The Friendly Fox

And this is how 'The Friendly Fox' looks now covered in free motion machine embroidery. It became quite bubbly so I staple gunned it to the stretcher frame with stuffing behind it so it's quite 3-dimensional coming out from the wall. MaccyArtO is having a silent auction for the Fringe and we've each got pieces of about 20cm x 30cm hanging in the foyer of the Macclefield Institute. I do have bids on my piece which is really exciting, I hope the Fox will find a good home.

After a year of being obsessed and rather focused on hand embroidery I feel I'm coming back to machine embroidery, I have lots of ideas for new embroideries which I'm working on now.

The Friendly Fox painting

I decided to use an abridged version of the Friendly Fox drawing as a machine embroidery. This is how it looked when it was just at the painted stage with acrylic paint and textile medium and just a little stitching on it.

The Friendly Fox, Tinka & Jack Rabbit

When I was working on 'Freyja' I was also working on this watercolour which is an image I've had in my head for awhile.

Freyja

This is a very recent watercolour I've done called 'Freyja' inspired by the Norse goddess of love and beauty. She is said to often ride in a chariot pulled by cats, one of which sits on her shoulder. But here, she is also an Australian goddess with a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo sitting in her high mauve hair. Cats and rabbits are feral animals in Australia, they wreck the environment and cats kill native animals and birds. In Australia we have many different people and animals, introduced and indigenious and we're all trying our best to get along and survive. My Freyja is a representation of a wish that it can be done.

I also think that when I was creating this painting I was watching movies like 'Marie Antoinette' and 'The Duchess' and the beautiful fashion and colours were rather inspiring.

Emu Boy

This is another very recent hand embroidery of Emu spirit.

Emus

I've had a few close encounters with emus which inspired me to do the 'Emu Boy' embroidery. The photo above was taken last year on our station when I was walking through the bush with Tiggy and my Dad's dog Nugget. We came through the trees just as an emu family were walking towards us. I kept the dogs behind me and just stood still, and they all came up to check out the strange beings walking in their scrub. They were really curious, I could hear the glug, glug sound they make in their throats. Their curiosity sated they let us walk on until I reached my bicycle and got on and they came running back to have a look at that. Another time I was home and walking with my little brothers and several dogs. We had had a young emu hanging around the house paddock for awhile and he came right up to us on our walk. My brothers were starting to freak out and the dogs were getting ready to pounce but I didn't want anyone to get hurt so I stood up tall and put my hand up like an emu's head. The emu started in shock and sprinted away and we never saw him again. I wonder if he thought I was a strange human creature that had just turned into an emu-like creature before his eyes.

My new website

I now have a brand new website which can be found at www.itchypod.com.au/s/taraseek On it you can see images of my work, plus prices, and about each one, there's even a video of me at work. It was really fun working with Lorna and Janet to create a great page. On the website you can also see the work of some of my MaccyArtO friends.

Echidna Cuddle

This is one of my most recent hand embroideries. I've seen echidnas in the wild a few times both on our family sheep station and elsewhere around Australia, including once saving one from a busy highway in Tasmania. The photos above are from my last trip to the Adelaide Zoo at the end of last year. I saw 4 very busy echidnas snuffling around their enclosure. Over a year ago I was walking with my brothers and several dogs on our sheep station and I heard my dog Tiggy doing excited barking just over the sandhill. (You know the kind of barking dogs do when they are trying to pretend they're very brave and ferocious but are actually rather scared.) I was worried she'd found a snake so I ran over and it was actually a poor little echidna digging itself a hole to hide in so just it's spines were sticking out. Tiggy's eyes were bugging out as she was trying to figure out what this strange creature was. We all had a look at the echidna, without touching it or scaring it further and then went on our way, leaving it in peace. Echidnas represent safety and protection to me, and they remind us to keep grounded, close to the earth.

Balancing is sold

The watercolour 'Balancing' sold on the first weekend which was lovely. It was, as you can see, hung in the corner where 'You Rest Within Me' now hangs.

Selling cards

I'm selling 5 different cards for the Fringe, they are from the watercolour paintings 'Balancing', Koala Zen' and 'Cockatiel Light', and the hand embroideries 'You Rest Within Me' and 'Bilby Stars. I hope to be selling my cards at more places around Adelaide and the Hills after the Fringe is over. I'm also planning to print a new batch from new work in the next few months. They've been selling really well so far which is great. I love it when my favourite artists make cards of their work, I wish more did.

My exhibition

Above is a photo of me at our Opening, as you can probably see it was a really warm day hence the shininess. We got a great crowd of people to our Opening. The Institute Hall was filled with people to listen to Karin Foxwell and Dr Victor Gostin do the Opening, despite it being a very hot, windy, dusty day. I heard lots of positive feedback from people, I even overheard someone say: "I love that Tara Seekamp's work" - thank you whover said that! :D

So the pictures above from the top show my one wall of embroideries - from 'Kangaroo Guide', 'The Pelican's Boy', 'Echidna Cuddle', 'Emu Boy', then now in the corner is 'You Rest Within Me', above the door is watercolour 'Vanessa & the Blossom', and then on the other wall is the watercolours 'Koala Zen', 'Freyja' and 'Cockatiel Light' (hopefully you can just see the sold sticker next to that one - yay!)

A heart for you

Whoops! 2 months have flown by since my last posting and I have lots to update you on. Firstly, here is a photo I took recently of a heart shape I found in a gum tree near my house in Mt Barker while I was out walking Tiggy. I was going to use the photo to make Valentine cards but it didn't happen because I've been very focused on the Adelaide Fringe Festival which is now on and that I'm exhibiting in. I'm so excited to be exhibiting again less than a year since I moved to South Australia.

Adelaide Fringe Festival MaccyArtO postcards

Here are the postcards (both the front and back) from my exhibition in Macclesfield in the Adelaide Hills for the Fringe Festival. It is 31 Artists exhibiting in over 8 venues in and around Maccy. My group, who are exhibiting in the cafe, decided we wanted to make our own postcard to promote our work. So the 4 images on the front of our postcard are: Chris Ball's 'Sand-dunes' in pastel, Suzanne Optiz' photograph 'Fantasy Flight', my hand embroidery on painted cotton 'Echidna Cuddle' and Cate Ellis' drawing 'Milan 2009 II'. The cafe is split into 2 rooms, Suzanne and Chris are in the first room and Cate and I are in the second room with 2 walls each.