Craft With Conscience: Maryanne Moodie
Maryanne Moodie // Fiber Artist // Melbourne, Australia
Maryanne is a fiber obsessed maker from Australia working between Melbourne and Brooklyn, NY. She divides her time between designing and creating woven wall hangings, developing weaving kits, and teaching sold out workshops across the world. Maryanne is best known for applying unexpected color combinations to her nostalgic designs. She is inspired by the intricacies of vintage textiles, traditional costuming, modern art, and the natural world. Maryanne’s work has been featured in New York Magazine, ELLE Decoration UK, Anthology, O Magazine, Grazia, Interwoven, and online on Design*Sponge and The Design Files. A finalist in the Martha Stewart American Made Awards in both 2014 and 2015, she sells her work on Etsy and through online shops and boutiques around the country.
Check out more of her amazing work on her website, Instagram, and Pintrest.
1. I began my #CraftWithConscience series as a way to simultaneously promote the work of other makers and to discuss the complicated issues surrounding creative inspiration and developing one’s own visual vocabulary. The internet is an ever growing fixture in many artists’ lives and businesses, could you talk about the role the internet plays in your artistic and professional life?
The internet has allowed me to connect to my tribe. We no longer have to be 'the only weaver in the village' . We can find and support one another. I can work in a little white box with a huge window somewhere in the world and connect to people like i am in the roo with them. I can get feedback about my work. I can share my highs and lows. I can be working at any time of the day and then others will still see my work when they wake up the next morning. Its a revolution.
Photo by Caitlin Mills for The Design Files
2. Where do you find inspiration for your work? In what ways has the internet and/or social media impacted your design process?
When I am making commissions, my inspiration comes from my client obviously. But when I am weaving for myself I try to use it as an art therapy. Lets say I am feeling jealous or anxious. I sit with an emotion and dawdle ideas on the page in a loose format of looking closely at the things right in front of me. Then I use some of these shapes to create a plan for a jealous weave or an anxious weave. Then I allow my subconscious to work on the feeling whilst my hands are busy. I find a lot of peace working through these tough feelings in a really soft and non judgmental way.
Photo by Caitlin Mills for The Design Files
3. How have you, as an artist, found your creative voice?
For me it is not about finding a voice to speak with my audience - but rather the voice to have conversations with myself about myself and the world. I believe that I am working on a journey with myself. I turned 40 last year and felt like a I had a big break through feeling really comfortable in my own skin and not so concerned with others views or expectations.
4. Sites like Pinterest and Instagram are popular places for artists’ to share their own work. They also act as public visual archives, often leading to creative work by others that walks the line between ‘inspiration’ and ‘infringement.’ Have you encountered copies of your work online and how does it affect you? What are your strategies for dealing with it?
The most important part for me is the emotional journey that happens whilst I am making my work. The fact that I get a pretty product is not the objective for me. And so I don't spend a lot of time worrying about people using my designs.
5. Do you have any advice for aspiring artists or creative business people?
Create a community around you and your product. Get it out in the world - give it away. Leave samples in shops and cafes and a bunch of business cards. Ask a local business to host an exhibition of you work. That way you will begin to meet people in your immediate community who are interested in what you do and want to support you. Instagram is not real. The people in your community ARE! Get out there!
6. Do you have any favorite blogs, artists, or Instagram accounts that you’d like to share?
I think you just need a laugh sometimes - I listen to 2 Dope Queens and My Dad Wrote a.... I also follow FUCKJERRY on IG.
Photo by Eve Wilson for The Design Files
All photos provided by the artist.