Similar Space Girls much? (www.dinosaursandrobots.com)
The interwebs are ablaze with activity and anger about a recent embroidery showdown. Some crafters are claiming there’s been a copyright infringement of Sublime Stitching original designs created by Jenny Hart. The perpetrator? Urban Threads.
To date no official comment has been released on either of Hart’s websites, but an incredible amount of data is being batted back and forth online. Without going into too much detail (you can find blogging here, here, here, and here) it saddens me that this kind of widespread artistic infringement happens in the indie craft world. I mean, Urban Outfitters has been accused of similar in the past, repeatedly, but you kinda hope that last time is really the last time.
To add fuel to the fire, Urban Threads has provided a rebuttal for the entire online craft world to dissect and discount as well as a letter from the big cheese meant for Jenny but published on the Urban Threads website for the whole world to see.
If you live anywhere along the border like most Canadians, the idea of having to bring in your planters at night so your Petunias don’t freeze to death will be somewhat foreign. Our friends in Vancouver are celebrating spring under the cherry blossoms and Toronto seems to be at a nice 25C right now. But up here in Prince George it’s still chilly during the day and dipping below freezing at night, which means our growing season is a little short.
Often gardeners here start their seed a few months in advance, inside, under the pale light of fake sun. Gardening helpers, like these Newspaper Seedling Pots or Newspaper Seedling Packs from Little House in the Suburbs are a handy and waste-reducing way to get your garden a-growin’ before the ice has even left your flower beds. Even if you just want to plant some basil in your windowsill to dress up some summer pastas, these might be a cheap (and environmental) alternative to those kits at the grocery store. All you’ll have to do is thicken up the newspaper and make sure you put it on a plate or on a yoghurt lid and in some sunshine.
The may sun be settling on Earth Day in the east coast, but here in the west we’re just settling in for an evening of activity before Earth Day comes to an end. If you’re looking for a few more things to do, Crafty Chica, Kathy Cano-Murillo, has blogged about an earth-friendly craft every hour for earth day. From a mixed-media wind chime to a recycled grocery tote, or these wonderful Chili Can Candelarias, the Crafty Chica has a craft tutorial for all levels of crafty-ness! Now, get out there and reduce, reuse and recycle some crafts!
The Mentalists are an all girl dance-rock band from London who were featured on Make Zine for covering Kids by MGMT on their iPhones. While the rendition isn’t the best, the inspiring possibilities are endless. It has been argued that computers and technologies are solitary activities and the getting-back-to-the-internet by young feminists and activists holes ourselves away, geeking out, and not building community.
What I love about what The Mentalists are doing here is that they’re using free applications (on expensive hardware mind you) as tools to recreate a piece of popular culture, giving it their own spin (free performance, all-girl band, not perfect in execution). They’re building relationships with each other, performing in public (and on YouTube), and providing us with a conversation piece concerning media-ownership, the ability of young women to master an application, and the one and only girl band. Happy IWD!
Let me preemptively say that I am PRO paying taxes. In fact, I did my taxes just yesterday and on both me and my partner’s meager income we only have to pay $377.86 in taxes for 2008. And we’ve used that and more in social services. I mean, I took the bus quite a few times and we’re both CBC fans, I even went to emergency for something minor because our city’s walk-in clinic is only open after 4pm.
But, I get wary when the Canadian Revenue Agency is out to get the “little people”. Those of us who barter services rather than exchange cash (ie. volunteering an hour a week for a gym pass), or work for cash like mowing lawns, doing someone’s taxes by donation, or receiving an honorarium for giving a presentation at a local high school. To the CRA this is the “underground” economy and it’s DESTROYING our communities. In this fancy YouTube video above their rationale is that the non-taxed economy destroys communities because communities rely on services provided by taxes. Not a variety of self-sustaining and community embracing economies like bartering or the gift economy.
The way I see it, though, is that if the government can justify paying me a wage at the social service agency I work for that keeps me so low on the tax bracket that I have to do work on the side in exchange for services then that’s what I have to do.
I think my friend put it succinctly when she came up with her own idea for the video above:
I want to submit a video to them with [new baby’s name] asking for the boob and me saying “wait a minute, let me get a receipt, revenue canada deserves a share of my labour.”
The attack on the “underground economy” brings up a lot of questions: Does this mean that a person’s parenting/home work is also now taxable? And what about that $50 I get from my grandparents every Christmas? Does that count too? And what happens when I report I made an extra $300 building websites for a poor student to get their work off the ground? Do you think they’ll actually put those tax dollars into my community in a better way than that $300 went to buying local honey or paying my roller derby dues?
Oh boy oh boy! There’s a new marketing strategy in town: Only in a Woman’s World. This “series” of drawn videos is here to inspire us to maintain our friendships and fall for these ideas of how women should act. So far this site/series has helped me maintain the following myths about women’s lives:
1. That good friends only come in sets of fours 2. You’re still expected to be hung up about your hair from high school 3. We’re never gay, and always searching for Mr. Right if we haven’t bagged him yet 4. Gaining back the five pounds we’ve lost is shameful 5. That if your body is imperfect it is “embarrassing” 6. Snack companies still want to sell us ideas about who we are (and who they think we should be) to buy their crackers 7. That we hate our bodies so much we’d wear control top stockings under our bikinis 8. Making excuses for the food we eat is okay, accepted, and encouraged 9. We’re still eating celery to fit into said bikinis!
I can’t wait for all the other things I’m going to learn about who I should be and what I should do as this series evolves!!
Students of the Women’s Studies Program at UCF have started a blog to foster discussion about girls and girls’ issues and share cultural products developed by and for girls. The postings cover a number of topics about girls: the Glam Council for America, poetry readings by girls, girls’ events (like rock camps), analysis of images found on the internet, and a healthy dose of Obama. I love the low-key DIY look because it drives home the point that in this over-processed blogging world (ie. Salon and The Daily Intel) it’s content that really matters.
When I was a little girl I used to do the weirdest creative things. I remember playing traffic cop with my younger sister on our rural driveway or making our own newspapers with pictures of ourselves dressed up like aliens. It was so fun and free! I know that these activities and acts of creativity happen even now that I’m grown up and it’s fun to see them embedded into the “techno age”. Could you imagine the fun we would’ve had if we had digital cameras to make videos? FUN!
Embroidery artist Mary Yeager creates beautifully intricate merit badges that illustrate female “rights of passage”. Much like the badges you’d get in Brownies or Scouts that proclaim your ability to camp in the snow, build a campfire, or be a good friend, Yeager’s badges mark the different milestones women experience and pass in their life time. Her work celebrates the positive aspects of women’s rights of passage but also criticize “the myriad physical manipulations women undergo to achieve cultural ideals of beauty” (Yeager’s website).
A recent hot topic out here on the West Coast is a woman who experienced a successful outcome from the human rights tribunal. Hailey de Lessier was awarded $26,000 in compensation for being let go from her job because she told her employers she was pregnant (CBC story here).
“I just [want] to tell other people that this does happen and you can fight it. It’s a long process but you can fight it and you can win your rights,” said de Lisser
What’s most interesting, for me, are the comments on the CBC story. Commentators’ opinions range from placing importance on either the plaintiff or the business, Lessier’s (in)ability to get Employment Insurance (EI), and a woman’s right to work. My favourites are after the jump.
D. Cole: Julia: I agree, who's performing is a big part of the decision for me. Bluegaia: ...
BlueGaia: I know Metric... what can you tell us about what you know/like about some of ...
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