xmas update

first of all a late Merry Christmas to everyone, these were some yummy mini Christmas puds from a party last year, didn't put the tree up this year as there was no room so this is the best I can do for a little bit of festivity.

As you may have read I've been in a de clutter frenzy (snails pace frenzy) and had been slowly attacking a corner that housed a lowboy cupboard that was full of quilts in varying stages of completion and stuff and for some silly reason decided that Christmas eve was the appropriate time for it to come out and go to it's new home and boy did I create a monster, everything came out of the corner, lounge was up ended and vacuumed to within an inch of it's life, venetians cleaned and the floor scrubbed, cupboard was taken out the front ready for Anna to come and collect.
I now have a book case in it's place and finally somewhere for all of my books to go that have been in piles on the floor and other surfaces, once all the books are in there I'll take a photo.
Now this started Tim on a cleaning frenzy and had the boys out on the back verandah scrubbing down the walls and ceiling.

Can everyone pick what this is, besides the obvious that it's an empty basket?
It WAS the odd sock basket - that is no longer.

After 10 years of hibernating under the lowboy cupboard my walking ducks have finally found a home wandering around our front verandah on either side of the front door


and because of the rain Tim wasn't able to work out in the garden after xmas day so the cleaning continued inside, the mouldy bathroom ceiling was scrubbed down and I was even asked if I wanted it painted, the boys rooms were started on and Mackenzies computer has moved into his room out of the dining area so Tim is now working on the dinning table as this area has always been our office, but now the sun is shining again the inside frenzy has slowed down till I get up enough strength to slowly attack the other side of the lounge room then the guys can move a few more things around for me.

Cactus Flower

we have a lot of unusual cacti and succulents around our garden and on our back veranda we have this unusual plant that we've never really know what it is.
It has strange shoots that come off the sides of the leaves.

I took the dog out for a midnight pee a few nights ago and was greeted by this glorious flower, it wasn't there earlier in the day and I didn't even notice it earlier in the evening when I fed the dog directly below it.

so if I hadn't gone out at midnight all I would have seen the next morning was the morning remnants as it only flowers for a very short time in the dead of night.
Isn't it glorious.

I'm so glad I bought the cacti book, it is an Epiphyllum

Assemblages

the last week of Art School was to be clean out our lockers and sort out our stuff ready for assessment but when one of the guys threw out a whole bunch of old silk screens I rescued these 2 small ones and he'd also put out a lot of rusty stuff on the bench,and I lurv rusty stuff and told us to help ourselves, well, what was I suppose to do - help myself of coarse and make ART


so I had to go in on the Wednesday and clean out my locker didn't I

ahhh one day!

not many of you would know but I've had a desire most of my life to own a Bugeye'd Austin Healy Sprite Mk1, my eldest sister Glenice had one in my teens and Nigel, my first boyfriend later bought it, so it has all those wonderful early memories also connected to it.
I have joined the Sprite chat list and there are a few living down this way and every so often they do a club run but I've never been able to get to see them but just a few weeks ago they were doing an afternoon dinner run, meeting at Bulli overlooking the beach, so I was able to catch up with them and get to meet a few of them, the white one actually lives in Dapto probably not even 2 k's away.

So I got to drool and dream of one day, maybe, I'll finally get one of my own to play with.....

there were a couple of MG's there but I suppose we won't hold that against them as they do have Sprites they are restoring at home

Tea pots

I know I've been away from here for too long, life has been busy but somewhere along the way I also lost my blog Mojo.
I haven't been creating any art other than the pieces I've done at Art School so didn't have much work to share and didn't think that photos I'd taken would be of any interest to others.
I've actually acknowledged that I have to much stuff, I'm a collector and hoarder and had convinced myself that I now had a legit excuse to collect more stuff that I can use for my sculptures but I have run out of room and getting bogged down with not being able to do anything, I know I've always lived in organised kaos BUT, so I've decided to de clutter, there's not even any room to put up the xmas tree, now how sad's that.
I'm being brave and going to sell a big proportion of my dust collectors, so I'm taking small steps and attacking small areas slowly.
My friend Anna has relieved me of 2 teapots that are now proudly in her kitchen with her other orange things.

Anna and Hazel, both sculptors from Art School but also quilters came over yesterday and we went though all of my quilts, they both went home with a small quilt each and a few small unfinished pieces that I didn't know what to do with/want to finish, so that helped, so I not only had show n' tell but got stuff out of the quilt cupboard as that will eventually go to Anna's so I can put a bookcase in that spot so all of the books can finally move from the floor and many other surfaces to somewhere decent.

So what I'll endeavour to do is just post random photo's of stuff to try and get back into the swing of posting again, but now, it's time to put the jug on again for a cuppa

some sculptures

well art school has wrapped up for the year, now just have to get organised for assessment next week, have actually been able to sit back and put my feet up for the past couple of days to recharge my batteries as I haven't really stopped for the past couple of months, so here I sit in front of the telly with my laptop on my knee.
Below are a few of my pieces that I've finished off over the past few weeks in the studio at school in between my travels.
Can you tell what the spiky bits are?

these are some cork tile offcuts one of the others in the studio was throwing out and as usual I can't bare to see anything thrown out!

this was a bamboo wind chime that had seen better days

can't decide whether to hang this piece or lay it flat, what do you think?

These are my pieces at the gallery down in Milton that I drove down on Sat to pick up as I need them for assessment next week, don't you love the old plate stand that I've displayed them on, again a piece I rescued form one of the others at school before it got cut up.

my 2 boys

just thought I'd share this photo of my 2 boys with you all, Mackenzie on the left and Callan on the right with Zelda our old dog,
I needed a photo of the 2 of them and didn't have a recent one so dragged them away from their computers out onto the back verandah

catch up

well, have I been busy since my last post, have taught a monthly class in Sydney, a 2 day class with The Illawarra Quilters and been to both Brisbane and Adelaide to work the Quilt shows in both states, plus in between still sort out all of the fallout from the accident, oh and also still found some time to go to Art School and make some sculptures.

Just before I went to Brisbane the gear that had gone to the desert with the guys arrived back on a truck and I've never seen 3 so relieved guys in a long time, they had a show the following weekend so the gear was desperately needed.

we have many strippy marsh frogs in various ponds around our yard but we've got a new visitor, Tim found him last night, he's a tree frog that looks like someone has splattered fluro green paint on him, though the spots don't show up in the photo, he smiled for the camera

I have discovered a form of doodling called Zentangles, I have decided to do one a day, this is what I've done so far, haven't done todays as yet, need to get a different sort of pen as this one bleeds, but I'm happy with my first efforts.

"vote for us"

As some of you know my husband Tim and oldest son Callan are acrobats and we have an acrobatic troupe called "The Leaping Loonies"
They have been nominated for Best Street Performer in citysearch's Best in the City Awards, so if anyone is feeling generous and wanting to help us win this award can you please visit citysearch.com.au/awards or SMS "Vote' to 1999CITY(2489) and cast a vote for us.

It would be much appreciated, thanks

Felting day

a few weeks ago I did a felting workshop with Anita Larkin
http://www.anitalarkin.com/Artist.asp?ArtistID=19686&Akey=7MYMJXAN
who is a fabulous felt maker and also does Assemblage sculpture like I do, so I was doubly excited about the day.
We started off the day making a piece that was joined with the other ladies pieces so we could see how to make larger pieces if we needed to, the large piece was rolled up in a bamboo blind then in canvas, then was rolled with our feet and stomped on in the traditional way that Anita had learnt in (I think) Kirghistan? as if we were making panels to go on a Yurt, the only difference was we didn't have a camel or horse to drag it behind around the paddock.
Our pieces were then cut apart so that is why there is some purple and light blue on to sides of this piece.

In the afternoon we made a resist bag, that means we had a cut out shape inside to stop the two sides felting together, here is the back side of the bag with the flap open.

here it is from the from with the flap down, I will eventually make a strap and bead a catch.

I had always been hesitant about trying wet felting as I wasn't sure if my back and shoulder could cope, but it didn't cause me to much pain, so now I feel I may be able to do other workshops in the future.

Silk Bowl class

Recently I taught a class at Peg's Pieces at Kirrawee where the ladies first made a piece of silk paper then made a bowl with it.
Here they all are hard at work.


and the finished bowls, all fabulous

a thoroughly enjoyable day was had by all

Memory Tree

one of the things I was working on before the car accident and my life became all consumed with insurance stuff and getting my husband and son home safely from the dessert, Nic Bridges and I had been commissioned to make a "Memory Tree" for the Alzheimer's Memory Day Walk along the beach front in Wollongong.

In our eagerness to get stuck into it we forgot to take photos of the frame which was a base of wood and twisted wire.
While I was getting the basics of the frame started Nic painted many metres of Tyvek, which is a plastic type paper that shrinks, distorts and bubbles with heat. Some car covers and forensic police overalls are made from this.
We stitched big pieces together for the trunk of the tree then hit it with a heat gun and it did magical things distorting and bubbling, we then wrapped strips around the branches and hit them with the heat gun and it shrunk beautifully around the twisted wire branches.

Here it is at the beach when we first installed it.


Throughout the morning people wrote their memories or loved ones names on leaves that were tied to the branches with ribbons.


Here's Nic and I at the end of the day

We were also given a booth next to the tree to showcase our art, we both had some small art quilts, Nic had paintings and I had sculptures and fibre pieces

What better way to spend the day than with the sound and smell of the crashing waves

Escape Artfest 09

I'm just heading off to Milton on the lovely South Coast of New South Wales for the opening of an exhibition at the Green House Gallery where I have some sculptures and fibre work, here are a few new pieces that are there




for more info on Escape Artfest 09 go to http://www.escapeartfest.info

Desert project

As some of you may recall a few posts back there was the photo of our new vehicle, the orange ambulance that Tim called "Sharky" as there was a painted shark on the side.
Sharky was initially bought for a 3 week project that saw half a dozen or so performers head off into the Central Desert of Aust to work with the kids on an Aboriginal mission in remote northern West Australia to teach them circus and performance skills.
Here they are all loaded up about to leave our place.

Well unfortunately the unthinkable happened and the vehicle was rolled, luckily they all walked away, well Tim crawled initially but was lucky that nothing serious was amiss.
Here's Callan, our son retrieving their belongings the next morning before looters got to it.

Two very dejected but lucky to be alive guys,
so much blood, sweat and tears AND DOLLARS had gone into this vehicle

Tim's very impressive bruising, this was the day after so I can only imagine how more interesting it got as it spread over time.

So I hope you will forgive me for being away from blogging but it has been a logistical nightmare and very stressful to try to sort out how to get them home and the insurance side of things, as I couldn't make the lady on the phone understand that the vehicle was not anywhere that they could get a tow truck to to retrieve it to be assessed she kept asking for the closest cross street, they don't retrieve them out there they just get left on the side of the road, I eventually got someone who actually listened to what I was saying.
Anyway, they fly home on Monday so I will feel much better once I have them home here for a while.

silk paper bowl class

I've got a Fun with Fibre Techniques class coming up at
Peg's Pieces at Kirrawee NSW on Sat 29th August http://www.pegspieces.com.au
have a look at the website for times, costs etc as there are a couple of spots still available

we will be making silk paper then making them into bowls

this is a piece of the silk paper

earlier this year I taught a weekend of "fibre fun" at Baccuss Marsh, here are the pieces of silk paper drying in the sun

and the wonderful bowls they produced

hope to see some of you there

Winter blues

more assemblage pieces

these are the last of the assemblage pieces that I hadn't shown from my exhibition before I went away,

these are some of my favorite small pieces