textile inspiration in rome

there were so many textures and textiles that inspired me in rome - here are a few..

a splendidly hatted horse outside the Pantheona rather spunky Amazon at the Colosseum
some truly amazing ruching on a papal frock in St Peter's

trompe l'oeil curtains in the vatican musem

 drapery fragments again in the vatican museum

and the most moving statue i have ever seen - st cecilia in trastevere

 

finally....

i can report some progress on textile-related bizzo. i signed up for karen ruane's embroider, embellish, create class but have been a very bad pupil.

part fo the problem is that the class began on 9 january when we were still in rome so by the time we got home i was already a week behind. add jet lag, going back to work, school holidays and some full-bore melbourne summer weather and not much has been accomplished.

an added problem was one i hadn't anticipated - compete creative paralysis. i did karen's button class late last year and loved it. karen is an excellent teacher and with her i conquered my fear of french knots, mastered bullions and fell in love with white on white embroidery. but confronted with making a wrapping cloth i had trouble enough trying to choose which fabrics and vintage pieces to use and then completely overwhelmed by the acres of empty white space - the classic curse of the blank page.

so i watched to karen's class videos which are incredibly soothing and clear and watched with mounting guilt as my class mates posted ever more wonderful examples of embroidery and inspiration.
so this weekend i have made a concerted effort and may just finish one block before the class ends. and this leads to what i suspect is the real source of the embroiderer's block.
you may remember i started making little shrouds late last year a a way of starting to think about all the babies i miscarried. then i found some wonderful examples of embroidered swaddling cloths in the Victoria and Albert Museum. and i thought i would make a small swaddling cloth as part of karen's course. except i couldn't. for the same reason i couldn't visit the foundling museum in london - at the moment it's just too hard and clearly not the right time.

so the only way i could start on my class work was to think of it as a sampler for when i do make my swaddling cloth.
there's quite a way to go but the momentum is there now.

pat on back

i am not the most organised person and find process things rather stressful, so i am giving myself an elephant stamp for getting 2 pieces ready to ship up to Queensland for the Stanthorpe Art Festival. This was acheived with much less stress than usual as Kind Dog was an enormous help in working out how best to hang the pieces for an art festival rather than a quilt show and gave soothing advice about box sizes and couriers.

Jealousy
and
Desert Triptych
are going off for an all expenses paid trip to regional Queensland until the middle of April and will hopefully find new homes. The Stanthorpe Art Festival opens on Friday 24 February.

back

the longer the blogging break the harder it is to get back on... where to start? well, dear Reader, since my last post we had cmas celebrations and thenKind Dog and I flew to Europe for the most wonderful holiday.

We spent a few days on the Isle of Wight and met Kind Dog's family - who were just as kind and lovely as he is. The IofW was also notable for the excellent bakewell tart;

a 10th century church starkly and solemnly beautiful,

a blustery visit to the downs,
spectacular views over the english channeland excellent food, music and ipad fun at the spyglass inn.

then we had 2 days in london, spent mostly at the beyond wonderful V&A museum, where KD and i could happily live. we also rode in the front and top of every possible london bus, saw weirdly terrifying assyrian sculptures at the british museum, visited tavistock square and marvelled at the sadly unphotographable leighton house.

then we flew to rome and felt immediately and totally in the right place.
we were extremely and consistently happy:
at the capitoline museum (with extra teeth)in st peter's square
at the coliseumalso notable was our apparent beatification at the coliseum

fidelity honesty kindness love - stage 1

 a new piece i started in the murk midnight - at the moment i am gripped by post project sore throat virus and insomnia, which is crap for being happy and work-eager in the morning but quite good for uninterrupted studio time (glass half-full, glass half-full)

the title of this piece came from a conversation kind dog and i had a few months ago about what were the essentials for a relationship - it came down to these

the words are embroidered on silk organza; then there is a layer of linen napkin with the rather nasty mould green edging torn off; a slice of op shop linen doily of some kind and a slice of cotton napkin. pinned to a large piece of artist's linen.

once the stitching is done, it will get a light gesso-ing with either a brayer or a dry brush (i'll see how the spirit moves me at the time), and then it will be stretched. at the moment i'm thinking of keeping it white and textured but again the Muse may have different ideas and tell me peremptorily what is required.

we'll see...

and another jealousy piece is brewing - this one with added hydras.....

while we're reminiscing and updating.....

last year i said this about me......

2011 version:

1. i like having crimson purple toe nails
2. i hate bad manners - tick
3. i am a grammar-phile and an apostrophe nazi - tick and have found soul mate in Kind Dog who shares my grammar prejudices right thinking
4. i'm afraid of heights, and other people's anger - still a heightophobe but can deal better now with anger because i expect is less (again thanks to Kind Dog, who shows me constantly that anger is not inevitable)
5. i love sleeping in - tick
6. hell is having nothing to read (as well as other people) - God, yes
7. colour IS its own reward - yup
8. tea is a great restorative - yup and KD's coffee
9. chocolate is a great comfort - the biggest change. i have kicked the sugar habit, folks and feel a gazillion times better for it
10. love is all you really need - yes yes YES

Publish Post

hey, remember this?

as reported here

well, in the interests of truthful reporting i need to tell you that my back is better :) i found a brilliant osteopath who doesn't do crunchy things to your vertebrae but is stern on the matter of doing your exercises.

so my back is stronger and happier; i no longer live in fear of hurting it by doing reckless things like pushing supermarket trolleys.

looking back over other posts this time last year, i can also report that 12 months on i am no longer troubled by demons in the night nor the scars in my soul, which are still there but not quite so scarifying. painful things have been tackled and worked through this year - the motto for 2011 could be keep pushing, don't give up.

the motto for 2012 - renewal, reinvent, reorient.

time to hop out of the cocoon.....

brunswick street gallery 40x40 show

i will have 2 pieces in the brunswick street gallery's 40x40 show which opens in brunswick st fitzroy next week.

heart of palm - hand-painted cotton, linen and silk; palm tree bark; silk and cotton thread; and oil stick. (30.5x30.5cm)

AU$425

blue#1  -  paper; foil; gesso; salt; oil paint; ink; copper wire; polyster net and silk and cotton threads. (28x35.5cm)

AU$350

both pieces are mounted on canvas and ready to hang.the exhibition runs from 21 December until 13 January.