Glowing Times

In my constant searching for opportunities to participate in, I stumbled across the Naracoorte National Art Prize, being held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of megafauna fossil remains in the world heritage Naracoorte Cave, South Australia. Artists are invited to create a 2D work in any media exploring the theme "Australian Megafauna, Fossils and Caves - an Artistic Exploration".

My composite design

 Not only did this offer a requirement to work in 2D, but upon researching images of the caves and coming up with a composite design of those most iconic, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to play with the UV reactive/glow-in-the-dark thread I had bought many months ago. Also from the studio stores came metres of what seems to be cotton organza, rescued from Reverse Garbage, which I dyed with eucalyptus leaves to create the natural tones of the caves. Having decided which images were going to go on what layers, I traced them out onto solvy to pin onto the fabric, hoop it, and start stitching!.

Printed design for reference pinned next to the machine

Once the layers were complete, it was time to bring them together. I had imagined keeping each layer whole and hanging millimetres apart, with images visible through, but decided to condense the image and started the scary process of cutting out sections!

The layers were then hand stitched together, with dark layers added around the edge to frame it, and I am now in the process of further framing it with a layer of reptilian-textured leather off-cuts - sewing this is going to be interesting! On track for the July entry deadline, although I'll need to work out how to photograph it more clearly!

Glow in the dark effect

UV Light reaction

It was so much fun working with the thread that I decided to use it to create a piece for Contemporary Wearables in Toowoomba. I had a lot of silk paper shapes dyed a vivid aqua - experiments for Lichen Morphology last year - and stitched densely around the edges, and in towards the centre - inspired a little by mushroom gills. I loved the effect of the loose threads too, creating a feathery, soft outline.

Having pinned them around a mannequin in a slightly asymmetrical shape, I made a wire armature to support them, needle-felted wool over it, and wet-felted it (for ages!) to shrink it down securely onto the wool. A lot more hand stitching later (there's been a lot of bloody fingertips around here lately) a few sequins added, and it was done.

The final stage was completing the entry, which means writing the artist statement, and finding a title for the work. In researching more about bioluminesence, I discovered that the light-emitting compound found in organisms which luminesce is called Luciferin, so this has been named Luciferin Lei.