together we go

The SAQA Auction has started. 

A collection of 12' x 12' quilts all made and donated by members from across the globe are available for purchase. My piece "Together We Go" has drawn inspiration from my interest in exploring our local area and sketching. Pop across to the SAQA website and enjoy the full collection of art quilts.

slide press, slide press our daily dance

An artistic response to the act of texting and the role it has played for two people who work odd shifts. Our screens the dance floor and our thumbs make the moves. Slide press, slide press, back and forth our daily dance igniting a kaleidoscope of feelings and memories.

My piece "Best Friend" is currently exhibiting at Gallery 159 as part of the SOTA14 (State of the Art Quilt). A collaborative exhibition featuring 20 artworks from members of 2QAQ.

Exhibition Details

 SOTA14 - "Showcase Unlimited"

at Gallery 159

159 Payne Road, The Gap QLD Australia

5th, 6th, 12th & 13th April 2014

open 11am - 4pm on the above dates

inspirations behind my SAQA Auction donation

The journey for my SAQA auction piece "Enlighten" started with the above picture of a lantern. I had printed it onto black fabric. The black fabric had been firstly prepared with InkAid and printed using our inkjet printer. 

For sometime I've been gathering together a collection of images all loosely based around the idea of light / heat and the auction piece was the perfect opportunity to bring a few of these together.

 The above are just a few of the images I've taken and collected

Inspiration also came from the pages of an electrical textbook that my Dad used to complete his apprenticeship. I wouldn't like to wire a building with my creative interpretation of these important symbols but the shape & simplicity of the symbols was too inspiring not to incorporate.

Again using our inkjet printer I've printed several of the images onto cotton fabric and silk organza. Prior to printing, the fabrics had been prepared with either Bubblejet Set or Inkaid. The next step of the process is one of my favourite - laying out, sometimes dissecting and re-arranging - collaging the pieces together to form a new image / story.

Once I decide on a layout I fuse the pieces into place (using either Misty Fuse or Steam a Seam Lite 2) With everything in place it's time for quilting and on this occasion I've free machine stitched a few more of those electrical symbols. 

 SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) has an Auction of art quilts every year and this year Oceania Members contributed 32 pieces to the auction collection. In the lead up to auction commencement a few of us are sharing our behind the scenes inspirations / process towards creating our piece and these are being presented in the Oceania Blog Hop Several members have already shared their inspirations and coming up next week is 28th July Brenda Gael Smith 30th July Ruth de Vos 1st August Ali George the full list of members sharing their inspirations is here

Enjoy:)

a few moments from "Sunday Drives"

Gathering together a few of the moments so far

Exhibition concludes this weekend, it's been so nice to see it all come together and many many thanks to my visitors and collectors. Exhibition continues until 4pm this coming Sunday 26th August 2012

at Gallery 159, 159 Payne road, The Gap, Brisbane

Gallery open Saturday & Sunday 11am - 4pm

State of the Art Quilt at Pine Rivers Art Gallery

The State of the Art Quilt 12 (SOTA12) collection is currently being exhibited at Pine Rivers Art Gallery 

The Gallery is open Monday to Saturday 10am-4pm

unit 7/199 Gympie Road, Strathpine QLD

Gallery admission is free

The SOTA 12 collection features art quilts by the following artist:

Elaine Campbell, Linda Robertus, Sue Dennis, Rosemary McCall, Ros Ward, Tricia Smout, Kathryn Iliff, Felicity Clarke, Lynne Williams, Helen Kidd, Kate Osko, Julie Tasker, Alison George and myself.

Also being exhibited at the gallery - The Australian Forum for Textile Arts (TAFTA) presents 

'Baltic Miniatures' - an international collection of miniature textiles. 

The gallery is also co-ordinating a series of artist talks and workshops throughout these exhibitions

For further information regarding the artist talks and workshop bookings contact the gallery directly

Pine Rivers Art Gallery

email: PineRivers.Gallery@moretonbay.qld.gov.au

on the studio wall

Currently on the design wall - I'm enjoying working on a piece inspired by our macadamia nut tree.

Photos printed onto fabric combined with hand dyed &, painted fabric, commercial fabrics and also created some rubbed fabric with Shiva Oil Sticks using the different textures and natural knots on the trunk & branches

Premiere Showing of the SOTA12 collection

Today was the launch of the premiere showing of the State of the Art Quit 2012 a juror-ed collection of art quilts by 14 artist - Elaine Campbell, Linda Robertus, Sue Dennis, Rosemary McCall, Ros Ward, Tricia Smout, Kathryn Iliff, Felicity Clarke, Lynne Williams, Helen Kidd, Kate Osko, Julie Tasker, Alison George and myself.

The exhibition is at Gallery 159, 159 Payne road, The Gap, Brisbane until Sunday 29th April 2012.
Gallery hours: Saturdays & Sundays 11am to 4pm
Entry is free

come along and enjoy the collection

going nutty

Currently working on a textile piece inspired by the Macadamia Nut Tree that's in our backyard. I had previously taken a few photos of the leaves and had them printed onto a length of fabric by Spoonflower. But I also wanted to do something with the nuts. I like the shape, layers and textures of the nuts, especially the interior of the fallen/forgotten nuts slowly decaying. Firstly I took photos and then created a couple of sketches. Through further adaptions and explorations of the sketches a symbol evolved which has been used to make up a stencil from freezer paper. Using 'Shiva Sticks' I stenciled the fabric (the same technique that I used when making up the fabric for my bag)  

As I work on the pieces I lay them into the basic layout, the layout alters several times throughout the process. Once I decide on the layout I then prepare it for stitching and quilting. 

mailart

Photos, paper, magazine, oil pastel & stitch

fabric, stitch & mixed media

fabric, stitch, paint, ink jet printed & mixed media

Enjoyed creating a couple more postcard size (4 x 6 inch) pieces.

meet the artists

I was so excited when both my entries were accepted into the State of the Art Quilt Juried Exhibition.

The collection also features pieces by artists: Ankie King, Jan McPike, Ros Ward, Margie Creek, Sue Dennis, Linda Robertus, Julie Tasker, Alison George, Felicity Clarke, Helen Kidd, Sue Duffy & Tricia Smout.

The collection has been on tour throughout the year and will be on display at

Gallery 159 opening at 330pm on Saturday 12th November 2011

the exhibition will continue at Gallery 159 until the 26th November 2011

open weekends 11am to 4pm and weekdays by appointment

Gallery 159 is located at 159 Payne Road, The Gap, QLD 

undercurrents underway

Grabbed a few hours in the studio this week and started to work on my pieces for an up-coming exhibition - "Undercurrents". Artists Tricia Smout, Flecity Clarke and myself are having a collaborative exhibition. The exhibition will be at the Arts Factory, South Brisbane 8th - 13th September 2011. Painted a few pieces of fabric mostly using the mono-printing method. Also sketched a couple of birds and flowers, scanned them into the computer, altered the sizes etc and then printed (using the inkjet printer) the images directly onto both plain and painted fabric. The pieces will now be collaged and then quilted.

Whispering

I'm in a couple of creative and quilt groups and one of them is Inner City Circle (ICC). One of the challenges we ran with last year was a project called "Chinese Whispers" We asked Judie Bellingham to choose a mystery object of her choice and then show it to the first person in each of the two teams. These two people then made an A3 sized quilt in response/inspired by the mystery object. The second person in each team then viewed the first persons creation (but no unveiling or viewing of the mystery object) for just a 2-3 minutes and went off and created a A3 sized quilt in response. The third person saw just the second persons creation and so forth through the members of each team. I was the 3rd person in the whisper chain of team A and the above is my response to the previous persons creation. We had our unveiling in February, it's truly amazing how we all see and remember detail differently and what inspires us as individuals. The mystery object was Frederick McCubbins painting "The Pioneer" 1904 The full collection will be on display at our quilt show which is in August.

Inspired by opposites

With the floods, work and stuff it certainly has been an eventful start to the year. My sewing machine has finally been brought down off the top of the cupboard, it had been placed there back in January as the flood water was a rising through the parkland into our yard. I enjoyed some time over the weekend in the studio working on a quilt top inspired by the sketchbook challenge - February theme - "Opposites" - a couple of weeks ago when out and about, the colors and textures of fallen leaves caught my eye and I grabbed a couple. I later sealed each side of the leaves with gel medium. My thought response to these fallen leaves was around "Opposites" or alternatively living and fallen.

Leaves have a certain beauty in both the living and fallen format, in fact fallen leaves draw crowds if you think about how people travel across the world to experience Autumn with all those beautiful reds, browns and golds in climates that have a greater change between seasons than I experience in the sub-tropics. Even in the sub-tropics our leaves experience change and beauty. I have quite a few images of leaves in my digital library and couple of these I've had printed onto fabric. The quilt top so far is a combination of digital images, acrylic painted fabric and quilting fabric. The top is currently in the audition stage, I will let it sit there a couple of days adjusting the lay-out and adding or removing fabrics, before piecing it all together in readiness to quilt.

writings on the wall #2

current work in progress

Following my return from the McGregor Art School, I've been playing/experimenting further with acrylic paints onto various textile types to see what effects I can achieve, how the handle of the fabric changes and what I can still sew through. 

During the process the above collage piece is evolving - acrylic paint, quilting fabric onto primed canvass.

After the creative barriers I worked through with creating my first piece from the saying the "The Writings on the Wall". I didn't think a second piece would evolve but I'm loving the process and certainly enjoying the journey.  Looking forward to finishing off the piece.

Writtings on the wall

Hooray, Hooray - finished as well.

This wall quilt was my response to the saying 'Writing's on the Wall'. I'm part of a creative group called 'Broad Strokes' and we set little challenges throughout the year. We've all had a turn at setting a challenge theme and this one was Kate's (a link to Kate's blog is in my blog list). When Kate first suggested the theme I really had no ideas bounce into my head and felt rather blocked and blank about the saying. But I also saw this as the perfect reason to tackle it.

I ended up doing a word play exercise and just writing down every word or group of words that was my response to the saying. I then went to the dictionary to look up the definitions of some of these words and in some instances that took me in another direction. Through this word play exercise I discovered that there use to be a religious belief/group called 'Positivism' in the early 1800's, seemed to disappear by the 1900's.

Anyway once I had all the words together I had play around with different ways of putting words onto fabric. I've used acrylic paint, sharpie pens and ink jet printing. I also scanned one of my pencil drawn portraits and played a little with it in the computer (both faces on the quilt are from the one drawn picture) and then printed them onto 'TAP' paper and ironed them onto fabric. I've also taken one of my photos of Alcartraz and used the kaleidoscope feature in the computer to alter it.

I really did end up enjoying this challenge and wouldn't mind exploring another saying. So if anyone has an idea for another saying please let me know or pop it in the comments section.

finishing off and new discoveries

My New York

This week has been a finishing off and new discoveries week. I finally finished sewing the bottom half of my rod pocket down on "My New York" wall quilt. The quilt currently has pride of place on my studio wall.

I also quilted another quilt that was inspired by the saying 'The writings on the wall'. I'm aiming to finish sewing the binding and rod pocket on this weekend and of course take a couple of photos.

 My new discovery for the week was while I was surfing the net as you do, I stumbled across a website called Redbubble which is a website for artists. Basically you create your own gallery shop of photos or scanned images and depending on the quality of the image (they have very good instructions to point you in the right direction) your creation is able to be applied to greeting cards, stretched canvass, prints, posters, t-shirts and calendars. Anyway I'm still learning as I go but I have managed to put together a little gallery (baby steps). I've really enjoyed browsing through some of the other artists galleries as well, so many talented people and lots of wonderful artistic eye candy to browse through.