Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

  No new year’s resolutions , but I like the idea of words shaping a year …. I  did not choose JOY - I chose PLAY and CHALLENGE, which I think also fits the upcoming  Chinese Year of the  Horse…. “ The year 2026 signifies a fresh start, embodying the dynamic Year of the Fire Horse in the Chinese zodiac, representing energy, freedom, and innovation, coupled with a Universal Year 1 in numerology, signalling new beginnings and pioneering action “  How did JOY become the focus of this story?  Where better to start than with the weekly colour prompts  #coloricombo by EsteMacleod …these are published each Monday night ( Australian Eastern Summer Time) , so I’ve had  a week to work on these . Added to the colour prompts Este has also intensified the challenge by including a different shape or form each week.  This week, she chose the word/letters J O Y Between workshops, travelling and other projects, I spent a few hours cutting and   pa...

  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...

  Connecting and Interpreting : Story #2 from the ATASDA Collaborative Golden Cape The  Golden Cape  is a new collaborative project for ATASDA members. 50 present day members will each receive an image of one of 50 yesteryear members artworks, to use as a muse, to create new artwork based on the past. Inspiration can come from textures, colours, style, design, subject, culture or history of the original artwork.  (from   https://atasda.org.au/50-years-of-atasda)  The second story in this series highlighting the narratives behind the creative stitching on the contributions to the ATASDA  Collaborative Golden  Cape is a topical and poignant social commentary.  As I contemplate what happens after the disappointing defeat of "The Voice " referendum, I think of the word   ‘Makarrata’, a multi-layered Yolŋu word understood as the coming together after a struggle. It involves truth telling. A beautiful response by Karen Rivers, ...

'Imitation is the highest form of flattery" - or is it? In art, there is always speculation about how much you are influenced by another artist's work .... can we measure  the amount of inspiration,  interpretation , collaboration or outright copying in an art work? What makes an art work truly original?   Let's not get into the discussion of copyright and the grey areas of   appropriation, imitation, and plagiarising.   Perhaps there are not so many questions when the medium used  is different from the original or when you are in the business of making reproductions.  (like my Van Gogh socks pictured above) ?  Why has this topic been on my mind ?  In a recent textile art challenge, set by ATASDA ( Australian Textile Arts and Surface Design Association), current members were asked to respond to artworks created by members from past  years , to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the group in 2024. Each of the small artwork...

For most embroiderers, the idea of stitching  and relaxing under the warming winter sun in the historical courtyard of Timeless Textiles Gallery sounds very appealing. Then add the other elements of  enjoying the company of like minded people, a lovely morning tea, and a fun project, with materials supplied. That sounds heavenly... That's  exactly what  the series of short textile art workshops, "Courtyard Creatives" are!  I recently caught up with Cathy Jack Coupland , award winning textile artist at Timeless Textiles. She was preparing for her "Courtyard Creatives" workshop on 3 September.  In this workshop, 'Pumpkin Patch',  Cathy  evokes the vibrant colours of a pumpkin patch.  The warm colour palette Cathy has chosen for this project  (see the sample pictured above) is a perfect antithesis to  grey winter days. The oranges and yellows exude energy, optimism and joy.  What fun it will be to learn how to make suffolk puffs...

  Postage stamps feature a lot in my textile artwork.... and I have a lovely collection of old stamps. However, I also belong to a small group of artist friends who every three months, challenge one another with gifts of first day covers or stamp series.  A few months ago, I interpreted a series of stamps from New Zealand ...  In this round of challenges, I received a beautiful series of Australian stamps, depicting wonderful locations in different states.  At first I was at a loss of what to do with them to show them off... and at the time, I was stitching some backgrounds on my sewing machine.... The background is a collage of scrap fabrics and then overstitched  and overlayed with rows of decorative stitch patterns . I really liked one of these backgrounds for these stamps as Australian colours were all there..   After stitching the stamps onto the background, I "couched " contour lines in a random way.... this map does not depict a certain place. I...

  A few days ago, I read an opinion piece about the absurdity of portraying a white Christmas  with carols about snow related activities in Australia. I thought that it was worth checking if any of our postage stamps have an Australian theme - happily there are quite a few - surfing Santas, Madonna and Child amongst Australian wildflowers and this one - drawn by Kylie Courtney aged 6 in 1988. This koala in a Santa hat looks rather content to be celebrating in the bush on a sunny summery day.  On this card, I have stitched a paper collage to hint of the bush where koalas may celebrate Christmas happily.  

 Today's card celebrates a Summer Christmas, inspired by frangipani . The stamp is a vintage one and  one of the many I have of this issue. I like it because of its stained glass window look and the unusual Christmas colour of magenta. There were such brightly coloured stamps that year. 

 Today's card is a stitched paper collage with an Australian  postage stamp from Christmas 1977 . This  this card was repurposed from an envelope collage I made in last year's  Advent  project.  Link to 2020 Christmas Countdown Happy Surfing, Santa! 

 Quite surprisingly, I rate marigolds as one of my favourite flowers. Although the marigold has some rather negative connotations, developed in Victorian England, I like to concentrate on the happier, more positive meanings it has...  What do marigolds symbolize? Commonly referred to as the 'herb of the sun', we associate the flowers' fiery yellow, orange, and red hues with the warmth, happiness, joy, optimism, and good luck. Yet, marigolds also symbolizes darker emotions such as jealousy, grief, despair, and mourning  (https://www.petalrepublic.com/marigold-flower-meaning/  In my recent exhibition "Enveloping ,   marigolds were featured a lot in my textile artworks, including a few of the "garden Threads" art dolls. I drew my inspiration from my own garden where marigolds have even found their way into my vegetable garden. The marigolds in the  textile artworks above are appliqued and stitched.  I coupled these bright orange flowers wit...