an ocean interlude

A couple of weeks ago Kind Dog and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary down on the west coast at one of our favourite places - Airey's Inlet. We stay at Satis Beach House which is a few minutes walk from the ocean - it's a very calm and restorative place.

 The only discord was a mahoosive possum battle one night - of which there was much evidence in the garden in the morning.

 We had a lovely dose of ozone, therapeutic crashing waves and bracing sea breezes. We lolled, ate, sketched and wrote and generally had a lovely time.

please help

It didn't make much of an impact in the news here in Australia but Calgary, Alberta has just suffered the most devastating floods.

And my friend, textile artist and eco-dyer, Arlee Barr has lost most of her studio - can you imagine the devastation of losing your stash built up over years - fabric, threads, dyes, scissors, paints. Not to mention losing your precious work in all its states of progress. It makes my heart grow cold just to think of it. 

You can do two things to help Arlee rebuild - go to her online store and buy some of her beautiful fabric or finished artworks or you can go to her blog where there is a donate button. There's a $5 limit for each donation - that's roughly the price of a coffee. Or a fifth of a yard of silk. I know I couldn't walk into somewhere like Beautiful Silks and just spend $5.

mediaeval book mending

I've read this about four times and still find it amazing - from the Uppsala University Library preservation section.

http://www.ub.uu.se/en/Just-now/Projects/Completed-projects/A-medieval-book-mended-with-silk-thread/

marinating the Art

I was noodling around the studio this afternoon and picked a small piece out of the experiments drawer.  Layered silk, gauze and rug canvas that I had smooshed some soluble paper into - I had done a little copper wire stitching and added a couple of split pins and then put it aside.  It still didn't speak to me with any clear purpose but I started stitching and just kept going.

 Here is the result - lines of contour running stitch -

not very remarkable but a ripe candidate for burying in the garden to see what might happen.  It worked for 'Time' last year (see below), so who knows what will happen to this little piece?

It's now out in the back garden, under the passionfruit vine, tucked under a piece of slate being gently rained upon.

Seth's Buried Treasure

I'm participating in Seth Apter's Buried Treasure game - you repost a favourite blog post and link back to Seth's blog. This seemed like a great idea at the time but it has taken me all day to choose a post!

I was so tempted by the Wedding last year; and by the Southern Lands and Jealousy posts back in 2010. And there was such a mixture of enjoyment and sadness as I read over old posts going back to 2005 - so many things have happened in my life, change both good and bad - mostly good.

But in the end I randomly chose this one - a piece I made last year that has a quiet strength. It includes many of my favourite techniques - using vintage linens, hand-stitching, experimental leaving weathering in the garden and playing with paintsticks.  I hope you enjoy reading about it - thanks Seth!

Sunday, May 13, 2012

time challenge

here is my piece for the latest international quilt challenge.

 i wanted to demonstrate a process rather than explore an idea or a feeling so it is about the effects of time and weathering cloth and stitch.

i machine stitched strips of vintage linen, silk and cotton; then hand stitched lines of running stitch in silk and cotton thread. there are also a few loose clusters of french knots as a vague reference to the pleiades - my favourite constellation.

 i then stitched a labyrinth of copper wire which i hoped would weather and verdigris and colour then colour but quite early in the weathering process it became clear that this wasn't going to happened so i intervened with a stout piece of rusty iron. once the piece was rinsed of potential nasties and left to dry in the sun for a day or two i outlined the rust marks with red thread and burnished the centre with some copper and pale gold paintstick.

this piece took much longer than i anticipated:  it needed much more macerating in the garden that i thought and we have had remarkably fine weather for most of the time it was out under the feijoa tree.... here it is before rinsing and gussying up....

3 comments:

some works in progress

Just popping in to show some work I started last week before we went down to to the beach to celebrate our first wedding anniversary (which is a separate blog post).

I made another seastar - using a bronze/gold rayon thread. Here he is drying in front of the heater  -

 which excited a certain amount of feline suspicion. There was much growling and stiff-legged pacing around it before a pitched battle was staged in the hallway.

This is in limbo while I work out how to attach the black silk twisted strips to get the effect I want

and this is silk chiffon, smeared with fibre paste and gesso and dripped with various inks and paints.

And finally, this is what happens when you outsource selfies to the resident 8 year old (taken in the car - hence the angle and the blur)