theWORK

 

With the dust of the residency beginning to settle and the works in a place of pride in the MARS gallery of theGRID, life is returning to normal. I have time to reflect, and post a behind-the-scenes montage of the making of Humine Spongiform II - Advancement.

 

Is montage even the right word for it? Anyway, here we go; 

 

First, we start with the raw materials:

 

Woollen...tubing?

I spent months on these in the lead up to my residency. They take between 7 - 25 minutes each to make. You'd think with the time spent on making these individual items, I would have a name for them now, but no.

First class potato bag. I only work with the finest materials.

Fact: When you take the seams out of a hessian potato sack, you have the start of a long, narrow rug. A hallway runner perhaps?

When you sew a series of long, narrow strips of hessian together, you have the start of a long, wide rug. Usually, for less than $5.

Crocheting or blanket stitch around the edges increases strength of work in travelling and storage.

Hard to believe, but this has been through a washing machine at least once.

Then, you begin the painstaking process of sewing each individual piece onto the work. Try to remember to take photos of the work at regular intervals, or it may look strange in retrospective posts.

You sew....

 

and sew...

Some nights, gnomes take a break from cobbling shoes and do several feet of rug for you...

Then you take some happy snaps....

 

And keep sewing.

 

Stitch stitch stitch.

Note to future GRID residents: bring suncream for the back of your neck.

 

Not much to go now!

In almost no time at all, this work is nearly done (lie).

The last of the woollen tubing on the left.

 I didn't want any leftover pieces, so it was (mostly) good when I ran out early. From then on, I custom made the pieces. This took much longer than I would have liked.

 

 

Now, for the heart-stopping moment of happiness;

 

Last. Piece.

 Question for all artists, textile and non-textile craftspeople: In the final moments of creation, when that last small detail is falling into place, what is your emotion? Also, how do you feel, physically?

 

Complete.

Ecstatic, nauseated, proud, protective: this is how I feel when I finish a large-scale work. On a small scale work, I also feel these emotions. But on a smaller scale. 

 

Complete.

This work is currently being exhibited at the MARS gallery in theGRID space in 488 Ruthven St, Toowoomba City. After that...?

Please continue to watch this space. And thank you for watching it previously.

First rugging workshop

....went well. Nine people learned a new skill, and I have some more information about running a workshop that will ensure things go more smoothly next time (float!). Bought a receipt book and worked out how to use that too.

Especially not looking at the camera here...

The last time I was in a classroom situation it was with...two dozen year tens. It felt wierd to shift gears up a couple of decades, and initially I felt wary of having my back turned on anyone in case they were throwing glue sticks at the ceiling, feeling each other up or texting.

It just wasn't the right crowd for that!

Everybody got into it, hooray!



And as an added bonus, I learned how to french knit from Leanne. Haven't quite worked out the point of creating any length of such a small, uniform tube (anatomy textiles?) but when I think of a good one, you'll know about it.





Leanne running me through the casting on process.

Exhibition at Atelier gallery

So, I have works at the Atelier Unique Fine Art gallery. There's an open day on this Sunday from 12pm-2pm and I would love to see people there, to talk about textiles and what not. There's so much on this weekend! I will be swinging by there in between the Have a Go festival at the Cobb n' Co and the Twee as Folk festival in Newtown Park... oh my goodness, busy days.

I will of course bring along the obligatory needle, ball of wool and tiny scissors. Here's a sneak peek of what's going on at Atelier Unique Fine Art:

Currently, there's a few of the works in several pieces. This will be amended for Sunday. Looking fowards to this year's first exhibition and the first exhibition of Fairy-ring 3; Emergence.

Begin anew.

I never got around to the why of all those mushrooms. Those were used in a frantic fortnight of late, late nights and the hysteria you develop after days of reduced sleep. Looking back, I am glad I have photos as it's all a blur of stitch, stitch, stitch, with brief intermissions when Micheal, the owner, wandered past, or when someone noticed the work and came up to the table to play with my stuff. Honestly, these were like rays of sunshine from behind clouds. Creating my work is not all doom and gloom, but it's certainly drudge and trudge, and the light in the tunnel gets faint.
 I appreciate the intermissions.

Beginning of the Creative Tanks project.

My pincushion.

Attaching the mushrooms.

The whole mushroom plan, attached and ready to sew.

That was the first day. At the end of that day, my camera broke, and the next 3 days of the Creative Tanks pop-up exhibit were unrecorded by me, although there are a few images floating around by Nerida Tupas, the mind behind OldFangled Beauties. The work has been completed, and I shall post more of it soon.

Crows Nest

I went up to Crows Nest Art Gallery yesterday and installed 4 of my works for their latest exhibition, Something Only We Know. Some of these works are a bit older, and I was astounded by where my head was then, and how connected these works are to periods in my life. 

I don't think I have mentioned these works at all so far, but this is some of the soft sculptural work I just love to do:

A collection of cups and bottles, 2009



A collection of cups and bottles, 2009



Background: works by Chelsie Luck

Family, 2009-2010

Family, 2009-2010

Family, 2009-2010

Fairy-ring 1, 2010-2011

Fairy-ring 1, 2010-2011

Fairy-ring 1, 2010-2011

Fairy-ring 2, 2011

A moment of install, in the background, works by Ester de Boer

 

The works of Ester de Boer

And a little bit more Chelsie Luck

The ladder was in front of Danish Quapoor's works, so, here's Danish with some of mine. What's he so mad about?



Fairy-ring 2, done and dusted.

So, it took approximately one month, and I have pretty much finished Fairy-ring 2. I say 'pretty much'  as there is about another hour of polishing (clipping the loops to make the pile) needed, and I have yet to sew a wee label on the back. I added about another single and double sheets' worth of material to complete it, and fortunately I still have enough left over to begin Fairy-ring 3; Emergence (working title). Stay tuned for those developments. I can promise armatures, more crochet and an interesting tangent.

Fly Agaric Mushroom Experiments



Side-view of Fairy-ring 2



After the Blockwork exhibition I had time to think about where to go next, and I am not done exploring the comically otherworldly crocheted fairy rings. After a few days hunched over the hooks I had a couple of dozen new mushrooms to try out the new plan, and here it is: 




Fairy-ring 2 (beginning) 

 



The start of Fairy-ring 2. The mushrooms are numerous, larger and denser packed. Hopefully this will mean that they are not as 'lost' in the rug as I found the mushrooms in Fairy-ring 1 (2009-2010) to be. Inversely, with the new mushroom design I hope that I can still retain the complexity of the 'grass' patterns that I have in Fairy-ring 1. 



The start of rug, and materials (that pile of green strips).







Fairy-ring 1 (complete) and Fairy-ring 2.









It is also half the size of Fairy-ring 1, so I can work a bit quicker and have more time for some experiments in rugging. I will post new developments as they arise, but it won't get made with me just sitting here, blogging about it.