Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

You're invited to: 'Flying Free' Newcastle’s Timeless Textiles Gallery will continue a five-year tradition of holding community-based art events to celebrate International Women’s Day, with the culmination of its Flying Free project featuring a huge flock of hand-made fabric birds that will ‘fly free’ outside the gallery in March this year. Timeless Textiles has collaborated with local artist, Wilma Simmons, to create the IWD art events, with local artists offering free community fibre art workshops, using techniques such as embellishing, screen printing, painting, stitching and dyeing. As well as the chance to learn new skills, the workshops allow people to brush up on their techniques and, of course, to enjoy themselves. The focus for IWD has varied each year including stitching 100 metres of white ribbon for 14 hours (2014) and creating hope flags. Seb, one of young creative bird makers with Wilma SImmons For IWD last year approximately 2,000 fabri...

 'Mad as a March Hare" ... so the saying goes - describing the  excitable behaviour of hares in March. I must admit I am feeling a little "hare-brained" this month with so much happening. The first big March event was the culmination of 'Spreading Wings' the community art project I coordinated for International Women's Day. The concept was to work collaboratively to create a fibre sculpture in a series of free textile art workshops. Eight workshops were held and over thirty people participated, learning textile art techniques and contributing to the sculpture. The unveiling was held on the eve of International Women's Day. The following photos tell a little of the story... Sculpture framework -  the beginning...  Workshop Preparation  Happy workshop participant  Busy workshop participants The "unveiling" : Happy International Women's Day! Then the next day off to Hervey Bay, Queensland to ...