Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 8 March 2020 FEARLESS FLOWERS MARKET This International Women’s Day, the Wednesday Group will be co- hosting the 2020 Fearless Flower Market and auction. All proceeds from this market/auction will support the Pink Meets Teal initiative, raising money to support Ovarian Cancer research. Join us at Timeless Textiles Gallery (90 Hunter St Newcastle) for a free morning tea, live music, fun and, of course, fundraising! for the last 12 months, the Wednesday group at Timeless Textiles has been creating beautiful handmade flowers for the fundraising and we have been supported by many textile atists and groups all around the country and overseas. “Every cent from the market goes to a charity – this one is the Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI) for Nikola Bowden’s research, which is very cutting-edge about ovarian cancer treatment options.” “There will be music, food, and a celebration of being women; everyone is welcome!” – Anne Kem...

For International Women’s Day 2020, the Fearless Flowers Project is raising funds for research into Ovarian Cancer. Every year in Australia, 1600 women are diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer and 1000 die. Hunter (NSW) researchers are involved in cutting edge work to improve this mortality rate but they need our financial support.  In Newcastle (NSW, Australia) an group of artists meets every Wednesday at the fibre art gallery, Timeless Textiles in Hunter Street, Newcastle East.  The Wednesday Group  will be making fibre/textile flowers and they will bloom and be sold amongst the Norfolk pines outside the gal lery on 8 March 2020 .   Timeless Textiles and the Wednesday group's previous International Women's Day Projects raising funds for various local  and overseas causes have been:  Spreading Wings  Prayer Flags for Peace  Stitch-a-thon for White Ribbon  Letting Go Flying Free  Out of the Wood  In t...

The Apron Project 2019 - The theme is "Her Strength is Her Superpower"   I created a "Strong" apron for the project. It features a photo transfer from one of my original life drawings with free form machine stitching.   All the artists' aprons are donated to raise funds for the Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Women's Shelter  - crisis accommodation for women suffering the effects of domestic violence.  Please check out the auction website - there are truly amazing aprons created by some amazing artists. 

.Each year , a rtists from across Australia and overseas will once again unite to create works of art on aprons for The Apron Project. In the last three years over 100 artists have presented more than 200 aprons and raised much needed funds for the Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Women’s Shelter.    Importantly they also raised awareness of the growing epidemic of Domestic Violence.  The Apron Project was created by Australian Sallianne McClelland who is the current chair of t he  Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Women’s Shelter   which services women in crisis in the community and is currently also working with the State and Federal governments to better the living opportunities once women leave the shelter and attempt to restart their life.  T he Apron Project has never been more needed than it is today.   2015: 66 dead | 2016: 71 dead | 2017: 53 dead and to date 2018: 61 dead.   In the same period artists from across the USA and Australia have contributed ov...

Martha from Ayala Art is the creative artist behind the 29 Faces Challenge and this was her message at the beginning of the month." Can you believe we have come full circle to the last leap year? 29 faces is 4 years old!! yaay! I have met so many wonderful artists, and so many people finding out and discovering that practising every day for a full month, even the smallest of months! They can grow so much better as artists! Thanks for participating and making faces with me ♥. " ....  I am not sure that I am becoming better as an artist, but I am thoroughly enjoying researching the noteworthy women I am drawing inspiration from .... These are all pen and pencil sketches done on used tea bags.  Day 5 : Marie Curie, French physicist and chemist, first female Nobel Prize winner.  Days 6-8 : Mother Teresa, Human rights worker  and Nobel Prize Winner; Sojourner Truth, African-American abolitionist and human rights worker; Jane Austen , English nov...

What is 29 Faces?  29 faces was originally created in 2012 to celebrate the leap year with art, 29 faces in 29 days in February. It was so much fun, we had to do it 3 more times though the year!  We start the 1st of the month, and it's all about a   face . Any medium, surface, size and techniques are welcome. Canvas, paper, wood, digital, journals, mixed media, acrylics, oils, pastels, clay, rocks.... you name it! I have done the challenge before and always enjoyed this challenge and the discipline of completing some art each day.It took me a day or two to decide a direction for this month... Inspired by the amazing tea bag art of Ruby Silvious ( who created art on tea bag for 365 days!)   and with International Women's Day soon on 8 March, I decided to do a tea bag art series inspired by famous women "who have made a difference". I have called this series of sketches "Worldly Women" and each is a quick felt tip pen drawing, coloured with pencils a...

" She just turned 26. She's a Christmas cake now." .... To me it seems ironic, that in Japan, a country where Christmas is not really celebrated, that the term "Christmas cake" could become such an anti-feminist expression in the 1980's . In Japan it has become a tradition to eat Christmas cake on Christmas Eve, but the  Christmas cakes are highly decorated sponge cakes with lots of  whipped cream and fresh fruit.  These cakes are very popular and expensive and are usually ordered weeks in advance, but they have a short shelf life and do not last after Christmas Day. So, the cake intended for Christmas that was not eaten or left over  after 25th December is considered "bad" and should be thrown out. "Christmas Cake" then became the term for women who were over the age of 25 and unmarried. The implied meaning is that a Japanese woman 26+years is considered past her prime, and hence undesirable  as a marriage partner. While the use ...

This week , Anzac Day is commemorated in Australia - a remembrance day for those lost at war. April 25 was also the day when women in Columbus, Mississippi decorated the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers in 1866. This act of generosity and remembrance helped establish "Memorial Day" holiday .  It always seemed ironic to me that, during the war years, women were considered able, equal and competent and  were respected in many fields of work, denied to them because of gender in previous years and sometimes in subsequent years.  Medical Doctor  My " Women at Work" series  was created to remember the struggle of women to establish themselves in the workforce.  They are quite different from my usual style of dolls. They are all simple  shapes with machine embroidered outlines.  From a distance, and even in these photos, the lines look as though they have been drawn onto the fabric, but it's all stitching. I have added a splash...