Fabric

 

This is some of the fabric I have been dyeing and ironing up- it always looks so rich and well just beautiful!

I have three takers for a story for a doll! Great I will get in touch with you all tomorrow- and I am looking forward to hearing your stories!

I must admit to a little sideways motive with this one- Olga ,Robina and I are working on a course we intend to teach at Samson Hill- winery near Melbourne over the next 5 months- which will be more intensive than simply making an art quilt- we will look at how to develop an idea and then how to translate it visually. I love reading and stories and so often my quilts do contain stories. But like a written story it must have a beginning, a middle and an end- it must have a plot- it must have a point of relation for the reader. In a sense a quilt is no different to a story- you are communicating visually.Too often we turn up to quilt classes having done little preparation and we are expected to make something expressive and individual almost cold. I do ask people to bring things they like visually and fabrics to match, but there is no time to really develop and idea- a narration. I want people to have the time to build on an idea- ot treat it as a story- that will unfold- will have some false starts and will have some character amendments and will ultimately run off on itself( stories do that- I have done Nanowrimo three times now and I am constantly amazed at how characters take over the story and control the pace and the plot) I also think that strories connect some of my work to viewers and ulitmately buyers- not only the story of how it is made but the story that I am attempting to depict. I guess what I am saying is that often ideas will have been percolating and developing for years- just finding the right tools to express the language is often the trick. Being isolated I often have to invent my own tools- but i have also been hand dyeing since 1991 because i did want to understand my tools and how to use those tools expressively.I rarely make anything that does not have some kind of story,or otherwise I try and look at something in a new light- like banksia's for instance- I love the flower, but I have also sat hours with a flower- drawn it, studied it, scanned it , played in photoshop with it- gone back to the real thing- yet in the back of my mind are also the quirky stories of banksia men with which we grew up as children in Australia- how do I translate all those things into something that can speak to another person?

I do make art for myself- but I also like to communicate- textile is my preferred medium because it has so many elements- and its texture can read as a text under your hand....