"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.