No longer on my work table...

Tumbuna Bottles

Here are a few pieces which are no longer on my work table - yay, they are finished!

Tumbuna collage

Tumbuna Bottles: Tumbuna means 'ancestor' in pidgin. I have been wanting to make some dolls inspired by my experiences in Papua New Guinea , so finally finished some last month. These art dolls are 'guardians of memories' . I have put inside the bottles little trinkets and bits and pieces I brought home from various trips to Papua New Guinea , and created a personality for each bottle, shaped from my remembered images of respected ancestors in PNG villages. My plan, of course is to make a series of these bottle art dolls inspired by other travels ... looking forward to creating the Chinese, English, German, Finnish, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Laotian versions and including little souvenirs from those places in the bottles.

little Tumbuna bottle

Tags: This year the first 26 weeks of Tag Tuesday are following the alphabet ... I decided to follow my own theme of Australian plants/trees and January's tags are Acacia, Banksia, Callistemon and Dryandra. I have used various techniques including applique, digital print on fabric, machine and hand embroidery and organza fused with a soldering iron. ( Tag Tuesday is a blog group challenge - a tag each Tuesday)

Stamped Dolls : I purchased a new stamp set from www. impressmenow.com and here are three of the little dolls I made using the stamp and some of my scraps of hand dyed cotton.

It's hard to believe that it is already February, but I'm happy to have completed some work already this year. I' m hoping this momentum will last all year...

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Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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