Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

  Current Workshops  Offerings  Thinking of a workshop for your group in  2022?    Art Doll Workshops : -  Garden Thread Dolls  (one day workshop   -  WoW -(Woman of Wisdom)    - embellished stump doll with either cloth head or clay head.  This is an a rt doll workshop .... either offered as a series of workshops or  2 full days  days!   -  Message/Story  Stick doll  - doll made with found objects and upcycled cloth.  ( one day)    -  Elemental totems  - stick doll variation , with sculpture  ( one or two days, depending on surface decoration of fabric)  TEXTILE AND MIXED MEDIA WORKSHOPS    Temari - embroidered wrapped balls in traditional style.    - Dipping Into Tea  - tea and embroidery on canvas with photo transfer on fabric.  ( two days)  work by Judith Bee, workshop participant.  - Tea Bag sculpture :   small paper vessels - made with used tea bags. (one day)  Art Collage  ( fabric and paper) - Snail Mail Art   ( 2 days)  Collage using envelopes, notes, letters .... -  Artist Boo

  Some of you may have heard about  #the100dayproject ... What is it?  Every year, thousands of people all around the world commit to 100 days of creating at the same time. Anyone can participate .  The idea is simple: choose a creative project, do it every single day for 100 days, and share your process on social  media using the hashtag #The100DayProject, connecting with other participants and followers of the project.  This year #the100dayproject started on 13 February and finishes on 24 May ,  if you count consecutive days. Some participants take up to 2 years to complete 100 days of creating!  The first step is usually to decide on a personal project ... this year, I decided to do something simple and late last year,  I purchased a box of 100 pantone colour postcards.  As I am also preparing a much bigger project, based on the "exuberance" of colour, I thought this would be a great way to move gently into the project and practise working with various colour combinations.

  Today begins the beginning of the Lunar New Year. For my family, it is the Chinese New Year - the Year of the Tiger , or more specifically  the Year of the Black Water Tiger.  There are many predictions published about  what this new year will bring.  ( just try Google - Year of the Tiger )  While individual predictions vary according to  your birth year and  your Chinese Z odiac animal, there is a general agreement amongst astrologers who say the tiger denotes strength, vitality and growth. These are qualities that will hopefully stand us all in good stead as we look to move past the uncertainty of COVID-19 in the past couple of years .  Here is a guide to find out  your own Chinese Zodiac animal  - Always check the new year's date if you are born in the early months of the year,  because t he first day of Chinese New Year begins on the new moon that appears between January 21 and February 20. According to your year of birth, your Chinese sign is: Rat: 1936, 1948, 1960, 197

  From a recent  Fibre Arts Take Two online course - Processes and Possibilities - Cordula Kagelmann  Photos :. Reflection #1 Materials - gelli plate prints and postage stamp image transfer, cotton thread As I reflect on 2021 and as Christmas approaches, I think of the unsettled and disturbed times Covid 19 has brought to us personally, nationally and globally. The Christmas stamp as a feature in this collage, suggests the feeling of protection and peaceful calm the support of loved ones provides. It symbolises hope and its possibility while the torn gelli plate prints remind me of the surrounding chaos. 2. Reflection #2 Materials - magazine pages, threads In this collage, the restrictions and lockdown experienced during the Covid crisis of this year are experiences that have complex layers of self discovery and emotion - fear, anger, happiness, peace, anxiety , sadness and gratitude … While there were harsher social restrictions in 2021 , there were so many stories of heartwarming ki

  Nature does not hurry, but everything is accomplished ... Lao Tzu  For Tag Tuesday's theme "time and clocks" ,   here is my  collaged reflection on time.  Do you have  favourite saying about "time"? 

 Most years, I decorate a huge Christmas tree with hundreds of ornaments and sparkles, but this year our tree is so different .... it is a small jade tree in a pot, decorated in soft colours .  The  little tree is  from a second generation cutting from my grandmother's jade tree, brought from Hong Kong, or so the family story claims. The baubles are frosted glass with our grandchildren's names on them, made by my daughter-in-law.  I added a few little dolls also in pastels and  I hung some felted balls .  These little balls were made in Nepal, a couple of  years ago at  Seven Women , a centre  which empowers marginalised Nepalese women through education and employment.  There is a single wooden star resting on the top branch  of the tree.  Somehow all this seemed appropriate with the unsettled and disturbing situation  of the fast spreading  Omicron variant of Covid -19  here in Newcastle ( NSW)  - these colours are calm, reassuring  and subdued . The tree decorations reflect t