Saturday 29 August 2020

Ear me, ear me

In Murrurundi as the last 2 days of August slip into the abyss of history Winter is gradually seguing into Spring. Blossom has been appearing on the many Prunus trees around town. The mornings are still chilly with below zero frosts but the days warm up pleasantly to around 22C in the afternoons.

This is a quick touching base to show the two beaded earring designs I've published as instructions and kits in my Etsy shop this week.

As many long time blog followers will be aware I've been worn down with anxiety after 2 years of having my art to wear designs stolen and faked by China based mass manufacturer ChicV. Its hard to feel the enthusiasm and joy I used to have when working on a new piece of textile art with the overhanging dread that as soon as I show a picture of it a few weeks later ChicV will be faking it and selling it on the internet for $34.95!!!

So for the forseeable future I'll be making adornments and publishing patterns and kits for making them.

Samaria earrings instructions  

Samaria earrings instructions and kit



Another colour version of the Kumaruka earrings.

Kumaruka earrings instructions

Kumaruka earrings instructions and kit


Now I'm going outside to let the chickens out to free range. Then I'll put my gumboots on and spend the day weeding and cleaning up at the bottom of the garden.

Have a beautiful day everybody.



Monday 24 August 2020

Let us roam

 

Listen to Vivienne!

Rock Dollar

We are old wrinkly and disparaged but been around long enough to understand how the world works.


New statement for Pearls Manifesto

On Refugees, Nationalism and the poison propaganda of politicians

Humans should be allowed to roam anywhere we want on our planet. 

Settle, live and work anywhere we choose. Move on to any place when we want to. We have always been a free roaming species until the ideology of nationalism created fake bullshit that borders needed to be designated creating boundaries to confine where roaming must stop. “Borders” designate lines that delineate where one lot of people have to stay and where others cannot cross over, unless granted special permission. 

Political powers that be (the whole gamut, democracies to authoritarians) create all sorts of propaganda and nonsense to maintain this situation. The people inside the borders get convinced they are being kept safe from dangerous violent others who want to hurt us and steal all our possessions. More often than not, the people who are described as others/illegal migrants leave where they have been living less than voluntarily to seek safety and dignity and flee oppression. I include so called “economic” refugees as having an authentic reason to migrate. People like these who are eager to work and gain rewards like better housing and education for their children are highly motivated and desirable citizens.

Realising taking down nationalism doesn't mean stopping naming territories or countries, or denying “national" identities. The end of nationalism means making borders meaningless as a literal barrier because they wouldn’t serve to stop movements of people in or out. Kind of like a European Union concept expanded to encompass the whole planet, to become an "Earth Union"

The consequence of this is that govts would be made accountable to the citizens they serve. The most important resource of all is contented and flourishing citizens. If people move away from the places where they get exploited and harmed by their govts those “countries” are barely able to function going into the future. The most professional and highly educated people always have the ability to flee bad govt first, because their professions are what their wealth is invested in. The less mobile people are the ones who labour physically or provide services. Its not so much their lack of wealth that means they can't move away more readily its the hardships and cruelty of trying to negotiate the borders and "immigration" systems that serve to take away their power to go to safer places.

In a world without borders functioning as walls, in the places where govts function for the benefit of citizens by providing quality housing, work, health care, education and social benefits for the vulnerable, humans would flock to where they can live their lives in safety and dignity -  and those places would thrive. 





Above is Zelda, another of my PDF sewing patterns.