Bilby & Joey Pendants

For my birthday and the opening of our exhibition, Shannon made me a pendant using my design of the little sleeping bilby(shown in the first picture above). I absolutely loved it. And so did my Aunt who commisioned more and then so did other people. I then gave Shannon another design I had done a while ago of a sleeping kangaroo or joey. The pendants are selling well at the gallery and I'm loving seeing my designs in silver. :)

Cards and Yasmine

Here are my cards on display for our SALA exhibition along with 'Yasmine & the Hummingbird', a hand embroidery I did last year and I decided to include in this exhibition because she's rather dreamy. Another hand embroidery I did in 2009 that I put in this exhibition is 'Koala Dreams'. More cards will be printed soon using other images of my work and will be available for sale.

Dream a Little Dream

Here are photos of my part of the SALA Exhibition 'Dream a Little Dream' going from left to right around the room.

Wallaroo

'Wallaroo' Free Motion Machine Embroidery on Cotton. 19inches x 14.5inches. 48cm x 38cm. SOLD.

So after all my bilby embroidery experiments I was feeling more confident. I wanted to loosen up my drawing, particularly how I drew figures, and this is one of the drawings that came out of trying to draw 'wild and free'. Here is a girl protecting a young Wallaroo, she is an earth spirit, she is the colour of Australia's red earth and blue sky. The first photo shown here is the finished piece, the second shows it as a work in progress so I can show how I build up the thread and colours like paint. The third photo is the back of the embroidery when it's in progress. In the stitching process the image is almost lost and then you find in again at the end through all those thousands of stitches.

With Wallaroo I used 2 layers of Romeo (water soluble stabiliser), and between the layers I put scraps of fabric and lace (you can see the lace peeking through at the edges). They helped stabilize the image so when it was washed to remove the Romeo the image stayed intact. The final picture is a detail shot of the finished piece. I'm so happy with how Wallaroo turned out, and I'm glad that I mounted it onto black cotton so the colours really stand out. This embroidery got lots of attention during the SALA exhibition and it sold on the first weekend. I think with this piece I figured out how to do free motion machine embroidery in the best way for me, it and Sweet Bilby Dreams were break-through pieces for me. They are always "Hallelejah" or "Yes!" or jump up and down (or all three) moments for artists.

The Bilby experiment continues

The first photo above is of the poor little deformed bilby once it was out of the water and dry. I was somewhat devasted at that point and quite a bit of swearing occured and then I looked at it again and realised I really liked the texture of it and also realised I had learnt a lot from my experiment. So I cut it up as can be seen in the next photo. I stitched another bilby, this time purely on fabric and regular stabiliser. I found that it bubbled up quite a bit and I ended up stuffing it so it's somewhat 3-dimensional. The final photo here shows the floating girl part of the jigsaw. I stitched her mainly on romeo and then mounted her on calico which meant she still had the thick layers of stitches which I like but she remained quite flat. I added the bilby to the calico and all the little old bilby jigsaw pieces and sewed and sewed until it came together.

Bilby Romeo experiments

Sweet Bilby Dreams was a big free motion machine embroidery experiment for me. I decided to do it in sections and then kind of jigsaw it together. I started off by doing the bilby on water-soluble stabiliser called Romeo (it's thicker and better to free motion embroider on than the more commonly used Solvy). I thought with all the stitching I had done the image would hold together once it was washed (you soak and wash it in water and the plastic Romeo dissolves in the water. Above you can see the cloudiness of the water as the Romeo dissolves away.) I do love the photos I took above of the curled up little bilby floating in the water.

Sweet Bilby Dreams

'Sweet Bilby Dreams' Free Motion Machine Embroidery on Cotton. 19.5inches x 17inches. 50cm x 43cm.

This piece came from another visit to Adelaide Zoo when I watched the bilbies in the Nocturnal House. One of bilbies was fast asleep under the heat lamp (pictured above, the lamp makes it appear red which is why I've included another photo of a bilby at the zoo so it's real colour can be seen. Unfortunately it's not a very good photograph). As I watched the sleeping bilby I could see his toes and nose twitching as he dreamed. I wondered what bilbies dream of and the image for this embroidery came to me. Of a little bilby sleeping being watched over and protected by a floating woman trailing the moon, on her dress is the Southern Cross stars.

Tree of Hope

'Tree of Hope' Watercolour. 15.5inches x 9inches. 40cm x 23cm.

This is a sister tree to the Tree of Dreams. Bubbles of hope float around her as her warm, red heart beats love and her branches blossom.

Tree of Dreams

'Tree of Dreams' Watercolour. 15.5inches x 9inches. 40cm x 23cm. SOLD

For those of you who know me, you'll know that I love trees and tree related things and I love drawing trees with leaves of stars. So here, for our exhibition - Dream a Little Dream', is a tree person. Her hair are the roots of the tree and it sprouts up into the tree filled with her dreams.

An English Rose

'An English Rose'. Watercolour. 15inches x 9inches. 38cm x 23cm.

I painted this piece to go in the Itchypod War of the Roses online competition which was held during SALA. The theme was 'the rose' and I chose to do 'an English Rose' because that is what I've been called before because of my pink cheeks. Itchypod is my website though sadly I have to announce that the Itchypod website is closing down from November 15th this year. I want to thank Janet and Lorna for creating Itchypod and all the hard work they did promoting our art. I'm so glad I was a part of the Itchypod family and I wish Janet and Lorna lots of luck and happiness. (I still can't believe you talked me into doing a website video but I'm glad you did:).

Rajee Daydreaming

'Rajee Daydreaming' Watercolour. 15inches x 11inches. 38cm x 28cm.

I draw a lot of faces in my work, faces and eyes are my main focus. And I've developed my own way of drawing faces but I find it's good for me to draw real faces every now and then so I did a drawing of a photo I took of my friend Rajee in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2008. Rajee is an artist and she completed the Textile Art Diploma with me at Capilano College. When I finished the drawing I started doodling and the doodlings looked like maybe they could be the dreams and imaginings coming out of Rajee's head. I think I'd like to do a whole series of similar paintings of friends.

Coyote Moon

'Coyote Moon' Hand Embroidery on Painted Cotton. 18.5inches x 16inches. 47cm x 40cm.

I've been working on this one for quite awhile. It's inspired from my last trip to Vancouver in September 2008. Some of my friends and I went to VanDusen Gardens and while we were there spotted a coyote standing just like this one at the end of our path. With a blink of an eye it melted into the trees. I loved getting to know the picture postcard beauty of the landscape around Vancouver. I love the trees and mountains there and had been wanting to do an embroidery depicting them. I think this is one of my first Canadian inspired pieces. I love being in Australia but I do often get homesick for Vancouver.

Wish Wombat

'Wish Wombat' Hand Embroidery on Painted Cotton. 9.5inches x 9inches. 24cm x 23cm.  SOLD

I started this hand embroidery while the Fringe Festival was on earlier in the year. I worked on it while I sat my exhibition. I was inspired from watching the wombats at the Adelaide Zoo, shown above in photos I took there. I think the wombat reminds us to stay close to the earth and appreciate it.

SALA Exhibition brochure

This is the inside of our SALA brochure.

Ethos Gallery SALA 2010

This is our brochure that we created for SALA, it's a 3 folding brochure. The panel on the right was the front page and the middle one was the back.

As I wrote earlier, my Mum and brothers wanted me to go ahead and do the SALA exhibition. I somehow stumbled on through it in a haze of grief. I'm glad I did do it now because it gave me something else to focus on and think about. But it was still very hard. I'm so lucky I have my art and the Ethos Gallery family to help me through this time.

Exhibition

I wrote earlier about a SALA Exhibition. SALA stands for South Australian Living Artists Festival. In last year's SALA guide I saw the image above off a tree pendant. I had been looking for something like it for a long time so I went along to the exhibition which was held in an artist's studio in Nairne, near Mt Barker in the Adelaide Hills. The studio belonged to painter Cathryn Marinos (her work, 'Pachyderm' in Acrylic wash and gold ink on paper is also shown above.) She was also showing work by manufacturing jeweller Shannon Cornish. I absolutely loved all the art shown in Cathryn's studio and I made a wish - I wished that I could exhibit my work with them in the next year's SALA. My wish came true! I now also own a tree pendant by Shannon, just like the one shown above. I became friends with them over this last year and in that time Shannon and her partner Claire bought, renovated and created a gallery in Woodside, (also in the Adelaide Hills). It is called Ethos Gallery. Shannon has her working jewellery studio, Cathryn also now has her painting studio there, and there are 2 other exhibition rooms. And they invited me to show my work in one of them for SALA.

Bagpiping

Here's 2 more recent photos that I took that were used on Dad's Eulogy cards for the funeral which was attended by around 700 people. Dad was known for his bagpiping, especially piping in the New Year. My brothers and I grew up hearing Dad and his "toot-toots" every summer. I'm missing them, and him and Granny so very much.

Dad & baby me

I love this photo of my Dad taken in 1977. The baby he's holding is me, very new and looking very unsure of things but he looks so happy and proud.

Dad & Granny

As I said in the previous post, it has been a very difficult 6 months. Just before Easter my Granny, (pictured above) died at the age of 88. She had been unwell for quite awhile and her quality of life had been declining, it was with great sadness that we said goodbye to her. Less than 3 months later, in June, her son, my father, went missing in his light plane somewhere on our station. After a massive search lasting 2 and a half days by police, SES, helicopters and many men from our district on motorbikes, he and his plane were found crashed in our lake. It happened just a few days before his 58th birthday. The shock and horror of it has been over-whelming. I have found grief to be like a powerful, uncontrollable animal.

I have thought a lot about whether or not to talk about this on my blog. Their deaths are private and a blog is very public, but how can myself or my art not be affected or changed by this? So I decided to talk a little about it though I cannot say too much because Dad's death is still under investigation.

The photo above is of Granny and Dad. I took it not long after I moved back to Australia from Canada in September 2007. I am so grateful, especially now, that I got to have the year living on the station with my family before moving to Mt Barker in 2009 . I got to spend time with Dad and also Granny who lived an hour and a half away in Broken Hill, our closest town. Lots of people thought I was mad going to live in the outback with my family for a year but a little voice inside me said that it was the right thing for me to do at that time. I am so thankful I listened.

I want to thank all my friends and family for your support, understanding, love and care during this time.

My Mum and brothers wanted me to go ahead with my SALA exhibition which opened just a little over a month after Dad died. It opened on my birthday actually. I will talk more about that in later postings....

Outback Flowers

Hi, I'm finally back blogging. It's been a really difficult 6 months so I  thought I'd start my first posting in a very long time with something beautiful; so here are some photos I took recently on my family's sheep station (or ranch - translation for my Canadian friends;). They are native bush flowers that appeared not long after some good rain. The last one, the red flowers, are Sturt Desert Pea, and I haven't seen them in the bush and certainly not this many for a very long time.