Textile Art Stick Dolls

There has been so much on lately, what with exhibitions, markets and my workshops. Im sure everyone is a little crazy at the moment with ( I dont want to know, how many days there are until Christmas ) and everything else. My eco prints, natural dyed scarves have been selling well at the events I've attended. Due to the time it takes to collect plants, harvest and prepare them, these are continually ongoing, regardless of whatever else I might be making at the time. I will be off to Melbourne to do my 3 day workshop with India Flint this week, which is very exciting! I've included some of my eco print scarves here.

  

Now Ive, digressed a little, so unlike me , I know ( lol ) back to my stick dolls. I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a class at the Contemporary Craft Retreat where I was teaching in October with the gorgeous artist, Wilma Simmons. In this class , Wilma taught us how to make stick dolls which are also message sticks. This is a ritual with a long history. The idea of making something that was not only beautiful but had a deep meaning for the recipient was very appealing to me. Messages are attached to the doll via a tag that gets tied on to the base of the doll if you want this. Since then, Ive been happily creating my dolls, which keep leaving home at a rapid rate. They do make a unique gift. If you are stuck for a Christmas present maybe I can help. Here's a few photos to show you some of my girls. Several people have contacted me wanting a doll or two so I am now doing mail orders.

Im contactable at www.studioamara.com.au.

Enjoy, Kathy

 

Our first weekend at The Arts Trail

I was privileged to spend the weekend with 3 very talented artisans at Margaret Connor's studio, Duckpond Cottage. Margaret's studio with its luscious gardens, is the perfect setting for the four of us to display our varied talents for the Southern Highlands Art Trail event. Margaret is a feltmaker who uses natural fibres to create beautiful one off garments, scarves, wraps and wall pieces. Also showing is Mike Darlow, a woodturner who concentrates on functional turnings. Mike's work has been featured in major American, Chinese collections, The Powerhouse Museum and Rockhampton Gallery in Australia. Carol Bairnsfather, makes stunning felt hats and mixed media jewellery.

Our exhibition wil be running again on the weekend of November 12 and 13 from 10am till 4pm. On Sunday we are holding another fashion parade at 1pm. Duckpond Cottage is at 13A Hurlingham Avenue, Burradoo. Phone is 4861 2294.

Nuno Felted Beginners Scarf Class

I know my blog is not in order however its the best I can manage at the moment. Back in September, terrible, Im so behind with my blogging, I ran another nuno felted class. As some of you are aware, I have been obsessed with felting for some years now and many of you have begged me to teach felting items other than jewellery which I have taught for some time.Nuno felting was developed by two American felters based up in a commune in Queensland. As the Queensland is quite warm and not so suited to felted fabrics they developed nuno so the material would be lighter, allowing them to wear garments suitable for that climate. One of these American ladies, was Japanese. Nuno is the Japanese word for fabric. Nuno felting is taking fabric and combining it with wool in a very fine application to create a felted fabric. 


I ran two nuno beginner classes in September and judging by your fantastic feedback and results, I will do more! If you are interested email me on kathy@versacreative.com.au. Ive included some photos which are only of the second classes work as my photos for the first class got accidentally wiped. Sorry guys!

Cloth, St Josephs College, Hunters Hill

For 5 glorious days, I was immersed in multi disperse transfer dyeing taught by the amazing artist, Marie Therese Wisnowski. I can hear you asking whats Cloth? 
It was a 5 day conference organised by Glenys Mann - founder and owner of Fibre Arts Australia . Glenys organizes five-day textile/fiber conferences throughout Australia, which feature highly talented international artists and designers, who share their knowledge and practices.


Other international tutor’s, who shared their valuable knowledge, techniques and informative lectures included: John Garrett (Experimental Fibre Constructions with Alternative and Recycled Materials, USA); Sherrill Kahn (Mixed Media, Collage/Applique and Composition Techniques, USA); Cherilyn Martin (New Dimensions in Surfaces & Stitch, A Journey of Discovery, Netherlands); Cherrilyn Tyler(A Little Bit Of Frippery, UK); Els Van Baarle(Transformation through Wax, Netherlands). 



At our Cloth workshop we created our own fabric by applying paint, textured, printed imagery onto papers with disperse dyes and then we  transferred the prints to polyester and blended synthetic fabrics to create a suite of color and pattern studies via an iron or heat press. Each student from all the classes offered at Cloth participated in an exhibition on the final day.

My experimentation for scarf fabric

Part of my studies to make scarf fabric

Carolines exhibition piece - Marie Therese's class

Diane's exhibition sample- Marie Therese's class

Example from John Garrett's class

Example from Sherrill Kahn's class

Polymer Silkscreen Printing with the Wollondilly Arts Group

On October 22, I was invited to teach polymer silkscreen printing to the Wollondilly Arts Group who are based in the Wollondilly Shire of the Southern Highlands of NSW.This is a not for profit group compromising of artists and crafts people from many disciplines such as painting, ceramics, sculpture, leadlighting and glass art, woodworking, photo media, textiles, paper making, performing arts, printmaking, poetry, writing, bonsai etc. Polymer silkscreening is much like any other form of silkscreening where you make up artwork, expose it to film then print from the film. With polymer we use a special film known as photo Ez film which can also be used to print on paper and fabric. It was a great day with 14 energetic ladies and one gentleman. Only one person in the group had played with polymer before. Here are some of their results.

OMG Its been far too long

I must apologise for being off the air since April. Where has the time gone? I took three months off from teaching and markets which began in June. It was a wonderful time to do some exploration although not long enough to do all I wanted. One of the areas I was itching to immerse myself was that of natural dyeing. To me the guru in this area is our own India Flint, who lives in South Australia and has a Latvian heritage. You can check India out through Google she has a wealth of information on the net. Im lucky enough to be attending one of her workshops down in Melbourne, later this year. I feel like a mad alchemist . Nothing in the garden has been safe from my cutting shears. You name it, Ive tried it. Even drove around for a week with material wrapped around vegetable peelings and floers until it just got too smelly. It was worth that effort though as I created a gorgeous scarf. Heres the picture for that piece.

Easter and Monoprinting

I hope everyone had a good Easter. I accompanied my husband to an airshow in Temora. While he salivated over the latest in small aircraft I happily sat in the sun and made kumihimo braids. There were a number of men wanting to know what I was making. When I explained that the Japanese braiding I was doing is used by NASA to make extremely strong ropes which are used by the astronauts in space they seemed very impressed! Everyone was happy, while Michel, my husband did not return with an airplane, I did return with some more kumihimo cords to add to my collection. Heres one made up on my faux turquoise piece I created in our workshop on faux turquoise. I also loved the way I could make the hours pass by very quickly in the car with my kumihimo disk. Of course I was not driving!

Last Thursday, I spent a wicked day learning to monoprint at Jean Collyers studio. Jean is an amazing Southern Highlands textile artisan whose work I have admired for many years. I had to wait for almost two years to become a student of Jeans. Jean runs workshops each month, with many of her students having attended for 10 years now. As Jean decided to start another class, I was very fortunate to take up one of these places. My first workshop with Jean was learning the art of monoprinting. Monoprinting is a form of printing where images can only be made once. We took acrylic paints and applied these onto a glass surface. While the paint is wet we pressed paper and material onto our glass surface to make an image transfer. Here are some of my images. Watch this space as I will be embellishing these with stitching and other forms of textile embellishment to create my masterpieces.At each class , Jean teaches us a number of hand embroidered stitches. There is something very meditative about handstitching. I love it!