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.