Compulsory Palm Oil Labelling in Australia

Here we are at Federation Square, Deakin Edge last night to help promote
the petition to make labelling palm oil compulsory in Australia.
Parliament will decide next month, so it's important we get as many signatures as we can now. Hoping to get 100,000! Please help by signing and sharing.

The orangutan is the gardener of the forest, spreading seeds to create more forest, an umbrella species that others like tigers and rhinos, and countless more rely on.

#labelpalmoil #iwantthechoice #dontpalmusoff #turnmelbourneorange #inyourpalm #orangutan #endangered

Melbourne Zoo , as organisers of both the petition and event, donated 1000 orangutan plush toys which were hidden outside of Deakin Edge, and seated throughout the auditorium. The plushies were for everyone to find, as a reward for attending and promoting this important petition. These toys represent the real live orangutans lost to unsustainable palm oil production every year. At this rate they will be extinct within a decade. Attendees were actively encouraged to take selfies with their plushy, and use the hash tag #labelpalmoil when posting it on social media. Also there were bags of oranges kindly donated by Orange World. Thanks for the juicy evening snack Orange World!

Afterwards we were instructed to swarm/surround Livinia Nixon doing the weather report. I mimed my plushy Kiani, to also do the weather report. I hope we were in frame because it would have been HILARIOUS.

The lower left corner image is a live study of Maimunah, using an enrichment puzzle at the Royal Melbourne Zoo. You can see this drawing on Instagram as the initial live study if you're on there:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BLHZd1NhS-I/?taken-by=patriciadenisartist
I'll be posting an exclusive work in progress shot here.
And the final drawing here first.

Finally there is a free shopping app. for your phone to help you shop ethically now, by avoiding unsustainable palm oil. Read about it here.

Make a laundry filter for microfibres

After reading about synthetic microfibres becoming marine microplastics I was inspired by Blair Jollimore to improvise a filter I sit in my laundry tub.



Each wash catches about a pea sized amount - when compressed into a ball between my fingers - of wet fibres. We are running a front loading washing machine with the hose running into the laundry tub rather than straight down into a pipe. If you are doing the same then this set up should work for you.

I recommend checking occasionally to see how the water is draining throughout the first wash to ensure there is no risk of overflow. It is possible to collect the fibres as they clump while there is water in the tub. Scrape your fingernails across the strainer then pinch and you should be able to clear it enough to improve the drainage. Top loader users should exercise greater caution as they do use more water, and this system will slow down the draining of water from the laundry tub.

To make this simple, microfibre laundry filter I used an off the shelf sink strainer, an oversized press button and a cut up fry splatter guard* to make a rigid filter.



The press button allows me to detach the filter to clean it out between washes. You can find oversized press buttons at a haberdashery store. A regular sized press button may still work depending on the strainer's holes, but could be fiddly to use.

I got the stainless steel sink strainer and splatter guard from an independent kitchenware store. The fine aluminium mesh of the splatter guard is easily cut with a box cutter style, snap blade, utility knife leaving an edge that is safe to handle. The gauge of the holes is approximately 1mm. I had previously tried cutting up an old stainless steel sieve but it proved difficult to do neatly, without injury and it was tricky to clean out as a result. A scrap of flyscreen mesh while not as fine at about 2mm gauge, should still catch some fibres. When cutting the circle of the filter, it's better to cut it slightly too big in diameter than too small, because you will ensure the strainer holes are completely covered.
Confession: mine is a fraction undersized but I haven't gotten around to cutting a bigger one yet.
Attach the filter behind/under the strainer. It will filter better and be easier to clean than if you put it on top.



Alternately, you can make the filter and strainer in one - ie sans button and premade manufactured strainer, basically a super fine DIY sink strainer - but I find this doesn't sit as well in the drain hole, and is prone to distortion, requiring adjustment to ensure a good fit for each use.

Clear your filter while wet after each use, by rubbing your finger over the surface.
Always remember to lift the whole assembly out of the drain hole before carefully removing the press button halves.
Avoid removing mid wash if you want to catch the most fibres.
Due to its buoyancy, there are a lot of fibres in the suds which won't drain away the way they usually do. Allow all water and frothy suds to drain and dissipate away before retrieving filter.

On the left, an entire wash's fibres, scale in millimetres. 

On the right top down from another singular wash the fibres: in the suds left in the tub post wash; cleaned from the filter only post wash; scraped from the top of the filter during the wash.

*super fine mesh, aluminium screen used when frying food that spatters. The one I used was by Metaltex.

A Cheesy Love Story - The Ad Doritos Don't Want You to See

The feminine wiles of aubergines.

My housemate grew one bootilicious aka callipygian (cal·li·pyg·i·an) aubergine last Summer.


I bought this one because I couldn't resist sharing her with you!

Ladies we should not be ashamed of our - or our fresh produce's - sexy parts. It's empowering to see female artists reclaiming female genitalia back from the censors and celebrating it as something beautiful, sensual and intimate. I'm not sure I'd want to wear it around my neck but to each her own!

Rubber chickens and LGBT marriage

'In a heartfelt speech, Labour MP and shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said “we all love a good wedding”, with its “cloud of confetti” and rubber chickens...'
from The Age

When I first read this I thought it was an amusing typo. "WTF? What has this got to do with it?" I asked a couple of people what it meant. They didn't know either. I tried looking up the speech but all I got were more news sites with the same story. It wasn't until I asked my younger housemate - who I expect has been to a few weddings, she's quite the social butterlfy - that I was able to discover what was meant. It should be a singular rubber chicken even if more than one chicken is eaten because it is describing the meat/food rather than an animal. I don't believe I've ever had rubber chicken ... probably a good thing. Any of you lucky enough to be in the same boat and wondering what Yvette was on about, this post was for you.

✿◕‿◕✿♥❀◕‿◕❀

Since I'm here: Yay for marriage equality! If you want to get married, the gender of your Love shouldn't matter. Marriage these days isn't about the procreation of children or the financial security of women. It's about a life long commitment of love with another soul. Love is love. You don't have to get married to show it but if you want to then you should be able to. You are not a second class citizen. Years from now we will look back at this like we do with mixed race marriage and wonder why it seemed like such a big ask for something so simple. It will seem shocking that it was ever frowned upon let alone unlawful. One day we will get there.

Street art: complementary balaclavas, Fitzroy

Fitzroy,October 2012
Sculptural street art near the Fitzroy Nursey. The Free Pussy Riot sticker/flyer was a recent addition at the time of this photo. At the time of posting however, it was gone.

Nothing but Flowers.

In North Fitzroy on the window of a vacant commercial/industrial building.

For those of you not quite old enough to know what this is in reference to, here's David Byrne from Talking Heads.

Queensland Sanctions Shooting Threatened Bats

I understand that the fruit industry is important to the state of Queensland but so is its natural beauty and wildlife. This is an ineffectual and cruel way to deal with loss of crops. It needs to be stopped. I would have thought endangered and vulnerable species' survival was more important in the long term than any crop. The government could be subsidising netting not allowing shooting. Why does wildlife need to have a dollar value before its custodians care for it?


 Series IV, Pod II, detail*
modelled on the grey headed flying fox

Please help stop this slaughter by sending an email from here / signing the petition here!



Series IV, Little Reds, detail*
modelled on the litte red flying fox

*Images of my sculptures taken from my folio blog here.

'Dear' Old Aunt Sally

Original image and text from The Boy's Own Paper, Saturday, November 12, 1899, No. 1035. - Vol XXI, page 13

 'The following games will not only cause much amusement to the different players joining therein, but will afford that healthy exercise which is so necessary for the maintenance of health...

... Fig. 1 gives "dear old Aunt Sally," who, no matter how much we may knock her about, still smiles, and keeps it up too, as if in encouragement and invitation to have another shy. Aunt Sally's head should be carved out of a block of wood, and the sculptor's art exhibited need not be of any high order, as the more grotesque the features the better. When the head is carved it must be painted black, in imitation of a neggress* with a sweet smile, bright red lips, and pearly-white teeth**. A hole should be made underneath the head, large enough to insert the end of a broomstick, the other end to sharpened to a point, as seen in the illustration, so that it may be easily pushed into the ground ... A small hole should be drilled in the nose to receive a short clay pipe, a quantity of which may be obtained from the tobacconists' shops for a few pence ... round sticks, as A in fig. 1, about eighteen inches in length, can be made by sawing up broomsticks into the required length.

All is now ready. Stand Sally up, and place a pipe in her nose. Three sticks are to be given to each player, the game being to break the pipe by aiming sticks at it...'

I'm not going to dissect the obvious racism, and violence against women such a game suggests'. Almost one hundred and thirteen years later I think we can all agree this is so many levels of wrong. Additionally, promoting waste and destruction is hardly healthful exercise ... the modern equivalent would be to gather several empty glass bottles together to throw rocks at them, thus 'fostering quickness of sight'. I have put in italic the parts I found especially abhorent and leave it at that. I'll be flippant and say: Good luck finding an intact broom afterwards to clean up all that broken pipe!

*Blogger's dictionary doesn't know what this word is :) Good!
**We know that no one actually looks like this!

A little bit about palm oil and how to avoid it.

For both your health and environmental reasons palm oil needs to be avoided. Labelling laws for palm oil vary around the world making it difficult to know what you're buying. It's an issue I felt so strongly about that I wrote to my local member of parliament about it. Disappointingly a potential law requiring its labelling was rejected in Australia.

Palm oil plantations have had a devastating effect on Indonesia's unique rainforest habitat and thus the population of endangered orangutans, Sumatran tigers, rhinoceros and thousands of other animals dependant on this ecosystem. If the destruction of this habitat for palm oil plantations isn't stopped, we could see these endangered species extinct within our lifetime.

What can you do as a consumer? Writing to your member of parliament, or signing petitions could still eventually create enough demand for change if enough people ask for it. If your government is as apathetic as mine you can still make a difference. Spread the word about palm oil and how to avoid it:

'to avoid buying palm oil, when buying food look for the label stating it is vegetable oil. Then look for saturated fat. If only vegetable oil (no animal fat listed) is used and there is 5%+ saturated fat in the product - you are buying palm kernel oil, palm oil or coconut oil, most probably palm.'

'if palm oil is used in cosmetics it must be labelled. No exceptions. However, it is usually not labelled as Palm oil. It is labelled as Elaeis guineensis. This is the name given to palm oil by the International Nomenclature Cosmetic Ingredients (INCI).'
From http://www.palmoilaction.org.au/shopping-
guide.html

A bit harder to avoid are possible palm oil derivitives:
'In non-food products like soaps and detergents, the list includes elaeis guineensis, sodium lauryl sulphate, cetyl alcohol, stearic acid, isopropyl and other palmitates, steareth-2, steareth-20 and fatty alcohol sulphates – all of which may be derived from palm oil.'
Sodium lauryl sulphate is the most common lathering agent used in toiletries.
From Borneo Orangutan Survival's site.

Further reading if you want to know more of the names palm oil deritives hide behind.

Chilli sauce as a weapon

At work today a man walked in holding a large squeeze bottle of what looked like chilli sauce which he must have just bought. He was otherwise unremarkable. As I stood near the register I thought "He could hold up the shop with that! Has anyone ever staged a hold/stick up armed with the threat of chilli sauce squirted in the eye?"
DISCLAIMER: Don't try anything like this, I am not endorsing that at all. That would be a really horrible thing to do.

However maybe the airline security people should be onto this?

[edit]

I asked a friend of mine who works in the field of Aviation Security about this. She said in her personal opinion that

'On international flights it would be a LAG* and therefore confiscated (over 100mls). On a domestic flight it's feasible but the fear factor wouldn't be there like a knife or gun which can be fatal, plus the reaction time to squeeze it out is longer compared to capsicum spray. If you attacked someone with it, you'd have plenty of other crew and passengers reacting and getting the bottle off the assailant. I'd deem it low risk on its own, but it could be used with other weapons.'

*Liquid, aerosol, gel.

An analogy about veganism

'Vegans are to meat what Christians are to sex. The best way to control people is through shame, and attaching shame to a natural part of being human is hugely powerful.'

'Wolter' commenting on this article.

Pushed too far, one fine day: RIP James Freud

RIP James Freud

Freerange eggs and pork.

I saw this ad appealing for free range pigs on the tram to work recently. 'You are Our Hope' is a campaign funded by Animals Australia*. You would need a heart of stone not to be at least a little moved and think a bit more about the welfare of your food sources. Bred freerange pork products are currently so hard to find. Chicken and eggs on the other hand is fairly easy. Hopefully this campaign will raise enough awareness to create demand and lead to happier Aussie piggies. Coles has committed to making its fresh pork products sow stall free. Use this link to appeal to the other major food retailers to do the same.

Admittedly you do have to be selective/educated about which freerange eggs you buy. I owe it to the Epicure section from The Age earlier this year for my knowledge:

Some are actually barn laid with access to outdoors through an opening too small to allow but a few chooks through in a day. Others have their beaks trimmed whether they need it or not, and in some cases this is done so severely that other farmers have described it as debeaking. Beak trimming is only acceptable where other measures to deal with pecking order issues are unsuccessful, and even then it must be professionally done.

Further reading:
http://www.greenwashreport.org/node/74

I hadn't previously been successful finding them, because the Epicure print article didn't have the logo included but now I know what to look for:
http://www.freerangefarmers.com.au/

*yes they are a vegan promoting bunch but listen to what they have to say in this campaign, if nothing else.

Proposed close time for seals, 1873

Click image to see bigger version.
Proposed close time for seals
S.E. Waller
from the editorial by Frank Buckland in The Animal World, A Monthly Advocate of Humanity, Issued by the R.S.P.C.A, No. 43 - Vol. IV, April 1873

This was on the cover, illustrating an article proposing the creation of a hunting season of baby seals to allow them to reach a bigger size. Regulating this would offer the seals as a species a better rate of survival since the babies would not be quite so helpless when the time came. One would expect the later hunting season would require a swifter killing method than what was happening - leaving the younger seal pups to starve to death after killing their mothers. It would appear to ease a collective conscience albeit temporarily. He went into some gory detail about the inhumanity of the then current 'slaughter of the innocents' method. He did not call for an outright cease to hunting nor change in technique, acknowledging the economic value of the animals.

Plastics are killing marine life.

via Bioephemera

Nurdles aka mermaid tears

Nurdles are tiny plastic pellets from the plastic moulding industry. Raw plastic is formed into pre-production plastic pellets or plastic resin pellets less than 5mm in size. Their size and shape make them easy to feed into the hopper of a plastic moulding machine. Not every nurdle makes it into the hopper. Some may be spilt or blown away on the wind. These usually end up in waterways.

Nurdles are also known as mermaid tears because they make up a large portion of marine debris. Scientists have been aware of the danger of marine plastic debris for some years now*. However it is only the recent set of images of dead albatross chicks that have made a wave in the sea of public consciousness.

*So have I (see blog entry here) though not as long as they have obviously.

Rant about marine plastic debris

Never mind chaos theory's flapping butterfly: one carelessly disposed of plastic item inland, could end up in the gut of an albatross chick on a remote inland thousands of kilometres away. That object could be one of many plastic fragments and particles that will fill this bird's belly thus starving the animal to death.

Hundreds of seemingly insignificant nurdles are swallowed by other animals such as fish, leaching toxins into their bodies.

What can anyone do about any of this? We can all learn to be responsible. We can tell others about it. We can share articles and images with our friends and family to help them understand no piece of plastic is insignificant. It means life or death for the animal that eats it. That animal could indirectly be us. As the dominant species on this planet we have the capacity and therefore the responsibility for our collective actions.

Exhibition: Paper Butterflies

Hosted by Melbourne CBD's most unique shop Wunderkammer, Paper Butterflies will be a showcase of my most recent works. Some have been shown previously while others, notably the Paper Butterflies, have been created specifically for this event.


Paper butterflies, in progress.
mixed media

About Wunderkammer:

'The shop specialises in science and natural history. In the collection are antique botanical prints, anatomical models, specimens preserved in vintage glass canisters, fossils, medical instruments, beetles and butterflies in hand blown specimen domes: the scope of Wunderkammer is as broad as the scope of human scientific enquiry. The owner of Wunderkammer, Ray Meyer, chooses the objects for the collection based on standards of beauty, rarity, historical or educational value and, of course, the ability to inspire wonder. '

Paper Butterflies
Exploring our relationship with nature and the ephemeral.
Oct 23 to Nov 24th 2009

OPENING NIGHT: Friday 23rd October from 6pm

Wunderkammer
439 Lonsdale Street
Melbourne, Australia
Opening Hours:
Tuesday-Friday 10AM-6PM
Saturday 10AM-4PM
Enquiries:
96424694
info@wunderkammer.com.au

Big show coming up: Slide Rules Have No Place At My Party.

This is one of several of my new, sculptural works that will be featured at Brunswick Arts Space from next Friday.

Lime and Soda
mixed media, framed sculpture


Lime and Soda, detail showing scrimshaw

Lime and Soda is about how the increased amount carbon dioxide in the atmosphere affects our oceans. The ocean naturally absorbs carbon dioxide but if it continues to absorb at the current rate we will see acidification. This affects the entire ocean food chain from the tiniest creatures upwards due to the negative affect on seashell integrity. The scrimshawed, seagull craniums depict a carbonic acid molecule and the degradation* of a seashell in simulated, acidified ocean water.

Slide Rules Have No Place At My Party.
An exhibition of small scale sculpture and other media.
Curated by Monica Zanchetta.
Opening July 17th, 6-9pm
17 to 31 July 2009
Brunswick Arts Space
2a Little Breese Street
Brunswick, Australia
Gallery Hours: 12-5 Thursday to Sunday

I will post images of artwork from this show when it's over, here

For those of visiting the show at any point, please note that from my bat sculptures, 10% of the proceeds will go to the Tolga Bat Hospital in Queensland. So you can help a poor artist AND an orphaned or injured bat!

*Based on photographs from National Geographic, 2007. Click for further reading