Exhibition has received fantastic feedback

The art textiles group I'm part of SAlt (South Australian living textiles) is finishing up its first exhibition in Melbourne today. The exhibition has been on in the Exhibition Building at the Carlton Gardens for the last 4 days.

We have had fantastic feedback from a whole range of people. It always hard for people to know what to expect in terms of the quality of an exhibition when they have been unable to view any of the work prior to the opening. All in all it has been a great 4 days and I can't thank the other 4 members of the group enough. Thanks Judi Bushby, Julie Haddrick, Suzanne Gummow and Francie Mewett.

Below are some photos of the exhibition as a whole. Closeup photos of some of the works will follow in the next post.

I''m the guest speaker at an upcoming exhibition

I've been invited by the 2012 Certificate IV students from Marden Senior College to open their upcoming art exhibition called 'Creative Fusion'. 

Below is the invite along with a little blurb about the exhibition. 

      Creative Fusion (Marden Senior College)

     Painting & Textile Art Works by Marden Senior College Graduates

      2 - 26 April 2013

Address: Phone: Fax:

558 Magill Rd, Magill (Corner Pepper St & Magill Rd) (08) 8364 6154 (08) 8332 3164

Email: Open Hours:

pepperstreet@burnside.sa.gov.au Tuesday to Saturday 12 noon - 5pm Find us on Facebook

Work going into Pepper Street Exhibition

I found out about a month ago that a piece of my textiles work has been accepted for an exhibition at Pepper Street Gallery (South Australia) titled 'backyard'. My work is based on the circular shapes found in my dad's backyard wood heap. The work is used as the header here on my blog and is also on my business card.

Southern Textiles Conference- Joy Harvey

Here is a sneak peak yet again at another Southern Textiles Conference tutor- Joy Harvey. Joy Harvey lives in South Australia and works in Reverse Applique. Her work is absolutely beautiful and she is a wonderful teacher who loves to share her passion with her students.

Below are some photos of her work.

Raw Edge Applique

Well this weeks Applique technique is Raw Edge. It is the last technique we are covering before having 2 weeks holidays.

Below is a sample of my raw edge applique.

Reverse Applique

The applique unit for this week is Reverse Applique. Below are some samples of my work.

The background for this piece above is made up of lots of little pieces of different fabric.

This piece is about 1m by 50cm, it is the view looking up into a tree.

This was a test for reverse applique using very heavily patterned fabrics. 

It is 6 layers of fabric.

Another example above of reverse machine applique, it has 3 layers.

The final sample you see above is hand turned reverse applique.

Satin Stitch Applique

This weeks applique technique is Satin Stitch. Below is a sample of machine satin stitch applique.

I used to do a lot of satin stitch applique as a child, it certainly isn't my favourite technique anymore.

Outline stitch applique

Well this weeks applique class was learning about outline stitch. Traditionally it is meant to be Broderie Perse which uses motives that are stitched onto a background. My example is a very contemporary take on the idea.

Another sample of hand turned applique

Here is my other sample of hand turned applique I just found. This was my first ever sample and therefore it certainly is not the best ever piece.

Applique Unit- Teaching starts tomorrow

Well tomorrow is the start of the Applique unit for my Certificate 3 class. We start with a general introduction to applique, where I show them lots of photos and real examples as well. My plan is to complete a new sample of work for each of the techniques as we go.

We are studying
                                Needle/Hand turn
                                Outline stitch
                                Naive
                                Satin stitch
                                Reverse
                                Raw edge
                                Sheers

Tomorrow we are starting with Needle turn or Hand turn. Some people seem to call it different things. My definition it is simply applying shapes to a base piece of fabric using invisible stitches. I use freezer paper when I do my hand turned work, I find it so much easier.

Below is an example of some past pieces of my hand turned work.

This piece above is actually stretched around a canvas frame.

This piece above is all hand turned and I've then used obvious stitching to highlight the design.

Another example of hand turned work using stitching as decoration.

The picture above is hand turned on both the bird and the border and then has decorative stitching.

Oh by the way, all my work in the applique samples revolve around a 'bird' theme.

My published work

Well after my work being accepted some time ago for a Fibre Design book it is now on the TAFTA website. If you click on the link below my work comes on the first 2 pages- Sarah Smith.

http://www.tafta.org.au/design_book/Surface%20Design/Surface%20Design%20FINAL_edited_resized.pdf

I also have my own flickr site with some of my work on it. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/barefeetsarah/sets/

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.