Life

What a pretentious name for a post.

I have been so very happy doing "stuff" and getting ready for the auction of my house next Saturday and then I received a huge punch in the solar plexus (metaphorically) from a part of the family and it is so wasteful and sad.

Anyway I thought I might post some of the "day photos" Jo (Mystory) and I have been doing....now in its second year.

Also the rug for the family who were in the fires, is progressing...slowly.... so if you would like to contribute a square it would be great

As Jo and I are drawing for one of the days of our week and it is due tomorrow (we made it Monday as we would have plenty of time.......) I have to do a drawing now.

It is such a good discipline.

Next time I must update on my last art class so terrific the book I made was a hit!

I am not sure however if I will be able to furnish requests for more......thank God there is our "stuff "to do. It seems it matters little how hard you try in emotional matters you often strike out, but with art you plod on knowing there will be a little breakthrough just around the corner. A bit like golf!

We are fortunate.

Oils

Having the best time with oils...still excited about books so how to combine the two.

Our challenge for this month is fruit so here is the beginning.

I am working on paper and so I can rub the paint.

I will make a book and only expose a section of the painting like this

What do you think?

We are also doing a page for a book for ourselves, last time we made the pages for the others in the group but have decided to work our own.

My book is "Spirit" n ot sure how it will be put together and the page is presently unfinished

The small sheet on the side was given to me by Jo of Mystory but the other papers are from Amander Degeners class Indigo and walnut.

If you have suggestions I will be pleased to hear them otherwise I will plough on with more paintings.

Continued

In an earlier blog I wrote about making a hat for my grand-nephew well he looks great in it don't you think?

I am not quite sure what HE thinks!?

While in Ballarat I went to visit my friend Barbara in her new place..these are the views from her verandah

Not bad ?

And this from me who is moving to the inner city....we are so mixed up.

I really admire the people I know who know what they want from their Art/Craft, I vacillate from paper to painting to stitching and so on and the eternal line drawing of the art/craft dychotomy seems impossible to resolve.

Here are some triangle books and the middle photo is rolled Japanese paper...into string, I am going to try knitting with it and see how it goes.

This piece was made by my friend, Julia, (of Easter and Korean fame) in Susan Shapiros class of reverse applique, the circle was a piece of mirror work I bought from India.

These were 2 installations at the forum the first is made by the lovely Susan Holmes and she had these bright creations all around the campus.

This last photo was the table on the last day with the class's work.

I am afriad there was not much colour in this post....will address it in the next one.

Ballarat Textile Fibre Forum

I have had the best time at the Forum.

The class was Artists Books with Surface treated Flax Papers, with Amanda Degener. She is a wonderful woman and teacher who owns Cave Paper in America where all their paper is made sheet by sheet.

The paper is so hardy that it can be worked hard with dyes and water, we principally worked with Walnut and Indigo and then played making books.

If anyone ever has a chance to work with her, do ! I don't think I have both "learned and laughed" as much in any class, she is the person you want to "take home".

Here is a picture of her dying some paper in the indigo with some of the class looking on..

Here are some papers dyed with the walnut and indigo

The first exercise was looking at "concrete" poetry and its possible place in our work, it was a freeing exercise and I used the paper with the exercise as the back of this popup accordian book. it made a lovely design blacking out all but the significant words.

We then made a tunnel book, it was a fantastic experience but the accuracy demanded provided a great challenge to a person who is considerably spacially "challenged".

I ended up making 2 and mean to make more as I am really excited about the idea of pop-ups within the tunnel.

The second photo has one of mine, the one with the walnut paper and has little trees standing up as it opens

I will put more on the next post but I need to finish with a picture of Amanda in the hat made for the party on the last night. She wore it all day on Friday even while lifting bins of dye...and generally demanding physical work....and she is not fond of "Pink"!!!!

It looked like a Davey Safety Lamp.

Such fun and generosity pervaded the whole class with such a leader.

Easter

Just been reading Dave Kings post and remembering how Easter was when I was married (to a vicar) it was an emotional coaster ride from Maundy Thursday, it began with setting up the vigil chapel , (our dining room in one parish), then the evening service.

Thursday night was washing of the feet, emptying the church of anything lovely,and the procession to the vigil chapel.

Friday services , were so sad and inevitably long with reading of the gospel ,Mark, I think was the short one.

Saturday, cleaning of the church, brass , nooks and cranny dusting and setting up the candles and flowers for the vigil .

Sunday morning the first fire outside shivering in the dark ,then the vigil in the church, with the candles and the dawn arriving to a glorious shining church with wonderful white flowers everywhere(and very shiny brass!).

It was a wonderful time, but truly exhausting, Mondie loved the rituals and was totally engaged in every aspect of the ceremony and found the liturgy truly liberating.

I can no longer be part of all that, I guess it is because I miss him so, but also philosphically I strive to emphasise the positive and creative, and endeavour to avoid that which is distressing.

My Good Friday was this, yesterday

Such wonderful fun at John and Julias' egg painting.

I am obsessed with this embellishing so here are 2 more now with stitching ,I only had two needles left on the machine but Julia lent me some,

so after the inspection today........... more .....and if I do, I will post before I go to Ballarat tomorrow.......so excited......

Quiz answered

Now you know!

My father in law was a journalist and photographer I think that was more the norm in his time, however he took wonderful photos of the family, especially when the children were young, They must have taken it all "in their stride" and I remember a beautiful set of pictures of my sister in law (Janet), painting ,they were gloriously natural.

These are rolls of film, all wrapped and labelled.

These next were two glass transparencies which I scanned and lightened to see what they were.

My family were not especially interested in reminiscences about the past ,but the Wilson's are, and what wonderful times they had sitting around and talking about small memories. It is so important to chronicle our lives for the future not knowing who may be interested later.

My Father did write a biography and maybe it will interest future generations.

From the paintings of the art group last week I made a little concertina book.

I mean to leave it in the library at the art society.

We have a political discussion program on a Sunday morning called "Insiders", I watch it each week and because the" journo's" and "pollies " are sitting still, it is a good opportunity to practice drawing faces.

And I have been so encouraged by your comments about my felt embellished pieces I am becoming obsessional.

This is before the stitching, and trying to work with pastels, ......which is a challenge for me I could learn from Leslie,(Textures,Shapes and Colors...wish I knew how to do the link) about the wonders of a more gentle palette.

What fun it is.

More for Ballarat

Here are three more for the fundraiser in Ballarat, I think I will put on more stitching and not sure how to present them yet.

I do love the embellisher though as a starting point, but somehow I always want to put hand work of some kind.

Stay Tuned. With a bit of stitching added 6 hours later

The Family

I was looking in a carton in the garage and found....

.Another photo..... can you guess?

And another.....You may like to have a guess and leave a message. There is no prize I am sorry, at least I can't think of one now

On Sunday I am off to a week in Ballarat to a Textile Forum, a week with Amanda Degener working with paper and books...I am so looking forward to it, we have the BEST time.

We have been asked to take little pieces to sell for $15.00 to fundraise

This is one of them

I have done 3 more in felt but have left my camera in a friends car.....How frustrating is that!

Will post the others when I get my camera.

Quickie

I am going to make patchwork knitted/crocheted rugs for some people having been devastated by the recent bushfires.

If anyone wanted to make a square please feel free and send to me.I will join them together, and being an anarchist they can be any size and I will accomodate them.

This is one of a couple I made at another time.

We had a church which was very cold once, so I suggested we make rugs like this and they were great when different people made the squares, more interesting than mine alone.

We made one in Reds which I was especially great, but they all looked so cheerful on the end of the pews in winter........of course with my love of colour, you can understand what happiness it gave me.