Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Collage: paper, paint and ink  - Wilma Simmons 2018  The tree knows four truths – earth, water, air and the fire of the sun. Collage: newspaper, ink, pastel - Wilma Simmons 2018  The tree holds four truths in one. Root, limb and leaf unfold out of the seed and these rejoice till the tree dreams it has a voice... (From Judith Wight : The Wattle Tree)  Work in progress - ink, paint, pastel - Wilma Simmons 2018

And all my days are trances   And all my nightly dreams  Are where thy grey eye glances  And where thy footstep gleams—  In what ethereal dances  By what eternal streams.” —” To One in Paradise " - Edgar Allan Poe   I made a collage tag for Tag Tuesday's  current theme  "Edgar Allan Poe", just in time for the season of  spooky  stories and Halloween.  I used  pieces of torn  paper - text, painted or printed household paper, tea bag, magazine page and a photocopied image of  E.A.P.  I finished  the tag with a rows of machine stitching.  Such a challenging theme set by Design Team member, Michele , but please visit the Tag Tuesday blog to see amazing tags  from very talented artists. 

Art Dolls only hosted a Midsummer Challenge  for doll makers around the world.... here are some of the beautiful dolls made in response to the challenge. 

"Constrain" - cotton corset of the late 1960s /early 1970s , collage lining, vintage tin badge. hand and machine stitching , photo transfer   The late 1960s and 1970s were heady days for young women.... never before had the voice of women been heard so loudly and so strongly.  I wanted to capture a bit of the spirit of that 'burn your bra"  period with Corset no. 2 in my series  for the "Crossing Borders" exhibition.  Corset lining in progress - photo transfer and applique  Corset work in progress - reverse applique ready to stitch and stamping  I used some original vintage fabric from a curtain of the period and revers appliqued the floral fabric in some of the panels of the corset. Inside the corset, the lining depicts some of the recorded visual history of the protest marches of the time. The black and white photo transfer attempts to project a nostalgic feel to this art corset.  Corset work in progress - reverse appliqued stitching c

It's Autumn/Halloween at Tag Tuesday , the theme chosen by the talented leader of our group, Valerie. Yes it's very late in the fortnight to be posting, but here it is.  This is a stitched cloth tag. The background is batik cotton, with a photo transferred by blender marker. The leaves are appliqued to this background and then free stitched by machine in various shades of red, yellow and brown. Happy Autumn to all in the northern hemisphere!

Art work : Jette Clover  Artists cross borders in new exhibition Borders are confronted, interpreted and defined by nine textile artists in a new exhibition opening at Newcastle’s Timeless Textiles Gallery in October. The Crossing Borders exhibition displays the results of a masterclass taught by Danish fibre artist and teacher Jette Clover. Conducted over nine months, the masterclass encouraged the students to explore the literal, political, cultural, symbolic and psychological meaning of a border.  They experimented with techniques and materials to visually express borders through lines, seams, folds, shadows, colours, and textures. A border makes distinction between adjoining elements and spaces, and can either separate or link those elements and spaces. In everyday usage, border most often refers to a physical obstruction. It is associated with cultural and political diversity. Borders often mark language barriers and can create feelings of inside/outside and us/them.  A jour