Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Nothing inhibits creativity like a house makeover . Here are photos of the main room of our house and the timber which will hopefully be the floor in a couple of weeks’ time. We have decided to pull up the carpet in all the main areas of the house – living room, dining room and office, and “match” the already beautiful timber floor of our open kitchen/family room.. The furniture is all stacked in the garage . I am in a little bt of a panic as we have already had one delay in the timber delivery and we need to have the house back in order by the time my mother comes to visit for a few weeks on 14 July. However, with a little bit of help from the grandchildren...who knows? Not to be deterred, I am reminded that ‘to think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted. ( George Kneller) “, so I am trying not to worry too much about the floor and visualise the new spotted gum timber floor it will be. This week I am preparing a little sample for my frien...

I feel very honoured this week to be featured in the Coffs Coast Polyclayers Newsletter Winter 2010 edition , the brainchild of creative friend, Hector Vera of Vera Designs.  Hector makes fabulous jewellery and teaches interesting and innovative workshops in his Bellingen studio. I met Hector when we completed the Contemporary Clay Instructors Program and we often meet at workshops in Sydney. Hector is far more productive and creative than I am with polymer clay and precious metal clay. I recommend visiting Hector’s blog and I am sure you will agree with me. I am not sure where the last week disappeared… perhaps days of grandchildren-sitting, Rotary volunteering, organising farewells to our exchange student and ambassadorial scholar who are going back to Canada and Japan respectively in the next few days. At least, we have been doing “out of the ordinary” things like packaging up a didgeridoo to be posted, ensuring it met the under 105cm limit. (At least, that was bett...

While battling the ‘flu this last week, I didn’t feel like doing much. However, I sat down one afternoon and moulded lots of little polymer clay heads. Nothing wonderful - all popped out of a commercial mould! It might sound a bit perverse, but I love making heads. I certainly don’t have any great motivation to do anything with them – just love creating them, colouring them and looking at them. I had also signed up for an online sculpting class presented by Marlaine Verhelst. I have long been a fan, and decided this is the kind of sculpting I would like to do. It isn’t as realistic as my friend Bobbi does, but there is something spiritually appealing about these faces. Please have a look at Marlaine's gallery if you haven’t seen her work before.  Well, with all the best intentions, I paid for the online classes, downloaded them and got the raw materials… hopefully I will have more to show next week.

I recently taught a workshop at the Newcastle Creative Embroiderers and Textile Artists Creative Retreat. One of my very conscientious and creative students, Gay, sent me some photos of one of her completed works - a felted soft sculpture. The wet felt sculpture depicts a bottle, which has been lying on the ocean bed for sometime.... and has needle felted underwater plants  as well as polymer clay embellishments, giving the suggestion of schools of fish and even a mermaid. I love the way Gay has created movement with silk and the patterns created by the little polymer clay shapes/fish pieces. Well done, Gay. This will be a wonderful piece for the Outdoor Odyssey theme exhibition later in the year. I can hardly wait to see the other bottles Gay plans to create as representations of various environments.

With the weather becoming a bit colder, I decided to finish a scarf I started last year. I loved this pattern when I saw it in a Patons book, and a few of us at one of my dollmaking groups decided to make it - so you will probably see various versions of this around Newcastle this winter.     I enjoyed knitting the flowers and the leaves, but I did not enjoy the sewing up, so that is why the fifteen flowers and thirty leaves were all finished but not assembled. I wanted to wear this to my friend Connie's birthday last weekend, so took a couple of nights in front of TV to sew the flowers and leaves together.   I chose some sunflower fabric at Dollies last Saturday and had a pattern in mind . It's been made up into a little drawstring bag, constructed from a square, folded diagonally, and then the corners are folded in to create a pocket. What I love about this bag is that the lining and pockets are all made in one - the folding means that the outside fabric is also th...

Last weekend, I was very privileged to be one of the tutors at the NCEATA (Newcastle Creative Embroiderers and Textile Artists) creative Retreat at Kurri. My workshop was entitled “Felted Fashion and Fallalery’ (fallalery is the creation of useless, trifling items). Here are some of my samples – the Compass Doll series. South Seas,  Western Landscape, Northern Lights, East Wind. These were made using the plastic resist method, wet felted merino wool  and silk. The faces are polymer clay, and the bodies embellished with simple embroidery, beads, metal pieces, sequins   My workshop group was thirteen talented and enthusiastic women, including a delightful student who made some wonderful accessories for her HSC textile art.   We were all very productive, had lots of fun and enjoyed one another’s company and artistic support.   The venue was the TAFE campus at Kurri Kurri, with wonderful accommodation facilities and great food at the Conference ...

Every day during a recent trip to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam provided fascinating sights - along the Mekong River.   Natural limestone monuments in Halong Bay, Vietnam Peaceful reflection by the river in Hoi An, Vietnam Sparkling waterfalls Kuang Si, Laos   Not all the amazing sights were natural - many many wondrous temples, statues, structures....   Mosaics.... Bridge built by Japanese in Vietnam Cave entry .... stone dragons .... homes and hotels.... and even tunnels ... Obviously not built for the western physique!  POST SCRIPT - HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY