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.

Tree Spirits

I love to create from natural inspiration and finding pieces of driftwood at Mokau inspired me to create these wood spirits. I have made the face from air dry clay and then painted it to match the colour of the driftwood. It shrunk quite a bit so I had to mix a slurry and reapply it around the edges. They still need to be touched up around the edges and hair added.

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.

A Beach Walk Findings

This week has been an emotional one for me. My husband contracted bacterial pneumonia and the infection got into his blood stream and travelled to the site of his titanium hip replacement. At present he is in hospital unable to walk or put pressure on his right side. They are on top of the pneumonia now but he will need to have surgery to scrape the infection away from the hip joint replacement, He is waiting to go to surgery as I type this. I have just heard he will have a replacement ceramic hip put in and will need to stay in hospital for two weeks to make sure the infection does not reappear. Once he is clear of infection there will be about a 6 month recovery process. I have been traveling back and forward to the hospital each day and feeling exhausted by the time I get home so not much happening in the studio at the moment so I am posting this piece which was completed a couple of weeks back.

This piece was recently completed from Debbie Lyddon’s on line course with fibre Arts Take 2. When i look at it now it has an almost Maori weaving look to it but that has been accidental. The drawn threads and wavy edges were to represent the tidal movements. . The base of the ostrich foot foot (struthiolar populosa) hand freely in little windows made from copper wire covered eyelets. These shellfish are only found in the cooler waters of the Southern hemisphere. On the West coast beaches where the Tasman Sea presnts and ongoing onslaught the shells can be found in various stages of decomposition. The strongest part of the shell is the base. It is symbolic of the need for a strong base iall we do.

There are 10 windows with the “bases” hanging freely. the number ten in Pythagorean theory is the symbol of perfection and colpetion. we have 10 fingers and toes. Ten symbolises the completion of a cycle. These findings are the completion of the life cycle of the Ostrich Foot organism - the last identifiable portion before the waves pound them to indeginite fragments.

I have chosed the colours for this piece very intentionally. The dark to represent the West Coast iron sands and the light to replicate the shattered shell substrates. I have left the edged unfinished as a symbol of diintegration

At the bottom left, behind the pulled threads is a print on foil of a skyshap - barely revealed. This incorporates the idea of sand, sea and sky - the elements earth, water and air

Backgrounds for Faces of India

The weather has been awful and I have had trouble settling to anything. That is not unusual at this time of the year with the shorter, cooler and often wet days. Ii am very photosensitive and find this time of year challenging unless I set myself a prescribed target. I have almost finished the Indigo worker in my Faces of India series so decided to create some more background pieces for the next few portraits.

I am working on eco dyed cotton - old sheets to be exact so preparation is quite a business. The fabric must be scoured to remove any washing powder or softener residues and then the fabric needs to be treated with a tannin bath. I use sumac as it does not affect the colour of the fabric like some other tannins. The tannin must be extracted by boiling and then the fabric immersed for about an hour. Following this the fabric is treated to a potassium aluminium sulphate bath for about the same time. I usually pre-prepare fabric and then dry and store in a labelled bag.

It is almost too late to be gathering good leaves for eco dying. My liquidambar was almost destroyed in cyclone Gabriel last summer and many of the maples have already fallen. But I am not looking for perfect imprints. I am aiming at more natural shapes and colours to provide an organic background to the brighter machine stitching. I think I may have used too strong an iron blanket in this lot as the fabric has quite a dull grey cast but it will still be useful. The piece on the left was rolled and dyed in the microwave for 3 minutes. I haven’t used the microwave before and it may have needed a bit longer to extract the leaf details. The yellow is from a few onion skins I introduced for variance.

The other pieces were rolled around an piece of pipe and steamed in my fish steamer for an hour and a half. The imprints are quite dark due to the iron blanket but they will be good contrast for some of the brighter coloured clothing.

The next portrait I am going to start is “the astrologer” and he has a bright orange urban and gold tunic so one of the more somber fabric pieces should make a good foil for that. I have found some of my portraits are a little large so I am now scaling them down before I print them on inkjet OHP transparencies for transference to the eco dyed fabric. I will stabilise the back of the area where the portrait will be stitched and mount in a hoop to try and minimise puckering.

I use cotton for these prints because silk would be too fragile to take the heavy machine stitching that is involved. Silk would be easier to eco dye but I am stubborn and want to use recycled material where possible and bed sheets are a good option. I can often pick up single 100% cotton sheets at the thrift store for minimal amounts and with the cost of living biting keeping my art spending in line is a very real consideration.

Turbulence - Earth Pigments and Stitch

This is the finished piece from the earth pigments extracted from the bottom on my garden during Claire Benn’s course. The linen fabric was primed with freshly made soy milk (not store bought) and then the fabric was placed face down with some threads on a sheet of heavy plastic sheeting. The back was then printed with soy paint made from the fresh spy milk and my ground pigments. It was then left to dry so you don’t really know what you are going to get until it is dry and you lift fabric off the plastic. The underside is the right side of the art work. The threads are called thieves and absorb more of the colour where they are sitting and therefore create an organic pattern.

When I revealed the underside I was reminded of the turbulence of the sea on our west coast so decided to enhance that feature with a a range of French knots in different threads and weights. There are a LOT of French knots in there varying in colour and desnit of stitch.

As I worked I began to contemplate more meanings of turbulence - instability, conflict, upheaval, tumult, troubles unrest. The dictionary meaning is a state of conflict without any order. So the physical characteristics of the sea began to also represent the metaphysical one of psychological upheaval where conflict begins below the surface and suddenly erupts in uncharacteristic outbursts. As I was stitching images of Gaz and Ukraine flitted acros the television screen so yet another vision of turbulence was brought to mind.

Below is a close up showing more of the French knots in colour and density. The piece is mounted on a stretch canvas and I had a very difficult time getting the corners to sit nicely.