a visit to the botanical gardens, Mt Coot-tha

Enjoyed a visit to Tricia's Exhibition this afternoon. Tricia is the 2012 Artist-in-Residence at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Mt Cooth-tha. Tricia standing in front her "Flowers of Friendship" project. 

supplies were available for visitors to make wreaths a symbol of continuity and the cycle of life. 

A few of the wreaths on display in the trees near the main entrance.  

and then map in hand I enjoyed a stroll in the gardens in search of bundles. 

Throughout the residency Tricia is working collaboratively with several groups, friends & artists. 

And we the 'Broadstrokes' collaboratively with Tricia are doing a bundle project - Integrate / Disintegrate

Tricia's current exhibition continues until the 29th June 2012 at the Richard Randall Studio

Brisbane Botanical Gardens, Mt Coot-tha

visit Tricia's residency blog

a little bit of craft time decorating notebooks

Recently enjoyed a little bit of craft time. Decorated the fronts of a couple of notebooks using bits of fabric, braid, laces and ribbon from my stash. And then of course, enjoyed photographing them. 

zygocactus in flower

 Each season brings new enjoyments - we're currently enjoying the flowering Zygocactus. We started with a coral coloured Zygocactus, which I featured in my first blog posting - our collection now includes a purple variety (top picture) and a white variety (bottom image). We're not sure what the middle plant is - it's been one of the many surprises we've found as part of renovating our humble home and garden.

weekend retreat and fabric discharging

Last weekend was a long weekend for us and I escaped out to Boonah for a 3 day art & quilt retreat - how wonderful. I seized the opportunity to finish off a couple of projects and also to start working on a couple more pieces for my upcoming exhibition - Sunday Drives. My husband and I frequently head out to the Boonah area to explore the National Park areas out there, on one of our trips I had taken photos of Australian Grass Trees. Prior to retreat I had printed a few of these images onto fabric and wanted to explore further the idea of combining the images with black fabrics that have been discharged. So last weekend I had a wonderful time achieving different patterns on several pieces of black fabric by firstly scrunching, stitching, folding or clumping (or a combination of) and then popping these pieces into diluted bleach to discharge the color. The above are a couple of the discharged pieces.And these are a couple of the images I've captured on our day trips

First Solo Exhibtion - "Sunday Drives"

In 60 sleeps my first Solo Exhibition - "Sunday Drives"

will open at Gallery 159, 159 Payne Road, The Gap, Brisbane, Australia

It's hard to believe that it's about a year since I first had a couple of little thoughts - I wonder if I'm ready to take the next brave step in my artistic journey - wouldn't it be grand if I could have the exhibition for around the time of my birthday - an exhibition a milestone instead of a party for one of those milestone birthdays. After brainstorming a few ideas around what a body of work would feel and look like - I kept coming back to my growing collection of photos that I've captured on the many short escapes I enjoy around my home state and I also kept coming back to my underlying dream of one day becoming a textile artist and being comfortable saying that. So it only seemed fitting that my first Solo Exhibition should bring these two aspects together. So my first solo - "Sunday Drives" is the artisitc representation of two journeys joining - the journey of hobbyist to artist and the journey of drawing inspiration from my everyday surroundings: in particular the Australian landscape in my home state of Queensland.


Exhibition dates: Saturday 4th August to Sunday 26th August 2012

open weekends 11am - 4pm with the official opening on Sunday 5th August at 3.30pm
come along and be part of the journey