Next wearable art competition

Right the next wearable art competition theme is 'Art Nouveau'. Apparently i inadvertently suggested it as a theme. It wasn't what i meant at all but oh well.

I've decided to make a corset and several other garments. the corset will have every panel with a different art nouveau artist on it. So far I have Klimt, Renni Mackintosh, Gaudi, tiffany lamp comany, Audrey Beardsley, alfonso mucha,. I haven't actually made the panels yet though, i'm just working out the designs for them.

Below are 2 panels i'm working on. the one on the left is a mosaic design based on antonio gaudi's work. On the right is simply a drawing based on an art nouveau art work which will be made
 into a panel.

My work accepted for publishing in a book

I was so excited to receive an email the other day saying that my work had been accepted for publication in an Australian textile fibre book. To my dismay, I read on to find out that the digital standard of the other work submitted was of very poor quality. As a result, the book will not be published.

I am disappointed, but not surprised by the fact that a lot of the images were low quality. Unfortunately I think this is somewhat to do with the age and lack of technological knowledge that a lot of our textiles artists lack. I don’t want to sound like some young little know it all brat, but I am constantly observing textiles artist’s/students in my work place and so feel I am in a position to comment on this matter. My observations often worry me in regards to the mostly middle age and older students we continually attract. We are always trying to find younger students at my school to do our textiles courses, but students under the age of 40 are in very small numbers.

I think we need to look at ways of encouraging younger students into the textiles area and also improving the technological skills of the older students. As a teacher I'm going to put some real thought into how we can go about achieving these goals. Any suggestions???

Here are the photos of my work that was accepted. 

This red piece was based on my fathers wood pile I remember from when I was a child. I used to love the way he would stack all the logs in perfect order. The piece has numerous hand dyed fabrics that were cut to shape and then free machine and bobbin stitched place. 

This piece is reverse applique based on how I love lying under trees looking up into the branches. 

South Australian Quilt Show and Art and Craft Fair 2010

I had a great day on Friday at the South Australian Quilt Show and Art and Craft Fair. I spent the day viewing the entries with my colleagues Cathy Boniciolli and Suzanne Gumow.


I entered the wearable art section with my 'loved gloves' dress, the theme was recycled. It nearly killed me making the dress with all the gloves. I found that I couldn't sew them with the sewing machine as the gloves stretched with the needle and were pulled under the bobbin of the machine. Therefore I had to hand stitch on every single glove as well as hand sew the patchwork bodice piece. I would still like to like to make a bolero to go with it but I can't see that happening anytime soon.

I got a second prize for my dress.

This was Cathy's entry in the quilt section.

This was Suzanne's entry in the quilt section.

My plan for this blog

I plan with this blog to try and post a minimum of once a fortnight. I have updated my flickr album so that you can see some of my artwork, and i'm currently in the process of adding more.

Here is a photo of one of my most recent pieces of work. The dress is made of used rubber gloves and was designed for a wearable art competition. All gloves are hand stitched onto a fabric base and the bodice patchwork is also hand pieced.

I'm a polygamist artist.....

Well I finally found the perfect word that describes my problem. POLYGAMY...

I currently have about 10 different art/textiles project on the go all at once. I wish I could say that this was a new thing for me and I was just trying it out.

No. I've been like this my whole life. Its not just my art either. I'll often cook dinner while writing an essay, doing the dishes, watching tv, doing the laundry and sewing a skirt. Drives my husband crazy. He asks why I can't just do one thing at once. I wish I knew...

I do finish some of the things I work on, its just that I start another 50 before I finish the last one.

various drawings

I was going through my map drawers yesterday looking for some paper and found these two drawings I did about 2 years ago. I had this fantastic drawing teacher at a place called Studio 11. She was really inspiring and really talented.

I'm a qualified art teacher but drawing has never been my forte. I find it quite stressful when trying to do high quality stuff. I've always had really high standards for myself and find it frustating when I'm not good at something. I can teach others how to draw because I studied it and know the principles etc. but I just don't do much myself. I did the drawing course to build up my confidence a bit. I had a scary lecturer when doing drawing at uni and he told me I was crap and used to rub my pictures out and tell me start again. I had him for painting as well. Hence I wasn't overly keen to stay in the painting or drawing class. 

I love my pastel drawing of the succulent it took me ages. I also like the pencil drawing of the older man. He was a life drawing model but we were studying faces only. I only had an hour to draw him but I'm glad I actually didn't finish all of his face, I like it better that way.