Category: Arts & Culture

When Did Art Stop Being a Trade

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date December 17, 2025

What does “creative” actually mean — and when did art stop being a trade? This article explores how arts shifted from skilled, trade-based practices into performative spectacle, and how that transition reshaped value, labour, and women’s work in the creative economy.

Why We Built Trades for Boys

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date December 16, 2025

Australia has spent decades building trade pathways for boys while leaving women’s creative labour without workforce infrastructure. This article examines why the creative economy emerged from women’s historical trades — textiles, design, and cultural production — and how the failure to formalise these as certified professions has created systemic economic insecurity for women.

Tags Creative Economy, Creative Women’s Association, creative workforce, Cultural Industries, Economic Policy, Gender Equity, provenance, Skills & Certification, Textiles & Craft, Unpaid Labour, Women’s Trades, Workforce Infrastructure

Arts & Culture Creative Business & Leadership Creative Capital Creative Survival Economic Independence & Women's Enterprise In Real Life | IRL. Innovation & Ideas Insight Intermission Legacy & History Popular Culture, Women & the Creative Economy Power & Privilege Smart News Stories The Almanac The Architecture of Women's Health The Future of Women's Work: Creative, Economic & Cultural Power The Reading Shelf Wellness Work & Money

The Missing Architecture

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date December 11, 2025

This article examines why leadership programs cannot fix a structurally unsupported arts sector, and argues for a national creative workforce model — certification, standards, pathways, and provenance — as the only sustainable foundation for Australia’s cultural and economic future.

Tags Arts Sector, Australia Creative Policy, Certification, Creative Economy, Creative Industries, Creative Women, creative workforce, CWA, Economic Strategy, Gender Equity, Harris Tweed model, national standards, Policy Reform

The End of Theory-as-Rhetoric

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date December 10, 2025

This article argues that Australia can no longer treat creative work as a grant-dependent sector. Using the CWA’s four-pillar solution architecture — Innovation, Creativity, Sovereignty, Integral — it reframes creativity as a national workforce requiring certification, standards, and structural recognition to drive economic and cultural innovation.

Tags Arts Sector, Australia Creative Policy, Certification, Creative Economy, Creative Industries, Creative Women, creative workforce, CWA, Economic Strategy, Gender Equity, Harris Tweed model, national standards, Policy Reform, provenance, Workforce Development

Certification Is What Creates a Workforce

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date December 9, 2025

Australia’s creative sector is stalled not because of funding scarcity, but because no national certification system exists to turn practitioners into a recognised workforce. Using national data, this article explains why certification — not grants — is the foundation of a functioning creative economy, and how the CWA model provides the missing infrastructure.

Tags Arts Sector, Australia Creative Policy, Certification, Creative Economy, Creative Industries, Creative Women, creative workforce, CWA, Economic Strategy, Gender Equity, Harris Tweed model, national standards, Policy Reform, provenance, Workforce Development

Arts & Culture Creative Business & Leadership Creative Capital Creative Survival Creativity Economic Independence & Women's Enterprise Field Notes, Observations & Case Studies Historical Contributions & Women's Science In Real Life | IRL. Innovation & Ideas Insight Intermission Legacy & History Popular Culture, Women & the Creative Economy Power & Privilege Smart News Stories The Almanac The Future of Women's Work: Creative, Economic & Cultural Power Wellness Work & Money

Australia’s Creative Economy Is Running on Empty

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date November 28, 2025

Australia’s creative economy is being held back by the collapse of its textile manufacturing base. With less than 1% of apparel textiles milled onshore and no national provenance certification, Australia risks losing its cultural, economic, and creative sovereignty. A real creative economy requires structure, manufacturing, and protected provenance — not symbolic celebration days.

Tags Certification, CreativeAuthority, CreativeCare, CreativeEconomy, CreativeExcellence, CreativeHealth, CreativeWomensAssociation, CreativeWorkforce, CulturalEconomy, CWAAustralia, GenderEquity, NationalStandards, PreventativeHealth, SystemChange, UNESCO, WomenAndWork

Arts & Culture Folklore & Wisdom Insight Intermission Legacy & History Stories The Reading Shelf

Life Is Art

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date November 24, 2025

Japan’s cultural philosophy shows that life is art, and everyday practices like Souji build responsibility, wellbeing, and community cohesion. Evidence from the WHO demonstrates that creative rituals support mental health and longevity — outcomes reflected in Japan’s world-leading health and happiness rankings. Western culture, dominated by digital performance and consumption, can learn from Japan’s integration of creativity into daily life as a form of preventative health.