Brittany Veitch

Brittany Veitch is a felt and soft sculpture artist trained as an Industrial Designer. Brittany makes handsewn toys under her label, The Vibrant City, which was launched in 2007. In 2009, Brittany collaborated with Ben Landau to present Bio-Accessories at the City Library niches as part of Craft Victoria's Craft Cubed festival program. In the same year Brittany was part of Veni, Vidi, Vici, a group exhibition at C3 Contemporary Art Space with Katie Jacobs and Rohani Osman.

Pardon My French!, 2010, felt, chain, thread

French profanity, curse with style. Hand-embroidered felt speech bubbles in black, de rigueur for Melbourne chic, slung from gaudy gold chain.

Pardon my French! is a tongue in check expression of fashion frivolities mixing cheap material, commonly associated with mass production, with traditional craftsmanship skills to bring a subtle quality to what is an essentially crude trinket.

Emblazoned in finely detailed hand stitching, Zut!, a French expletive, pays homage to Paris, France, an icon for fashion.

And so to this folly, say oui oui, and curse to your heart’s content.

www.thevibrantcity.blogspot.com

Carmel McKie

Deirdre Hoban

Deirdre Hoban studied Metals and Jewellery at Monash University, completing her Honours Degree in 2008. She has exhibited and curated an exhibition at the Abbotsford Convent and been a finalist in the Victorian Ceramic Art Award.

Although she works in different materials, nearly everything that Deirdre makes is based on straight lines and triangles, it may seem limiting to work within these constraints but so far the possibilities have been endless.

Colourful Bucket, 2009, cotton rope, porcelain, spray paint, photographic paper (jewellery dimensions vary)

The concept for Insert Coin Here reminded me of the lucky dip at school fetes, I would always blow heaps of my cash there and was rarely disappointed.

So I looked through my studio for the odds and ends that I never managed to work into finished pieces, that have been waiting for their time to shine. I combined them with some special rope, which I have been holding on to for longer than I can remember, and worked these materials into magical new works, which I trust will not disappoint.

www.deirdre.com.au

Dell Stewart

Dell Stewart holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from James Cook University and a Graduate Diploma in Animation and Interactive Media at RMIT. Working across a multitude of craft mediums, Dell has organised and participated in numerous solo and collaborative exhibitions, working with sculpture, drawing, animation and installation. She has recently exhibited at Bus Projects (Melbourne), Project {OR} (Rotterdam) and Takt Gallery (Berlin).

Builder's Bracelets, 2010, knitted builder's line

A series of coloured knitted wristbands. Wear one or better wear all ten.

www.dellonearth.blogspot.com

Elise Sheehan

Elise Sheehan is currently enrolled in RMIT's Gold & Silversmithing course. This is her first exhibition.

Cabin Fever #1-10, 2010, paper, pen, string, PVA hot glue gun, beads

I am currently creating form through line work, colour blocking and the manipulation of commonly found materials. These small wearable pieces are the outcome of restless hands working their way through a long summer of drawing, painting and embroidery as a starting point to then layer stretch, fold and form. This work satisfies my need to build and desire to adorn within the confines of my home, and the limits of my empty pocket.

Ellie Mücke

Ellie Mücke’s search for alternative approaches to fashion design practice began during her Bachelor of Arts (Fashion) degree, completed with distinction, in 2001. After a period travelling overseas, Ellie worked for a clothing company in Melbourne as a children’s clothing designer from 2004-2005. Frustrated with unsustainable professional practice of commercial fashion companies, she left to pursue her goals. Life experience from her travels and a strong belief in a more considered design approach undoubtedly inform Ellie’s current professional design practice. Her creative direction of reconfiguring second hand clothes and exploring interactive and collaborative design application through her label MüCKE are highly valuable examples of sustainable design thinking.

EnvelopE + MüCKE is also part of the of the 2010 LMFF cultural program.

Tee-sets, 2010, fabric

Each project I undertake deepens my understanding of sustainability in relation to craft, design and fashion. I have a passion for sustainable fashion design practice, particularly the handmade craft of fashion design using discarded materials. The outcomes of my work are intended to stimulate discussion and encourage imaginative design thinking in the broader community. Tee-sets are an imaginative and beautiful solution to fashion design waste problems. Each piece is handmade from discarded Tee-shirts; their aesthetic, a play with the texture and form. Tee-sets, provide wearers with precious handmade accessories that are affordable and skilfully executed. The vending machine distribution method is a new opportunity for the community to experience ways to purchase sustainable fashion designs.

Sharing my passions and skills as a fashion designer I hope to invigorate conversations about sustainable fashion design and the handmade in new ways. I believe that this will lead to deepening the communities understanding of craft, design, fashion and sustainability in their own lives.

www.mucke.com.au

www.studio-mucke.blogspot.com

Emily O'Brien

Emily O'Brien is a trained goldsmith and interior designer. She most recently toured for Electrofringe with her performance art group, Optical Eyes, that explores psychedelic visual stimulation and overload through layers of film, mechanical props, costume and sound.

In 2009 the National Gallery of Australia acquired Emily’s Hair Chairs for the Wolfensohn Gift collection. Earlier that year Emily collaborated with eX de Medici for the Canberra-based show Retroactive. In 2005 Emily received an artsACT travel grant to Germany to exhibit her Chip on the Shoulder brooches in the international craft exhibition, Talente in Munich.

Cryptozoology, 2010, polymer clay, acrylic, paint, nylon

Cryptozoology explores psychedelic realms through compositions of sculpted polychromatic mythical creatures. Are they toys, representations of the real, hoaxes, or just figments of our imagination?

To check out Emily's band Optical Eyes' short spiral video, click here.

Estelle Dévé

French-born, Melbourne-based jeweller Estelle Dévé launched her first collection For J.D., with love and squalor in late 2009.

Her latest collection Lunar Mare is an exploration of cinematic space odysseys, ancient African tribes and Grecian myths.

Estelle is part of this year's Penthouse Mouse, a temporary fashion, art and events space that is part of the 2010 L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival cultural program, and her work is stocked at various international boutiques including Kabiri (London) and Blackmarket (Singapore).

'It's Alive!', 2010 ,pewter casting, metal chain, green fluorite crystals

“Look! It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive… It’s alive, it’s moving, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, IT’S ALIVE!”

Like a jewellery Frankenstein, this item is composed of a plethora of different unused materials: fluorite crystals, metal chains and pewter castings. Oddly reassembled, the different textures combine to form one futuristic pendant on a chain, creating a rough but delicate item as if out of a Mary Shelley novel.

www.estelledevejewellery.com

Felicity Jane Large

Felicity Jane Large is a jeweller and artis who has exhibited in numerous Craft Victoria exhibitions including Yellow, Green, Red and White Christmas at COUNTER (2006-2009) and recently at Colour Accord in 2009 (C3 Gallery, Abbotsford Convent).

Video killed the radio star... then DVD killed video, 2010, VHS tapes, sterling silver

The one certainty of the world of fashion can be summed up in the old adage “All that’s old is new again”. Styles come in and out as if on a big merry-go-round, regardless of their position on the continuum which extends from flattering to downright ridiculous. It seems that our collective sense of nostalgia grows with each passing decade, and we delve into past styles as a way of revisiting ‘the good old days’. Not restricted to clothing, old school technology has wormed its way back into favour with the cool kids, with everything from vintage ghetto blasters to retired Ataris able to shine again under the banner of Retro.

For my contribution to Insert Coin Here, I’ve chosen to work with a much-loved icon of the ‘80s: the VHS tape. These one-off talismans are hand-crafted out of old video tapes from my personal collection. I hope that as you wear them the slightly jumpy images and wavering soundtrack of my old copy of Dirty Dancing will be with you in spirit.

www.felicityjanelarge.com.au

Katie Jacobs

Katie Jacobs is a ceramicist, having graduated from Monash University in 2002 with a Bachelor of Applied Art (Honours) in Ceramics.

Recent solo exhibitions include Domestic Flights at BUS Gallery in 2007 and Raining In My Heart at Pieces of Eight in 2009. Selected group exhibitions include The PAN Gallery Ceramic Art Award: Bottled in 2009, where she took home the main prize, Veni Vidi Vici at C3 Gallery, Abbotsford Convent with Brittany Veitch and Rohani Osman,

Fingernail earrings, 2010, acrylic nails, nickel findings

Fake nails have always freaked me out. They can cross the line between attractive and scary, and I am in turns fascinated and repulsed by those ones that look like animal talons. Being repulsed is always good for art! For enhancing your boring ugly pathetic useless fingers, you can get diamantes, spray painted hibiscus, nail charms, piercings and a blog user called Michael says, "there are now professional-grade fake nails for children, specifically 3-7 year olds! Before you jump the gun and say that it’s “over-sexualizing” young girls, please keep in mind that in Japan these things are cute, and they simply don’t see it that way. Besides, I’ve seen blush for babies to give them that rosy-red-cheek look."[1] Wow. You sold me. I’m going out right now to get a 3 year old so I have something to put my fake nails on.

1. http://www.japantrends.com/bambina-fake-nails-for-japanese-3-year-olds/

www.kateisonthemake.blogspot.com

Lauren Brown

Graduating from the National Art School in 2002, Lauren Brown has since exhibited in a range of artist-run-spaces and public places in London, Sydney and Melbourne. Now based in Melbourne, Lauren is a recent RMIT Masters Graduate in Public Art and her work is currently focused on sound in the public space. Her main motif is the use of the colour red as a prime indicator.

Lauren is also half of the collaborative duo, The Candystripers, with pop-artist Gemma Jones.

jack, 2010, headphone jack, paint, chain

within a practice investigating sound in the public realm, the jack series of necklaces, brooches and cufflinks are an elicit peep at the love affair between sound and fashion and the common point of difference between public and private wear.

these accessories are the point of insertion: the money shot between the sound and that heard, between the inside and the outside, between you and me.

www.sheseesred.com

Leah Jackson

Leah Jackson is a ceramacist. Recent exhibitions in 2009 include Step out of Character Become Yourself, a collaborative work with Rob McHaffie at Darren Knight Gallery, Bottled at PAN Gallery (curated by Kim Brockett & Anita Cummins) and her first solo show Adytum at TCB art inc in Melbourne.

U Do Voodoo, 2010, ceramic, thread

For years I have been giving and receiving small tokens wrapped up with a promise of safety, love and fortune. For my birthday last year my partner gave me a necklace stating its wear would promote me to the status of ‘powerful woman’, but even as a teenager my friends and I would purchase small crystals from the local shop ‘Crystalised’, smoke them with incense, cleanse them with full-moonlight, then give them to the nearest and dearest with similar promises. Despite my common sense lifestyle of today, many of these sacred stones, embedded with a meaning higher than the objects themselves, are still with me.

These ten pieces for Insert Coin Here lay somewhere between ancient ritualistic charms, and a Westfield shopping center – a modern day voodoo to assist in coping with the false promises and the busy metropolitan world around us. Gone are the earthy tones of old magic past, we now require a shallow, saccharine palette to connect with our flat screen CMYK vision. Let these simple physical objects be elevated to a paranormal realm by believing in their ability to quick fix a personal fragility, to fill a void, to improve and enhance oneself.

Leo Jinks

Leo Jinks is Insert Coin Here's youngest artist at the age of 6. The son of Emma Greenwood and sculptor Sam Jinks, Leo is currently enrolled at the East Brunswick Kindergarten. His recent creative endeavours include building waffle brick fort and cardboard box alligator (2009), and in 2010 he has constructed a cardboard castle, with some help from Granny.

Necklace of Bits, 2010, leather thonging, drinking straws, wooden beads

My Mum did tell me about this project with the vending machine, and she showed me a picture too. I did get a robot from a vending machine before, and so I know those capsule things are cool and that you can put all sorts of things in them.

When Mum did ask me if I wanted to make some things I thought it was a great idea, that’s because I really like making things. She did say that I needed ten – wow that’s so many!

So I did make these necklaces from leather, straws all chopped into pieces, and those colourful beads, which my Mum did say are wood. I said that we should sell them and Mum said that the vending machine does that for $2. I could even get one with my pocket money.

I don’t think boys would wear the necklaces except if they are dressing up, but I think that girls would love them, especially my baby sister, but she might want to eat them. They are all different colours and Mum did say that you can change how long they dangle, which is a good thing.

www.leoslegolab.blogspot.com

Michaela Bruton

Michaela Bruton is a recent graduate from RMIT's Gold & Silversmithing course. In 2009 she was the recepient of Craft Victoria's Fresh! 2009 award. Michaela was consistently awarded the RMIT Koodak Award for Best Student in First, Second and Third year (2006-2008) and in her final year in 2009 she received the RMIT Wolf Wennrich Award.

Editions 1-10, 2010, sterling silver, crystal quartz, shark tooth, rock, polymer clay, paper clay, cord.

Editions 1-10 explore the idea that a certain life force indwells within inanimate objects. Repetition is used to create a sense of movement or life within the forms, which are combinations of organic and synthetic media. Ambiguities are created between the real and artificial. Transforming these humble materials into strange imaginings of new alternate worlds and universes that allude to ancient relics, sacred objects and ritualistic practices. They are not objects simply appearing out of context, an object from the past strangely surviving in the present. They are artificial replicas with modern influences, playing on the contrasts between truth and fiction. Forms that link the body to the natural world. Personal objects. ‘Artificial’ artifacts, concerned with utopian possibilities for imaging the future.

Click here to read more about Michaela.

Sharon Margaret

Originally from Auckland, New Zealand, Sharon Margaret is a knitter, photographer, curator and editor. Sharon has participated in numerous group exhibitions including Asahi Art Machine (2009, Auckland) and Guerilla Knitting for K Road, (2009, Karangahape Road, Auckland).

Sharon also co-edits Cardboard Box zine with Nicola McNabb. Issue one was launched in September 2008 and the two are currently working on issue five.

Lightbulb brooch, 2010, knitted acrylic

I'm a bit obsessed with lighting. As a photographer I have to consider it at all times and as a knitter I love to knit lightbulbs, lightbulb cosies, strings of lights, lightbulb necklaces… and now little lightbulb brooches.

www.sharon-margaret.blogspot.com