Winter's End

 

According to my calendar, winter finishes around September 11th. This was the date of the coldest day of a school year that I can remember. A cold front must have come through that day as we spent the day freezing at Gayndah State High and nobody had a coat to put on. I wait until this date to welcome spring. Mind you, this year a couple of cold fronts have snuck through after this date so my latest motto is "be ready for anything." I did do a few swimming laps of the unheated pool at work last week so am ready for summer.

I found a kookaburra enjoying the Drunk Parrot Tree before all of the leaves had emerged from their brief winter sleep.

2 weeks later and the leaves are all out. The many blooms will soon be fully open and the birds will have a field day.

This is the corner of the orchard with the latest gadget. The wallabies have been eating the new grape shoots so we have erected an electric fence around the edge. This photo shows how the drought is still continuing though our mainstream media doesn't seem to care. 

I have been busy at work once again covering unexpected staff shortages, (think this may get worse as there is now a policy for mandatory covid -19 vaccinations and some people genuinely object to that) but I have found time to make an entry for a juried show. This is the close up photo I sent in. I used strip piecing, applique, double and single stranded quilting. Waiting to hear if I have to send the quilt in for the show.

I made this small one to send into SAQA's trunk show.  I really liked the Purple Night piece I sold at Wondai, November 2020 and this piece is similar. I called it Midnight Garden, so hopefully it arrives in the USA before the deadline. If not, I wonder if it gets returned to me. 

Our yellow clivia bush has rewarded us with its first flower. 

An orange one also popped up beside it.

Over the last 2 weeks, we had contact with, and subsequent visits from the grandsons of  Thomas James Scott who was the first lessee of "Ivanhoe" in 1905. He married his wife Constance in 1916, and they lived here until 1939 when they sold and moved to Kalinga in Brisbane. We have discovered there was a tennis court here as well which we didn't know about. They were both pianists and some of the stories we have been told about dances being held here seem true. This photo seems to be from the 1930's and shows the side of the house where I currently drive my car in to park underneath the house. We are enjoying discovering snippets about what life was like in the old house 100 years ago. There have been some amazing co- incidences discovered between the Scotts and the Wagners so far. One, that interests me is that one of the brothers was a medical scientist in pathology just like me, and the other is a horse/cattle person just like my husband. Interesting looking at the old photos and family history.

Will keep you updated on any further happenings, in both my textile art world and Ivanhoe history.

Winter in South East Queensland

 Well, I did promise 2 updates in winter so there might be 2 fairly close together. Does anybody else suffer the mid winter blues? We have pretty mild winters here with some frosty mornings and a few days of cold westerly wind days but no really cold days for weeks at a time. Something has to explain why I seem to have been a bit slack about a few things of late. Don't misunderstand me though, I have managed to meet all commitments and tasks including the dreaded BAS and accounting work but there just seems to be little joie de vivre lately.  I did enjoy seeing the plum trees flowering a week ago- meaning the warmer weather is coming. I managed to prune all of the deciduous trees this year so maybe I need to include tasks like that higher up the happy to achieve list. Perceptions can change a lot of things.

I have had pieces of my artwork on exhibit in Chinchilla, Kingaroy, and soon to be at Goombungee Galleries so I must take pride in that too. We had an exhausting day out on the Quilt Trail in July held in conjunction with the exhibition in Kingaroy. My "Drought" piece was displayed in the members only Bundaberg Quilt Exhibition and was awarded The Judges Prize, they gave out 3 awards- Best of Show, Joan Finlay Log cabin award and the Judges pick. Their FB page had numerous photos of the show and someone has suggested maybe a workshop could be held to make a quilt like mine. Food for thought, might think about for 2022.

Maybe the Ekka being cancelled for the second year in a row might have something to do with the current mood of some queenslanders. I know of a few Queensland Axemen pretty upset they can't chop wood competitively for a second year in a row.

Probably the matter that is still on people's minds is the Virus that will keep on keeping on for a while yet. Debates about it all, have seen us turn off  MSM. I hear arguments from both sides about what to do, I read articles about the CDC cancelling Sars Cov-2 testing regimes and when you read the article in full, you discover the CDC has been completely misrepresented. Fact vs fiction and it has been going on everywhere.  Including here reading what I write, how do you know what you read on the internet is true? All a matter of trust isn't it?

I saw an advertisement for Australian Quilts in Public Places Exhibition in Victoria calling for entries for a juried show. I got out of my lethargy for 10 days and have made an entry. I won't show you any of it as the rules state: must not have been exhibited previously so am presuming that means on here. Will have to wait and see if it is accepted. I still have to photograph it so am hoping my new camera etc. will suffice. I played around with it today and have learnt a few more things about it.

I have also managed to get  a veranda rails section fully painted so maybe I have just been a bit hard on myself lately. We did purchase 2 5M high trestles earlier in the year, they were put in use last week. Dusty work, I was pleased that I was not allowed up on those trestles when the work was happening. 

 Maybe the other reason for the lethargy is my paid job. Upheavals in rosters due to multifactorial  staff shortages and no extra staff members in our lab to cope with the deluge of covid testing each time they find a case in Qld is starting to wear a few of us down. 

I hope to feel better about things soon. I have been working on a few new art pieces and I played around with a different technique today. 

An experimental piece of work, in the beginning stages. This is during the quilting part. More to come later.

Spring is nearly here, maybe the weather might just turn and be on our side soon.  2 views of our Gulf Gold Plum tree, a sign of promise. Hope your winter blues are on the way out the door too.. 

Tales of Autumn, and Processes.

Autumn visited us briefly, then winter struck and finally the Chinese Pistachio rewarded us with this display. 

The coldest morning so far this winter, I visited the Lapunyah Gallery in Chinchilla to see our Tangled Threads Exhibition. Blue Flag and 

PMAV Prison were on display in my corner along with 5 other pieces.

Some progress photos of a new series called Coral Anthills I have been trying to find studio time for.

Decisions about quilting, underlays, orientation. This is called designing as you go 101. Turning vague ideas into reality can give you a few headaches besides the one, post Covid-19 vaccination. 

Think this is final, not unstitching  it. New camera seems to be functioning ok, so many buttons to press. So much to learn.

Desert Roads somewhere near a Wadi, is ready for exhibiting in Kingaroy Art Gallery from June 29 until July end.

As is Firestorm- Which Way?

I have rewritten the artist's statement for each piece. Am now including that in my label on the back.

The challenge theme for Tangled Threads was  Wood. I interpreted it as "how on earth are you supposed to include wood in a quilted piece" I have seen embroidery using twigs, I could have said " the rod is wood" but I decided to use some hand dyed fabrics and the colour connects strip piecing. A different orientation, no alternate set ( 2 sets the same) and a loose flange or three . The idea being a pile of milled timber ready to use for building a timber home.

Home--- where I have been trying to find time to finish what I started at the beginning of autumn.

Sanded, primed, waiting for undercoat. I used Feast Watson Timber Primer to try to make the paint last longer. 

 Undercoated, filled and now waiting for 2 top coats of paint. Think my hair got some as well when painting the bottom rail.

Next--- finish the 4th piece for Kingaroy Gallery, finish my Incubator and Mastermind 6 month program, work on new work  and work on more veranda panels ( 2 waiting for sanding to be completed). Next update, well I will try to have two in Winter, I need to be accountable to someone, may as well be me.

 

 

Fibrearts Workshop with Glenys Mann

Glenys Mann, an Australian Art Textile Warrior ( not sure if she'd like that title) but I have bestowed it upon her. She has been at the forefront of contemporary fibre arts here in Australia for many years.

I had the pleasure of 3 days of her company and saw the Art Textile Biennale in Toowoomba  as well.

Her workshop didn't teach me a new technique, but I delved into the thought processes of an artist. Studied other Artists and along with the other 11 participants met new ones. 

The second day exercise was to speak about an artist you liked, and do a small project based on secret messages, pockets from that artist.

A few days before the workshop, I stumbled as you do, on a blog called Tanglewood Threads by Penny Berens of Nova Scotia, Canada.

Wow, I was amazed at her stitching, but her words and lack of them amazed me. Her messages still come through. Don't believe me, read her blog and you will understand my message.

Here are 2 photos of the beginning and end of my day2 assignment. Yes, I know its poor quality photography, I am working on that. Step 1 has arrived but am still waiting for a new camera.

 The secret message  has to do with paths, rocks and everything in between. Send me a message if you want to know more. 

House Repairs and Possible New Directions in Art and Photography

 I am sure you are familiar with the old house we moved into in 2010. This photo is from 2014 when I had finished painting the south eastern corner of the veranda. I am now in the process of finishing the north western side. I have spent hours removing paint, sanding the palings and railings down for more painting.

Work in progress, and I am happy to say a final sand with the finest grit paper is left for this panel. Then the arduous task of priming, undercoating and painting begins. Take a note of the floorboards here as well, they need replacing and my goal is to have the palings all painted before that happens so I don't have to put masking tape around each one of the palings before painting.

This shows the poor state of the post decoration prior to a sander being used on it.

This is the inside of the north east corner and I have a problem with the support beam. It has fallen down onto the post and is  hollow for about 15cms up the roof support beam. I think I will get some expander filler and place in there, hoping it will keep the roof up for awhile yet. Speaking about the roof, that is starting to get to be another big issue as it will probably start leaking next time it rains ( maybe there is an upside to a drought after all).

Back to my art. This is a poor quality photo taken on my iPad of a piece I made based on Mark Rothko's art. It is called Simplicity and was part of the Tangled Threads word challenges in 2017-2018.

It is made from 2 pieces of fabric. The dense quilting hides the seams and I attempted to make the piece look like a woven piece. I have always liked the weaving art of Ptolemy Mann and short of taking up weaving, I would like to make some textile pieces emulating it. I am yet to figure out a way to do that with the quilting threads. So I will keep experimenting in some new work. 

This piece was also in the Tangled Threads Word Challenge, called Habitat. I saw a similar piece on pinterest and tried 3 techniques in this piece. Mum has it on her wall in her Nursing Home giving her much joy to look at it.

The photography is pretty poor for both of these pieces, so I am currently researching ways to improve it. I already have a photography backdrop stand for quilts so am now investing in some lighting equipment to see if that improves the images using the small camera I have. If not, then maybe a new camera and some lessons in how to use it and maybe more lessons on photoshop for me.

More stuff to try and learn, it certainly is a busy journey.

Drought and Myself.

 Continuing the discussion about Drought, I wish to speak about the effects on my life. We seem to spend a considerable amount of time looking at weather maps, reading about the weather and hoping for some good rain to fall. We live in an area of Qld, Australia where the rainfall is supposed to be a bit more reliable than some other parts of Qld. You definitely would not think that at the present time and we know of people in the Wide Bay Burnett region considerably worse off than us.

This is reflected in many of my art pieces. I want to show you a photo I found on FB during the severe western Qld drought a few years back. I cannot acknowledge the owner as it was posted to the Who Got The Rain Group page and I could not "track them down" from there. It was too poignant a photo for me to ignore it. It was taken outside  Longreach showing the bare state of the grazing property with the stark storm clouds rolling in hopefully to deliver some very much needed rain. It shows the flatness of the horizon of outback Qld and it is something every Australian should make an effort to visit at least once in the lifetime ( the Outback as we call it).

I took this photo with me for my Working In A Series Class with Lisa Call (2016) as inspiration. After a few smaller pieces were made at the workshop, she suggested taking a different approach with colour.

I played around with colour  and came up with this piece. I have mounted it on canvas and it has been hanging in our lounge room ever since, where I walk past it numerous times a day and think of drought, Longreach and abstracted lanscapes and of course the WIA Series workshop with Lisa.

I want to show you another drought piece made in 2019 when we were still battling a severe drought in Spring that year. 

 Even in the driest of deserts you can find underground water if you know how to find it and there are enough dollars in your pocket to tap into it. Qld has the Great Artesian Basin under a lot of it and I can vividly recall my first shower at Charleville in 1980  when I was despatched to fill a work vacancy at the hospital there. The absence of a hot water  tap made me wonder at first, then I realised the temperature was fine as is, for a shower. The smell of sulphur was the killer at the time which left me thinking unless you were on tank water for showering we would all smell the same so don't worry about it. I very quickly got used to the water out there.

This piece is titled "Desert Water" showing there is water in a desert, and channels run through it when it rains. 

Now, just to show you my mind sometimes gets away from drought. After I made "Storm Clouds at Longreach",  I made this small 10" x 12" piece titled " Irish Skies"    I like the formation of the horizon in this piece. It was the first piece in my Tracks series where I used 2 different "blade" colours. I went onto make " Desert Skies" after this piece. All of these pieces hang in our lounge room, with only the Desert Water being recently exhibited. I did read somewhere about keeping the artistic pieces that give you most joy in your life, hanging where you can readily see them. Maybe I need to add an extension onto our house as I could add a few that meet that criteria. Do you have some favourite works that give you much joy? I hope so.

Drought and the Ninas

 Living in Australia, farmers are used to battling droughts, floods, bushfires and we somehow seem to manage to survive these extremes when they happen, whether you believe many of the current theories behind their causes or not. Weather is an important topic in our daily lives. This is evident from the number of private weather forecasters which have exploded on social media since the Australian BOM seems to have strayed from its main charter of predicting the weather. Last week the BOM had our area on flood watch, many days before the predicted rain event and again most desperate farmers were let down by the BOM when their predictions were wildly inaccurate for our region. Maybe they are trying too much to be accurate over a longer period before the predicted events, possibly concerned about legal ramifications if they are wrong ( as they always seem to be).

 What's this got to do with art you say? A lot because the weather affects your mood, affects your daily art practice and inspires you. A nice wet day promotes being indoors sewing instead of for me, outdoors working on restoring our house.  My next two artworks are a response to the weather. We hear so much in the media these days about the drivers for our weather, el Nino and La Nina. One meaning drought for us and one supposed to mean rain . I made  two pieces for my 2020 Wondai exhibit showing the weather extremes. I used copper foil in the focal area of the Drought piece to create a further inner frame. The landscape I used for inspiration is the view from our driveway as I returned home in late 2019. Even the ironbark and quinine trees were dying at that time.

When it does rain, the effects can be quite spectacular with the country turning green from fresh grass growth and trees responding. La Nina years seem to occur less than el Nino years so we try to drought proof the farms as much as possible by building dams and finding underground water to use.

This artwork was inspired by the many shades of green which delights the eye after a few decent falls of rain.

This is the view down Trentham Lane. A road leading to one of our paddocks which has a few gully crossings. Most of the time they are dry but occasionally they are like this.

This photo shows the colours of our soil, grass and trees when there is rain about providing inspiration for colour selection for more artwork.

Now the BOM are talking about polar vortexes, MJO oscillations as well,  being climate drivers, I will have to research more so I can find further inspiration in the weather.

Landscapes and Fiery Urban Remnants

 In 2017, I started making freestanding landscapes without the tracks movement. Wanting to create a focus area of the colour condensed into one point. I really liked the way my green landscape turned out. The fabric used for the blade colour was a darker blue black colour and this worked well with the greeens.

I wanted to try another using the grey fabric from some of the Tracks series and Yellow Landscape was created. Another Title for this could be "Fire Landscape".

 I then went on to try a second focal point of the condensed colours. This is actually the second make in these colours as the original didn't work out as I had hoped so I filled in where a focal point had been and this looks untidy.

In September 2018, Tangled Threads challenge was remnants and I wanted to create a second piece to possibly be included in the exhibition for 2019.  I liked the autumnal colours and came up with this. I called this one Fiery Urban Remnants as the news grabs of night skies during urban warfare showed flaming buildings lit up against the dark skies. This piece is mounted on canvas and has some vertical quilting in the 3 focus areas. Due to its size 18" H x 28 " wide I hand stitched it to a piece of felt, used diluted gel medium to glue the felt to the canvas leaving approx 2.5cms loose, then handstitched the piece to the canvas. Earlier pieces that have not been mounted this way, can sag a little away from the canvas when hung. This seems to prevent that from happening. I am still thinking that I may make another one similar but alter the size and placement of the middle focus area.   As with most of my artwork, they look better when hung on a wall and under good lighting.

I have been continuing working on my Incubator Program with Lisa Call, working on pieces for Tangled Threads, fitting in some house restoration projects ( back on the sander and paint brush). Our queenslander has 24 sets of veranda cornices which are attached to the posts and top beams on the veranda. Some I have finished repainting but 15 still need doing. The ravages of time were starting to show up on some of them so working on them is a priority now that the 10 french doors are finished. 

Here is a sample of timber ones available to use as new. Unfortunately our design is not amongst them so we would have to purchase 24 sets of them ready made or get them custom made so preservation is the next best thing.  The drought has still not finished, yes we have had some good rain but again, very little dam filling rain. I will show 2 pieces inspired by that topic next time.

Visibility

 "Visibility" - a word that has a few meanings, mostly to do with seeing, prominence etc.

In 2017 the Tangled Threads theme was set to a certain size 0.5m wide by 2.0m long. The person who set the theme envisaged long transparent pieces of fabric hanging in the centre of a room to be viewed from either side or transparent fabric covering a doorway.

To be honest, in the beginning I was a bit stunned to think somehow I had to try to merge my current work to this theme. The 2.0m length was certainly a challenge. This piece took me over 3 months of stitching to piece it and hours to quilt it. In my mind it is a drone's view of the streets in a town with the rows of houses and the intersections. Visibility is important when driving around the streets. The dotted line represents the road. I like the way from my fabric selection, the values drift in and out of visibility.

This piece glows with luminosity when it is hanging under lights. I find it difficult to get decent photos of it due to its length. It really does suit our high ceiling house so at this stage I am happy if it never finds its forever home but maybe one day it will. 

Inset 1 and Remnants

 I am thankful to be in a vibrant group of fellow textile artists called Tangled Threads here in the South Burnett. We are kept busy each year creating work for exhibitions in our area. Each year that I have been a member ( except for 2020) due to Sars-Cov-2 we have participated in the Winter Craft Festival in Kingaroy. We make new pieces each year for July then we exhibit at other places after that. In 2018 the theme was Inset and the challenge was to use metal in something. I had been trying out ideas for other focal points in my pieces other than the triangle peaks. I still wanted the shuttered view of a landscape. I came up with this, wanting bands of colour and an image within. This piece is called Inset 1- our Daily Landscape. I also wanted to frame within the focal point so I appliqued 1/4" wide copper foil ( used in guitars for sound reflection) that I sourced on ebay. This is definitely one of my family's favourite pieces. I actually discovered a photo of it ( from hanging in the Kingaroy Gallery) on Pinterest. Mind you they never acknowledged who made it, would have been good if they did.

In August each year, we set the theme and challenge for the next year. We came up with Remnants in 2018 for the 2019 year. For many years I have had fungi on a long list of possible things for inspiration. This piece came about because of the colours of fungi that I have seen on the decomposing wood in our paddocks. It looks a bit "drab" in this photo, but under the lights in a gallery and in our house it glows. I quilted the grey fabric with the colours of the strips and it is very effective. 

 I have been working on The Incubator and Mastermind Program with Lisa Call. This runs for 6 months as a project and I have been busy. Blogging, using Evernote to write about my art, using Excel for inventories is all part of the project. I have been managing to just keep up with it all. As well as doing extra shifts at my paid job, it has been a busy few weeks. On the plus side, I have been working on a couple of new pieces as well. On the home front, we are still waiting ( is getting very dry ) for some rain. Hope I have better news about that next week.

Reflections and Combinations

 The next two pieces I am featuring were both made in 2017, exploring the tracks series further. Both of these pieces were constructed to meet a theme. Reflections was originally made to be an entry in the Mt Perry Art Gallery acquisitive competition with the theme Reflections of Mt Perry. I was verbally told about it and when the brochure came out, it did not include textile art, so it could not be entered. This is an abstract view around Mingo Crossing at Paradise Dam between Gayndah and Mt Perry. I used to spend a few hours there kayaking on the water as the dam filled up after its construction. Sadly the government of the day has seen fit to lower the wall ( due to their concern about some safety aspects of the existing wall) so the levels seen at Mingo then, may not be repeated, so I probably will not be kayaking there again. The floods in 2013 went over the bridge at Mingo and we were told that would never happen, so who knows what the future can bring.

Technically speaking this is a 1 way flip with both sets close together to create movement.

I made Combinations prior to Reflections in 2017, for our Tangled Threads group exhibit in 2017. It had to be a specific measurement of 1.5m x 0.5m. Combinations was the theme selected and for once the theme did not make me have to draw a long string to it. I really like this piece, looks wonderful hanging in my house with the high ceilings.

Technically it is a 2 way flip, straight and close together to create the straight line of peaks.