Monday, May 11, 2009

General Update

I have been busier than a one legged man at a hopping contest! My entry for the Melville Art Awards is due in about a week.....so I started on the weekend. I was always one of those students at Uni, who started their assignments, a day or two before being due. I work well under pressure. I thought I needed a good start though and have the base of the felt and fibre sculpture completed. Now, comes all the stitching of fibre......will take some time.

Mondays I am now doing a porcelain jewellry workshop, Tuesdays sees me doing shibori, Wednesdays I'm trying to do some business work, Thursdays teaching felting, Fridays cleaning before Anthony comes home and weekends are usually art. I haven't stopped in about 2 weeks and am a bit tired, but loving every minute of what I do. Hence if I have promised something and not delivered.....you're not the only one!

I have to still post some pics of my fabulous hat I made with Sue Eslick...sorry Sue will get onto it...promised her pics! Everyone who sees it wants to make one!

A friend Sue Espie and I are going to be doing the Oxford Street Markets in June, July and August. They are being held on the last Saturday of each month, on Oxford St...will give the correct address when I find it. If you're around, come on by and say hello.

It's 5.48am and the kids are still asleep....thank god.......better go and start some work!

Castaway Sculptures

For Mothers Day, my family took me down to see the Castaways Sculptures. This is an annual sculptural competition held on the beach at Rockingham. All the sculptures are made from recycled materials. (Or I should say....a component of each sculpture is made from recycled materials.) These were some of my favourites. The merecats were my fav......and strangely enough, the artist is a friend of mine, but didn't know that until after I saw them.

























One of the funniest things we saw all day, was real seagulls coming and joining their rather 'still' friends on the sculpture. If the little brats didn't keep scaring them away.....I would of had a great picture.


















Beautiful Puppetry

I was luck enough about a week ago, to meet the very talented Leon Hendroff. Leon is a graphic artist, who is also into making marionette puppets. Some felt caught my eye at a local market and when I started to look at the stall, these amazing little guys where staring at me and wanting to come home with me. Now who am I to go against their wishes.


Leon is involved in the Spare Parts Puppet Theatre here in Fremantle. It's one thing to see his beautiful puppets, but to see him manipulate and move them is something different again. I am planning to have Leon come and run a workshop for us at Catalyst in August.













Saturday, May 2, 2009

Cosy Workshop

Today we had one of our Feltwest workshops, which was Cosies and Hats, with Sue Eslick. Hats and cosies are both made using the resist felting technique. Sue is the Cosy Queen and has perfected them beautifully. She also very generously shared all her patterns, which we all appreciated a great deal.


Two of these hats were made at a workshop with Judit Pocs, an amazing felter from Hungary, who has largely influenced many of us here in the west. The green hat is one which Sue has made for our Earth exhibition at Mundaring Arts Centre.



These are Sues coffee cosies, as every good coffee pot deserves some dressing up as well.

Sue does these rather weird, but strangely appealing little guys. Not quite sure if we should call them cosies or hats....or something weird that crawled out of the cupboard!!! One thing which you will either love or find gross....is the fact that their eyes are semi attached....they can come partially out of the head!



These are the traditional tea cosies which Sue creates. She has a lovely technique and uses both prefelts and fabrics in her designs. I think the dragonfly is my favourite, with it's wings being made of silk tissue. Very pretty indeed. Below is the link to Sues blog for more inspirational work.







Finally.....Bungled!

Well 'Bungled' is finally finished and ready to go the Mundaring Arts Centre. I didn't realise how sore ones fingers can get, if you are not a hardened hand stitcher. I shouldn't complain...it was only 2 fingers.....but it did hurt!


We have had a sad couple of days at our house...we think our beloved Yoda (gorgeous torty girl, 12 years old), has gone to kitty heaven. We haven't seen her for days, which is not like her at all....she loves her food and pats and loves too much to miss out. My friends cat ran away to die and sadly we believe this is what our Yoda has done too. I had her for 12 wonderful years, longer than my husband. Actually Anthony had seen Yoda before he even met me. For months he caught the shift bus to work, which happened to be across the road from my house. He would always see Yoda sitting in the window, watching the world go past. I miss her terribly and wished that we had a special place in our garden to lay her to rest....instead we have special memories in our hearts.