Textile Art Exhibitions and Christmas Sales

Last week I said I was not ready for Christmas. This week I don't think I ever will be - not this year anyway. While I have been distracted this week from Christmas preparations, it has been worth it. A very talented textile artist friend Wendy Scott had the opening of her solo exhibition, Rainbow Journey, at Timeless Textiles Gallery on Thursday night. I really recommend that you take the time out to see this one - a magical visual journey of colour, excitement and pure joy. The exhibition is open until 7 December at Timeless Textiles Gallery, 7 Beaumont Street, Islington (Newcastle NSW) - just a 2 minute walk from Hamilton (NSW) Railway Station. Congratulations, Wendy - it is an absolutely beautiful exhibition and a wonderful testimony to your artistic talent.

Wendy Scott and self portrait

We are very fortunate to have opportunities to exhibit and see great textile art here in Newcastle. The next textile art exhibition opens this Thursday night at Wallsend Library and it will be the annual exhibition of NCEATA - Newcastle Creative Embroiderers and Textile Artists. The exhibition is entitled "Archi-Textiles" inspired by architecture - there will be some really innovative textile art on display I am sure. I am delivering my contribution " East-West" this afternoon. It is the first time I have used paint, digital prints and hand made foam printing blocks as well as stitching in a piece of work - not sure about it, but my husband likes it...

East-West : exhibition piece

What an exciting week ... this Saturday is also the annual Handmade Treasures Christmas Sale for charity. This year, the recipient of the profits will be a local and global charity " Give Love to Children" which supports orphanages in the Philippines and provides free health services to disadvantaged children here in the Hunter. Already beautiful work from my lovely sewing friends has arrived - here is a preview of the great gifts you can buy at Saturday's sale supporting local artists and artisans and a very good cause.

table napkins and appliqued place mats

hand sewn quilts

embroidered cushions, patchwork pouches, Christmas cakes

colourful aprons - for children, men and women

appliqued and embroidered sewing bags and babies'wear

I am looking forward to a great day. If you live nearby, I hope you will come to see these hand made treasures and lots more... I have heard this week that the Hunter East Timor Sisters will also be bringing their hand woven tais, many of which have been made by village women in East Timor to raise much needed funds for teacher scholarships to East Timorese young women.... At least I will have my Christmas shopping done after Saturday...

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...

Textile Art Tips

Background : Today is Tuesday - Tag day. I belong to a very talented group of artists who weekly produce a small work of art as a tag. We post photos of our tags on the Tag Tuesday blog . Currently our theme is alphabet, and we each could decide on our own sub-theme. I chose Australian plants and each of my tags is an experiment with a textile art technique. Here are February's tags and a brief descriptions of the techniques used. Technique 1 : Heliographic Art (Sun Painting) as in the photo above - close up of Tag E . When special sun/light sensitive paints are applied to wet fabric where objects have been placed on top, the outlines and shapes of the objects are transferred to the fabric. In this example I placed dried Eucalypt (gum tree) leaves on top a piece of originally white cotton painted with yellow and orange" Setacolor" transparent paints and left it in the sun for about an hour. I then cut one of the leaves out and ...

Winter Beach : Tag Tuesday

"Beach" tags for Tag Tuesday Last weekend, I was very privileged to do a workshop with Belgium based artist, Jette Clover. One of Jette's series of small works features postage stamps of famous people, so after the workshop I rediscovered my stash of stamps ( most of them still attached to envelopes). Fortunately for me, this fortnight's Tag Tuesday theme is " The Beach" which seems to be recurring theme for Australian stamps. These collage tags have been assembled from torn bits of painted paper, magazine pages and stamps. I have called these tags "Winter Beach" as the beach still looks as bright and the water as blue even in winter here in Newcastle. Today's winter maximum temperature was 16 degrees C with a clear blue sky and warm sunshine. ...with Jette Clover in fromt of her art work " Lives of Girls and Women" in the STITCHED UP exhibition.

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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