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Teardrops

These pictures are a wee bit overdue but I am all for a slow reveal! Elspeth and Gloria from the Queen Street gallery A Room Of Her Own just brought these pics to me which is fortuitous because Paper Cuts (my first solo art exhibition) has heavily inspired recent textile designs which I will be showing shortly.

The papercuts I cut in this show were all 5 metres long, incredibly detailed and laboured over (with love) for months. Hung on rolls they were sold by the metre like fabric. The paper shapes that fell from the cuts sat in piles under each papercut so they ended up being swished around by people's feet, collected and taken home by children which was nice. I also made a number of large collages from the cut out shapes and a series of smaller brown papercut shapes on brown paper collages which I called Camouflages- they were impossible to photograph which adds to the meaning of them to me in a way.

All and all it was a pretty intense/ethereal/personal show and I was really overwhelmed with the response.

Pattern House

uploaded from NY Times

My sister Sarah can sometimes be like a little bird on my shoulder and has 'ESP' timing. This image was in an email this morning how gorgeous (wallpaper chosen by Grace Bonney of Design Sponge fame).
Which has prompted thoughts of my poor old slightly neglected Pattern House which has been on pause since my last art exhibition and since things started to get busier for Umbrella Prints. The brooches are important to me because I can just play and experiment and its relaxing.

Playlist Song #10

I once suddenly noticed that every member of my family in the room was wearing a skivvy- S, G, my Dad...... and me! There's nothing wrong with a skivvy but skivvy on mass? Bill Withers wears a skivvy well in this clip but he must be soo hot. I was going to choose 'Aint No Sunshine' but decided the drummer in this more obscure track is THE coolest drummer I have ever seen so 'Use Me' wins this time.

Almost is Perfect

G trots out of her bedroom at 11pm (3 hours past bedtime!) beaming carrying this new/old alpha set a present from a friend. Looking at it I really couldnt get angry but did say "go strraaight back to your bed young lady" because Ive earnt the right to sound like a real Mum.

Ooops did I just say real Mum? Its just sometimes I feel too immature to actually be a Mum and looking at G I occasionally get a flash of 'where did you come from?'. I feel slight relief having asked my mum about that and she says she sometimes has the same feeling- at 68 and after having 5 kids!

3

S sometimes has to work on the weekend but we cant really complain as we all get to join him in some beautiful vineyards. Whilst he is monitoring bud development I am looking at the linear forms in the contoured landscape and G is wondering why the sheep keep running away as she only wants to pat ONE.

Song #9 Sigur Ros- Glosoli

This band just kills me- Amazing, beautiful twinkly Sigur Ros; they sound like aliens or angels would sound. Every film clip by them has a cry factor and its hard to choose a favourite.

RE: sneak peek

Im horrible at keeping secrets too x!
this humble abode: sneak peek

We Have Company

photograph by Criss.Cross.Apple.Sauce


G has three 'friends' who are always with her.

They are.....in order of importance.....Sizzy (numero uno), Balarmee (like Salami) and side-kick Nollage (pronounced Knowledge).

Sizzy morphes from having blue hair and being small to looking like a grownup and sitting next to me in the front passenger seat of the car. Sizzy is often naughty and gets the blame for a lot of things around the house. The other day I was shutting the front door and accidently stepped on Sizzy's foot which made G cry- but how do you hug an invisible friend? G's friends seem so real that sometimes I wonder what if they ARE real like little ghosts and its just adults that can't see them and then I can REALLY freak myself out.

Set Free

Everyone gets to see all of the hard work by a big group of artists/designers for Kirsty Campion's exhibition Mixed Nuts held for just one night a while ago but now open to the public and onto cyberspace. The variety of interpretations is amazing and all really cute efforts. Apparently this exhibition was not accepted by publishers...... yet has had over 1000 hits in just one night! Go people power x

Carly and I worked together on two Umbrella Birds (I call them Brolly Birds); based on the nut shape each exhibitor was given, we thought it'd be fun to bend it into a new shape. The bird's feathers are made of our hand screen printed fabric (Umbrella Prints) in never-seen-before colours. Each bird has a hand embroidered face and is a one off and never to be repeated.

Carly's Umbrella Bird (left) is still for sale so if you would like to own an original by the creator of Moopy be quick go here (about half way down).

Song #8 Angus & Julia Stone- Just a Boy

Super Cute and brilliant fun live with Anna.

'Me with blossoms'

By Amelie and by Lily
Yesterday's Ruth Tuck Art Class

Thankyou

I got a pressie this week from an amazing lady and it has proud place in my daughter's room as of tonight- who said "I luuuv it!". I adore this print as I have so many of Nicola's over the years she has been designing- Kagoshima Tree 2008, Wave 2005, Wattle 2003 all quintessentially Australian, stunning and inspirational.

A little bit of Sunshine

Today was fun. G and I did some jobs in the car; Carly and I looked through a pile of cuttings, pencils, saved bits of old craypas and collected pieces of ephemera in order to choose and agree on the next colours we would like to print; an impromtu Flip Doll 'photo shoot' with G in the sun in the backgarden; and snags and mash for dinner. Besides S being away it was a perfect day.

Umbrella Prints- Patchwork Fabric #1

Sometime this week I will be trying to take better photos of these fabrics in anticipation of finally releasing them onto the internet (at Umbrella Prints and on Etsy).

Carly and I have spent a while happily grappling with a name for our collaborative conglomerate (eek!) of patterns on hemp/cotton fabric. In the end we have decided upon Umbrella Prints- Patchwork Fabric #1!

Over the next couple of weeks I would like to talk more about the 6 designs of mine within this patchwork- what they are called, how the designs came about and what they mean to me.
I will put up a little note when the fabric is up for sale for those who are interested. The colours are starfruit green, red kimono, sumi black and pink moon.

zzzzzzzz :-)

There's This Song

image from here

There is this song that I cant get out of my head and its been replaying in my head (just the chorus) over and over and over for more than a week now. As soon as I think it might have gone somebody sings it and blip its right back in there. This song is so contagious it should be banned.

My sister had a job for a short while that she found quite boring and just for kicks we would have bets as to whether she could implant a song into a colleague's head by humming it next to them at some stage of the day and see if they would start singing it. We would choose the track something like ('achy breaky heart' is a good beginners song if you want to try!). Seems some people are more susceptible than others and pick it up really easily- and then spread it to others! It was so funny!

Anyway what Im going through now must be karma.

Fence Hunter

I love this fence. I love the mixture of ordinary council materials and lovely wood.

I have decided to get moving and get fitter. I love walking but I know within a week I just won't be motivated. No I need an incentive; something to move me more than the promise of an ab (or 6). I'm thinking of combining two current loves of mine- taking photos and fence research. I know I am sooo boring.

Our front garden doesn't have a fence and whilst I quite like the idea of no fence (sociologically), it would be great for G to have more of an area to safely play. But once we started looking at options I realised a fence is not just a fence; its a symbol and its expensive.

'The fence' , its construction, size and shape, is (after functionality) all about aesthetic impression, otherwise, everyone would have a colorbond fence. I could write a thesis on this!

Walking the streets of the suburbs in Adelaide I am astonished at how much fence I have never noticed. Some people's fences confuse me, other people have gone to Enormous effort to create elaborate shell covered monstrosities (yes shells) which must be some kind of nautical fantasy and others dress their fence first then the house because they care very much about how people see them.

So here starts my journey to find the most interesting, intriguing, beautiful, and ugly fences in Adelaide. Hopefully I can get rid of the gut at the same time without noticing!

Take another look. This fence is 20cm high! Why!!!? Good for a sausage dog I guess.

Travelling East

Half of this window display went to an exhibition of Umbrella Prints at Uncle Albert's in Norwood this week. A few proud sausage dogs (our Tandem project with Brooke) are joining in on the fun too! I went this morning and was really pleased in how it all looked after all the new renovations. So for the moment this Elephant gone walkabout.

Sunday drive

photo by Yumi

It was grey and gloomy yesterday but we decided to drive to Blackwood to visit my Grandmother's grave for the first time. Only problem was I didnt know which cemetery to go to and with nearly every member of my family out of touch I thought I would test out my psychic ability and find it instead 'by vibe'.

G (who is three) was in the back of the car desperate with questions; "where are we going?", "where is Great-Grandmother's house?", "are we going to see Great-Grandmother?", "how does she get to be ashes?". So map in hand (hopeless) and fielding impossible questions (poor G, how can she possibly understand we are going to visit Grandmother's ashes but that Grandmother wont be there?) and the phone ringing (hi Carly!) I was trying not to piss myself laughing as I felt so ridiculous and knew I was pissing off S.

Then I remembered Grump knows! So we rang Grump and he gave us directions thankfully.

A beautiful, old cemetery with old, old gravestones and the sun had come out which was nice. I felt mildly deflated that I couldn't find the place 'on my own' but joked that I would give my psychic powers one more go. Standing in the centre of the cemetery I said "Im going to find Grandmother" pointed myself in a direction and strode 10 metres directly to her name. Grandmother might have found that amusing!

It was really nice to go there, I wasnt scared or upset, it was a nice place.
G was really interested in knowing every name on every tombstone, Janey, William, Pearl, Ivy, Bob, Florence, Margaret, we read them all. Graves that were 95 years old but still tended to with flowers-from whom?!

I should have taken a flower- I will next time.