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.

My artist statement

Here is a copy of my artist statement so that those of you who read my blog can get more of an insight into the type of work I produce.

Sarah Bell Smith is inspired by identity, relationships, personal experiences and her love of nature.

Sarah's work takes an artistic approach with the use of bold colours and graphic images. Each piece of work begins with extensive research, drawings and the creation of samples, which are all based on her own photographs. She works in this manner, as she wants people to feel a personal connection to her work.

Art and textiles are Sarah’s whole life; her practice as an artist is constantly evolving.

SAlt exhibition- My work on display

As posted earlier, my work will be on display in the Exhibition Buildings in the Carlton Gardens Melbourne from the 18-21st April 2013. 

Below is copy of the artist statements from each of the SAlt group members and our logo.

My artwork on display in Melbourne this week

After two years of working on artworks and not being able to show any of the work (very frustrating) it is finally time for the exhibition to open. I blogged several times over the last 2 years about the group called SAlt that I am part of. South Australian living textiles (SAlt). There are 5 of us in the group, Judi Bushby, Julie Haddrick, Francie Mewett and Suzanne Gummow.

Our exhibition is entitled 'The fabric trail... journeys of five textile artists'. The works all revolve around the themes of journeys. It has been a very challenging 2 years and some of the individual themes on the topic 'jounreys' have been quite challenging.

From the 18th - 21st April you can find my work at the Royal Exhibition Building in the Carlton Gardens in Melbourne.

After Melbourne the work will continue to travel around Australia for approximately the next 18 months. I'll let you know when and where it will be at various times.

Hope you all get to view the works as they travel around Australia.

Below is a closeup photo of one of my works from the individual theme 'journey within'. Each topic was open for each artist to individually interpret.

Eastern Silk store

I made a short stop today into a shop I really like. It is called Eastern Silk and they have a great range of all sorts of items. They sell Pashminas, gorgeous silk fabric by the roll, embroidered braids, bed spreads, jewellery, etc. I've posted their webpage image below along with a few photos from their store.

http://www.easternsilk.com.au/

Some of the gorgeous hand embroidered pillows they sell

Stunning braids covered in gorgeous pearls and crystal like beads.

Very funky leather ottoman

Just a few of the many rolls of silk for sale

Paper dresses

I absolutely adore the work of Elisabeth Lecour from London and thought I would share some of her work wit you all. She uses old maps to make the most gorgeous dresses. I have so many old maps I keep holding onto, just waiting for that perfect project one day.

This is the link  http://www.elisabethlecourt.com/works/les-robes-geographiques/

Gorgeous cuff links

I saw these cuff links last weekend when shopping with a friend. At first I thought they were bowls full of beads. Upon closer inspection I realised they were cufflinks. Two chinese knot balls joined with a piece of elastic. They were so gorgeous I couldn't help but photograph them, and also play with handfuls of them until the shop assistant told me off. There were ten bowls of all different colours, I'd only photographed four of the bowls before being asked to stop.

Photos of myself with my sewing machines

I needed to get some photos taken of myself and my sewing machines for some work that I have been doing. I got my husband to take these for me today.

The machine on the right is called 'Barry the Bernina' then there is 'Bettina the Bernina' in the middle and the overlocked is called 'Brian the Bernina'.

Barry used to be a high school sewing machine who had a very hard life. He then got a second chance when my mum bought him and had him for about 10 years. Barry then got passed down through the family to me. Barry and I have had a good relationship over the years, he can sew through anything and I don't think I could break him if I tried. He caught on fire once and had smoke pouring out the top of him. We simply pulled out the burnt bits, put him back together and he hasn't missed a beat since. He just goes a little bit slower, he is fairly old so this is understandable.

Bettina was purchased around the time of the 'great Barry fire'. No offence to Barry but I decided it was time to have a second machine and one that was a bit more modern. I generally swap between the two machines I"m working.

Brian is the latest addition to the family and is more of a 'get down to the hard work' kind of machine. He's a no mess kind of machine. Hard worker, but not much personality.

I love my machines, I can honestly say that Bernina are the best machines I have ever used. Being a teacher, schools often have different brands of machines. I come back to the Bernina every time as the most reliable, tough, hard wearing and easy to use machines. My school has 25 Bernina sewing machines and 3 Bernina overlockers. It suits me perfectly.

All five of my aunties have Bernina's and my Dad even has his own. He uses his for making truck tarps and silo covers.

I think you get the point by now as to what type of machines I like.

This is one of the better photos. I hate smiling for photos.

I thought I'd include this one to show how the whole family 

was trying to help out.

My work in an exhibition at Pepper Street Gallery

Below is a digital version of the invite for an exhibition called 'In your backyard'. I have a piece of work in this exhibition, the gallery details are on the invite.

How I work through an idea- Part 6

After pages and pages of planning I eventually make the final piece. Please note as I said earlier, I only show a portion of the pages here as the others still contain ideas I wish to explore further. I have only shown approximately 1/3 of the pages I actually completed.

Below is the finished work. I'm rather fond of this piece, you will notice it is the header on my blog and it also features on items such as my business card.

Please let me know if you have any questions regarding the process I have documented in these past few posts.

How I work through an idea- Part 5

When I have worked out the basics of my work (this was done through making test pieces), I then do some more in-depth planning into how the overall piece will come together. This includes working out how my piece will be mounted/displayed. I experiment with display ideas such as stretching on canvas, traditional quilt backing, traditional picture framing, etc.

The mounting/display of a work is extremely important. It can make a work successful or an utter failure. I make my pieces so that they are not tied down to one type of mounting/display, this way I can change my mind as I go.

Below are two sketchbook pages showing ideas for mounting/displaying my work.

Thinking about mounting/display options

Final work almost organised.

Storage of ideas

I constantly have a collection of random items that give me ideas for artworks. A lot of them are 2-dimensional objects and so they can be stored together. Initially I would keep magazine clippings, newspaper articles, photocopies from books, free postcards, etc. in little piles all over my studio.  I then found these fantastic zip lock pockets that are really strong and great for storage. I now store all my little bits of paper in one of these pockets along with a sketchbook to put them into when I get a chance.

I have an obsession with drawing borders around everything in my sketchbooks. Below is what the inside of one of my idea sketchbooks looks like. Sometimes I will write comments or ideas next to the pictures. At other times it is purely just images.

My favorite picture on these pages is the one of the beer 

bottles wearing the jumpers.

The images above are of my zip up bag I use. It is made of plastic but is 

reinforced with an internal mesh so it is very strong.

Where does time go?

I cannot believe how fast time passes lately, it is actually quite scary. I just looked when I last posted on here and it cannot possibly have been that long ago.

I've been so busy with my new job that everything else has come to a bit of a standstill. I've just started school holidays so I now have a chance to catch up on a few things. I'm mainly trying to catch up on my sewing for the textiles group I'm in called SAlt. I'm about 4 months behind schedule with my work but I think I will be able to catch up fairly fast. I generally do a lot of planning for my works and so it is purely a matter of then making the final product. I work out the fabrics, do samples, drawings, etc. so that then I can simply construct the final piece.

I will post more in the very near future but for now I must get back to sewing.

New colour scheme

I'm working on a new piece of artwork for the SAlt exhibition group. I have a tendency to normally stick to the same colour themes. I decided to change my colours for this piece of work. Below are simply photos of the colours and fibre I'm working with.

My new artist statement

Below is a copy of my new artist statement. Let me know what you think

Sarah Bell Smith Artist Statement

As a four year old Sarah Bell Smith learnt to sew and whilst at primary school starting selling art and textiles for money. This passion for art and textiles later lead to a full time career as a specialized teacher and artist.

Her inspiration comes from many sources… identity issues, travelling, memories, relationships, personal experiences and nature study. The majority of her work has a message behind it and she hopes people can connect with it on a personal level. Every piece of work begins with extensive research, drawings and samples that all compiled into a journal. These journals become a work of art in themselves.

Sarah’s favorite mediums include fabric, paper and recycled objects combined with hand and free machine stitching. She also likes to work in 3 dimensional areas such as wearable art and sculpture.

Art and textiles are Sarah’s whole life; her practice as an artist is constantly evolving.

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.

Doing some hand quilting

I did a lot of work for the SAlt exhibition group earlier in the holidays, but haven't finished a couple of the pieces. One of the pieces I'd been working on involved a lot of applique and it resulted in the background fabric becoming slightly puckered. Therefore it is time for me to do some hand quilting.

I've only ever made one 'quilt' as such (quilts aren't really my thing) and it was for a friends baby so it didn't have to be perfect. This quilt however is for an exhibition so I thought I better actually do it right this time. I went over to Suzanne Gummow's house to do a trade. I helped her with some blogging issues and she helped me pin my quilt. Below are a few photos of the quilt pinning.

As the work is part of an exhibition, I cannot show photos of the actual 'real' work. Our group has agreed that no work is to be shown before it is exhibited.

Taping and clipping the bottom fabric and the 

Pellon to a table for a nice flat start. 

A closeup of all the clips keeping everything 

taught and in place.

The fun job of adding a thousand safety pins.

So tonight's job is now to do some hand quilting so that I don't leave the safety pins in too long and they mark the fabric. 

I really am still alive, here comes 2012

Right, it is way overdue for me to update on here and so here goes.

2011 was a busy year and the end of a few things in my life. For one, it was the end of my unhealthy eating habits and my no exercise regime. I am now much better at eating healthy and also trying to keep up exercising.

I also finished working at Marden Senior College. I loved my time at Marden and must say I’m sad to be leaving. I learnt so much in my time there and am very thankful to the staff I worked with.

I had been there for 4 years, on a yearly contract. Therefore it meant that at the end of every year I had to wait to see whether or not my contract would be renewed. This made life somewhat uncertain when you have bills and a mortgage to pay.  I also didn’t get paid for holidays so when you have 5 weeks off over summer and you’re waiting to find out if you even have a job the next year it is fairly stressful. It is for these reasons that I decided it was time to find myself a permanent job.

At the end of January (we’re 2012 now aren’t we?) I start a new job at St. Peter’s Girls. It will be a huge change for me as being a teacher at Marden was very different to most schools. 

So a new school and healthy habits are 2 of the plans for 2012. The other plans involve continuing with house renovations, working on a solo exhibition and working on a joint exhibition.

I’ve spent most of my holiday painting doors and doorways in our house, exciting, I know. They were buttercup yellow and had been driving me crazy since we bought the house 2 years ago. Once I finish all the doors, I will then start with the walls (not bright yellow, so not as urgent) and then start ripping up the carpet to show off the polished boards. So in other words, I have a large amount of work in front of me. My husband works 12-14 hour days and 7 days a week a lot of the time, so I do most of the renovation work.

During 2012 I will continue to be part of a textile arts group called SAlt. SAlt stands for South Australian living textiles. There are 5 women in our group, this includes; Julie Haddrick, Judi Bushby, Francie Mewett, Suzanne Gummow and myself. We meet once a month to review our progress and critique each others work.   During 2011 we each worked on 4 pieces of work, we all had the same theme for each piece and then simply took our own approach to creating the piece.

During this year we aim to complete another 4 pieces each, the themes for this year are linked to last years themes. We are currently working on the exhibiting part of the process. It won’t be for quite some time, don’t worry I’ll make sure the whole world knows about it when it happens.

The other thing I’m working on this year is the idea of me having a solo exhibition in the next couple of years.  I’ve talked about it on here before- I call it Exhibition X at this stage as I haven’t decided on a name. The work is based around the idea of vessels in nature. I am looking at nests in particular at this stage. I’m still at the drawing and planning stage as I want to put some real thought into this before starting the making part.  I’ve already posted some pictures on here before, they are not actual pieces of work, purely just me getting my head around this topic.

So after explaining all that, I wonder am I going to have any spare time this year? I’ve never been good with having spare time anyway, I’m not good at sitting still.

Well that’s it for me, until next time……

Handmade Paper Art and Textiles Flickr Group

I recently set up a group on Flickr called 'Handmade Paper Art and Textiles. The aim of the group is for people who use handmade paper in their artwork to post photos of their work. Photos of just handmade paper sheets are not excepted. The photos have to show how you use handmade paper in your art and textiles.

Below is an image of the first page of photos from the flickr group. If you would like to add photos to the group, you will need to hold a flickr account. Flickr is a great website for artists to promote their work and it is a simple site to use. You can upload 6 photos a week to the group.

Here is the address for the flickr group        http://www.flickr.com/groups/handmade_paper_art_textiles/

                              Please feel free to go and check out the groups work.

My new business card- what do you think?

I've been working on a business card design for myself lately. When I swap jobs at the end of year, lots of people have been saying they want to stay in contact with me. So rather than me scribble my details on a bit of paper, I can give them a business card.

I've pasted it in below and want to know what you think. I will eventually get them professionally printed once I've finished the final editing.

The copy below isn't the quality the final print would be.