Gallery, Blackstar Pastry chef and owner, Chris Thé started a conversation that would lead to a really exciting collaboration. Blackstar Pastry is a hole-in-the-wall cafe, on Australia Street, Newtown. It has a well-deserved cult following for it’s delicious treats: from strawberry and watermelon cake, lemon meringue tarts with basil jelly, to chunky lamb pies, there is much to salivate over.

Together we devised a brief to design a range of pieces (stools, plates, platters, sporks), to compliment the Blackstar Pastry experience. The brief asked for an integrity and honesty of material use, and the intermingling of the poetic with the practical. Emerging designers were asked to submit proposals and a team of designers were assembled: Sonya Scott, Colour + Light, Glen Baghurst and Naomi Taplin.

read on for more about the processes, final products and an interview!

The processes were as varied as the final products. Colour+Light’s Palette stools were fairly smooth running – a play on colours and materials, the process focused on working out proportions and the most efficient use of a reclaimed material.

Naomi Taplin’s Tempest range of stormy hued porcelain plates required some intensive testing of glazes and clay bodies – it was like watching a determined dalliance with alchemy watching the plates take shape!

Glen Baghurst’s playful Stone Stools were cast from an original sandstone block into concrete moulds. Based on the natural instinct to rest on a boulder out in the bush, the Stone Stool brings that experience into an urban context. Baghurst also developed the Cloud Platters, a series of presentation platters that can be configured in response to the dwindling pastry stock over the course of a day. Inspired by a spill on the workshop floor, these platters are deceptively simple – they are a real challenge to manufacture!

Sonya Scott created a cutlery range around the making, eating and enjoying of baked goods. In addition to the Sporks, she hand crafted tongs and cake slides. In developing these designs, there was a real investigation into the boundaries between batch production and bespoke one-offs. Drawing on her metalsmithing jeweller skills, weeks of labour went into creating and hand-finishing the cake slides and tongs.

The final wares are a beautiful series of hand-crafted products for an intimate, delicious experience, and it’s such a thrill to see people enjoying the morning sun, a coffee, and their pastries using our designs. The Palette stool and Sporks have joined the food&company Range, and the Tempest plates will be arriving early 2013.

You can read an article about the process on the Power House Museum’s DHub page here, or watch their interview with &co Director, Anna Lise De Lorenzo and Blackstar Pastry owner, Chris Thé.

We have been so ridiculously busy, there’s so much to tell you all! Let’s break it down, nice and simple!

1. YOU DID IT! With your support, we have raised over $20,000 towards setting up a permanent home for &company – after 18 months popping up in Gaffa and The Rocks, testing out our workshop, our classes and our homewares range, it’s time to settle in for good. THANK YOU to all the incredible people who pledged their support to help us meet out crowd-funding deadline! You can read all about it here.

2. WHERE IS &CO NOW? Now that our time in The Rocks has come to a close, we have popped everything into storage so that we can focus 100% on finding a permanent home for &co’s workshop and store and all the little (and huge!) things that will go into making that a reality. We are running from a temporary private HQ (the kitchen table) and you’ll be the first to know when we’ve got a moving date!

3. WHERE CAN YOU FIND US? Find us here, follow us on Facebook and Twitter while we get the next, very exciting phase underway. You can always get in touch, make an appointment or order our wares via email - hello (at) andcompany (dot) com (dot) au.

4. WHAT ELSE ARE WE UP TO? We are busy finalising new products with some great young designers, we are planing new education programs, collaborations, exhibitions and more. It’s all terribly exciting!

5. CAN YOU DO CLASSES BEFORE CHRISTMAS? Unfortunately not at this stage… although  if we get enough requests, we may be able to rustle something up… email us!

6. FIND OUT A LITTLE MORE! We’ve been chatting with all sorts of people about our recent adventures, check out the gorgeous photos by Nigel Lough and little article in the latest Inside Out Summer Entertaining issue, out now.

We’ll be a little better at updating things over the coming weeks, promise!

We have just launched a crowd-funding campaign through the Pozible website, and we’d like you to be a part of the magic!

It has become clear that the biggest challenge to Sydney’s enterprising creatives is access to workshop spaces and equipment to make, test, prototype, produce and dabble. &company intends to change all that with our plans to establish a major workshop, with metal, wood, ceramic and photography studios.

We can’t do it alone, we need financial support to make this dream for Sydney a reality. We are reaching out to our community to help us out.

You can find the campaign here, with all the details.

We are aiming to raise $20,000 minimum, and the rules of Crowd-Funding are all or nothing: If we meet or exceed our goal, we get everything. If we fall short, we go home empty handed. So we will need all the help we can get. If what we are proposing rocks your world, please pledge. There are some great rewards on offer! If you know anyone who could help support us, please send them our campaign and invite them to support us.

&company Workshop Pozible Campaign from &company on Vimeo.

On Thursday May 31st &company presented a professional development symposium for designers, titled How-To: Live the Dream. Part of the VIVID IDEAS festival, we invited a host of speakers to join us on stage talking about the ins and outs of turning design into your day job. Speakers covered intellectual property, PR, legal issues around contracts and business structures, to insights on working with retailers, and behind the scenes of two successful design studios, and what it’s taken to Live the Dream.

It was fantastic to hear the speakers share home-truths, hard facts, and a bucket load of inspiration, and we would like to send a huge thanks to all the speakers and guests, and a big hello to all the new friends we made on the night.

Below are some photos from the night, we’ll be posting more about each speaker, their top-tips and a video of their presentation over the coming weeks, so stay tuned! We are looking forward to new collaborations and opportunities (including further workshops to cover the nitty gritty stuff like Intellectual Property, PR, and legal issues specific to designers setting up new businesses).

David Hughes, Griffith Hack

Jo Teng, Arts Law

Laura Perugini, Publissimo

Sonya Scott, MC, &company

Russel Koskela and Sasha Titchkosky, Koskela

Nick Karlovasitis and Sarah Gibson, Design By Them

Terri Winter, Top 3 By Design

Anna Lise De Lorenzo, &company

Anna Lise and Sonya, &company

Find out about our classes – they kick off this week and we are taking enrollments till next Monday May 7th. Come and make with us in the workshop, find out about our talented designers and their thoughtful, useful, beautiful products. Keep up to date with our upcoming events and as always, if you’re feeling inspired or just plain curious, drop us a line at hello@andcompany.com.au.

We are thrilled to be partnering up with our good friends at Gaffa to bring a bigger, better super-exciting range of cutting edge young designers and makers for this year’s Finders Keepers Market. If you are bursting with ideas for new products and you’d love to test them on the market, drop us an email to find out more information! APPLICATIONS ARE DUE MONDAY NOVEMBER 7.

We are looking for thoughtful, interesting, well made, beautiful, intriguing, entertaining products. &company is primarily interested in homewares products and items that would make amazing gifts (the kind of gifts you want for the people you love most, and that you occasionally succumb to and buy for yourself…). The key things we are looking for are: a good idea, a well-made product, a design intended to be used and loved.

Things are getting a bit of a shake up this time – in the past, designers have had to pay a fee for joining our stall, but this is a thing of the past. There is no entry fee, but if your work is selected we will recieve a standard consignment commission of 44% of the sale price. This is an opportunity open to students and emerging designers (usually within the first 5 years of their professional practice).

If you or anyone you know is interested in getting involved, please shoot us an email (hello(at)andcompany(dot)com(dot)au) for an application pack.

We are thrilled to have settled into our new home (for the next 6 months) in the Arcade of the Gaffa Precinct. &company has exhibited at and collaborated with our good friends at Gaffa many times over the last two years, so it seemed a natural progression to move in when one of the little holding cells (from the heritage-listed building’s past life as a police station) became available. The tiny space is mostly studio, with a shop-front that is jam-packed with designs produced by &company as well as other independent designers. Everything int the store is by emerging or early career designers, and everything is made in Australia. We think it also needs to be said that everything in the store is really rather beautiful, much of it handmade, all of it designed to be loved and used everyday. We have new stock coming all the time, so pop by and say hullo! As it is our studio, we do occasionally pop out to visit makers, manufacturers and clients, so if we miss you and you want to have a snoop around the shop, just ask the lovely staff at the gaffa counter to help you out!

During Sydney Design 2011, the Gaffa precinct was buzzing with creativity during our second annual See-Saw project. This year’s title was “Mend, Make-Do and Build Anew” in response to the festival theme “Is Old New Again?”. Presented by &company and our project partners, Gaffa Gallery, See-Saw brought together 20 students from diverse design disciplines. In teams of 4, they were allocated an industry mentor, a select range of materials and two days each to respond to a design challenge: To re-examine the City of Sydney through new eyes, and identify opportunities for design to mend, make-do or build anew. 

The two week event began with a symposium exploring design, urban intervention, community and the city. We had some great speakers that kicked our brains into an inspired overload!  Glen Wallace and Eva Rodriguez from the City of Sydney Council talking about the city, the 2030 plan for a green, global and connected city, and it’s public art programs. Selena Griffith (COFA lecturer and DESIS (Design Education for Social Innovation and Sustainability) Node Coordinator for Australia) spoke about social innovation and the role of design. Zanny Begg (director of the Tin Sheds Gallery, The University of Sydney), shared her experiences with art projects and community building in Australia and overseas. Tom Rivard, architect and designer (of Lean productions, and Urban Islands project) took us through “39 Strategies for Design”. 

Each team was assigned a basic human need, and something that makes us “more human” that they had to respond to. Throughout the two week exhibition, the public was invited to come and watch the designers in action through a live video feed as the works grew.

Caroline Pidcock, along with Fergal White and Clare Hembrow lead the SHELTER + COMMUNITY group, exploring social meeting/information hubs around the city.

Bronwyn Fergusen of Karolina York lead the MOBILITY+RECREATION group with their “Domino Effect” project exploring social interaction through art and games installations in Martin Place.

Duncan Underwood of Digital Eskimo lead the COMMUNICATION+MORALITY group who explored “Just Advertising” and the potential for critical engagement with the barrage of adds that face us daily.

Andrew Simpson of Vert Design lead the FOOD+WISDOM group who developed “Seed to Feed”, a proposal for an installation event of planter pods to be taken home and to help distribute urban “balcony farming” wisdom and resources. 

The new brief with a focus on the city and responsible design proved a really interesting development on last years iteration, with students taking on some big ideas and ambitious projects for such a short turn around. The proposals they have for the city were thought-provoking, moving, interesting, and held interesting potential for being realised.

Till next year, thanks to our event sponsors and supporters: Carbon8, Angullong wine, Little Creatures, Object: Australian Centre for Craft & Design, UNSW College of Fine Arts, The University Of Sydney Sydney College of the Arts, Billy Blue, The Whitehouse Institute, Black Star Pastry, Love Coogie, Cafe Giulia, Eckersleys, Reverse Garbage, Nick De Lorenzo, James Kenny, and graphic designer Emma Warfield (with logo by Daniel Dittmar).

This Thursday, 28 July, we are thrilled to present the first ever See-Saw Symposium: Design and the City. Along with our project partners gaffa, we are running the second See-Saw collaborative student design challenge for Sydney Design festival, but this time you can all join us for an afternoon of ideas, projects and discussions about the place of design in our city.

WHEN: The symposium runs from 1:30pm – 5:30pm and is followed by drinks to launch the whole See-Saw project. Thursday 28 July

COST: $33 including afternoon tea.

BOOKINGS: Places are strictly limited and are selling fast! Bookings HERE. or contact Gaffa at zoe@gaffa.com or (+61) 02 9283 4273

PROGRAM:

MAKING-CITY-ART || City of Sydney , Eva Rodriguez Riestra & Glenn Wallace

Eva Rodriguez Riestra: Public Art Program Manager, City of Sydney

As the City of Sydney’s Public Art Program Manager since 2005 Eva has overseen the development and creation of a broad and diverse public art program. With a professional background in architecture, urban design, photography and graphic design, Eva is a regular guest lecturer on public art, public space, peace and the environment. Eva is a founding member of Architects for Peace and is completing post-graduate research in Art History.

Glenn Wallace: Special Projects Program Manager, City Design Unit, City of Sydney

Playing a key role on the City of Sydney’s major strategic planning projects including the Local Action Plans, Sustainable Sydney 2030 and the CITY ART Public Art Strategy, Glenn has a deep understanding of Council’s important inspirational and leadership role. Glenn has coordinated the Laneway Art program since 2008 and is presently coordinating a range of special projects including aspects of the Eora Journey.

NEXUS : COLLABORATION : INNOVATION  ||  Selena Griffith

Selena Griffith is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Design Studies at COFA where she coordinates the Design Management and Practice courses. Originally qualifying for a Bachelor of Industrial Design, Honors, Selena has worked as a Design Manager in a variety of contexts from in-house to international consultancy and as a freelance designer with her own consultancy. Selena researches in Design Management, Sustainability, Collaboration, Social Innovation, Service Design, Futures and Education. Her interest in creating positive futures through transformative design thinking as led her to produce teaching tools and methods to assist with the development of innovation, collaboration and design thinking skills. Selena is very interested in how organisations can most effectively utilise design thinking to deliver more sustainable products and services. Co-creation and nexus – where people from different backgrounds and professions come together in collaborations that result in innovation or new perceptions has fascinates Griffith and she not only researches in this area but has also developed courses to teach the skills needed to run multidisciplinary creative collaborations.

REMAKING THE CITY  ||  Zanny Begg

Zanny Begg is the Director of Tin Sheds Gallery, the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney. She is an artist, curator and writer – her work often revolving around an investigation of the politics of space, both in the broader globalised context and a more specific local one. Zanny was invited to Hong Kong for an Australia-China Council Residency (May 2007), Indonesia for an Asia-Link Residency (June 2008), for a Performance Space Residency in Redfern, Australia (Oct 2008) and Australia Council Residency in Chicago (2010). Her recent exhibitions include the Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Eremites, Emeraldtown, Artspace, Sydney, Istanbul Beinnale, Taipei Beinnal and Self Education – Self organization, National Centre for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia. Her recent curatorial projects include There Goes The Neighbourhood (www.theregoestheneighbourhood.org) and The Right to the City (www.therighttothecity.com). For more information www.zannybegg.com

STRATEGIES FOR COLLABORATIVE DESIGN  ||  Tom Rivard

Tom Rivard will be presenting live from Melbourne’s Sate of Design festival, where he will be working on a collaborative, cross-disciplinary installation. Architect and designer, director of Lean Productions and Urban Islands.

SEE-SAW PROJECT INTRODUCTION & BRIEFING  ||  Anna Lise De Lorenzo

Anna Lise De Lorenzo, Director of &company, presenting partner of See-Saw. You are welcome to sit in on the briefing for participating students and mentors taking part in the See-Saw project. Hear about the project and what will happen over the next 12 days.

LAUNCH DRINKS  ||

Gaffa is presenting a dynamic mix of events for the Sydney Design festival, join us for a drink to launch See-Saw and see the other exhibitions and installations in the space!