Seed Pods

The seed pods of the cape gooseberry
I collect seedpods from all over th eplace. These are from the capegoosberry which grows in my garden. Tha lantern like seed cases contain a small round fruit about the size of a marble which when ripe if golden yellow. They are family of the tomato. I love the delicate lace effects of these seed pods and can imagine these being made into big sculptural pieces.

From Dyebath to Turtle

From dyebath to pocket art
I have been abstaining from dyeing because I really must work on the lace I have been making. But I love to dye, and this morning I decided to dye some fabric, wash it , dry it, and it asked for turtles. And my sewing machine which has been playing up because it gets tired of lace as well( that's my excuse) was happy for the first time in days. I always think happy turtles. The back of the turtle has been printed with pearlescent textile ink with a lotus pod, and then freehand appliqued to the background. I dye with Procion MX dyes.

Otway!

Otway!
We live in the spectacular Otway region in south eastern Australia. We are surrounded by temperate(cool) rainforest that reaches down to the pristine southern ocean. I forget sometimes, that I live in such an area of great natural beauty, for I am often woken very early in the morning as the log trucks start rolling in their rush to denude it. I made this diptych as a commission for someone who lives on the ocean side of the ridge, and she wanted me to depict the sea, the rockpools which are such a delight in summer and the forest.Tree ferns are very prevalent here so no forest scene would be complete without them. I had forgotten about his work as I did it and then went overseas straight after and found the photos the other day . I wish now I had gotten better photos.I have dyed background fabric and printed with lotus pods and bracken. The treefern is made from silk and stitchng and has been appliqued.

Lace as Narrative

More
I have been working on making lace the last week or so and it is going very slowly. I am making 54 squares of "written" lace which reflects upon the physical differences of my Australian childhood as compared to my Dutch childhood.The squares will be set sampler style, with squares of something I have yet to design set in between all the lace squares. I have finished sewing the written squares for my Dutch piece and am now working on the Australian piece. it takes forever- each square takes about 35 minutes and is quite heavily stitched even though it does not look like it. This is also one of the instances where the camera sees more than the eye. When you look at these pieces with the naked eye, it takes a little time for the eye to see the writing- which is the effect I want, but the camera sees it instantly and that is depsite the fact that the romeo is still attached.

What i have been working on 

After the Rain

Old Fashioned
It rained all weekend, which is good for the garden and not so good for the humans. I spent the weekend working on my nanowrimo novel which I have entitled The Novel About Absolutely Nothing With Annotated Recipes- I anticipate that if I ever edit the novel, the recipes, which will include cooking ,dyeing, printing, and whatever requires a recipe, will make up the bulk of the book!As I wandered around my garden this morning all the pinks struck me. Normally I do not like pink as a colour to work with, but just about every flower in my garden is pink or red. This morning the droplets of rain sat like crystal treasures on the leaves and petals of the flowers, but I am ready for some warmer weather so I can work outside!

Bottle Brush- After the Rain 

Africa! Some of the Things I worked With

Drawing for Dawn on the Ridge Quilt
I thought I would share some of the photos I worked with and a drawing I made for the dawn on the Ridge quilt. The photos were taken in Samburu Game Park in Kenya. I still look at the photograph of the leopard and am awed by how graciously she allowed herself and her cubs to be photographed. The drawing was based on the photos- normally I do not make such detailed drawings, but I usually do keep a journal when I am preparing for an exhibition- where I write down ideas, quotes, colour thoughts and occasionally do drawings of shapes and inspirations.When I looked over this particular journal, which I had not done for some time, I was surprised by how much drawing I did in preparation for the exhibition- which was my first solo- I need to do this more for future ones- drawing I mean.

Samburu  

Grevy's Zebra 

More Asanta Sana Africa

Grevy's Zebra
These are the last three quilts from the exhibition. I thought I had another one, but cannot find it.
Grevy's Zebra was a stencil made from a photo that we took in Samburu- which is the only place where Grevy's Zebra occurs. Their stripes are much finer than other zebra's and this makes the animal seem much finer or petite, though they are the same size than other zebras. I hand painted the background and appliqued the trees and the stencilled zebra.

Deep in the Jungle... was a quilt about an experience that could only occur in Africa. We traveled through Africa with about 18 other people- of course half the crew did not like spicy food so our solution was to make spicy condiments like mango chutney. I had bought some chilies at a market a few days previously in Bujumburra, to make some chutney. As we traveled deep into the Zairean ( now Congo) jungle we encountered a Baptist choir on a ferry crossing on one of the anabranches of the Congo river. They sang for us as we crossed and I gave the choir master every single cassette tape I had. About ten miles further on we stopped in a village and were allowed to pitch our tents, and they had a fire place where I could make the chutney. As the evening progressed and I chopped chilies, choirs started turning up out of the jungle including the choir we had met- they were there for a choir competition! ( So this is what happens in the heart of Africa- forget Joseph Conrad or African Queen) At this point I realized how hot the chilies were and my hands started burning- I mean burning ( I had to keep them in wet cloths for the next 2 days) and the choirs sang all night- they sounded so beautiful- it was an amazing experience. Anyway the chutney was duly put into one of those very large plastic gherkin jars and within a week had eaten through the bottom of it!

Goma is a quilt inspired by the landscape around Goma, which is very volcanic with an eruption some time in the 1970's. Goma was also the place where thousands of refugees were massacred in the terrible war that occurred in this region in the early 1990's. The hills had very steep hillsides and every piece of land was utilized for crops of one kind or another. The villages were perched on top of the hills. Unfortunately you cannot see the heavy machine embroidery I did on the cultivated fields. The "eye" fabric I had purchased at a market in Bujumburra.

Deep In the Jungle I heard the Voice of Angels Sing Whilst My Hands Burnt With Chillie 

Goma 

More Asanta sana Africa

Homage to Adinkra Cloth

I am sorry the photos are not as clear as they could be , but I have scanned them off slides. Homage to Adinkra is made in response to the indigo dyed adinkra cloths we encountered at Kano market in Nigeria. These cloths are stamped or painted with resists and then dyed in the indigo. They are wonderful records of stories, as they vary between maker and maker, though some universal symbols are used. Adinkra stamps are made from gourds and stencils are often made from scrap tin .
Masks, was a response to the faces that appear in the hand dyed fabric I make. Collin drew many masks as we traveled and I took one of his drawings of a mask and machine embroidered it. I set the mask blocks with variations of log cabin, as log cabin construction was used by the ancient Egyptians in sewing together the very narrow linen strips they wove to make larger pieces. There is a wonderful mummified cat in the Louvre in Paris where you can clearly see the log cabin style piecing!

Masks 

Asanta Sana Africa!

Warrior Cloth inspired by the Griot
In 1996, with three children under the age of 5, I decided that I needed to have a solo exhibition in homage to Africa, which had done so much to alter my life and change my journey. I will post some more photos over the next few days but these two quilts are my favourites from that Exhibition. The Warrior cloth was inspired by the coat of the Griot in the postcard , which I have posted previously. The cloth was printed with a lino cut and then overlayed with an applique grid inspired by Nigerian pottery. The kente cloth in the borders is antique, and I attached shells and beads as well. Dawn on the Ridge at Samburu was a reflection on one of the many magical mornings we had. On this occasion at 5 am in the morning we were privileged to see a mother leopard and her two cubs descend from a rocky ridge and saunter by our clicking cameras in the Samburu National Park. In the next few days I will post a photo of the real leopard as well.The purple tie dye panel represents the "soul badges" that the bearers of kings had to wear to show that they were worthy of the task. The leopard is the symbol of kinship in many African cultures.

Dawn On The Ridge at Samburu 

Kookaburra Feathers

Kookaburra feathers
We have a resident pair of kookaburras, the largest of the kingfisher family. They have been here since we started living here nearly 8 years ago, and they delight us with their laughter and antics. One of them has gotten very brave and comes very close, and when Collin is digging in the garden he is to be found close by waiting for those tasty morsels of worms or grubs . We have established a very small home use vineyard and a favourite perch is the end posts of the vine trellises. We occasionally get lucky and they drop a feather. These are the feathers we have found over the years, and I have kept them, thinking that one day I will make a quilt inspired by them. Sometimes when I get phone calls people ask me what the noise in the background is- and it is usually the kookaburras or magpies or parrots. Apparently the laughter of the kookaburras was used for the jungle sounds in the early Tarzan movies!

Saturday Morning

small work this morning

This is a small piece I made this morning, to keep sewing. It is made with organza which is why it has that odd sheen and has been burnt and quilted. Burning or melting with a soldering iron gives nice irregular edges to the shapes you melt back. I did this through two layers of polyester organza so that it did not melt back evenly. More rain today!

In My Garden This Morning

In My Garden This Morning

Kids are home from school today so don't hold out much hope for sewing. Last night it poured with rain, and it does not feel like summer will start in about 4 weeks. I found a Willy Wagtail nest this morning , with both parents ferociously guarding it- they are such neat constructions! And the bottle brush have started flowering: we have red ones, yellow ones as in the picture, and green ones. Some of the artichokes are ready to eat and the one above will be my lunch I think! The Japanese maple has really enjoyed all the rain this year and seems ot have doubled in size.

Things That Keep Me Going

Small Silk Works

Like everyone I seem to hit periods where all ideas seem to dry up, and I can't even look at my sewing machine. This is the time when I go and do some dyeing outside to try and make things happen again. Colour cheers me up immeasurably, and it is one of the reasons I am not attracted to discharging, or the fading and bleaching of aging. These were small works I made in silk last year when I hit such a period. Both are hand stitched and you can see the stitching if you click on the images. The first one is called wadi- and the silk has been tie dyed and the river/wadi has been dyed and hand printed. The second piece , has also been tie dyed with threads couched on.

Chassy- An Unforgettable Experience

Journal Quilt Chassy Tower

In the year 2000 I did a studio residency at Chateau de Chassy, the residence of Frederique Tison. She kindly allowed me to work there and to take my family ( husband and three children for a 3 month period). I took an Exhibition of Australian quilts called Australian Bounty. Both experiences have been the start of a roller coast journey, which has had moments of wonder. Last European summer I went by Chassy to see Frederique and she was photographing friendship pieces , which had also been exhibited in 2000 for a book she is preparing of the friendship project( which drew many entries from around the world). She also photographed the quilts I had with me, and this Landscape quilt was one of them. Last year I created journal quilts for the Houston journal quilts project, and I focused the nine pieces I made on the experience of Chassy. The above quilt is actually the opposite tower to the one pictured with my quilt. The middle window was our kitchen window. Hard to believe as I sit in our weatherboard in Southern Victoria, that this has been a part of my life. I intend to work more with some of the ideas that I worked with in the journal project, once I have more time.

Landscape in front of Chassy Tower 

Picassiete- The Wonderful Creation of Raymond Isidore

We first encountered Picassiette in the summer of 2000 when I did a residency at Chateau de Chassy in France. We were visiting Chartres and of course intended to visit the Cathedral , but then an acquaintance told us to also visit Picassiette. She suggested we go see the Cathedral first and then Picassiette, which we did and we were delighted by this little visited treasure. Raymond Isidore was a grave digger in Chartres and his little house stands in the same road as the cemetery where he worked. He commenced his creation with the shards of china and pottery he found as he dug in the graveyard, and this eventually became his obsession. He lived in a small small house with his wife and her three sons. He decorated the entire outside of the house with the shards he found and created an entrancing potage of mosaic. He covered every surface including pots and sills, as the photos show, and then moved onto the inside of his house where he also covered every surface. As time went on he bought extra land to create small votive grottoes also covered in mosaic for he was also a deeply religious man and many of his mosaics recreated images of the Cathedral.Of course he became the butt of jokes and hence the name Picassiette, however after his death in 1964 the little house has been maintained as a museum. I went back earlier this year with a friend and her son and my littlest daughter Ynez- and we had a delightful hour or so being enchanted by Raymond Isidore's whimsical imagination.

Picassiette, Chartres,France

More Lace

I am over yesterday and gearing up for a kids halloween party tonight. I think I will be the wicked witch of Gellibrand.
Spent more time exploring lace yesterday. I have posted photos of my great aunts and uncles on my fathers side of the family ( oh and if you click on the photo a larger version comes up) and they like my great grandmother are dressed in the costume of the islands of southern Holland known as Zeeland. Their mutsen are rather more austere and this is likely to be due to the fact that they lived in a fairly tight hugeunot community in Walcheren. I like the fact that the men wore ornament as much as the women and I remember my grandfather had pierced ears because the men also wore ear rings. The young woman in the bottom right has a long lace cap- this indicates that she was unmarried. The mutsen told much of a woman's standing and place in the community and were a type of code in a sense. The drochel lace is from the eighteenth century which I purchased in Brugge ( the Venice of the North). I bought this lace ,as it was likely to have been worn by the women in my families- this particular piece was all I could afford but it is quite fine linen which is of course why Belgium was the centre of much lace making- the water in the rivers was conducive to the right sort of fermentation of the flax to produce fine linen.

great aunts and uncles 

Drochel lace from teh 18th century 

In my Garden This Morning

Yesterday was such a disheartening day that I walked around my garden this morning and tried to kick start or revive some spark of creativity. I hate the jousts with bureaucracy that bring me home deflated with the knowledge that we are too poor. And then I look around my garden and see the wonder of the weird and wonderful shapes of the native flowers in my garden. We planted a corridor for birds and planted many natives, and my favourites- banksias. The knobby seed pods are a constant source of facination and have inspired many artists and writers alike. There are children's books dealing with banksia men that focus on their monster like protrusions and their hairy pods. There are people who have made "elf"people into the hollows of the pods. I love the change of colour from the darkness of the interior of each individual seed pod to the lighter rings of the lips of the pod. Many banksias will only seed after fire, or as in this case where the seed pods do open the seeds will only germinate after fire. The seed pods and the banksia flower are on the tree at the same time. I love the delicacy of this particular flower as the stamens seemed topped by delicate pearls. And the waratah- is just big wah me- so in your face so wonderful.