Welcome!

 Welcome to Australian Arts and Crafts! After spending most of my life learning, creating, and appreciating a wide variety of art forms and crafting techniques, I decided to start making a record of what I am lucky enough to observe and participate in. 

A bit more about me: my day job is in commercial photography and content creation, and I work primarily with small rural and remote businesses, and most of these are run by the kind of people who don't normally get a platform outside their communities. For a long time, I have wanted to start creating a platform, and sharing the people I meet and the things they create, with a wider audience. The modern art world is exclusionary by nature. It excludes us from owning, observing, and participating in the enjoyment of art, and brands a lot of the more accessible art forms as 'low brow' or pop culture art. If our art forms begin to show the promise of financial benefit or investment potential, they are swiftly appropriated and moved to places where even their originators feel unwelcome and uncomfortable. 

Fortunately for us, we can ignore the art world, and continue learning, creating, and sharing our art with each other, both online and in person. Craft markets, clubs, social groups, small community galleries still persist and thrive, and I love exploring and enjoying all of these forms of enjoying the things we make. Most artists and crafties I make are passionate about what they do, and generous with their knowledge and techniques in a way that capitalism keeps trying to beat out of us. I am hoping that in sharing some of these beautiful people on my little blog can help them feel special, appreciated, and in reading about them, you might be encouraged to pick up something you have been struggling with, or learn something new that you've wanted to try. In trying, and failing, we learn and create, and that's maybe why I am so constantly fascinated with art, crafting, and making things in general. I hope you'll all enjoy the adventure!

Note: I have allowed comments on this blog, but I will be moderating them. If you don't see your comment pop up immediately, please be patient as I'll get to it as quickly as I can. 

Credit: Photo by me