Material Intelligence: Roly - ClothFabric Popup, Julie Paterson

During Sydney Craft Week Julie Paterson will pop up her trailer, ‘Roly’. Meet Julie and purchase ClothFabric materials and products. Join an informal stitch in to contribute to the Menindee Memorial Loop Project.

Popup and Stitch In Saturday 11 October, Australian Design Centre, 11am – 3pm; Sunday 12 October, 11am – 3pm, Reverse Garbage; Saturday 18 October, 11am – 3pm, MTNS MADE Sustainable Textiles Symposium, see the website for more event details.

juliepaterson.com.au
@clothjulie

Why do you think Sydney Craft Week is important/what drives you to be part of the Festival?
Sydney Craft Week has a broad appeal for more and more people, particularly as a place to cultivate healthy responses to the unrelenting and instantaneous digital world. Craft means making things with the hands, slowly and deliberately. A week-long festival of sorts that focuses on the hand-made, and the process the makers go through, is the antidote we all need to that sense of disconnection that comes with empty consumerism. As Li Edelkoort says ‘The Future is Hand Made,’ and she is always right!

I love ADC’s Sydney Craft Week. As a maker, Sydney Craft Week helps me feel seen, supported and valued. Cheers to Lisa and her team!

How does your event respond to the Festival theme ‘material intelligence’?
We all are drawn to be creative in some way. And we are all social beings. Making things by hand connects our hearts and our brains. There is an intuitive felt sense to making something - and making something in the company of others. Material intelligence is the ability to understand the significance of the things in our lives. The objects around us mean different things to us because of how they were made, what they are made from, who made them and under what circumstances. My event encourages people to deepen their understanding of this by making with others and for a purpose. Being connected by the making process, we are all seeking a sense of place and connection. Being part of making something together, something that carries meaning, this is a powerful experience I am always seeking to share with people. 

What can people expect from your event?
I will be popping up in a few places during Sydney Craft Week, bringing Roly, my Cloth Pop-up trailer, loaded with fabric offcuts and cut pieces for sale. Roly and I will be parked outside ADC on Saturday 11 for a few hours in the morning, then outside Reverse Garbage on the Sunday 12, and finally at Civic Place in Katoomba for the Textile Sustainability Symposium  on Saturday 18. During each of these pop-ups I will be having a Stitch In event, where people can participate in stitching my Menindee Memorial Loop artwork - an ongoing craftivism project that is drawing attention to the degradation of the Baaka-Darling River, especially the tragic mass fish kills that will continue to happen without better government regulation of Big Ag. I will have the fabric and needles and thread. All people need to do is show up and spend half an hour with me sewing 100 crosses onto cotton patches that will become part of the year-long art project. 

During the Textile Sustainability Symposium at Katoomba, I will also be hosting a discussion about sustainable textiles. This is a ticketed event, so if you want to come, book here.. My Roly Cloth Pop-Up and Stitch-Ins are free drop-in events. All are welcome - and no sewing experience is needed.

Image top (l-r): Julie Paterson, Mendinee Loop Stitches, detail, 2024; Julie Paterson, Roly, ClothFabric Popup Trailer Photo/s: Courtesy of the Artist