Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

It is now a month since the Flying Free Project was launched. Four free workshops have been held, averaging twelve participants each week. This project has been developed to honour and remember the women who tragically have died as a result of domestic violence. All  the proceeds from the sale of bird kits and completed birds on International Women's Day 2016 will be donated to women's refuges in our local area.  Unfortunately in the month we have been making birds, two women have been added to the sad statistics of 43 female domestic violence deaths in Australia this year... However, we have sat peacefully each Wednesday at Timeless Textiles Gallery stitching birds and I would like to share with you some of the  wonderful  moments and creative achievements of "Flying Free" in the last four weeks. Thanks to UK artist, Abigail Brown who gifted Timeless Textiles a basic pattern for a bird. .  Another 15 + birds fle...

Free Wednesday workshops starting 20 May 2015  at  Timeless Textiles , 90 Hunter Street, Newcastle .  10.30am - 12.30pm.  Textile art birds - 2016 International Women's Day Project.  In March 2015, visiting British textile artist, Abigail Brown kindly designed this bird and gifted Timeless Textiles a bird pattern for International Women’s Day 2016. Every Wednesday in our free creative workshop program, we will be creating birds -using some of the 2000 fabric tiles (from the ‘Letting Go’ celebrations: 2015 International Women’s Day) The birds will fly free amongst the Norfolk pines outside the gallery, attached by white ribbon to celebrate next International Women’s Day (March 8 2016). All proceeds will be donated to women's and children's refuges in the local area.  The fabric and Abigail Brown’s template will be available for participants to use at each free workshop on Wednesdays. “Flying Free” kits may also be purchased for $20 if y...

Close up of fabric owl - Wilma Simmons, Empress Wu Designs 2015. Abigail Brown   is described as a creature textile designer extraordinaire, and having met Abigaill recently, I would add a very talented, generous, spirited  and beautiful artist. Her vibrant work rejoices in the amazing beauty of nature ... here is what Abigail says about her stunning soft sculptures .... I am excited by the opportunity to create life from these flat pieces of cloth, working with their weave to mould shapes, fraying their edges to form feathered breasts, creating stiffened tail feathers from something that was limp. That final placing of the eye and a new life is born...The Animal Kingdom is the inspiration behind all my work. I am fascinated by its rituals and language, a world of mystery and secrets on which we can but speculate. My fabric bird sculptures are a celebration of textures, patterns, colours and forms that delight me in nature. Abigail Brown with work...