Les Matelles- Stitchery

I have been working on a small stitched piece ( A4 size) of a scene in the small medieval village Les Matelles which was the next village  to Le Triadou where I lived in 2010( I miss the south of France...) It's a lovely village with stone houses and stone stairways and with loads of shades of grey. I had toyed around with the image previously, trying to draw it in the hope of making a linocut but in the end the nuances of shade/light and grey were too varied to reduce it to a  drawing suitable for a linocut. Then last year when I worked with Solufix, I thought yep that is the solution- I will stitch the image with solufix and see what happens. I did not print off the original photos as I knew I  did not have the silvery green/grey threads for the olive tree- so  I used a bit of poetic licence in the interpretation of that tree. I am also amazed at how many shades of grey thread I used- thank you Mettler for your silk finish cottons they are just perfect for this kind of job!

 The top photo is the original photo which I cropped a little as the top left corner was a bit over exposed and below is my stitched interpretation made with the aid of Solufix. I am  preparing classes to work with this material and will be teaching  with it at best of Quilting at Marcoussis ( France) late in April.

And I have been walking again- one of my neighbours whom I met at the bus stop and who  is also an artist and sometime quilter and I go for a big long walk once a week ( although I walk other mornings as well)- this morning we walked along the foreshore where they were gearing up for the Festival of Sails- I love the textures of the ropes to tie up the boats.

Bayeaux Madonna

I have been working this week but  feel as if I have achieved very little. I have manage to catch up with a few people , I had barely seen since being back and I managed to do a few walks, I still haven't caught up with everything. We have also had some incredibly hot weather and have watched aghast at all the bushfires in Tasmania, in NSW  and  in Victoria, it is so early in the year and the fires are moving at such speed.

I belong to a small group called Voyageart and our brief last year was to make a piece every 2 months ( a total of 6 pieces) to do with the theme of where we are going, where we are. I finally managed to get myself up to date for 2012 and made a piece which in the end was a reflection of some of the things I encountered last year on my travels but also with a firm eye on the future.As some of you know I am very enamoured of the Madonna in the Bayeaux cathedral and I really do wonder at her provenance as I have since found out she may have been moved and so is probably form a different period than the cathedral. I guess some of my travel is a quest for madonnas- seeing how they gaze- whether it's the child or the world. I like the ones that look out into the world.So I have been toying how to incorporate her into a piece. So my last piece for the group evolved a little like a page in a journal.

So in the end I made a bit of a collage of different things. I worked with polyester non-woven onto a bright blue fabric and then used black and aqua thread. The coffee cup you will recognise from a linocut I made in 2012.

And I have been stitching on  my tangerine travellers' piece piece- progress is slow as it is all hand stitched , and whilst i do sit and sew there are  many other things to do during the day including  making work for my book and planning the book and just getting ideas down.It was starting to look a little boring with just the circles and I am much happier now the connecting lines are going in and then I have to think about the spaces in between.

 And I shall be starting a new on-line Travellers' Blanket class on February the 11 th. Email me if you are interested and I can send you more information and details of how to make payment. For those of  you who live in the Geelong area I shall be conducting a class from home- this involves a dyeing session and then  sit and stitch sessions. I have 2 places available for a class starting on this coming Tuesday at 7pm.

Coffee Pot Linocut

In  November last year whilst staying with my friend Christine at Soissy-sur-Seine we went to Chartres for the day to see the progress on  the renovation of the cathedral. Christine told me there was a very nice restaurant across from the cathedral and that she would shout me lunch there. It was indeed a very nice restaurant- the food was excellent as was the wine, but one of the nice things about the place was it's ambience.Some very nice panelling from wine crates adorned the wall- some wineries have such lovely logos.

The windows had large sills and each  sill had been decorated with porcelain and enamel ware coffee pots- they looked so inviting!

 I thought they would make a great linocut and did some preliminary drawing but got no further. I always feel that I can't draw thins kind of thing and put it off- and  as usual the first coffee pot looks blegh but once you start filling in with the other coffee pots and other detail it starts to assume another life- see the drawings below.

 Then comes the cutting- it took quite some time as the linocut as it measures  11 inches by 15 inches- and I did forget to reverse the image but decided not to worry about it.I was quite happy with the way it came out and can see all sorts of fun things I can do with stitching on this.

Thank you  so much to everyone who visited my Recent Works for Sale page and who purchased work from me. It's been a life saver I can assure you!

I have also created another new page  with highlights from the tour  I took to France in  April of 2012. I will be taking the same tour to France in 2013 hopefully. One of the highlights will be visiting Quilts en Beaujolais where I will also be  exhibiting my french inspired work. If you would like any information or the itinerary of this tour or the tour of Italy in May 2013 please do not hesitate to contact me.

A Plea

I know everyone is affected by the financial crisis and I have mentioned it before, but I wasn't expecting my father to be as ill as he was or to spend as much time as I did in  getting him better ( and to  have his partner looked after as well and spend time with her and taking her out for necessities etc) and then to spend as much time as I have done getting him and his partner settled into independent living. I did tell people I was a single mum and that  I worked full time- but everyone just seemed to turn a blind eye to this and just merrily ignored the fact  so that I have fallen way behind with my work and projected targets, because no one else was going to step up to the plate. This has meant that the book I am writing has been stalled ( you need  clear headspace to write and work things through in logical order) My business income has also been affected by the ridiculously high Australian dollar value as I earn some of my income teaching overseas and also generate some sales overseas.I am still actively looking for a job but as I have not been able to get an interview in 2 years , it seems like a hopeless task though I continue to try. I would move somewhere cheaper to live but my daughter goes into her final year of high school next month, and as she has her aims set high I want this year to have as little disruption as possible, and there isn't much housing that's cheaper available in Geelong in any case.

I also understand that some people don't enjoy reading about the "difficult" side of making a living from art, but as I can't find a job I have to continue down this route because there isn't any other way to earn a living.And I will be trying everything to  somehow turn things around! But the reality is  working in an arts practice isn't all sunny , a lot of it orients around finding product/goods/services that are saleable to sustain the bigger and more  individual work.

Anyway the long and the short of it is, I wasn't able to make as much small work to sell as I normally do- and that has meant a substantial reduction in sales I  might ordinarily have expected around Christmas time.
So my plea is this

1.  If you see any older work you might like to buy please contact me- I will be prepared to negotiate.I have added a new page here, or simply click on the tab with Most recent work at the top of the blog.
2. I will be starting another Travellers' Blanket on-line class on February the 11th. Email me if you are interested in joining the class and i can send you an information sheet.
3. I am writing a new course called Form and Variation ( for want of a better name), if you are interested please drop me an email and I will send you information when I have put it together.The results have always been interesting when I teach this course in real life.
4. I have 5 new Teapot and Rosewater jug pieces for sale. These pieces measure 8"x 8" ( 20cm x20cm) and are designed to fit into Ikea shadow box frames- they are hand printed polyester non-woven  and machine stitched.( Images below) The cost is $45AUS inclusive of postage.
5. Also I am thinking of running small workshops from home ( Geelong)- if you are interested in learning anything from me at all  and don't mind that I do not live in a castle please drop me an email and we  will work something out

SOLD

SOLD

Paris Homage to Dufy

Up way too early... worries I guess. I  painted the image I showed in my previous blog post and it all looked good .... except..... I forgot to reverse the image didn't I and yet  remembered to reverse the writing- elementary my dear, but darn it - what to do?? The Eiffel tower on the right bank simply does not look right.If I use a polyester non woven that is transparent enough the colour will go through to the back. I am used to working with the paper I use in my printer but for this large piece I used a paper tablecloth. The paper from my printer normally sticks to the polyester non-woven,in the heat transferring process- so that you can re-iron areas without movement. Not so with the table cloth paper- it moved all over the place.

and I ended up with a blurred unusable image ( i am also auditioning some fabrics behind the polyester non-woven)- very disappointing and a sign of my worries.Do I start all over again- it took  me quite some  time to draw and paint an image this large- is it good enough, will it work- all those self doubting moments turned into a flop.

It is also very very hot at the moment, and extreme fire danger and already there have been some quite devastating bushfires in Tasmania and other parts of Australia.

So some desultory stitching on what I am calling tangerine dupioni travelling blanket for the moment. It did start out as a yellowish dupioni, but once I washed the silk it turned into the most beautiful tangerine colour- a colour for the soul and the heat of summer.The design  for the moment just involves attaching black woollen circles but will have interconnecting lines between the circles and is actually inspired by a 1780's french fabric which  looks very modern and very much like an Australian indigenous design

 The image is from a book entitled Les  Arts decoratifs Francais by Stafford Cliff and published by Thames and Hudson. In particular  i was looking at the fabric sample second left. Anyway the reason I was looking at fabrics from this period was that a French explorer by the name of La Perouse landed at Botany Bay within weeks of Captain Arthur Phillip having claimed Australia for England in 1788. The Atlas book and engravings of La Perouse's entire journey can be seen  here, which was published posthumously as la Perouse disappeared with two ships somewhere  off the Solomon Islands in 1788.

However Antoine Bruny d’Entrecasteaux  went in search of La Perouse  and explored Tasmania which now has a peninsula named after him and took back to France many botanical samples which were almost lost 
due to the foment of the French Revolution, but for the interception of Sir Joseph Banks. Indeed sometime subsequent Napoleon built Josephine a garden which included many banksia's  as there was a great interest in Australian flora and fauna.

So how is this connected to tangerine  travellers blanket you might ask and why am I babbling about France and french discoveries and french gardens? There is a connection- it will form part of my France book- establishing connections, because the textile motif is all about connections, and then the fact that we could almost have been french, and well the  fabric looks  as if it could have been designed by an indigenous Australian and yet wasn't- and then the fact that indigenous Australians had so many stories which were almost totally ignored by the early explorers and settlers. I suppose I could have just stuck with the design of the fabric as the inspiration, but La Perouse's story has always fascinated me and I  wanted to reflect his story by using a contemporaneous  textile design- and reflecting on his journey.

First Day of 2013

A very happy, creative and healthy 2013 to all my readers and followers- thank you for continuing to stop by
and indulging my babble.

I am actually glad to see 2013 as  the end of 2012 was not a time where I achieved much or got much work done as most of my time was consumed by my father and his partner. However they have now signed a lease on a independent living apartment closer to where I live, and hopefully their health will improve with daily catered for meals, because the other alternative is residential care.My fathers' health has stabilised though he still has pulmonary embolisms in his lungs and a tbt in his leg.

Lots of things to look forward to this next year!
Tours of France and Italy in April/May 2013
I will be doing two tours this year- one to France ( the same as the one we did last year though we will spend more time in Lyon) and a tour of northern Italy. If you are at all interested please email me and I will send you an itinerary.

The next few months need to be filled in making work for my exhibition at Quilt en Beaujolais in April where I will be showing work inspired by travels in France- not quite sure what title to give the exhibition , but there will be various aspects to the exhibition including a section that is a homage to favourite french artist.So my word for the year will be France-I will be exploring many aspects of France and the french experience and hopefully in the future will spend more time there ( if I ever sell my block of land- I really need it to sell, because it has become a lodestone, and I need to think of it as a pathway to a dream and selling it is part of that dream). So I spent today making a drawing about 1 metre square- the local Chinese restaurant graciously allowed me to take away a clean  paper tablecloth which was just the right size and I spent all of today making the preliminary drawing of a view of Paris inspired by several works done by Raoul Dufy. How could I  make an exhibition without including French icons? I don't think I have ever made a drawing this large and I have taken poetic license with some of the elements and other elements need to be improved upon. Now I have to paint it with transfer paints and see if I can't get it on to polyester non-woven( lutradur)

I also made a set of some of the work I completed in 2012 with Flickr- i was surprised that I did so much hand stitching.As I look back on last year I did manage to complete quite a lot of work, I made a number of new and quite large linocuts, and I did do a tour of France which was a lot of fun.

I am working on a new on-line course called Form and Variation, to help extend your design skills and to take a new look at  objects and subject matter and look at ways to  abstract and play around with details and variations. If you are interested please email me to register your interest. I will also conduct another Travellers Blanket on-line workshop starting on 11 February 2013 when hopefully all the holiday madness has died down a little.Again contact me if you are interested the cost is $60AUS.

At the Beginning of the Day

I want to wish all of my readers the very merriest of Christmasses, if that is what you celebrate and a very Happy and Creative 2013. My intention is to do more work in 2013 and to finish my France book by the middle of April.I also need to find a studio space outside my home as the interruptions to my working days are becoming  so disruptive that I am barely getting anything done.The world only pays lip service to the fact that you work when you work from home. Ok onto my morning pages and then get ready for the day!

Inspired by Dufy

Finally feel like I can start creating again. I know you have to take the steps and  do the work, but working from home and getting so many interruptions does not make this easy at all. I would really love a studio away from home. Before I went overseas I played around with quite a lot of ideas for breakdown printing, trying out various things, and it struck me that that may be a very good way to try and create a piece in the style of Raoul Dufy- who is a favourite artists of mine.I had a postcard of La Vie en Rose by Raoul Dufy( i know it also has another name) and thought I would try and create a screen with some of the elements from the painting.My drawing on the screen was pretty rough and I wished I had paid a bit more attention, but I decided to quilt it today because there is no point painting a better screen if I don't like the effect.
So below is a photo of the breakdown printed fabric.

I know why I did not do anything  with it before I went away because I was a bit disappointed with the colour and the lack of focus in the bouquet of roses and I didn't like the table legs at all and well it wasn't  what I had envisaged. But  a couple of months distance and the need to get going again on something and feel enthused and the fact that  I had not set out to make an exact copy of the painting , but to be inspired by it and the colours.....so..... this is what I ended up with.

If anyone is interested it is for sale for $130 AUS plus postage. It measures 15 inches by 23 inches  ( 38 cm x 59 cm). As you can see it is densely machine stitched.I think I shall try some more of this, as it is a real challenge to make those thread work for you. It was also fun to work outside my usual colour palette and deal with the challenge of pink. Whilst I am completely besotted by pink roses  I generally speaking do not  count it amongst my favourite colours- quite the opposite really.

Uncharacteristic

I have been working on a small ivory coloured  silk dupioni Travellers' Blanket sample. Because the colour choice is completely uncharacteristic for me, I decided to work small but  also within the format for a piece for the Voyageart group to which I belong. I had it in the back of my mind that I might make a big version of this for my France book but in the end whilst I do like the over all effect it is too out of character with all the other colourful work I do. I didn't actually like it at all until the last stitch went in and really is a bit emblematic of the way I feel at the moment, so it has been a catharthic process as well- taking distance and taking a deep breath before I plunge into the main game which is getting my France book done!I felt I could only do that when I had cleared the deck of tasks which needed doing, like my book keeping for my business, this little piece and some other things which had been outstanding. It measures 10 inches by 20 inches.

Lagging

The last week or so has also been consumed by my fathers' health issues , and his partners' and I am about to take a few steps back from all those issues because they do not put food on my table or buy school books for my daughter.I need to regather myself and concentrate on the main game which is to keep my business going in these challenging economic times, to seize opportunities and to develop  new workshops ( I am developing a workshop working with the material I worked with in Vicenza which you can see here) and I have become re-enthused with polyester non-woven fibres in using them in a much more painterly way.But I need to  write it down and do the work. Also I am already behind on my France book, and the last couple of weeks have impacted not only on the work I produce but on the head space to do the work and I need a quiet head space to write.

I did do some stitching by hand on more sentinelle panels one of which was a commission. I struggled with the hand stitching because all in all I felt emotionally exhausted  by everything that has happened these last weeks since being back. But on the other hand it has reinforced that I need to keep going with these girls, they contain so many elements of the things that I believe in that somehow they have helped me come to the decision I have come to.

The turquoise sentinelle is for sale for $150 AUS plus postage. They measure about 6-7 inches by 18 inches and are entirely hand stitched.

I did manage to get to see my mother this week and stayed a night with her as it usually takes  about 2.5 hours to get to her house. Her garden was in full bloom.The colours of the particular flowers I photographed seemed to  blend in with the sentinelles I have  recently stitched.

I am currently reading a biography about Judy Chicago and wonder whatever happened to the Birthing/stitching project and the women who worked on them- does anyone know?

Life and Things

I have had barely a moment to myself since being back due to my father being very ill. He had a bowel cancer op  about a week after I left  for Europe and seemed to be recovering well for the first few weeks but then things  started going down hill very rapidly.I went to see him the first full day back and wasn't too happy with what I saw and when I rang him early the next morning to check how he was ,he was dry retching on the phone- so rushed straight over there, took him to his doctor who immediately hospitalised him in the small country hospital where my fathers partner was also in respite and then they decided to do an emergency transfer to Geelong Hospital two days later. Things were definitely not looking good and matters are complicated by two  large arterial embolisms in his leg and behind his lung. His medical presentation is difficult  at the best of times and he has just turned 80, so taking into account all these factors I am not sure what the prognosis will be and the doctors are reluctant to say much, apart from telling me the actual physical things going on. He does seem to be improving, but on the other hand the embolisms are still there. Then there is my fathers partner- my father was her carer and she is high care and not able to look after herself- she has no close-by family so she is in respite, but she was in respite in another town about 50 km away so i moved her to Geelong where I can at least take her to the hospital to see dad- so all in all I have had little time to do anything else , but race around trying to organise things, seeing dad and getting  life after hospital organised because it is quite apparent they will not be able to return to the farm where they were living. My youngest daughter was also doing exams, and whilst she still has a year of high school to go it is important that she does well.

It a means I have not done much work, which impacts on my budget, and then I had a workshop for this week and one for next month, here in Geelong cancel as well.I am beginning to wonder whether  my workshops have any appeal at all?

Yesterday afternoon was the first time I had a moment to myself and printed an A3 thermofax my friend Margo from Teinture Textile had made for me when I visited her. I had made a drawing of all things french, from  my various encounters, and the drawing was a little inspired by toile de jouy. I printed it with thickened dye and did not have time to try printing ink.

The first print is done on calico and the  other print was about the fourth print on white cotton . I actually attached the thermofax screen to my breakdown printing screen as I did not have material to make a sturdy frame for the thermofax, so I was surprised it came out so well. This thermofax screen  was not quite perfect ( and Margo did make  me another, but I did not want to ruin it in case the dye did something to it)  which I will make a frame for.Anyway i quite liked the result and will play some more when I get some time.It will also go into my book Inspired by France.

Travellers' Blanket On-Line Class
There is still time to book into the On-line class to make your own memory inspired stitched piece. I call them blankets as a tongue in cheek to the  number of times people  have called my work, blankets at markets etc, and traveller because I often stitch on the pieces whilst I am travelling. The cost of the class is $60AUS and would be a terrific project for the holiday season as it is very transportable and you can stitch on it when you have a moment to spare or when the whim strikes.You can read more about the travellers Blanket in the December/January issue of Quilting Arts and another image can be seen here and here. Email me for an information sheet on the class.The class will commence on 3 December

Don't forget there are Sentinelle pieces for sale- although  the fourth in the image  in my previous post  is sold and will be watching the world from Whidbey Island. Or you can stitch your own sentinelle panel- as I sell the printed panels for $15AUS plus postage and I can print them onto any colour hand dyed fabric you like.( cats and owls are available too!)

One More Post Before I Leave Europe

I have had a very quiet week. Some little bug inside my brain said why don't you buy your aunt a nice diary and write 7 hand written  fun ideas for each week, to do as she recovers from this  horrible year for her- that means 365 ideas but not only that the diary ran from the end of October instead of November as most do so I had started with 7 ideas on  26 November thinking it was December, so it became 365 ideas plus 35- it's taken me quite some time!

I forgot to put the Sentinelle image on my last blog post when I said they were for sale. They are all for sale and it is also possible to buy the printed fabric and stitch them yourself.I hope one of them speaks to you!

 And some autumn colours from France- don't you love the laneway? My dream is to head that way but a lot of things will need to happen for that dream to come true.

And last but not least; my Blue Travellers' Blanket is on the cover of  Quilting Arts for December/January.So the three traveller inspired pieces are in various parts of the world and living up to their name.I am so surprised but thrilled that the blanket made the cover of a magazine. It's the first cover I have ever had for a magazine, apart from a small thumbnail on a British magazine.So that is an exciting end to the year!

I shall also be running another Travellers Blanket On-line Workshop over the summer ( southern hemisphere) and winter months ( northern hemisphere). Email me for details. I intend to start the course on 3 December 2012 to see you happily stitching over the holidays, and myself as well as I will start on my silk travellers blanket. The cost for the course is $60AUS.

Some travellers blankets started or made in the on-line course in the past...

Emmy Schoonbeek

Annette Sibson

Glensbirdonawire

Fiber Crush

Sally Dunn

Petra Kooij
Moggie and Me
Shirley Goodwin

Heading Home Soon

I have been staying in Hulst the small city where my aunt lives, but unfortunately my aunt has been in UZ Gent hospital. The good news is that the stoma she received when she was critically ill  in August has been removed, and now, it is wait and see as to how well the remainder of her small intestine will function, to see what kind of food supplement she will need in the future.All  small steps, but she is a fighter and has all kinds of plans for the future and looks remarkably well given the ordeal she has been through- and frankly after hearing from my cousin about the difficulties, it is a testament to my aunts' will to live that she is here at all.

I arrived here last week on Thursday- taught one day of workshops in Belgium, unfortunately the second day did not go ahead, and I had a workshop in France cancel as well- it seems to be the sign of the times and it is making it more and more difficult to  survive- I really don't know how the next year will pan out.

Last week I visited Barbizon, a town where artists lived or stayed at the inn from the 1830-1860's, and known for the Barbizon School of Painting. The inn was a drawcard for  artists, most of whom were poor, as the proprietor, a gentleman by the name of Ganne was known to accept paintings in lieu of payment for lodgings or food- and that drawing on the walls could see the delivery of another bottle of wine. It was also the beginning of the movement away from the French Academy with its highbrow and serious neo-classical subject matter, and that the likes of Millet and Corot, who eventually lived in Barbizon, glorified in wonderful landscapes which further down the line saw the development of  Impressionism and inspired such artist as Van Gogh and Cezanne ( who also visited the town). However it was these first artists who went to Barbizon that changed the face of painting. The town is still lovely but like so many places which poor and often starving artists have made famous it is now a pretty bourgeois place where artists can only dream of living given the house prices.

 The image above is from the "inn" where many of the artists stayed and where some of the drawings still adorn the plaster walls and where every cupboard surface has been covered with paintings. The inn has become a little museum well worth visiting and the letter in the left corner is one written by Millet.

How could I resist walking past this tray of beefsteak tomatoes in their blue casing- aren't they wonderful and textured and their colour so gorgeous with the blue- who knew vegetable farmers/packers had such an eye for colour?

 The hotel where Robert Louis Stevenson  wrote Forest Notes, is still a drawcard for visitors with it's collombage exterior walls.

And well... it's impossible to walk past a small crate of pomegranates bedded in straw- they saw me coming and it was so tempting to just buy one to draw it!

I head home on Sunday from Bruxelles- I did try and get home earlier but as I am on an award flight  there were no award seats available. Tomorrow I will teach a workshop in Amsterdam at the DIY Textile School on linocutting and printing and then I will come back to Hulst and visit my aunt who will hopefully be in the rehabilitation centre by then. My aunt has been so very kind to me over the years, allowing me to stay, and even store some of my things with her so i don't have to lug them back and forth.

And on another note I do have some works  for sale, and I need to sell things so I can pay bills- unfortunately my land lord would not take to kindly to me painting all over his walls, nor is he inclined to swap a bottle of wine for printed fabric or a small stitched piece ;-).

 There are some of the  Poppy series- A3 size, which measures 42 cm x 30 cm ( 16.5 inches by 11.7 inches) with its  variations. Each piece is for sale for $85 AUS which includes postage. There are  larger pieces which you can see here. The longer panesl vary in price from $130 - $160AUS depending on actual length. The large poppy piece on the hand dyed background which measures 90 cm wide and 105 cm long is $750 AUS.

I was also reunited with some of my hand stitched sentinelles when I was in France. I have collaged the panels, but each panel is for sale for $150AUS- they are entirely hand stitched/embroidered and measure 15/18 cm  by 45 cm long.

And last but not least a small post card piece that I stitched last week of the half face of a Roman young man...

And The Winner Is....

Sorry I fell of the blogging cart..... but life has a habit of intervening even when travelling, and then there are things to be seen. But firstly my friend Christine's cat chose the winner for my blog's 8th birthday and the winner is The Idaho Beauty- so please contact me with your address details and something will be coming your way in the not too distant future.

Then I spent some time drawing images for a thermofax for my  friend Margo and we also did some indigo dyeing, but it also managed to snow which was quite exciting as I don't often get to experience snow!

The tie dyed piece is mine and I was really happy with the depth of colour of the indigo. It will be stitched, without being razzled or dazzled without being  zapped or burnt or torn or anything, just stitched by hand in the time honoured old way.

And then I have been teaching and enjoying a visit to Chartres. The  restoration of the cathedral is really moving along at a cracking space and what had previously been a dim grey and dark space, full of impending doom and the overwhelming presence of the church instead turns out to be a splendid  wonderful light space- quite the opposite of what it was previously.You can imagine celebration in the restores space and only the nave has been restored so far,it's positively luminous.So shadows on the restored pillar and looking from the unrestored spaces of the cathedral into the newly restored areas.

There is still time to join the workshop at Kalmthout in Belgium ( near the Dutch border) this Friday - we are working on Form and Variation- looking at ways to develop themes in your work.