Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Winners of the Wellington Internation WOW Awards.

The WOW awards in NZ are one of the fabulous Textile Awards in the world.  Two friends of mine, Bonnie Begg and Christine White entered this year and they won the Wellington International Award with their entry called Ecdysis.  A fantastic win - with a fantastic outfit.
Congratulations to you both.
2010 Winner Wellington International Award

Birthday party

Elaine

Donna




Carol
Philippa

Suzie
Ola also with birthday hat.



Buffy with her Birthday hat on.Every second Thursday I meet a marvellous group of textile artists, at the  Strathnairn Arts Association.  Apart from being creative, we celebrate our birthdays.   In September we celebrated Buffy's and my birthday.   We had an assortment of eats and some lovely creative pressies.   It was a lovely day.   It is a day to share ideas and crafts.  Carolyn and Wilma are missing.


Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Wangaratta Bushfire cope.

The Wangaratta Bushfire cope.   This is the link to the video showing the most amazing cope made from garments from the bushfire and also the beautiful work put in my some amazing artists.   My part in this was minor and I only did two of the pieces which were attached along the bottom of the cope.  This of course is another late post as we did this early this year.   It was a very proud moment for us, and some travelled to Wangaratta to see the handing over of the cope.   A very special moment.
This is one of the two pieces I did for the cope.

The Tree People

This is something I should have put in a month ago, but it was just before I left to go to Geelong and things as usual just got in the way.   I belong to an association called the ACT Textile Artists Association based in Canberra.    This year for our exhibition - it was decided to give it a theme - called the Garden Party and all things had to be made or reworked etc.   This was an idea by Sonia and Wilma so that all members would be involved.   Part of that was the making of the tree.   So as a sub group, we called ourselves the tree people and that included, Annie Bew, Jackie Hartley, Lyn Steele, Jenny White and myself.   We had meetings and got the tree started - we weren't sure how it was going to look and of course on the day things came together really well.   The photo shows us putting it up at the exhibition and some other photos I took of the exhibition.   It has now gone to reside in a local primary school library.   The exhibition was a great success.  We had members making tables, people, flowers, cakes etc and of course leaves.
The tree set up.

Jackie and Ola setting up the tree.
Textile tea  

Saturday, October 9, 2010

More pics with Bob Adams

This is Bob wearing the Bog jacket we made for him.  On it are pieces of our discharged fabrics.   Not one of the best pictures to get the detail showing up.   He really liked it and enjoyed wearing it.
This is a discharged overblouse.  Originally it was black silk organza but it came up really well after being discharged.



can.

Workshop with Bob Adams

My friend Liz and I travelled down to Geelong Grammar where Glenys Mann was running Fibres Arts Geelong this year, as Janet (de Boer) was away on holiday.   Usually, it is run by TAFTA and called the Geelong Forum.   So it was slightly different this year.   It is a whole week of workshop/tutor talks and slides (although now Powerpoint), meeting old friends and making new ones and having fun.   All meals are provided as well as accommodation.   This year the less said about my accommodation the better.   I had nowhere to unpack any of my clothes as the 18yr old boy whose room I was in - this is one of Australia's most prestigious schools - had only cleared his desk top, every other space was filled with his clothes, books - there was no empty space in drawers or cupboards.  I just opened my suitcase and took what I needed out of that.  Of course none of that matters as once there you are busy doing your workshop - The workshop I was in was Bob Adams - he is from the US and is a quilter/dyer and discharger.   It was his workshop called Honourable Discharge that we did.   He is a terrific instructor, and we learnt well.  Our class was made up of 11 and everyone got on well - which is a real plus in a workshop. Here are some pics of our class and work.

On the way to Geelong Forum 2010

This was on the road to Wangaratta - it was the only one we saw, and we just had to stop to take a pic.  Actually we missed it on the way down and had to take it on the way back, the only problem was it was only shown on the way south, so we had to remember where it was.  
This is a detail of the hanging.   I was printing on gut as a metaphor for ageing human skin, gut looks fragile and frail but it has enormous strength.  
I had great fun doing this, my butcher was intrigued at me asking for so much sausage skin, he kept asking how many sausages are you going to make?    I had to tell him it was for art - so in the end I took in a piece I had done without the printing for them to see and feel.  At first I would ask for it in metres and then cottoned on that if I asked for it by weight it would be much easier for them, after all it wasn't a fabric shop.