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

new arrival

we have just had a new arrival at our house
this is the new "Hectic Mobile"
that is my husband Tim on the ladder and our friend Mort who has just delivered it to us, it is for their new venture that will take them into the dessert soon, but more of that when the time comes