The Wild Fantastical Sea

I have been working on sea things these last couple of weeks as well as doing some stitching on paper ( a book Without Words) - these times have been challenging indeed in so many ways, so much so that a lot of the time I find it difficult to express how I am feeling- so stitching soothes. I thought I would make great leaps and bounds on my One World Traveller's Blanket- but no the book Without Words is calling instead.

I wanted to share my "Fantastical Sea" work book. I will keep adding to it, but it all takes time, and even though I  have time.... I seem to  do less than I thought I would.
The workbook is inspired by visits to Atauro Island, the Aquarium at La Rochelle and Woodside Beach not far from Morwell. The more you look at the creatures and plants the more fantastic they seem, such shapes and colours and alternative intelligence.

Lots of ideas that need translation and playing around with. I do like to create workbooks as it forces me to look and to really study what I see- to create lines and forms to translate into linocuts. Plus it documents what I am doing. At present I am reading "The Sea Around Us"  by Rachel Carson ( the author of Silent Spring which was a catalyst for the environmental movement) and though some information is dated  it is still fascinating. I  often do not work in a lot of colour in my workbook, possibly because I look for lines to make linocuts and colour tends to blur that a little. I have also started printing with different colours on the one piece of fabric.

Pieces like this are for sale for $45 AUS inclusive of postage- pieces measure  approx 45 cm x 37 cm and have been printed on hand dyed fabric. Each one is unique in that I have changed around the elements. If you are interested please email me and I can send you details on how to pay.

I Thought I had Done Little

It has felt like I have done very little this last month- stay at  home , stay at home, home quarantine for 14 days so I can see my mother, a bit of stitching, but nothing much really.  But there is a theme developing. And today when I pulled together various drawings over the past 3-4 years ( since going to Atauro Island in Timor Leste and visiting the women of Boneca de Atauro) and a visit to the Aquarium in La Rochelle and things I have been  working on in the last month or so, I seem to be preoccupied with the sea and the creatures that inhabit the sea. When I visited the Aquarium with a friend last year I was not prepared for the delight  of all those fantastic creatures and corals- the colours , the luminescence- it was a little like being inside a fantasy.

That thought- that  this was something fantastical has stayed with me and perhaps needed the austerity of the present moment to bring it out again. I have always loved rockpooling and the creatures that inhabit rockpools, but some of the fish , jellyfish, sea horses,urchins and anemones that were in the Aquarium were  just amazing.

So I have been building a book of the sea from things encountered in the past couple of years. But I wanted to start with a little piece from way back when- I think maybe 1996 or 1997- inspired by rockpools and of course sea urchins. This urchin was beaded.

Then I did a whole series of work inspired by a piece of coral which I made into a linocut and printed onto lutradur. I sold many of these little pieces.

I regret not having gone snorkelling when I was on Atauro I sland- but both times I had an open wound, and though small can easily get infected on a tropical island-  and especially one where medical care is basic. I erred on the side of safety. I did some drawings and linocuts last year  after my Aquarium visit.

This  was a small linocut block I made meant to be a kind of repeat. It is not truly a repeat but the block can be placed having the anemone pointing toward the centre or pointing out to the sides. Just a bit of fun really.

 
The little block stitched with perle8 weight thread.

And then I made this much larger linocut. I am still  stitching the printed  piece- it has taken time and I will probably fill in the anemone arms with solid colour- just have not got around to it.

 Then I found my drawing book I had with me on Atuaro Island and though I did not snorkel I walked along the shore every morning as it was too hot to walk any other time of the day. There were many sea treasures to be found on the shore . Every morning I would  come back with pockets filled with sand and shells ( I put all of them back eventually except for a few small pieces which I brought back with me). They sat in one of the lovely baskets woven by one of the women.. Many of the shells were battered and broken but somehow that made them more beautiful.

When I came back from overseas last year I went to visit a friend in Tasmania- and she had one of my silk dyed pieces that I made quite sometime ago. The brief had been to be inspired by the sea. I had almost completely forgotten this method of working, but when I saw the quilt hanging in her home I determined I would revisit  this method of dyeing. (it's taken a few stops and starts as of course I did not write the method down)

 So after some trial and error, and the magical process of dyeing in this way, I am always surprised by how wonderful the fabric is after seemingly being monotone. I tied rocks and chick peas to see if there would be a difference in the outcome, but  on the whole there is not a lot of difference.

The fabric will be more patterned once ironed and i was trying to achieve the effect of rockpool, shallow water.

I overdid the purple dye a little but as it takes hours and hours to do the tyeing it will have to wait a little until I do some more tyeing. Though this will give me something to go on with.

And then all of a sudden the sea bug had bitten me. I started a fabriano skecth book for the sole purpose of pulling together all the sea things from over the years and the making of new drawings and linocuts inspired by the visit to the Aquarium last year.. The octopus I made earlier this year

and made into a linocut print.

The turtle from the aquarium- who kept on swimming towards the window, to the great delight of a little girl who was totally excited by his/her manouevres toward the window close to her.

The turtle and seaweeds and ripples printed onto some hand dyed fabric. I love the work of Barcelona artist Pablo Salvaje and have his book Animalkind and also did an on-line course at the beginning of the lockdown that he teaches on Domestika.  He often makes his linocuts shapes which allows you to build scenarios/vignettes. I am in love with the technique and so have been revisiting my drawings and photos to find shapes and elements to make into shaped linocuts..

Some small water colours I did last year whilst I was staying at a camp ground in the cabin of a friend and I had to buy some water colours.  I love how all of these disparate elements are starting to come together. And I am finding my old drawings and putting them all in one place because in the end I have made quite a lot of drawings inspired by sea things.

Isolation

I  take the isolation and social distancing very seriously and  have avoided all human contact so my mother is not inadvertantly exposed- though it seems some folk  do not think things are as serious as they are, or because they live in a rural area they are not at risk. The hoons in Morwell also seem to need to hoon around as much as ever and well and truly into the small hours of the morning. At least most people are doing the right thing. I don't actually need to go out to shop in the fortnight that I isolate. I visit my mother and then stay the night and then the following day do her shopping. I must admit though these times seem to  bring about strange cravings in people including my mother. My cupboard is always stocked with strange stuff according to some but because of the fresh produce in my garden seems to be mostly a mediterranean diet.

I have been doing some work. Made some small commissions for friends. In slowly ( very slowly) tidying my workspace I found one of the old sentinelle panels- I must have held onto it as the printing was not very even, but that is easily fixed with stitching and I finally found a use for some lovely wooden beads I bought at a Perth Craft Fair quite some moons ago.

It felt lovely to work on one of these sentinelles at times like this- she is so much a reflection of our need to take greater care for earth and each other.

I had made a small banksia commission for a friends mother for mothers day- and then my mother wanted one too...so I made this little piece up with one of my babbling banksia  prints.

I just have to finish the binding which I think I will make satin stitch. I used up  bits of fabric from my stash- it's amazing what I have been finding now that I actually have a dedicated workspace again. I just need to tidy it more- and find a better way to store things and it doesn't help that I have many books, but can never find the one I am looking for. At one stage I had books arranged in sections or areas of interest- but with moving etc that order went by the way side. 

I have been stitching on my "One World" Traveller's Blanket. It is taking a long time because this piece is big to stitch by hand. The colour of the back ground looks more orange that it is. Each circle takes about 3 hours to stitch so it is definitely not a speedy project. I know a lot of people talk about slow stitch as a thing- but in all reality stitching by hand is of its very nature slow- so I prefer to call it hand stitch and as such it has a real rhythm , that can make time pass like no other thing. The rhythm also determines the shapes of your stitches just like the rhythm of writing determines the shape of your writing. Each stitch is imbued with an energy that you the stitcher give it. Is it any wonder that so many of us are mesmerised by stitching itself? I have stitched on this piece most days and have found it soothing. 

On-line Traveller's Blanket Class

There is still time to enroll for the Traveller's Blanket class starting on 5 May ( see the paypal button on my previous post) or message me. You can use any shape you want it need not be a circle- these ones are because I like circles and well our world is a circle- which is a thought- so many things are considered in a linear fashion and exponential but the very shape of earth is round- something that we seem to forget- it always comes back on itself. I have also been making videos which i share in the group.

Back in Self Isolation

Last week I came out of isolation to go visit my mother, take her to the doctor, and make sure she had enough supplies and medication. Thankfully one of her neighbours I very helpful as well. Anyway I did the necessary shopping for her- keeping distances and asking her to keep the  bought things sitting under her verandah for at least a day- except perishables which I washed.. Then I came home and did some of my own shopping and some posting out of things that had been ordered before going back into isolation. I am not  going outside the boundaries of my property ( though I did mow the nature strip today) and am avoiding all human contact so I can  go and see my mother again next week- as it looks like the need for isolation will continue for some time yet. So please stay home and stay safe.

I am extremely grateful for my small vegetable garden, most of which I have cleared up to grow winter vegetables. I had purchased some seeds back in January- just as well I did as it is difficult to get seeds or seedlings at present. So winter vegies have been sewn- and I made sure to have extra so I can put some in my mother's garden as she has great soil. Have been processing the last of the vegetables and also been baking bread ( as it is possible to buy flour and yeast in Morwell- unlike Melbourne).

  Tomatoes ready to be slow roasted using the recipe from the Paris Cookbook by Patricia Wells. These are so good but also freeze really well. Unfortuately I did not have masses of tomatoes but have managed to freeze a few small containers of these slow roasted tomatoes, whose flavour intensifies because of the slow roasting.

 I have also been sprouting alfalfa seeds. I used to do this years ago, also mung beans, but then stopped doing it for no apparent reason. Anyway it  is easy enough to do and it's not high tech- just have to remember to rinse them every day, but as I am not going anywhere , that is easy enough to do!

  The last of the produce from my garden. Two different kind of chillies and green tomatoes ( I do have a green heirloom tomato planted as well which does not seem to realise that tomato season is ending. It is still full of flowers and none of  the leaf growth has died back). And my mandarin tree  is producing  some mandarins which are sweet and juicy, and the lemon tree is also loaded with fruit, but I feel there is only so much lemon cyrry pickle and salted lemons I am likely to eat in a year.

And bread baking. This is a low yeast no knead recipe which gives a very good result. You  have to prove it for 12-18 hours and then you actually bake it in a dutch oven.

I thought I would get lots of stitching done but the reality is a little different. Getting bits and bobs done but nowhere near as much as I though I would.. I have been working on my One World Traveller's Blanket, and I planned to get lots done every day- but that is not happening. Still it is growing. And I am reworking my Florence Traveller's Blanket by adding more stitching to the  angel panel, which makes me feel much happier.

The angels always  looked sort of unfinished because the rest of the piece is so densely stitched.

I have also been teaching the on-line Traveller's Blanket class- and have to say this group is really using the time to make great progress. The stitching takes long time but it is so worth taking the time- as each one is so individual and unique. I have had quite a few enquiries  whether people can still join- but in all reality we are well and truly started  and then it will seem like you are a long way behind.

On-Line Traveller's Blanket Class May 5
So I have decided to offer the class again starting Tuesday May 5. The cost of the course is $75AUS and  you work at your own pace. I set up a private FB group for sharing photos answering questions and sharing the stories you are encapsulating. I also send out pdf notes which are quite substantial. I realise many people are offering free content all over the internet but the reality is ,that this kind of work is my livelihood and has been for 25 years this year and I do not have a significant other to help with support. So work continues as it always does except I cannot post items to many countries overseas and like many people  quite a lot of work has been cancelled or postponed until  somehow we come out the other side of this. I am also adding video content to the class as visual  explanation  is as important as notes- I just needed to come up to speed with some of my videoing skills- and have now found a way to trap my small camera tripod in my top so I can film from the same viewpoint from which I stitch- it is taking a bit of practise to be able to hold the camera still enough whilst I stitch. Email me if you would like more information.

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