True Colours Exhibition

After visiting the Ellenbrook Gallery yesterday I went to see an exhibition of textiles and paintings by Rowena Walsh at the Tresillian Centre, 21 Tyrell Street, Nedlands. The centre has various classes running during school terms. There were also works by Robin Bray. Works were displayed mainly in one large room, along corridors and some works were in rooms where classes were being held (it is understood that it is ok for visitors to interrupt classes to look at works). Lighting is adequate. Rowena had a lot of work on display - about an equal mix of paintings and textiles. Although quite an eclectic mix overall there were several series-style works where Rowena had explored one particular stitch technique or various colour paint combinations on a similar size canvas. Rowena had sold some work, and at the time I visited there were some works still for sale which I am sure will have found a new home before the end of the exhibiiton.

True Colours runs from 19-28 August 2011 at The Tresillian Centre, 21 Tyrell St, Nedlands, WA and is open from 10-4 daily. Phone 08 9389 1977. On weekdays there is a cafe on the premises open 9am-2pm during term time and I enjoyed my lunch there in the very pleasant courtyard.

Presence Exhibition, Ellenbrook Gallery

Today I visited the exhibition "Presence" comprising textile works by Elsje van Keppel (1947-2001). I never met Elsje but I had heard about her from other textile artists here in WA. Elsje was head of textiles at Edith Cowan University in 1989 and I imagine ECU is where many local artists came into contact with her. The works are well presented and there is a dvd of Elsje describing her work, her philosophy and her inspirations. I spent quite a bit of time there on my own absorbing the essence of Elsje's work and I would recommend taking the time to watch the dvd while you're there as it adds greatly to the meaning of some of the works on display. I would describe this as a "must see" exhibition.

Presence runs from 7 August to 11 September 2011 at The Gallery, 34 Main Street, Ellenbrook, Western Australia. Gallery hours are 10am-2pm Mon-Fri and 1pm-5pm weekends.

Do go, it will be well worth the trip - and Dome is just across the road from the Gallery if you forget your cut lunch and water bag - grin.

Carole Redlich "Shadowlands" Workshop

My friend Margaret was unable to attend a workshop on Sunday with textile artist Carole Redlich which had been organised by the 84 Group so suggested I go in her stead. I had a ball. Carole had created some 3D pieces using fabric, yarns, plastics, stitched acetate, transfers and various other transparent or semi transparent "stuff". The "stuff" was trapped in a laminating pouch which was cut into shapes and then machine-stitched with loops of various weights of fishing line. The loops and shapes were manipulated into pleasing 3D shapes and then joined together on the sewing machine. We also did some free-style weaving of the fishing lines to create some structure to attach the laminated loopy bits to. I thoroughly enjoyed myself even if I was slow and didn't actually produce much on the day.

The images are of trapped invisible sewing thread with white polyester and rayon sewing threads, trapped feathers with large-bubble packaging plastic, the one loop I created during class using small bubble wrap, and the free weaving of the heavy weight fishing line. Not having done any woven basketry before I concentrated on learning the technique for this on the basis that I could stitch on plastic anytime at home alone. It was a great class - thank you Carole (and Margaret of course).

InTension Exhibition

This is the invite for the WAFTA InTension Exhibition which I'm planning to visit today.

ABC iView Make It Handmade

The link below is to an ABC iView programme called Make It Handmade which only available on ABC iView for another 10 days. It is a documentary about 4 women from Melbourne who've taken a seemingly staid pastime of craft and injected with a youthful and modern aesthetic.
http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/812234

Wrapping, wrapping, wrapping...

The wire framework for this took me about 8 hours and the wrapping with thread has taken ages although I haven't noted exactly how long. Because the wrapping takes so long I'm debating whether to complete this with papier mache or to continue wrapping. The original idea was to wrap with yarn/fabric and then use some sort of waterproofing polymer to make it hard and paintable. I'm using the time it takes for this initial wrap to decide. I'm making this initial wrap so that there is some texture for the papier mache (or the sucessive wraps of yarn if I go that route) to cling to so that it doesn't slip around on the armature once it's dry. I'm using fine yarn for this stage because I want the finished work to be quite thin. I think papier mache might be quicker because the strips would be much shorter and therefore easier to handle. Comments and advice from anyone who has done anything like this previously would be welcome.

Felting Knitted Handspun Wool

I decided that I would never make the 12 balls of handspun (by me, approx 15 or 20 years ago!) into a jumper so instead of getting rid of it I thought I'd invest even more time into it :-) I knitted some up into a bag shape and then felted it. I'm quite pleased with the result. I need to knit/felt a strap as well but I haven't done that yet. This was knitted with one strand of the handspun and the felt is really quite thick. I plan to embroider and/or dry felt onto this to liven it up a bit.

I knitted some more of the handspun up with some really bright pink synthetic yarn (acrylic?) and this is a photo before I felted it. I still have more handspun left so I will knit that up with some other yarn but I'm waiting to see what the result is from this one first. If I don't like the effect with a synthetic (which I think will sort of bobble up) then I'll knit the rest with some other wool to try and create a striped felt. This one may also come out very thick because I knitted with the 2 yarns together. I started it before I felted the first one and didn't realise how much it would thicken up - this pink/brown one might be so thick I won't be able to stitch through it!

Birthday Goodies Again Again

My sister sent me gift tokens for my birthday from http://www.perfume.com.au/ and this is what I chose. So now I smell very nice as I have Lovely on my left writst and Organza on my right because I couldn't decide which one to wear today :-) I promise to be more decisive tomorrow .....

Birthday Goodies (Again)

I received these last week in the mail from my friend Joan who had ordered them for my birthday but they didn't arrive in time - so I got to open 2 parcels instead of one :-) Lots of texture to add to the felting goodies she gave me when we visited at the weekend. While we were there at the weekend Joan and Mal took us to the local Chinese for tea (where Andrea is working part time) to celebrate my birthday. Andrea was our waitress for some of the evening - which felt really strange because it only seems like yesterday that she was born and we became Godparents!

Birthday goodies

Russ took the day off work so we had the whole day together. We had lunch out in the hills and visited the Mundaring Art Gallery. In the evening we went to see "The Ugly One" play at the new theatre complex in Perth. A very enjoyable day and relaxing day. My sister sent me vouchers so that I can choose some perfume online and I plan to do that this afternoon. My friend Joan has been slowly decluttering (v-e-r-y, v-e-r-y, s-l-o-w-l-y) and last time I visited I suggested I could help by giving some of her hand dyed wool a new home as I had enjoyed making some arty felt pieces recently. So this is the great bundle I received at the weekend when we visited. Lots of wool with some hand spun yarn, some silk tops, and some commercial embroidery threads. Joan used to keep her own sheep so some of this could have been "home grown". Although I'm looking forward to creating with this little lot I'm going to just look at it all for a while until inspiration hits.

Natural Dyed Silk

This is the same piece of silk as in the previous post. The first colour was from cloves. This golden yellow is from Tumeric. It was boiled for an hour. The white spot is light reflecting from the tiles - it is difficult to photograph because it is so transparent and the bathroom tiles gave the best image. The close up photo is the truest in colour. I haven't quite decided whether to do more to this piece or not. I'm going to keep it hanging around to see if I have any further ideas. I think it could be interesting to add some black somehow. Maybe India Ink? Circles?

Natural Dyed Silk

This piece of silk is for the WAFTA exhibit. All members received a piece of silk which we are to dye using any Shibori technique. I have stitched 3 sets of 3 rows of running stitch which I have gathered up. I boiled 4 tablespoons of dried cloves for an hour and then strained off the liquor. Then I boiled the fabric for 1.5 hours in that liquor. I love the smell of cloves - good job as you could smell it all through the house and down the street! Now that it is dry I am going to bind over some of the already stitched parts and boil it with some Tumeric.