6 degrees Exhibition

After months of preparation, its time to invite you all to my latest group exhibition '6 degrees'.  Its on at the White Canvas Gallery, opening 15 October at 6.30pm.  Kate, Mela, Natasha, Ann and myself are 5 artists who are connected by our mentor, Jena.
The title for the show '6 degrees’ refers to the idea that everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on earth: so that a chain or “a friend of a friend” statement can be made to connect any two people in six steps or fewer.  Our connection is Jena.
The exhibition will have a variety of different media from painting, photographic works, contemporary embroidery, as well as my sculptural pieces of felt and weaving.
Join us for a great night and some fabulous art work thats a bit out of the ordinary!

White Canvas Gallery
26 Church Street, Fortitude Valley
Friday 15 October - Tuesday 17 October
Open daily 10 - 4

Heaven !

I've just spent the past 4 days in Maryborough and Hervey Bay, exploring all the charity 'op shops' that Mum and I could find.  I think the total was around 12 (with one in Gympie on the way home) !  Thank goodness for the GPS navigator which enabled us to hop quickly from one to the next.  Shops in country towns don't have long opening hours, especially on the weekends.  The best finds of the trip were a 1955 Womens Weekly and an astrology kit complete with some cute kitch tarot cards.  I can already feel the potential of these goodies!

Explorations

In the past week I have been exploring new creative ideas.  I've been looking at Alisa Golden's very informative texts, playing with inks, folding, cutting, and scoring.  I haven't done a lot of painting for over 12 months but I felt very free and relaxed as I washed and brushed the inks over the paper.  What a lovely feeling!  The ink colours are pure bliss and beautifully transparent so they create deep layers of colour and movement.
Also this week I joined fellow Impress Printmakers members at the Queensland State Library for a viewing of artist books from their extensive collection.  My favourite book was "River, plants, birds" by Peta Lloyd. Layers and layers of monotypes, sewing, stencils, text - wonderful!
This was followed by a visit to the Queensland Museum to see an exhibition of Tasmanian Aboriginal Baskets, 'Tayenebe'.  I particularly admired the kelp water carriers, and already I have some thoughts on how I could incorporate this into my work.
Such an inspiring day!  No wonder I bought armfuls of 'stuff with potential' from Reverse Garbage on the way home!

Woven Accordion Book  - a sampler I created this week

Another happy group of monoprinters.......!

Today I held another of my Magical Monotype Workshops, this time for a group of 8 enthusiastic printers.
It was a energetic and productive day, with heaps of  'WOW' prints but as usual a few challenging, thought-provoking ones! 
Thanks to all that came and allowed me to share my enthusiasm for monotypes.  And I always appreciate the feedback - this time I had made a few improvements based on my last workshop, including allowing more space for 'inking up'.
And the day is always a pleasure with the help of my Mum, Jan, who is turning out to be my very valuable assistant on the press.  She even created a couple of her own prints today!

Above - A few of the beautiful prints hanging up to dry
Below - The monoprinters after a hard day's work!

'Masterchef' Fibre Cookup

This week I fired up my new electric cooker to prepare some fibre for papermaking.  It worked a treat - I cooked banana stem and leaves, corn husks, and onion skins.  The new cooker is certainly easier and safer than using a pot and Craig's gas camping stove (which unfortunately will never be the same again after the boiling-over incident - sorry Craig). 
The smell of cooking fibre is rather unique.......there's a good reason I do this cookup outdoors! 
It took a couple of days to complete the entire process - preparing and soaking the fibre, cooking, rinsing, sorting, bagging up and finally storing in the freezer ready for my next papermaking session. 
Below are some photos of the 'cookup' in progress.  Thanks to all those friends and family that donated their onion skins over the past few months - a worthy cause!

1. The cooker with the fibre in bags.
2. Rinsing the fibre in my outdoor sink.
3. Close up of the cooked banana fibre - YUM!

Altered Book Project

One of the many things I'm working on at the moment is an Altered Book project, with a group of like-minded paper lovers.  This is the first time I've tried altered books.  I get to work on someone's book for a month, usually with a set theme.

This month I've been working on Jenni's book.  She has no theme, so its totally up to me what I do with the pages of her Sherlock Holmes detective story book.  I decided on a retro theme using vintage sewing patterns, see the image below.  I was inspired by a recent project led by Jenni making baskets from paper patterns.  I hope Jenni enjoys my "Sherlock Holmes Fashion Investigation" and my weird sense of humour....

Also pictured are some retro pattern magazines I picked up for 50cents at an Opportunity Shop this morning, I can't wait to start chopping them up for book pages and other fantastic paper projects.

Books, books, books

Lately I've been revisiting some book sewing styles that I learnt with Adele at The Studio West End.  The book in this photo is 'my version' of the celtic weave - I'm not sure if its textbook perfect but it looks great all the same.  The texts by Keith Smith were very helpful to guide me through the stitches.

Homage to the Seed

I've been asked by Sophie Munns, 2010 Artist-in-Residence at Mt Coot-tha Brisbane Botanic Gardens to join with other bloggers to create a postcard artwork for her open studio week from 12 July.

My postcard features a monotype I printed during my art residency at Coochiemudlo Island in April.  The monotype was inspired by the morning kajak trips that Cathy and I made through the mangrove forests surrounding Coochie.  Often we would see the mangrove seed pods floating by, which made me speculate about the journeys these pods make on the tidal currents within Moreton Bay.  Within the monotype there are mangrove seedings, the moon influencing the tides and ocean currents, and floating lines representing the journey of the seed pods.

Magical Monotypes Workshop - a creative success!

Yesterday I led an enthusiastic group of artists into the wonderful world of printmaking - together with my press 'Thumper' we created monotypes using plants, stencils, lace and lots of ink!

I was overwhelmed by the number of beautiful images they created - the hall was covered from top to bottom with their prints.  My 2 drying racks just couldn't cope with the creative outpouring!

And thanks to my wonderful assistant, Jan (my mum!) the day went smoothly with lots of 'ooooohhhs' and 'aaaahhhs' over delicious colourful prints.   And those prints that didn't quite work will be excellent starting points for embellishment with stamps, text and drawing.

Thanks to everyone for a great day!

Creativity and Routine

In the past few weeks since my Japan trip I have been contemplating creativity and the work-art balance. 

All of my life my brain has been working hard at being logical doing office work.  But now I am trying to 're-train' it to focus more on my creativity and the conceptual.  Not easy!

I am working on a new art routine.  Just like my routine of getting up in the morning (shower, breakfast, feed chickens), my art needs to become a state of consciousness, a flow state that seems more normal and everyday rather than something I'm constantly trying to get my head around.

I am beginning by splitting my art practice into 2 parts - processes/techniques and concepts/ideas. 

Processes and techniques are fed by my 'logical' brain and are strong and well-developed.  I enjoy 'doing'. 

However, I need to spend more time on my concepts and ideas.  I find this 'thinking' part of my practice the hardest to concentrate on.  I need to slow down and spend time thinking about where I am going with my art, what I am trying to say, and get some depth into the 'why' of my art practice.

Wish me luck!