Friends of TFS - Chanelle Clinton

Friends of TFS - Chanelle Clinton

Our community has an incredibly diverse group of disabled creatives, and this July, Disability Pride Month has us talking about disability visibility and allyship. Join us below for a chat with Tāmaki Makaurau based creative and community champion, Chanelle Clinton! 

 

Hey Chanelle! Tell us a little about yourself and what led you to the wonderful world of sewing?

Kia ora! I’m Chanelle, a queer, neurodivergent and disabled sewist from Tāmaki Makaurau. I was born in Waitākere and have lived out West right up until this year. My mum’s side are from South Africa and Mauritius, and my dad’s family are Pākehā, from England and Ireland. Aside from sewing, my other creative outlets are taking photos on 35mm film, ceramics, cross stitch and writing. I live with my senior cat Toby, who closely supervises all projects, and you’ll often spot her in my final shots on instagram. I currently work in Health Promotion, but have worked a million different jobs, no one believes I am introverted because I really love working with people. I’m currently writing this during Matariki, so I’ve been reflecting a lot. This past year has been challenging, but I’ve never felt more creative, inspired and loved. My community is everything to me.

My mum taught me some of the basics of mending when I was young, I have always been extremely curious and love to see what everyone around me is doing. I’m not sure if it’s my ADHD or my limb difference, but I really like to gather lots of ways of doing things to figure out which ones will work for me. Once I got to school, my curiosity got me into a lot of trouble. I luckily ended up at Glen Eden intermediate which had an incredible tech/materials department where you could rotate through a range of creative activities, video production, music, textiles, metal and woodworking. That was more than 20 years ago now, so it was pretty cool at the time. I really got hooked on textiles and it saw me all the way through school. In year 13, I lost my dad and it really sent me into a tailspin. I passed with the bare minimum requirements, but that class remained a safe space for me. After that, I stopped sewing for about 10 years - occasionally repairing functional things like my niece’s backpack or hemming friends’ pants. 

About 7 years ago I started working in the homeless community here in Tāmaki Makaurau and it’s a really high stress environment, so I knew I needed an outlet. So many of our street whānau are immensely talented in so many mediums, from poetry to clay to painting, it really was a catalyst for me to reconnect with my creative practice. I think I downloaded the Wide Strap Maxi Dress from Peppermint Magazine, bought the most beautiful organic linen from The Fabric Store and got to work. 


 

We’ve always loved seeing your makes pop up on Instagram, especially your hoarded t-shirts Cloud Pants! Is there a particular garment or sewing moment that you are most proud of?

 

I get so many compliments on those pants! Some of the t-shirts are 15-20 years old so they are starting to fall apart now but I still love them. It was actually an idea of a friend of mine, and I made them a pair first. They turned out so cool, I knew I needed some for myself.

In my previous role, we had an awards season every year, about 3 weeks of ceremonies that celebrate the achievements of our students. Last year I was away on camp for my youth work job until the day before the first event - so I had to make my 3 dresses well in advance. This is my ADHD nightmare, I’m normally still cutting threads off in the car right before the event. Thankfully, I pulled it off! So I’m pretty proud of that. Special shoutout to the team at The Fabric Store in Auckland who were so invested in the journey.



It’s Disability Pride Month! As a disabled sewist and creator, what does this awareness month mean to you?

 

For me, it’s about paying respect to all the activists before me, who fought for visibility, inclusion and basic rights. Disabled folk are forced to develop creative solutions to living in a white supremacist patriarchal capitalist society, so I see my creativity and disabilities inherently intertwined.

 

 

What are some ways that the sewing and crafting community can support disabled creatives?

 

Make space, show up, and buy art from disabled creatives. Disabled folk are not a monolith, so I can only speak for myself but I have recently started a ceramics class, and the teacher was so chill about my limb difference. That makes a real difference for me. She just made adjustments to her teaching, offering multiple solutions to everyone in the class. Shout out to Lisa at Eden Ceramics. Sometimes people are so over the top with assistance that it makes me the centre of attention, or they try to avoid it and I end up getting ignored, I don't find either of those particularly helpful.

In terms of pattern designers, Muna and Broad provide so many options for different bodies in key areas that are often ill-fitting in straight sized patterns, as well as specific accessible options like the Tarlee T-Shirt. I love that Sanna from Paradise Patterns always includes a diverse range of testers and I adore that she adds the size chart to the A0 documents. My working memory is so bad, I often forget what size I am making - it saves so much time not having to track down the instructions to reference before cutting.




Are there any particular people and/or other creatives that have inspired you?

I really couldn’t pinpoint one person, I have been really lucky to always be surrounded by creative people, living their lives in all kinds of creative ways. My nieces and nephew have all also inherited this creativity, and I am so privileged to witness them flourish. I love drawing inspiration from things all around me, and my brain makes all kinds of connections from the most mundane things. I am well known as a weird girl, and I couldn't be happier that baked beans have become somewhat of an identifier for me (@helIotanya made the set of my dreams). I honestly could not talk about inspiration without talking about my beautiful friends at Spooky Ceremony and Electric Ceremony - they all create work across so many disciplines, their talent is mind blowing. Electric Ceremony actually inspired my Masters dissertation on how we can create community through connection with other artists, and how having truly accessible spaces is the key. 


Tell us the story of your favourite wardrobe item or outfit (it doesn’t have to be made by you!)

 

I still have a bunch of t-shirts from when I was a young teen, one of my favourites is a Good Charlotte from their tour when I was 12 - it feels like rice paper and has rips in both armpits but I love it so much. I went with my sister, who reluctantly took me to a whole bunch of gigs as my chaperone during that time. Gotta shout out to my other sister for taking me to Destiny's Child at Mt Smart when I was 7, it was lowkey terrifying but it is a pretty iconic first show to attend, and instilled a lifelong love of seeing music live.



Do you have any favourite fabrics or sewing tools that you use often?

I looove working with linen and really crisp cotton shirting. I misplaced my rotary cutter when I moved house recently and I had to go out and buy one within a few days - I had no idea I’d become so dependent on it.

 

What projects are you working on, or planning towards, at the moment?

 

I’m currently working on a cotton flannel pyjama set - using the Rose Raglan Button Up and Rose Bottoms by Paradise Patterns. I hope I bought enough fabric - I’m notoriously bad at having to patch things together because I was trying to be a sustainable baddie and accidentally bought too little. 

 

Are there any favourite books, podcasts or places you frequent that you’d love to share?

 

I will always recommend anything by bell hooks, her work has been so transformative for me. I also think everyone should read Mutual Aid by Dean Spade, these are trying times and we really need to learn to look after each other, for real. In saying that, I've been trying to read more fiction and I’m currently reading Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession which is such a wholesome book, I really don’t want it to end. I love fueling a day of sewing with coffee from Small Mercies, they are so creative with everything they do - you can see that down to every detail they are producing with intention. I listen to a bunch of podcasts while I sew, my favourites are Love in a F*cked up world, Maintenance Phase, Books That Could Kill, 99% invisible, Articles of Interest and Ologies. 



A very kind thank you to Chanelle for chatting with us this week, we hope you've enjoyed this Friends of TFS interview - head over and follow Chanelle via Instagram for more of her/their work @sewcrastinating_