Goodbye July!

Anthozoa, my Wearable Art Mandurah (WAM) entry from 2017, continues to live an interesting life in Perth - currently she is on display until the end of August at Lakelands Library as part of the WAM retrospective exhibition. Recently, she was used in a photo shoot with Katie Witt Photography, modelled by Kiana Lee and organised by Michelle Murphy. It's so amazing waking up and finding images like this of your work in your inbox!

Lichen Morphology has also spent the last month on exhibition at Burnie Regional Art Gallery.

Last week I was fortunate enough to host both Barb Thoms, the driving force behind WAM, and Janet de Boer for lunch. Hours and hours of wearable art discussion - so good! It must have stirred up something in me, as on the weekend inspiration hit, and I entered WAM 2019! This was also driven by having a tidy studio to work in, and time to revisit partially developed concepts buried within it! That gave me two solid designs to begin work on - one for WAM, one just because it needs to happen.

Also last week, this arrived - Down Under Textiles -  containing a lovely 4 page spread on my recent work, as well as many other interesting articles - I particularly liked the one on Irene Manion's beautiful long stitch free motion embroidery, and of course, the one on WAM. My article features the photography of Asiara Media and Chantal Brennan Photography, and models Heidi Sun and Edwina Tait.

July also brought the welcome news that my World of WearableArt entry has made it through another round of judging and will be shown in the performance in September. Thank goodness, as accommodation and flights were all booked! I'm using the 10 weeks until the show to do a little retrospective of my own 'Decade of Design', posting pictures of my WOW works on Instagram and Facebook each week.

This week I am off to the Artforce Awards at Brisbane City Hall to celebrate the work of myself and other artists on Brisbane traffic signal boxes. I've been shortlisted for the Overall Award, but there are many fabulous works - see them all here.

The week finishes with the opening of an exhibition at artisan at their new premises in Bowen Hills in the newly developed Brisbane Showgrounds Precinct. Stitch Cult is an exhibition that investigates the social significance of embroidery and its practice. Perhaps I'll finish this embroidered yoke for Matt's shirt in time and he can wear it there?! Now there's some motivation!!

The Abbey Medieval Fair 2018

One of the first people we saw at the Abbey Medieval Fair was this fine Scot, who inspired Matt on his first visit last year. There were a few highlanders around, but these two were by far the best! We were there under the wing of Matt's brother, Jean the Hornmaster, seen here in his tent selling his fine wares. Behind this tent was where evenings were spent gathered around the fire, eating venison stew and drinking rum, before retiring to our bed in the back of the ute! It was a little chilly, and we nearly suffocated the night we shut the hatch, but our little dressing room, nicknamed the Ute Yurt, was an excellent addition to the space.

Just next to him was this beautiful basketry stall festooned with hessian.

This is a shot of the entrance of The Stag Inn, where we spent a lot of time - no,no, not drinking all the time - it was just a great place to sit on hay bales, close to fires, watching the passing parade, and talking to folk.

....and talking to folk!

We did also venture to the Friars Folly Tavern, where we very much enjoyed the performance by Praxis - most entertaining and educational! We were sitting behind this gent and I admired these carved bone pieces of his garb.

These pics were taken down at the peasant encampment, where fabulous heritage chickens, goats, and some absolutely delightful people were to be found. The woven structures were absolutely beautiful, too.

  Also found on site were these glorious camels - they were just so beautiful and graceful.

The Wedgetailed Eagle just blew me away - I have never seen such a majestic beast of a bird! I'm not even going to try and analyse how I feel about it being tethered and used to assist hunters.

 Another species spotted were the Dryads of Phoenix Firetribe - beautiful as ever.

 I cannot describe what a challenge it was for me to look this drab for 2 whole days. I really struggled with not looking like myself and...blending in!! Even those who didn't know me knew that it did just not look right!! It was an interesting role swap for us - everyone was looking at Matt - and he struggled to find me in the crowd!
We had a great time, and we were so warmly welcomed by John and his friends - what a weekend!
Ooooh - postscript - that bushy beard is gone - look at the remains still in their beard beads!! Welcome back Matt!!

Bling Bling!!

I just checked my previous blog to see where I left off, and I could hardly believe that the last image of my embroidered yoke has now turned into this! As I noted in an Instagram post - decorative self control level = zero!! With delicious 3D sequin flowers to play with (amazingly, from the $2 shop), mixed in with my posher sorts, I just went a bit Bling Berserk!! Although I had a bit of a design to begin with, it did, as usual, organically grow! It is now removed from the frame and ready for application.

Speaking of frames, I found this lovely, larger frame with stand on Gumtree, and on Sunday we headed out to Woody Point to pick it up. I've taken this shot from above so you can't really see the stand, but I can now sit on the floor and embroidery comfortably. The current set-up is all a bit backwards and dodgy - I'd already cut out the collar - but I'll make it work!! I stopped in to Bead Trimming and Craft today, and couldn't help but leave with these silvery sequins.

The yoke for Matt's silk shirt is planned to be done in a restrained silver metallic thread, but there is no guarantee that these won't make their way into the design...

Although I do buy sequins everywhere, from dollar shops to online, I do love shopping at BeadTrimming&CraftCo at Stones Corner.

The day of bling continued, as I picked up this bag at the dreaded KMart - it matches so well with the fabric I bought a few weeks ago! Modelled here on Emperor Matt.

All the equipment is now assembled for the kombi paint job, and it is just a wait for the right weather conditions now to start! I think the amorphous pattern, based on butterfly wings, will offer me enough of a buffer to hide my lack of experience in this particular medium!

The next post will be of the Medieval Fair - the trim arrived for my outfit today. Thank goodness. It's no rhinestone, but it's something. It's going to be an interesting weekend for this peacock - no sparkles, no pink hair, no heels!!