Friday, August 22, 2014

The Journey to Pozible-9 Days left to Pledge

 To say that this Pozible funding campaign has been a journey is an understatement- we go from high to low in a matter of hours but at the same time we are blown away by the fact that 102 people have so far believed in our project and the journey. So I feel I would like to share the journey  to some extent.

My eldest daughter, Celeste who is designing the book was almost at the beginning of the journey. She was just a toddler when I started my textile/quilting business. After initially learning the skills and taking to machine quilting like a duck to water- using the needle as my pen I found I could draw things I would never draw by hand. I was off and running. Two more daughters  came along and we moved to the Otways- we recycled a house rather than build a new house and we battled along in the pre internet days, teaching, creating and dyeing loads and loads of fabrics and even printing some.

The in 1997 one of my quilts won a kudos prize in France and so I started the dream to go to France with my young family. I corresponded with the  organiser madame Tison and so was hatched the plan to take 30 Art quilts made by different Australian artists  to be exhibited at Chateau de Chassy. As part of the event Madame Tison graciously allowed my young children and ex husband and myself to stay in the Chateau. This was a typical burgundian chateau that had definitely seen better days- but what an adventure- we lived in a castle for 3 months and the exhibition was a rip roaring success and ended up being seen in  a lot of European venues and the Australian Embassy in Paris- and so was born my curating career.

Between 2000-2010 I toured many exhibitions - all of them on crazy shoe string budgets and  always with a child in tow as I could use their luggage allowance to carry the quilts that always weighed in excess of baggage allowances that the airline companies allow in flights form Australia to Europe. We went to the Middle East, Egypt, Syria even Israel and the Palestinian Territory and meanwhile many events in Europe as well in many different countries. I worked hard at trying to put Australian and New Zealand art quilts on the world quilting stage- I was passionate in my belief that Antipodeans are extremely talented!

In 2010 I hung up my curating shoes- the economy was increasingly impacting on costs of travelling exhibitions and baggage allowances were a nightmare and my children were now at high school so they could no longer accompany me. (little did I realise those curating shoes would only stay in the cupboard a little time). I also decided it was time to focus on my own work- carrying around suitcases of other people's work meant there was little room for my own work.In 2007 I separated from my ex-husband, though still lived in the Otways.

2010 was also the year I spent  mostly living in France with my youngest daughter ( she didn't like it I loved it and will forever be grateful to  my friend Liwanag Sales and her  husband Michel Fromont) for allowing me to live at le Triadou at the foot of Pic St Loup. I came back with my youngest daughter needing to finish high school at a better school than Colac could offer us at that stage, and so we moved to Geelong. Olive tree linocut inspired by the landscape around Le Triadou.


During this time I still made trips to Europe but shorter ones and only once a year. I also joined Geelong Quilters, became president and convened their Bienniel exhibition last year. However after my year in France I really wanted to write/create something about the experience. I have always loved France but felt I wanted to create something more- after all the country had received me with open arms- so brewed the idea for this book. But I wanted it to be a beautiful book, something that was inspiring but also went some way to answering the question as to what inspires me- it is a really difficult question to answer on the spot!

And so we have come a full circle- my eldest daughter loves books as much as I do and is also studying  visual communication and design ( my other daughters are all incredibly talented as well) and so we decided we would embark on this journey together- to create this book Musing in Textile: France and  we ask you for your help in pledging for rewards which we have framed in such a way that  most rewards are pre-orders of the book with some extras thrown in. If we reach our target we feel this is the beginning of another journey- to bring more books in this vein to you our supporters!

So we are nearly at the half way mark of our fundraising efforts and there is  9 days left to Pledge for a reward- without you this book cannot happen- we hope that you will share in the dream and be inspired by it  as well!

The sample pages from the Introduction are about encounters in France- later chapters will have some of the work I have created as a result of the inspirations.


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