Saturday, May 7, 2011

Ballarat forum 2

In addition to the installations and outside sculpture there was a gentle and moving exhibition of Margaret"Mags" Nixons work in the gallery space. The exhibition was called "Sacred or Profane" it had originally been at the "pigment gallery" in Melbourne City. In the quiet gallery space there was a great meditative and comforting feeling sharing the space with the cloth "families" The machine stitching class with Alison Withers, consisted of stitching over a photograph, being very aware of the minute changes of tones. It was a truly laborious process but the results were amazing here are 4 from some of the members of the class. This was the beginning of my translation from photograph to stitch. I soon found that it was not really my "bag" though I really loved the others work. I decided to paint a quick colour piece and stitch that instead. I believe the sign of a fine teacher is to be where the student is, and that is exactly how Alison reacted, so my brief changed. Alison believed in producing a properly presented piece of work at the end of the week and to that end she had brought frames for our work. In order for my rectangle to fit comfortably in a square frame I deeded to add another piece. I have to say I was "most pleased" with the result. It only needs for me to begin collecting the entire range of coloured thread to accomodate the subtelties needed.