Chanelling Banksias

I have been  making banksia quilts  in one way or another  for  some years going back to before the year 2000. At that time I was interested in the flowers and trying to represent them, but lately it has been the actual seed pods that have become my obsession. And I have been searching for ways to capture their essence and their weirdness. For me they seem to be mouths talking or babbling, of secrets  whispered from the bush, so I am rather surprised that there are so few indigenous stories dealing with banksias. Yes they did occur in May Gibbs books as bad banksia men- but they don't seem bad to me- they seem intriguing, full of potential and full of stories- and I love a good story.
So over the years this is what I have been doing with banksias. The first two images are from before 2000 one drawn with the right hand and the other with the left hand.

And then follows many variations. I keep redrawing them , keep rephotographing them, keep restitching them, making them into prints, sawing them in half and printing with them. They have become my big, wirey, gnarly ,intriguing, absolutely unique,knobbly,mouths,weird geometry,otherwordly obsession. I will find a way... and there are stories brewing of history of connection of strange happenings. So here is  my obsession in no particular order.

And so now I am trying to create the babbling mouths- I am still prototyping,  but I am getting to the shape and kind of thing I had in my mind- I am interested in the mouths rather than the bulbous part of the mouths.

And there is still time to join the on-line linocutting class starting on January 26 ( Tuesday). The class will run for 8 weeks with lots of exercises to build skills and explore your obsession :-). You will work at your own pace, but the more exercises you do the better your skills will be. I deliver pdf notes with different exercises and ideas and we will have a private Facebook group for discussion. There are still a few places. Email me if you are interested, Cost is $60 AUS and you can pay me  via paypal- just contact me for details.