Fusion Exhibition Taupo

While I was in Taupo looking at the Boat Shed exhibition I also got to see this exhibition by Paul G. A Turangi sculpture artist. He had a range of metal and wood pieces made from recycled materials featuring Maori designs and masks. I am always interested in Masks and the story they hold beyond the physical dimension. It was a very interesting presentation and rounded off my day precisely.

Now could I represent these shapes in structured textile soft sculpture?

The Boatshed Exhibition -Taupo

A friend, Wendy O’Callaghan, is a member of the Taupo Textile Arts group and they had a successful exhibition called the Boat Shed at the Taupo Museum. I travelled across to Taupo for a day of escape and “Filling the Well” It was the first time I had the opportunity to go off on my own since my husband got ill in June 2024. So it was a special day. One of Wendy’s pieces is showcased above and a selection of other works is shown below. Some very talented members in this group.

I love all the texture that is displayed in these works

UnBound - A Shoe as an Artist Book

During October and November I participated in a Fibre Arts Take 2 course, Unbound< lead by artist book Artist, Toni Hartnell. There were lots of tips and book forms and we were challenged to create a book form that was based on an unusual substrate.

I might have got carried away a bit but I decided to cover an old shoe in silver lame to represent my “book.” The idea behind this was to cross the divide between and a more glamourous age. I live not far from Waitomo Caves and the Waitomo Caves Hotel was a magnificent icon of grandeur paying host to royalty and other celebrities as well as the adventurers who discovered the glowworm caves. It stands empty now - apart from perhaps the ghost that is purported to roam the upstairs levels. A victim of time and cost and regulations regarding health and safety.

During the pandemic it was invaded by squatters, but stands forlorn and alone again now. I was fortunate to be able to document the hotel in photographs which I have printed on rice paper and added as a scroll to the shoe.

The photographs below show stages of creating the shoe. It would have been lovely to have done this with a stiletto heal but I was working with what I had and my days of high hells are long over.

Level 7 Advanced Diploma End of year Art Exhibition - The Learning Connection

My husband has been very ill from sepsis and other related problems since I began my Diploma course in July 2024. I am his 24 hour 7 day a week caregiver so I made the decision to spread the diploma out over two years part time distance delivery. This eco coat was made during his earlier critical stages. It is comletely made from recycled cotton sheets with the concept of identity as a garment and the fact that sheets cover us in our most imtimate moments from birth to death. The leaves were eco dyed onto strips of cotton sheet and then cut out and hand appliqued onto an adjusted coat pattern - also made from reused sheets. The embellishments are themselves all recycled. The round pieces are buttonholed locks from the top of milk containers. I added the short feather korowai and woven waste band as an essentially Kiwi touch. All the leaves have come from my garden - some of them had been in the freezer for a few years.

I decided to make the trip to Taita and present my artwork. This was part of the exhibition that ran for two weeks. Below are works from my co students and my paper constructs which I will write about at some stage. I am hoping this year to be more disciplined at keeping the blog current

More zero waste art

In this close up image you can see how I created this page in the Zero Waste Journal. It is coffee packets with textured yarn and black net that has then been free machine stitched over in a leaf design . Another idea of stopping so much waste going to landfill.

My latest Working in the round- Feathers and Fleece

The latest in my working in the round series. This piece is worked on chicken wire attahed to a 35 cm iron ring. Some spaces were filled in and then edges of all the chicken wire were button hole stitched around. The feathers were stitched onto a ribbon and sew onto the back of the ring which had been buttonhole stitched with carpet wool

Collage with Crazy Quilt Embellishment as part of Zero Waste stitching

Using left over pieces from the eco coat I randomly stitched these onto an A4 piece of lightweight interfacing. I then usind a range of stitch and embellishment to go over the joins in the manner of crazy patchwork. This is part of my series from zero waste stitching. When I have completed the samples I will join them in a fabric sketch book

Random Collage with large Stencil on Zero Waste Stitching

Here I have taken one of the horizontal 2 inch strip joined pieces of cotton and then used a large Buddha stencil over the top of the whole piece. It gives quite a different look to the smaller corner placed stencil. You do need to give some consideration as to where the underlying colours intersect with the stencil. The stencil is applied using a stubby brush - I usually use a cheap child’'s brush and cut it back so there is not too much bristle. Then I use a pouncing motion to apply the paint. This sample is not intended to be washed so I have just used acrylic paint. If this was on something that would need laundering, a thickened dye or fabric paint would be more appropriate

Random Collage with Small Stencil Zero Waste Stitching

This is a random pieced substrate using left over pieces of eco dyed cotton sheeting from the Identity as a Garment project. The stencil of the pampas grass in the bottom left provides something of a ethereal feeling as it bends toward the centre of the substrate.

Vertical Strips for Zero Waste Stitching

This is a very simple vertical joining of the two inch strips that were left over from the Garment as Identity project. They are joined simply with a running stitch and a sheet backing fabric to preserve the cottage hand made effect

Horizontal Strips from Zero Waste

Using the left over eco dyed fabric from the eco coat I cut and joined these 2 inch strips in horizontal plane. They will be part of my zero waste journal. Some areas show definite shapes and others are just stained from the plant material’s dy. I added a crochet motif in the bottom left for interest

Collage and Composition with Cordula Kagemann

This was another Fibre Arts Take 2 course tutored by German artist Cordula Kagemann. I have always found abstract composition difficult but in this course Cordula took standard art compositions and encouraged us to use them to make collage interpretations based on those compositions. We were encouraged to make our own tissue paper marks to use in this collage. I decided to limit myself to this teal and tan palette which is one of my favourites. I have documented my work below.

Playing with weaving in the round

I am working on a series of round structures. My initial interest was created by a day course advertised by out of the blue studio in Ōpunake. I couldn’t make the course but I started working on pieces within a steel ring. This pieceis based ona 30 cm ring and has embroidery stitches and free form crochet. It is quite time consuming to prepare but as I am stillsitting for quite long periods of time as my husband convalesces, it helps to keep me calm and centred. I love working with textured yards. The photo shows the finished round still in the hoop before mounting on the metal ring. The covered circles are made from plastic bottle stops with buttonhole stitch worked over them - part of my recycle focus

Making Paper with Lomandra

On the Fibre Arts Take 2 course with Karen Olsen we were encouraged to experiment with foraged plant material. Any plants with fibre in their leaves will make paper. Lomandra is a bushy grass like bush that is often used in landscaping (see picture below) because it is easy care and drought tolerant. Its long leaves make an excellent candidate.

Simply chop up the leaves in about 2 inch pieces and boil for around 2 hours with a tablespoon of caustic soda. Use enough water to cover the plant material. Allow to cool and then wizz in a blender that is specific for craft use. You can usually pick one of these us quite cheaply from a thrift store. In a large basin add some water and then progressively add the slurry. Use a paper making screen to lift the fibres from the water. Allow to drain and tip out onto towels or similar and allow to dry before trying to pick up.

The construct at the top of this post had some statice flowers added to one piece of paper. Once the paper had dried I carefully used a culinary bloow torch to scorch the edges of the paper and rolled it up to create a receptacle. I placed this on a driftwood piece and embellished it with the wood rose from the fir tree that grows in the back of our section. To finish off I added some eucalyptus cinera leaves.

Making Harakeke Paper (NZ Flax)

During June I had a marvelous time enrolled on Fibre Arts Take 2 course Focus and Flow with Canadian tutor Karen Olsen. I always enjoy being able to use natural resources and this course did not disappoint. I spent the earlier part of the month boiling up various fibres to make into paper. I have harakeke growing in my garden so it was easy for me to access the flax. I made sure I harvested the flax in the approved Maori manner, taking only the outer growths of each form. These I cut into small pieces and boiled in soda ash for nearly three hours before beating them in a special craft mixer and then using the sugeta screen and deckle to form the paper. This was one of my earlier attempts and the paper is relatively thick. I have mounted the paper in a free form of pine needle weaving

A Trip to the Natural Bridge

West of Waitomo on the road to the coast is the Natural Bridge where softer landforms have been worn away and the stronger limestone remains as a natural bridge. In February this year we had family from the States visiting and we took them to see the natural beauty of this area. For me it is always a delight and a filling of the well of inspiration as the light factors and the land forms provide vistas and textures that may at some time inform my art work.

Eco coat - Turangawaewae Recycled

Modelled by my granddaughter - Charlotte

It began as statement of identity as a sense of place (Turangawaewae) from the inspiration of the gay Producer Roth who commissioned a coat (with a much longer train) for an opening of the New York Metro. It became the focus for my Level 7 Diploma of Art and Creativity with a theme of Sense of Place as an identity and as a garment. It is a statement of recycling. All the fabric is reclaimed cotton sheets. The leaves eco dyed using various mordants and sourced from my garden. They are applied with gifted bead embellishments and highly quilted. I was encouraged to put it forward for consideration at World of Wearable Art and while I thought the style was too “traditional” for what they would be looking for I did submit it. It did not get past the preselection phase but i still think it is a WOW piece of clothing.

This garment began as an extended vision of personal identity as part of a series of art pieces expressing identity as a sense of place - turangawaewae. That is a sense of independences and belonging to a specific home base. Literally translated as Turanga ( a place and waewae - to stand ) turangawaewae is where we feel especially empowered and connected. It is our foundation, our place in the world, our home. The reclaimed nature of the materials used brings its own extended meaning. Sheets are a protective medium just as a garment covers our nakedness so too does this garment as to our sense of connectedness and materiality. By using reclaimed fabric the importance of sustainability and eco concerns is an underlying factor. The garment has been constructed from reclaimed cotton sheets. The leaves have been printed botanically onto mordanted cotton sheets using a variety of mordanting methods. These have them been attached first by ironing mistyfuse on the back and then cutting out and ironing them onto the sections of the coat pattern. They have then been hand stitched to the cut out sections of the garment.. They have been embellished with gifted beads and then free machine quilted to generate the effect seen on the garment The substrate is reclaimed/recycled sheets and they too contribute their story. Sheets are a universal covering that accompany us throughout life from swaddling as a baby to shrouds at the end of our days. They are part of our most intimate moments in health, in sickness, through sexual encounters and private coverings, giving us comfort .

Fibre Arts Take 2 Eva Kalien on line Course

Eva is a German collage artist who uses poetry to enhance her works. This course was a challenge for me, moving away from anything representational and embracing the media of abstracted collage. I used a fabric - eco dyed- base and followed Eva’s excellent tutelage, working in a large format and then using a view finder to cut down my work to fit into these frames that I already had. The collage included the use of refining my process of making local earth pigments and printing on tissue and incorporating these along with dictionary pages, acrylic paint and dried leaves. I have called this series Fragment in the Forest

Revisiting The Three sisters

About and hour and 15 minutes south west of Te Kuiti, on the road to New Plymouth, is the coastal wonder of the three sisters. Three giant pieces of rock that sit in the Tasman see guarding the coast. The softer sandstone from around these rocks has ben worn away by the motion of the raging Tasman seaThey can only be accessed by land at half tide or less and it is an amazing walk along the fairly muddied estuary to the west coast of New Zealand and then South . I am always amazed at the rock forms and holes in the protuberances. It is such natural beauty, somewhat austere but majestic in its entirety. I always feel such a sense of well being when I have made the journey out to where the sisters stand. While there are always people enjoying the trek, it is one of the lesser known joys of living in a country like New Zealand and the coast here is never crowded. Perfect for filling the well as Julia Cameron puts it. The textures of the rocks and the dripping water land forms always fill me with a sense of wonder and provide me with inspiration for future art work

A workshop with Alyson Midgelow Marsden

I am a long time fan of Alysn Midgelow Marsden and her wonderful works of art so I took the opportunity of travelling down to Out of the Blue studio to do a one day course with her using metallic compounds. It was a lovely day with lots of learning about new products and processes. The process uses textural fabrics - the more textured the better - lace, yarn, thread, stitching. this is then painted over with a base metallic compound paint. Once this is dried a second specialised coating is applied. Finally highlights can be introduced using metallic compounds usually used for enhancing antiqued carvings.

In process my work

Alysyn’s Inspirational Examples