Lattitude and World Quilt



At long last - here's a pic of Latitude (left and below) which was my 2011 entry to the Mancuso's World Quilt XV .  Latitude  is approximately 1400 square inches ... just bigger than one yard x one yard. The fabrics used are hand dyed (aubergine is my favourite colour for those in any doubt). The fabric was rubbed with Shiva sticks over a beautiful piece of public art in Ipswich outside my office. Leaves from a friend were stencilled. The surface is embellished with silks, some pieces hand dyed by Ankie King, and finally some tiny reflective square sequins and beads - just a few to catch the light were placed in and around the leaves. Hand and machine stitched, hand and machine quilted. A close up of one leaf (below) is Shiva stencilled leaf over dyed silk and cotton fabrics. Congratulations to the very talented Julie Haddrick for winning best of Country and Marlene King for viewers choice with their exquisite quilts. Our Australian World Quilt Competition Coordinator is Sue Dennis and you can find more information about World Quilt on Sue's website.


  

Julie Haddrick - The Beauty of Life

Marlene King - Travel

Creativity in Buckets

Have just spent a few weeks playing with buckets (and so have 200+ other fellow bucket studiers). So here are two uses for a bucket (it's all from the one bucket) - a mouse trap created from the base that was leftover form the wind chime (should be called a "wind clack" as the chime is a bit of a stretch!) Loads of fun that has kept me away from sewing ... time to get a bit of balance back.

Nested exhibition - 4 weeks to go!

Here is a sneak peek of "Nested" a joint exhibition with Sue George and Ankie King at the Art Factory Gallery, South Brisbane from 13 - 19 October. In informatics, nested objects contain other objects of the same kind.  Nested information is organised into layers of related information.  Nested objects are recursive, characterised by repetition and recurrence, where interpretation requires numerous, successive executions. So the three of us have created our “Nested” works. The exhibition comprises 40 - 50 nests ranging in size from 3  - 100 cm cubed.  Nested will be an exhibition of 40-50 “nests”.  Some are sculpted from porcelain slip, others slumped and hand pinched porcelain clay. Some are sculpted from hand dyed textiles, fibres (natural and manmade) and found objects. Opening night is Thursday 13 October - from 6pm. If you'd like to share the evening with us, please contact me (ali at aliquilts dot com dot au).

Cherilyn Martin for Lunch @ Southbank

This is sort of a re-post of yesterday's lunch with Cherilyn Martin- this time with pics (thanks Linda) - we had a wonderful few hours talking fibre and textiles and some beautiful "show and tell" by Linda, Kate and Cherilyn.  In between our delightful moments, we managed to survive the experience of a couple of other diners who had cleverly trained their children to bang, yell, scream, shout, hit, bang, yell, hit, crash and generally infect the space of all the other diners.  I'm not officially a "grumpy old woman" yet ... but I came close yesterday! The marauders of peace finished their pro-hart-like feeding frenzy and departed (unharmed I would add)  before our photos were taken - perhaps that's why our smiles are so incredibly ... big!! No - it was truly the great company, talk and food @ Southbank with Cherilyn. Thanks for the invite!

2QAQ, Found Objects and Vik Muniz

I am meant to be studying. I am meant to be responding to various pieces of public art I've been observing over the previous week and somehow I am experimenting with a program that creates collages - in all shapes and sizes .... and I'm playing with some of the 2QAQ pictures from earlier meetings this year (there are also a few ring-ins of my own). Lots of fun and the best part is the program Shape Collage is free. I can't wait for our 2QAQ Septemebr 24 meeting - where we reveal our challenge pieces - Found Objects.  Back to the statues and Vik Muniz. Sigh. Internet osmosis is a wonderful process - I never get tired of Vik Muniz. Long live all our creative processes and the man who's Found Objects art will inspire me for decades.

Home again ... it's Friday

What an exquisite day - work involved being at Cleveland, about 45 minutes east of Brisbane city. I arrived early and I took in some of the Art Walk - details available from the Art Gallery and Redlands Council and also online.  Then I headed back to the city and had lunch with friends Linda and Kate at Southbank in Brisbane and got to meet Cherilyn Martin who is about to teach FibreArts in Townsville from 18 - 24 September and ClothArt in the Hawkesbury (Sydney) from 25 September - 1 October. Wow doesn't seem to cover it.  My head is still bursting and bustling with ideas. So it was a very excited and contemplative drive home this afternoon. As always,  I paused on Villis Bridge, to reflect on the day. I watched this cormorant fishing, wading then organising itself with wings held out - before it hopped onto a branch and settled itself.  Ten minutes well spent in "pause mode". Then another mile to home and WMBM - that's Mount Edwards on the horizon, and Cunningham's Gap (reversed) in the rear view mirror. Still pinching myself .... thanks Linda, Kate, Cherilyn and  the very obliging Cormorant.

Jondayan Heritage festival week

Our dear friend and neighbour has been an inspiration over the past few weeks. When she wanted to go to the Jondaryan Heritage Festival (about 3 hours away on the other side of the Great Dividing Range) she needed to master a few critical things in a short time frame. First, learn how to tow the caravan. As usual, Lorraine just treated it like an overgrown horse float. Apparently she had towed that once before. She's been practising for 3 weeks and invented a bluetac and drinking straw contraption on the towball so she could see when it aligned to the caravan bit (I'm sure there's a tech name for it but WMBM isn't here to ask). Then she's been test driving and reversing the whole thing around the front paddock. Today was departure day.  So before dawn, WMBM and I tried to sneak down in the near dark and set up a good luck message. It would have worked too except for the noise of the star pickets being slammed into the ground at 5.30 a.m.  We could hear her grandson giggling as we headed back to our place for a cuppa. Have a great and restful time Lorraine and we hope you get to do lots and lots of absolutely nothing.

Reverse garbage treasure for Nested

This is a nest. Well it will be when it is finished for our "Nested" exhibition - which finishes up as the Craft Fair and Queensland Quilter's show kicks off - and they are almost adjacent venues at South Brisbane!  A trip to Reverse Garbage yielded small packets of furnishing fabric squares which I then played with, added lutrador that I had already painted and stitched and in some cases burned - then cut them all up into uneven strips. The strips have then been reformed into a nest - and there's a lot of embellishment required so lucky for me I'm up to the task!  Below is the bird's eye view of the inner lining soon to be transformed with beading.

Journalling, Diaries and Creativity

Curtin University through Open Learning University offers a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts and Visual Culture) - the whole degree can be completed online (there's quite a bit of Discussion Board participation which is akin to being in a classroom and interacting with your classmates) and lots of camera work to be uploaded. Mindmapping is one of the skills we practise. So is exploring all the possible and impossible uses of an object. I have committed the first act of vandalism in my life - I cut up a perfectly good bucket in the name of art!

 Sue Dennis facilitated the 2QAQ group through a creative thinking exercise in 2010 - also with mindmapping exercises and I'm really feeling the benefit of maintaining  a visual diary, and practising ..... every day!

2QAQ Demonstration Day

Our August meeting at 2-quackers was a hoot. August is demonstration and sales day - and both Ros and Ankie took us to interesting places with painted batting and mono-printing. The only problem was we had to pack up and head home! I did a few mono-prints (no encouragement required) and this first piece was achieved by first rollering the black pigment and extender over the glass - and then tearing strips of paper towel which were placed variously over the painted glass. First print. Once that had dried sufficiently (and it didn't take long) the process was repeated using red and by placing the torn pieces of towel in different places I think the effect is quite nice. Finally, stamping in black then red. The next piece was double printed - first with aubergine scribbled through with a cotton bud, then red with finger wiggles. A couple of contrasting splodges of black gave the piece a lift. Finally, an aubergine piece reminding everyone about September's meeting - it's our "Found Objects" challenge reveal. Print achieved by writing in reverse using a cotton bud. It gets easier with practice!