Small Works

I have been practising what I wrote about in my booklet Seventy Two Ways Not to Stipple or Meander ( which is for sale- just email me) on some small pieces I would like to take to France in a fortnight't's time. I had so many plans to make many things, but as per usual I have set myself way too many things to do and I have to toss things overboard in order to float the ship. I have to finish hand stitching a quilt before I go and I am thinking about doing a big forest piece.

I am still waiting for the fabric to arrive that I won last month- as I need to dye some fabric to take to Melbourne next week. I always seem to be dyeing fabric on the even of leaving- and then it has to be ironed.

The days are lengthening finally- I was well and truly ready for winter to be over, though it hasn't really been sunny. I have been rationing my reading on Matisse the Master- my goodness he was single minded in his pursuit of his art- he worked himself into nervous distraction- but disappointingly there is no mention of the influence of tifaifai on his later work. I can see a definite connection and it is interesting that he asked for a tifaifai to be sent to him in France after he had left Tahiti ( I have this information form another source)- he had been given one as a gift whilst in Tahiti- and with his love of textiles I think he would have noticed tifaifai straight away. Most textiles that passed through his hands made it onto his canvasses in one way or another so it would seem strange for tifaifai not to. Anyway I can definitely see influence in the linen pieces he did for David Ascher & Co- Matisse's shapes are free form- but the shapes themselves are so reminescent of traditional Polynesian motifs- his arrangements are looser like some of the tapas you see from the region ( and he had quite a lot of tapa as well)- anyway one day if I have time I want to do a bit more research on it.