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 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

Stitching on Leaves

Every once in a while I am inspired by the wonderful work of Susanna Bauer who creates wonderful art stitching on leaves. This leaf is from the Jury magnolia which has slightly softer leaves than the magnolia grandiflora I have used in the past. I buttonhole stitched around the edge of the leaf and put in the centre stitching while the leaf was quite green from the tree and then placed between paper towels and let if dry before I did the crotchet around the edge. The crotchet is mainly slip stitch and has crystal beads applied at intervals along the outer edge

Slowly Making Progress

My labour of love on the eco coat installation is getting there. I am embellishing the leaf prints with tiny beads - some seed beads and some a little larger. Once I have that done I will work on free machine quilting the negative spaces between the leaves and assembling the coat. I am hoping to have it pretty much done by the end of February all things being equal. Of course that is tempting fate as there are lots of things that could disrupt my progress

Printing on Foil Butter Paper

I have used two photos of Mokau in this piece of art. One of the estuary and the other taken in the walk from the main road down to the northern boat launch jetty. I have superimposed them in photoshop and then enlarged them to print on four butter papers. Once they were printed I used a black acrylic felt substrate and free machine stitched the foil onto the felt using a figure of eight design.

At the market . . .

This is another of my Faces of India series from my trip to India in March 2023. They are currently on exhibition at Shoppington in Te Kuiti. This lady was spied at the market. I am not sure it she was slightly crazy or just full of the joys of life

Merry Christmas 2024

Merry Christmas wherever you are in the world. We had such a wonderful Christmas Day. The weather was fine, the food was great and during the day all my kids and all but one of the grandkids visited. The missing grandchild will be home for New Year so that will make it perfect. This year we had Angga from Indonesia with us and one of Eric’s employees and Grandma of course’. She is 99 so every year is a bonus.

Since the kids were little we have always had someone dress up as Santa’s helper.It used to be Rob but as the boys got older one of them would claim the honour. This year it was Angga. I wore the sarong his parents sent from Indonesia.

The Snake Charmer

Namaste

Namaste is the traditional greeting given in India. This young woman greeted me at the market and I was honoured to take her photo. The jewellery she wears has glass beads attached to make them more special

A Summer Exhibition - Intrepid journeys

Intrepid Journeys - Textile Art inspired by my travels

Over the Summer I will have a number of my quilts and thread paints on display at Shoppington. these pieces are memories from my overseas journeys and people or situations I have found myself in. they are a very personal record of real people and experiences. The exhibition is open till January 2025.

Hello I am back

I haven’t written in my blog for quite some time. In June my husband contacted sepsis from pneumonia and it settled in his right hip replacement of 25 years ago. He spent 8 weeks in hospital while they removed his hip, scraped out the hip joint and put a temporary place holder in. When he came home He could barely walk and needed toileting, showering and dressing plus I needed to pick up all those little household tasks that don’t go away including those he normally took responsibility for. As a result my time in the studio has been limited. I did begin part time on a Level 7 Advanced diploma of art and creativity with the Learning connexion (distance delivery) and have been working on a coat with a long train. True to my ethos of recycling I have used repurposed cotton sheets from the thrift store and eco printed these with leaves stored in my freezer. I applied misty fuse to the back of the ecosyed strips before cutting out the leaf shapes to apply to a modified pattern that was created from two commercial patterns

A Complex Compositions Collage

Before Rob got sick I had enrolled to do a Textures and Background - Complex Compositions course with Jane Dunnewold. This involved making a series of background printed papers/fabric using set techniques and then utilising them in collage. I still haven’t completed that first brief but I have tried to keep working. I chose to work in paper as a challenge and because I had plenty of large sheets of paper on hand, including some additional collage collected pieces.

I can’t believe it is over a month since my last post. On 6 June Rob was diagnosed with pneumonia and this developed into sepsis on his right hip replacement from 25 years ago. He was rushed to hospital in Hamilton and surgery and a long road back began. We have been told numerous times that he is very lucky to have survived. He was in hospital for 6 weeks during which time he contracted Covid and experienced blood pressure problems and heart arrhythmia. He is home now but still needing 24/7 care so being able to sneak out to the studio while he is having a nap has been a bit of a life saver for me.

Faces of India - the Astrologer

There have been so many ups and downs with Rob as he has battled sepsis, covid and internal bleeding that without my stitching I think I would have gone crazy. This thread painting of the Indian astrologer has been worked on at odd time throughout the process. Getting home from the hospital at almost dark and feeling like all I wanted to do was curl up and go to bed. It hasn’t helped that it has also been very cold - but that is to be expected. The coldest weather always comes after the solstice.

My faces of India are real people that I met and photographed on my textile tour of Rajasthan. This astrologer told me I would live into my 90s. If my knees remain this sore from arthritis that is not necessarily such a great thing to know. But it was amazing how much of my life he could interpret from my palm and my birth date.

Soft Sculpture Vessels

Having sat with Rob and slow stitched the sampler of various natural fibres. I then wrapped the sampler around some iron pieces and put the whole into a strong black tea solution. The iron in the bundle darkened the fibres considerably - in fact more than I had intended. I left the bundle in the tea solution for two days before removing and allowing to dry at room temperature. I decided I didn’t like the sample with the saddened colour so I decided to make it into soft sculptured vessels. I had some dried out beech leaves from the back lawn and I soaked these in water overnight and then sandwiched and stitched them between black organza. In doing this I found the process worked well and wondered if drying the leaves first and then rehydrating them was like drying natural weaving material that needs to be dried first and then rehydrated to prevent shrinkage of the original material. I am keen to experiment a bit more with these concept.

When I think about it Susanna Bauer who does amazing work with leaves and crotchet always dries her leaves first. A lightbulb moment perhaps.

These vessels are softer than the earlier sand covered vessel as I didn’t want to cover up the stitching and the applied leaves so I used gel medium to provide body to the vessels. I measured around some pvc pipe and stitched these into a tube and then used the base of the tube to create a pattern for the bottoms. For a bit on fun, I stitched feathers around the top of one vessel. The taller one is a piece of crotchet that I just mounted on some fabric and then rolled and left in the same tea solution but for a much shorter length of time. The fabric used is recycled cotton sheeting from the thrift store

Stitchclub Tutorial with Deb Cooper

My husband remains quite ill in hospital and I have been travelling back and forth most days to sit with him so he doesn’t feel so isolated. He contracted Covid from the hospital so he is now in a room on his own and I need to mask up when I go in.

So I decided I would take these sections of mainly natural fabrics and stitch them together with a bit of embroidery added. The idea is that once the strips have been completed they will be bundled with some rusty iron pieces and probably some leaves and put into a strong tea solution for a couple of days. They are resting in the tea solution now so it will be interesting to see what develops. And the stitching definitely helped to keep my more relaxed as I sat with Rob. Maybe I will have something to add next week.

When I have been at home I have been trying to reorganise the house for when he comes home. We have bot an electric bed and an electric lazy boy but shifting the furniture around to accommodate it is a bit of a mission. At the moment I feel like I am living in one of those homes where it is difficult to move around because of the “collections” Mine is mainly larger itens of furniture and as soon as the weather settles I will get the good will people come and take away the two single beds and the dresser that are no longer needed. In the meantime I am just working around them.