Travel Chronicles : Charting the Unexplored.

A Chronicle is a record of things that happened — told in chronological order...  The word is  related to and  comes from the Greek ta khronika, which means “annals of time.” 

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While we today blog or instagram photos of our travels,  I imagine travellers of the past might have recorded, on rolled scrolls, their journeys and their discoveries each night after a full day of adventures. This was the inspirations for my table top installation, called "Travel Chronicles : Charting the Unexplored". 

The work comprises three mixed media scrolls of varying size and length, created from mark making with ink on papers and fabric,  collage and stitching. 

The addition of a flat art doll, in the style of a traveller of a previous era gives a context to these scrolls. 

While I have not included text in these scrolls, the mark making suggests that the language is universal.... I have even imagined that these chronicles may be a record of intergalactic travels. 

Now featured in my Etsy shop 

Bush Lily : Felt Art Doll

I often use interesting plants as my inspiration and Bush Lily is no exception. This is a wet felted art doll with a polymer clay face. The face has been moulded from one of my own original sculptures and yes, it does have a  rather sad  and glum look.  No wonder, Nature currently has been taking a battering from  extreme climate events. 

It is no secret that one of my favourite plants is the Gymea Lily . Botanically known as Doryanthes excelsa, the gymea lily  is a flowering plant  found in the  coastal areas of New South Wales . They grow very well around Sydney and surrounding areas like the Newcastle region where I live.  It has sword-like leaves more than 1 metre long and it grows a flower spike up to 6 metres high. 

The body of the doll was wet felted first as a hollow tube, with a plastic resist so there are no seams in the shape. Different coloured slivers of wool were introduced into the last layer of wool to blend colours for the doll body. 

A separate "flower" was felted , also using a small wax resist to create multiple layers of petals . The flower was then needle felted to the fibre filled body shape. 

The body was then stitched - the base stitched together and decorative hand embroidery with a wooden leaf charm.  After the  polymer face was cured and coloured with a basic wash, it was  attached /stitched to the body .... Bush Lily! 

Bush Lily is available now in my Etsy shop 

Making black holes for "Cosmic Dreaming"

 

As fascinating as the subject of "black holes" is, it was never my intention to create this piece true to its astronomical details so I have called this art work 'Black Holes'- an abstraction of the phenomena of a stellar collapse. 

( A stellar black hole (or stellar-mass black hole) is a black hole formed by the gravitational collapse of a star. . from Wikipedia) 

 This art work started with mark making on various pieces of paper with ink, paint, and stitch.  

I collaged those bits of paper together and then digitally transferred the drawing on to silk and free machine stitched the silk collage using dissolvable fabric and overlays of tulle, lace and sequinned fabric.  Some hand stitching was also done to add a bit more texture of the piece as well as trapunto quilting in some parts. 

I always had the dilemma of whether to hang this piece vertically or horizontally? Some days I like it hanging with the tail downwards, but then I also liked the sense of movement sideways.... 

After much advice from other artist friends, anyone visiting our house, and beleaguered family members, horizontal it became.... and with the paper version set behind it! That was not the original plan  but somehow it gives the work more substance and the additional layer suggests the shadow of other processes happening in the course of the stellar collapse. Anyway this is how it  was  displayed in the exhibition, "Cosmic Dreaming" in December-January at Timeless Textiles, Newcastle NSW . 

 Currently for sale  on Etsy