Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

 When 'anything goes", does it follow that "nothing matters" ? .... I think not.  When I interpret "anything goes", I think it means taking a few risks and experiment, but also care about what you are doing and finding a purpose in the process.  Currently, the Tag Tuesday theme is "Anything Goes" ... This describes my daily art practice at the moment. I am doing #the100dayproject and each day I am responding to weekly published colour prompts #coloricombo, curated by  artist, Este McLeod.  During the last week, the suggested colours were jade green, primrose, vermillion and  purple grey.  Each day, I've been trying to experiment with colour and technique with the goal of developing and learning.  Here are some of the tags I created using these colours, or at least as close as I could manage with stuff from my stash...  I have titled these "Fragments from Afar" as all of them feature an image or a postage stamp from somewhere far from...

  These were days of scarlet cheeks, candy pink and blush grey hair and mocha mushrooms!  This combination really stretched the imagination, and the first day I resorted to a pre-stamped embroidery which I think summed up the week - wandering from colour to colour, subject to subject .. ..  First came a couple of mushrooms - the background of these are machine stitched. Scraps of fabric are laid down on a base fabric and , using the decorative stitches on a sewing machine, rows and rows of stitching create the effect of a new background fabric. I often use this technique to create unique backgrounds for applique and feature stitching.  The mushrooms are raw edged appliqued onto these essentially pinky red backgrounds. Do these colours  make them fairytale like or just a bit sinister?  You might have noticed a theme of red polka dots in these little works .... that just reminded me of red cheeks, and so a series of quirky characters was born .... a party gir...

 Tag Tuesday' s theme is Spring Flowers. Of course, it's not Spring here in Australia, but that doesn't matter - anytime is a good time to celebrate flowers.  My tags  were little 'nature notes" I created for #the100dayproject, where I am responding to colour prompts, #coloricombo, curated by Este Macleod. The first is a collaged "tag" with a painted background (watercolour) and a blue flower ( fabric) appliqued and stitched. The tag itself is a scrap of inked paper with magazine text.   The second  tag is a another collaged "nature note" with postage stamp. Torn paper and fabric have been used on a background of  white washed print and my own  garden notes.  The third, strictly speaking does not depict flowers, but those little gum nuts were once  flowers and if you look carefully, the snippet of fabric in the right bottom corner is a floral print.  All of these are responses to the colour combination of soft blue, pea green, green...

  Connecting and Interpreting : Story #4 from the ATASDA Collaborative Golden Cape  Background : This year, 2024, ATASDA ( Australian Textile Arts and Surface Design Association) is celebrating its Golden Anniversary. The Collaborative Golden Cape is a celebratory garment representing 50 years of creativity in textile arts. Members of ATASDA have joined together to create a beautiful cape comprising of 50 art panels inspired by 50 past ATASDA artworks. Each contribution to the Cape is a personal response to its corresponding historic artwork and its story. The Golden Cape, embellished with these beautiful cameos of textile art and surface design, will travel and be displayed throughout Australia. Parrwang:  Jo-Anne Britt drew inspiration for her contribution to the cape from the 1987 work by Bobbie Winger . This was a dramatic wearable textile artwork, entitled , "Dancing Cloak for a Currawong". The limited colour palette and the "feathery" form of the cloak reall...