Skip to main content

Contemporary Craft Retreat - Canberra

Tranquil surroundings, creative and talented participants and good organization are ingredients for a great event. The Contemporary Craft Retreat was not just a great event – it was an exciting and inspirational learning experience. Congratulations must go to Lex Sorrentino, the coordinator of the retreat, who seemed to think of everything anyone might need, right down to extra cakes of soap and lolly bags for the tutors!
I was very fortunate to have had the opportunity to lead two workshops. One was  the Bio Bowl – a wet felted vessel inspired by biological beauty.


The second was Message Sticks and Spirit Art Dolls with many beautiful imaginative and creative interpretations of my wrapped message stick art doll. I’m not sure anyone used  the collected wise sayings as messages,  but the dolls were inspirational on their own.


 

 

We were also privileged to see some amazing “show and tell”. This beautiful art doll by Janice Laurent was created with a bottle as an armature, and what you can’t see in this photo below are the tiny circus dolls inside the bottle. You will see this beautiful doll  in Art Doll Quarterly to be published in February 2012. Weren't we fortunate to see it "in the flesh" in Canberra?

Demonstrations from various tutors each night were also popular and enjoyable. Here is my friend Hector Vera (Vera Designs) demonstrating the art of kumihimo.



Most of all, it was a weekend of fun, friendship and free expression, so please don't miss  the 2012 Retreat :12-14 October 2012. More  news and more photos of the retreat  are on Facebook . 
And will the stick doll workshop participants ever look at ordinary garden sticks in the same way again?
Labels:

Comments

  1. Melanie DildayOctober 31, 2011 at 7:02 AM

    What a wonderful example of a blog page Wilma. You share your stories with such affection for the work and those who attended and organised the retreat and your wonderful array of photos are such an inspiration to us all. Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  2. LoriNovember 4, 2011 at 8:30 PM

    I enjoyed looking at your photos and I would have loved to have been there too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. SujayNovember 6, 2011 at 10:13 AM

    So attractive arrangement.Well done carry on.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading my blog and please share your thoughts about my blog post by leaving a comment.Your comment won't appear immediately as comments are verified before publication in an effort to reduce the amount of spam appearing. Anonymous comments will not be published.

Popular posts from this blog

Giveaway - Gifts for You on My Birthday

Giveaway Gifts T his week is blog giveaway time! Last week I celebrated my birthday.  I’ve had far too many to count the candles, but I had a wonderful party on the weekend with my family - with an indulgent birthday cake, favourite foods cooked by my husband and great company. ( In case you were wondering about the writing on the cake , Por Por = Chinese grandmother)     I also got great gifts from  my family and friends. There seemed to be a bit of a theme this year – with many of my gifts and cards depicting matryshoka ( babushka) dolls and tea drinking.   As it is also winter here in Australia ,   it was easy for me to  decide what I could offer as gifts  in this birthday giveaway. All the gifts are handmade by me. Gift 1 - two little fabric matryshoka dolls  Gift 2- a little bag made from colourful teapot and teacup fabric . The design is called a jester bag, but it is suitable for carrying s...
24 comments
Read more

Evolution of Message Stick Art Dolls

Message Stick Art Doll - stick, polymer clay, hand dyed & stencilled fabric with embroidery  My    message stick art dolls    have evolved over the last couple of years.  Why have I called these art dolls “Message Sticks” ?    I wanted to recreate a doll which was based on traditional techniques, so I have used ideas from a few different cultures. Many traditional dolls were made from wood - often wrapped with fibres.   In Egypt, several types of paddle dolls have been discovered in tombs in Egypt. The dolls are made of wood, flat, and constructed in a shape has led the form to be called a 'paddle doll'. The dolls seemingly follow a convention for the female figure, emphasizing the hips and hair. The wooden figures are usually painted with a geometric pattern of lines and dots. These patterns may reproduce tattos or ritual scaring in female Egyptian culture of the period or represent clothing or jewellery.  A fine exampl...
3 comments
Read more

Fish and Sticks : Art Dolls

This week I've been working on fish and sticks ....  The sticks are the message stick art dolls which were very popular, attracting some attention and a few orders at the Wise Women exhibition. Each of the message stick dolls are from the Wise Women series, each with her own personality and  message of wisdom, handwritten on a handmade timber tag. I gather the sticks during my walks around my neighbourhood and the tags are made from special bits of timber, some collected by me or  my husband or from off cuts gifted to us  from another doll making friend whose husband makes bagpipes. These dolls start off very simply with a wrap around a stick, in the general shape of a body. 'Naked" message stick dolls - strips of wadding wrapped around found sticks.   Then I usually wrap other layers of fabric, wool, and/or fibres, over which I do some simple embroidery. I sculpt  or mould small face masks for these dolls. I really like using "sari ribbon" as w...
3 comments
Read more