Hope For Women in Unexpected Places

Hope for Women in Unexpected Places is an exhibition  by TEAR Australia, it is a photo exhibition, but I was asked to create a piece for this show - that isn't a photo.

I was very excited to support TEAR as they do fabulous work both here and overseas with those who are the poorest in our world.

I was asked to create something that honoured women and the work they do. I chose to focus on water as this is an essential of life and sometimes one that poses difficulty.
While I was in Nepal I  noticed that the women collected water in large metal containers and then often carried them in a large basket they carried slung from their heads. Washing is also often done in public, communally, at the water taps or down near the river. This also involves carting the garments in the basket.
Washing in Nepal is a colourful palette flying in the breeze and the dhaka fabrics, traditional to the area I visited, are particularly beautiful.

I chose to combine these images and fabric along with a map of Nepal to create my piece for the exhibition.
Washing in Nepal is the result. It depicts the water vessel, the woman carrying the basket of clothes and the washing blowing in the breeze above the stepped rice fields of Nepal.

 detail of dhaka fabric and map of Nepal used in the piece.

Washing in Nepal

detail of the water container image

If you would like to see this piece and the rest of the exhibition you can find it at 

Chapel on Station Gallery 

cnr Station st  & Ellingworth Pde, Box Hill, Victoria

from February 20 - March 4 

Tues - friday 11.30- 3 

Saturday 1-4pm

Sunday 4.30 -7pm

There is an event on Friday 27 February with speaker Hailey Bartholomew of 365 Grateful 

and music from 2 members of The Tealeaves

hope to see you there, tickets are available here 

Frantic finishing time

Time has just whizzed on by and suddenly it is the end of March and my exhibition now has a name and nearly all the pieces done.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost  will open on May 8 at Quadrant gallery in hawthorn - more details will come when the invites are published.
In the meantime I have a lot of work to be done - some of it boring but also a couple more pieces to come into being.
I still need to beaver away in the studio for a few weeks.

Living Quarter

Tread softly

I did, however, manage to fit in a little side job, creating an adornment for an opera singer. Jude will wear my creation over her gown while singing at the Horticulture Media Awards in Melbourne on Tuesday at the Plaza Ballroom. Hand dyed silk and wool. The cord is felted wool and the leaves and flowers are silk, machine and hand stitched.

  

Dyeing... again and watermarks in silk and stitch

In preparation for the next few pieces of work I have dyed stacks of silk ( love my scrap silk supplies).

 silk drying on the grapevine clothes line

I've printed  some of my photos from Croatia and now am experimenting with how to make watery marks with the silk. 

watery marks using layer organza and cut back technique

Black and White

Black and white is not even normally in my spectrum, I am a colour girl!!

So for me to accept the challenge of working in black and white is progress of sorts.

The reason for this madness??? well, travelling to Switzerland in early spring is the motivation. There was still heaps of snow and the magnificence of those snowy alps just drew me in.

I have been working steadily on various experiments in order to depict the beauty and awe I felt when in the alps.

I will give you a peep at the experiments. These involve wood engravings on slices of fruit tree wood, printed in white on a black background.

printed on paper

wood engraving, printed on black silk 

                                                   lines in the snow

                                           
                                                        paintings for idea making

                                                    birds, painted and stitched on silk

                                                 snow covered village from above, painted and stitched on silk

Printing Fun

Final day of workshop fun in Roxby Downs. Image making exercises followed by print block cutting then a frenzy of printing began.
Participants produced heaps of fantastic prints on fabric and paper. The closer it came to the end of the day the faster some worked!

Well ,what a fabulous time I have had here, great hospitality provided by Rachel and her family, good laughs, great chats, amazing landscape, great community. 

Farewell Roxby- hopefully be back one day soonish!

Children's Workshops

What a great day we all had today with 2 different groups of children colouring fabric and creating print blocks.
Fabric was dyed beautiful colours and calico bags transformed with pastel rubbings and over painted with fabric paint.

Print blocks from soft cut, compressed sponge rubber and polystyrene were created, with some being printed on paper today. 

It was a mere 37 degrees C today with a north wind blowing, so naturally the fabric dried very quickly and I certainly didn't need a jumper!