Gallery showing

 My piece Silky Oak Spirit is currently showing at the gallery of the Belconnen Centre in Canberra. It is in an exhibition titled Traces IV. The art works in this exhibition are all A5 size. Silky Oak Spirit is a botanical print on watercolour paper . I had then been worked further with watercolour and black pen to highlight the spirit. 

Cemetery ramblings

 I had a lovely walk in the Balmoral Cemetery for the work I am doing in Shelley Rhodes online course.  Drawing , photography , rubbings, collecting samples of leaves, pebbles and wind blown silk flowers were included in my morning of sampling. 

These small cards were prepared in advance with gesso and some collage. Then drawings made on top. The bright pinky orange flower is the flower head of a Mother of Millions. It is a toxic weed. Will kill livestock if it’s in their pasture and humans. But it was such a joyful scrap of colour amid the sombre colours of the tombs and headstones that are dull and blackened with time.

The rubbings were from headstones ART is from a man named Carter. I was very respectful when doing this . 

Micro scraps collected are colourful in a place that is grey black brown in its macro elements 

Group work

 I am sampling a piece for our Qld ATASDA exhibit in the Plant Empire exhibition in October. I have drawn in black ink some gardening implements. Then through this I have woven strips of fabric showing images of flowers , fruit and vegetables. Need some glueing or stitching and maybe an iron. I have kept it rough and organic with torn edges and big stitches to join some strips. Maybe I need to paint over in an acrylic medium to laminate it.  Not sure how the paper will hold up to stitch either hand or on the machine or glue. Maybe under the inspiration of Jay Zerbe I could staple the edges. 

Méditation scroll

 I found a long strip of vintage Japanese cotton, very soft and fine. Perfect for a scroll that I will simply fill with stitched lines of Asemic writing. I watched a demonstration by Emma Freeman and was inspired. This was on the Quilty Nook site hosted by Zak Foster,  an inspiring quilter from North Carolina .  I didn’t want to just mindlessly make for the sake of it but to really breathe into every stitch. To listen to every gentle pop of the needle coming through the fabric and the soft rasp as the thread pulled through and settled into its new resting place. Stitching for place keeping. Stitching for slowing down. Stitching for place making. The thread is one of those previously purchased and not used as ‘ I might need it one day’ , kept for  BEST. So best it is now , the moment is now. 

 

Emerging from scraps

 I have started another ORT jar (old ragged threads) and was about to add a handful of off cuts and scraps from making Harriet’s quilt. As I held them in my hand tidying other things up until I could get into my studio and add to the ORT jar , they began to wriggle and squirm. Moulding and rolling and forming into shape a head emerged. Quickly, quickly a nose and eyes , ears from more scraps picked up from the floor. 

With an over night halt on sewing activity, the next morning the need for a body became the most important creating of the day.

Things started to become vitally important to get this wee creature into the world. So a leg was rolled but turned out it was a tail not a leg at all. So back to the scraps of fabric and threads , became four legs . Oh you’re sitting upright . Not a four legged calf. 

Here she is . Safe and sound, fully emerged , deciding to become was taken out of my head and straight to Mt hands. The hands of the maker

Creatures In Trees

 I have been on a four day stay in the Bunya Mountains doing a lot of bushwalking. On one walk I photographed this incredible tree. It was like someone had carved its bark with lines and squiggles. Looking closely I started to see faces and creatures emerging from the bark.

Here is a Pademelon

An owl 

A large fish looking face on 

There’s a bear in there

Waterfall book

 I participated in a small workshop with Sandra Pearce at the Redlands Art Gallery on Sunday morning. It is in the style of a concertina book with the pages sewn into the ‘valleys’ of the folded concertina base. As it was the theme of waterfalls based on the current exhibition of Rachael Wellisch Polymorphic Magic : Textiles Transformed. Her pieces were blue and white and inspired the falling of water in the waterfall. I have tried to go from light to dark as the water could be white and frothy falling to a deep dark pool at the bottom of the drop. 

We then made a smaller version with no sewing of the signatures. Instead double sided tape was used. Again using up all the bits and pieces from the sewn, larger books. A riotous mess of papers being torn and stitched , cut and assembled, planned and gathered, held and dropped .