Pelican and detail

Above is a photo of a real pelican I took a few months ago at Murray Bridge on the Murray River and also a detail of my embroidered pelican. Remind me not to do that much hand embroidered filling in stitching again! Though I'm really happy with how the stitches look like feathers.

The Pelican's Boy

I very recently finished this hand embroidery on painted cotton. I'm planning on showing it for the Fringe Festival. Our group MaccyArtO is having a profile made for us by Itchypod which is a website that promotes local artists. For my part of the profile this piece was photographed. I'll annouce here on my blog when our profile is up online.

This image of the boy with the pelican first came to me awhile ago when I read one of the most beautiful books I've every read called 'the Ghost's Child' by Sonya Hartnett. In it there's a boy called Feather who's happiest when he out among the sea birds as if he is part sea-bird. As I child I also loved Storm Boy by Colin Thiele, it is about a boy and a pelican. I love watching pelicans, they're regal and graceful.

I think this is one of my first pieces with a boy in in because I usually draw magical girls but I felt like I needed to include the boys too.

Biz cards stand

I was really happy when I recently found this very Aussie-centric stand to put my business cards in - ie when I'm sitting my work for the Adelaide Fringe Festival people can take my card from the kangaroos. :)

Business cards

I just recently got new business cards printed using my 'Bilby Stars' embroidery on the front and a section of 'In a Boab Tree Breeze' on the back. I'm really pleased with them.

Making Tracks

I really enjoyed using the ink pen to make the tracks on Boab Tree Breeze similar to how I did on this water colour I made about a year ago. It was when I was first starting to draw my kangaroos and other Aussie animals and I was walking every day on our sheep station seeing the beautiful tracks and patterns left in the red and brown sand by birds, animals, lizards and insects.

In a Boab Tree Breeze detail

In a Boab Tree Breeze

I recently finished this watercolour for a woman floating by a boab tree in the Australian desert. Her dress is made of earth that is covered with the tracks and maps of the local animals and birds.

India Flint workshop

Another serendipitous oppurtunity arose recently when Barbara rang me to offer me a free spot in a one day India Flint workshop. Our friend Cris from Textile Tuesdays was unwell and unable to go so they gave me her spot. India Flint is a phenomenally talented natural dyer, artist and desiger. I highly reccommend her book 'Eco Colour: botanical dyes for beautiful textiles' and her website: www.indiaflint.com Our workshop was held at a stunningly beautiful old house and large garden near Stirling in the Adelaide Hills. I don't want to go into detail of what we did because it's India's work and intelluctual property but we worked with dyeing using leaves we found around the garden and did felting to make beautiful scarves. Getting to see how India works and a snapshot of how she lives her life was a huge inspiration and I feel so lucky.

Textile Tuesdays

Barbara and Val invited me along to Textile Tuesdays which is for Textile Artists to meet every Tuesday afternoon at Pepper St Gallery on Magill Rd in Adelaide. I've been going almost every Tuesday for the last few months I think it is now. It's wonderful to be spending time with other Textile Artists who are so positive and encouraging, to be able to show our work to each other and bounce ideas around together. We are planning a small group exhibition for next year.

Heysen Festival in Hahndorf

Hahndorf is another of my favourite little towns in the Adelaide Hills near Mt Barker. As you can hopefully see in the above photos it's a really pretty little German town (in Australia). Hahndorf had the Heysen Festival not long ago and it was there I met 2 very talented Textile Artists Barbara Millward and Valerie Grapentin. It was brilliant to be meeting other Textile Artists because I very much miss my Textile Artist friends in Canada. So in Hahndorf it was another serendipitous meeting of new friends.

MaccyArtO

During the SALA (South Australian Living Artists) Festival I met a group of artists at Cherry Red Gallery in Nairne (very near to Mt Barker), and they were Painter/Printmakers Cathryn Marinos and Sarah Campbell, and Jeweller Shannon Cornish. They have all become friends of mine and I find them very inspiring as friends and artists . I'm starting to feel like I'm part of a community of local artists and they were the beginning of that for me. I loved Shannon's jewellery so much I bought one of her tree pendants of which you can see on her splash page: www.shannoncornish.com.au Her website is coming soon.

Shannon introduced me to the art group MaccyArtO from Macclesfield (another small town close to Mt Barker). I've gone to a few of their meetings now (which are held at the above Macclesfield Institute) and we are going to be exhibiting in Macclesfield for the Adelaide Fringe Festival which is February 19 - March 14, 2010. I'm so very excited to be a part of it. Our theme is F-words because it is, I believe, the 50th Fringe Festival so I'm doing 'Fauna, Feathers & Fabric' stitch paintings. It feels so serendipitous to have met these wonderful new friends who have opened new doors for me and my art.

The Goddess & the Fish

I first did reverse applique with this piece that I made during my textile diploma in Vancouver. We all made a reverse applique in a day, it was a really fun class. We started with dyeing cotton, linen and silk in 2 different coloured dye vats of our choosing, transferred our drawing onto the fabric, sewed the outlines and then snipped the fabric out of sections. A girl in our class worked in a cafe downtown and organised for us to show all our pieces there.

The Wombat Prince

After doing the Koala cushion I also did this Wombat cushion. I did this one with reverse applique and I just love the brown fabric I found for the Wombat.

Building brick by brick

The above photos are of the dollhouse my parents hand-made for me for my 4th birthday. It's one of my most favourite presents I've ever gotten. I had the idea of fixing it up but I didn't really think through the fact that I have a LOT of art projects that I'm working on so at the moment it's sitting in my bedroom as a kind of display area for trinkets and toys. I also look at it and remind myself that I am building my life here in South Australia, and my art and business, brick by brick, stitch by stitch, and that helps me not get too over-whelmed. Building a life is like building a house, you have to do it all step by step and not try and jump steps, or put on a roof before you've finished building the walls.

A Rose from my Garden to you.

Whoops! I'm afraid it has awhile since I've posted anything here on my blog, and so to apologize I give everyone a rose from my garden. :)