When my family emigrated to Australia we moved to a station( huge farm) 18 miles out of Jerilderie. The landscape was sparse and home to sheep, kangaroos and emus. Occasionally the horizon would be lined with dark rows of trees signalling a creek. In the summer months when the dry extreme heat created shimmer mirages we would go to the creek to swim and battle leeches, submerged branches and occasionally a snake. The water was dark and murky from the tannin of the eucalypts and at the height of summer the water moved slowly like a river of oil threading its way through the landscape.
River $500US ( 2007)-SOLD
I have a fascination for river systems and they form the life blood of Australia- without our rivers much of th eland would just be dry barren waste. When you fly over the land the rivers wind their way through the land with slow curves and trees dotted along their shores.
Hand dyed and hand painted cottons, hand and machine stitched 72cm x 110 cm
Track Across the Land $900 AUS (2009)
Tracks Across the land was created for the concours at Carrefour Europeen Du patchwork Colours of your Country- you had to use the colours of your flag. I realised that the colours of our flag had very little to do with the colours of our land and I found it challenging indeed to create a sense of the Australian landscape with such a limited colour pallette.
Hand dyed cotton, hand painted Lutradur, machine and hand stitched. 75 cm x 125 cm
All the Sweet Perfumes of Arabia $2400AUS ( 2007)
Thi spiece was inspired by the souq in Damascus. To wander around the souq is to be bombarded with a myriad of wonderful sensations- each a delight in it's own right but when the whole is put together a rich fabric of experience.
Village Night Scene $1,000AUS ( 2007)
Inspired by driving through the Syrian countryside- the landscape dotted with villages and minarets and some poetic license.
Hand dyed and hand painted, machine stitched. 105 cm x 122 cm
Pomegranate Tree of Life $1,000AUS ( 2008)
Inspired by a wonderful Roman mosaic being restored in the Museum in Aleppo of a pomegranate tree
Hand dyed cottons, tifaifai method of cutting, machine stitched 122cmx122cm
Cedars $750 AUS(2008)
Inpsired by the tale of Gilgamesh and his wonder through the woods , believed to be the cedars of Lebanon with his friend Enkidu
Hand dyed silk, foiled and machine stitched, 50 cm x 130 cm
Eye idols $1000 AUS ( 2007)
The archeological digs at Tel Brak revealed a temple complex and in the inner sanctum of the temple many small figurines called eye idols were found.Nobody exactly knows what they represented but each is different.
Hand dyed cotton, foiled, hand painted fabrics, machine stitched 80cm x 120cm
Travellers Blanket $4000 AUS ( 2010)
This piece is inspired by travels in the Middle east and the idea that if you were a traveller in early medieval times to the east how would you record the memories of that experience? In those days travellers and merchants travelled to the east not only to trade perfumes , spices and silk but to discover the way many of the textiles form the east were made - so with this in mind a created a kind of memory blanket of textile fragments.
Hand dyed, including bump batting, hand printed entirely and heavily hand stitched 85cmx150cm
Reef $2000AUS ( 2010)
The method of dyeing the silk suggested the rock pools of the Great Barrier Reef
Hand dyed silk and heavily hand stitched.
Fairy Forest Sold ( 2010)
Hand dyed cotton, machine stitched 90cmx90cm
Inspired by a motif from silk purchased in Syria made on looms from Ottoman times and using patterns form Ottoman times
