Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

  Wrapped wire and fabric bilby sculpture : Wilma Simmons 2016  Over the years I have been fascinated with the plight of the bilby and it has inspired quite a few of my cloth creations... With long pinkish-coloured ears and silky, blue-grey fur, the Bilby has become Australia’s version of the Easter Bunny. Unlike the rabbit, bilby numbers are falling rapidly. There were originally two species but the Greater Bilby is now commonly referred to simply as ‘the Bilby’ as the Lesser Bilby (Macrotis leucura) is thought to have become extinct in the early 1950s... Bilbies are nocturnal, emerging after dark to forage for food. Using their long snouts, they dig out bulbs, tubers, spiders, termites, witchetty grubs and fungi. They use their tongues to lick up grass seeds. Bilbies have poor sight and rely on good hearing and a keen sense of smell. To minimise threats from predators they’ll mostly stay within 250m of their burrows, but sometimes roam further afield depending on the food...

  I couldn't have hoped for a more suitable theme set for this fortnight's Tag Tuesday ..... "Add a Postage Stamp". I often use postage stamps in my collage work, and I admit I really enjoy working with these miniature artworks.  The two stamps I've chosen for this exercise are both Australian.   The first one depicting a white tailed kingfisher is from a 1980 issue and this series is amongst my favourite "bird" series. The second is from an Australian animal series issued in 2019  .... who doesn't love a wombat?  The tags are both paper collages - with some stitching and  in the second, I stitched a real dried eucalypt leaf. And just to add a but of interest, I also decorated the backs of the tags, complementing the theme on the front.  I hope you enjoy this glimpse of  the natural world in Australia... 

  1 1 December Christmas Countdown #25envelopes - NSW Christmas Bush . Yesterday the first Christmas card of the season arrived with this beautiful stamp - Australian native flowers in a Christmas stocking. The 2020 Australian secular Christmas stamps all feature Australian flowers and these summer flowers - waratah, kangaroo paw, flannel flowers and bottlebrush are great inspiration for art. While we have quite a good native garden , my favourite Christmas flower is the NSW Christmas bush ( Ceratopetalum gummiferum). I picked some this morning for a vase inside, so today’s envelope is my interpretation of these lovely flowers. I used the envelope from yesterday's card and attached a fabric collage with stitching and coloured pencil sketches.

Today it is Father's Day in Australia and in New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea.   It is celebrated in June by a majority of countries in the world, but in fact, Father's Day is celebrated somewhere in the world  most months of the year ( only exceptions are January and April).  In the Middle Ages in Europe, Father's Day was celebrated on St Joseph's Day, 19 March.  ( From Wikipedia)  And here are some other facts about Father's Day... Father's Day was inspired by Mother's Day Sonora Smart Dodd, a woman living in Spokane, Washington, believed that if mothers got a day of recognition, fathers deserved one too Father's Day in USA  didn't become an official holiday until the 1970s It's fourth-biggest day for sending greeting cards & flowers after Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Mother's Day (from  Interesting Facts... )  Wherever you are in the world, have a great day and spend some time doing what you love with the ...

It's Tag Tuesday 's theme of 'Floral' that promoted these drawings . I'm travelling with limited supplies so here are my ink and watercolour sketches . Last year I did a series of these kinds of drawings on some recycled book pages but for these ones, I used some 'reject' Eco- dyed khadi paper for the tag bases. 

Nothing quite as Aussie as a ‘pav’ at Christmas ? Continuing from yesterday’s Christmas first, today’s post stays with another favourite Christmas food. The pavlova is a much loved Aussie dessert, and is often served at a Christmas celebration in a wreath shape. Before I researched the FIRST pavlova for Christmas I was prepared to enter the controversy about ownership of the ‘pav” - Australia or New Zealand? The pavlova is named after the famed Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, who toured Australia and New Zealand in 1926. As the New Zealand story goes, the chef of a Wellington hotel at the time created the billowy dessert in her honor, claiming inspiration from her tutu. Australians, on the other hand, believe the pavlova was invented at a hotel in Perth, and named after the ballerina when one diner declared it to be “light as Pavlova.” (From food52 blog) What I didn't know was that it would appear now that neither Australia nor New Zealand can lay claim to the first...

"Christmas in July"  has been recorded as isolated events in the 1930’s in USA , but  with the release of the comedy, Christmas in  July in 1940, the concept began to become popular.  I understand a lot more why Christmas in July as a concept is popular  in Australia in the southern hemisphere rather than in the northern hemisphere. To capture some of the magic of ‘white” Christmas, mid-winter seems the perfect time to enjoy many of the traditional Christmas festivities.  Christmas in July  has become tradition down under. The story of the FIRST July Christmas in Australia is about some Irish visitors to the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. They  saw a snowfall in July, 1977 . That's not out of the ordinary for mountains in the Southern Hemisphere, but the tourists were reminded of Christmas out of season. They requested a traditional Christmas dinner from their hotel, which they enjoyed so much they returned the following July...

If you are visiting Sydney (Australia) from another country at Christmas time, and especially if you are a backpacker, it has become a tradition to spend Christmas Day celebrating on Bondi Beach.   I can’t work out exactly when this first became a popular destination for Christmas tourists, but by the 1980’s there were numbers like 20,000 international visitors enjoying a summer Christmas Day at the beach. For years, backpackers and Bondi Beach on Christmas Day were synonymous. The beach was transformed into a drunken party scene, as those from colder climes lived out their fantasy of spending Christmas on the beach under a scorching sun.  A similar Bondi Beach Christmas Day happened annually until 1995 when a “riot” occurred. Media reports called the affray a “riot” and here is a description of what occurred according to a Waverly Council document. Aggressive drunken revellers mar Christmas Day on Bondi Beach. Lifeguards report being overwhelmed with 146 surf ...

... On all the big Gum trees there are Gumnut Babies. Some people see them and some don't, but they see everybody and everything.... They love to sit in the sunshine ,warming various parts of themselves while they think. They think of everything and wonder why... . ( from May Gibbs: Gumnut Babies) I have just completed a commissioned series of small watercolour paint, pencil and pen drawings  based on the stories of May Gibbs, Australian folklore author. She did not have a Hakea, Geraldton Wax nor a Grevillea character in her stories, but these are beautiful plants flowering at the moment in my garden, so they were included.

 For Tag Tuesday 's theme FACES , I am revisiting 4 of the 29 tags I drew and painted for the 29 Faces Challenge in February. These are my Bush Babies inspired by the May Gibbs' characters. Earlier this year, I went to an exhibition at the NSW State Library in Sydney, celebrating 100 years since the first publication of May Gibbs' books - children's fantasy stories about the Gumnut babies and friends who live in the Australian bush and this has reignited my interest in Australian literary folklore. My favourite book is still "The Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie". The opening plea from May Gibbs  is still relevant for our environment  today " ‘Humans Please be kind to all bush creatures and don’t pull flowers up by the roots’.

Work in Progress - 3 of the 193 for "Stitched Up"- Wilma Simmons   The work for the "Stitched Up " Project  continues. See the previous "Wednesday Child" post for the background to this art project celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Newcastle Industrial School. I have been documenting the progress of my work, so I thought it might be interesting to share some of the early stages of the "stick dolls" ... Here are some of the beginning steps.. Sticks collected while walking the bushland in my neighbourhood  Drying and getting rid of any insects - oven heat 75 degreesC for approx 1-2 hours.  Trimmed and cut if necessary  Ends sealed with matte sealing solution.  Drying  - solution goes on white but dries clear.  First wrapping - foil to create a body shape  Second wrapping - stretch fabric.  Third wrapping - fabric strips  Some stitching - more stitching and embellishment to ...