Tripping

Brisbane put on a beautiful day for our trip to the Threads Exhibition, my birthday outing, but despite how lovely it looks, the temperature was close to 40 degrees C (that's around 100 f) and we were pleased and relieved to be indoors for most of the time, but the short walk to and from the train staion was like walking through a furnace.  It was strange to think at the same time last year this city and surrounds was under water and sad to remember the many lives that had been lost throughout SE Queensland.

Brisbane skyline from Southbank

The Exhibition - "Threads - Contemporary Textiles and the Social Fabric" was wonderful and well worth the trip, and there were so many amazing pieces on display, all with their own story, that I've highlighted just some of my favourites.  

 This batik was part of a display from a north Western Australian Aboriginal community.  While some displays had a very clear political message, or documented social and political conditions, others, like these batiks, drew on traditional imagery and cultural narratives while using new techniques and materials. All of the pieces explored in some way the connection between old and new, and highlighted important links between people, places and ways of life.  Quoted from the Art Gallery blurb  " Threads have the capacity to unravel, opening up possibilities for innovation, discord and creative change and the weaving of new histories"

I like that!





Pearl diver's woollen trousers worn under diving gear, embellished with fruits of his labour...pearl buttons. 



Details from this large circular piece, all hand embroidered with motifs and patterns that are symbolic of  fertility, prosperity or protection.  Motifs also depict everyday domestic life.

Lajla liked this one



More detailed.....and humorous....hand embroidery

This is Burrut'tji....lightning serpent.  This batik from northern Australia depicts the cycle of natural events....storms, life giving rain, fertility.



a very powerful image



There was a display of baskets as well.  This one caught my eye with it's bands of striking colour.  It was made by a an elder, a man of the Girramay people from Far North Queensland, from twined vines.  He learnt basketmaking by watching his grandmother as a boy, and now introduces the arts of his rainforest people in a more contemporary way to a wider audience. He is also a passionate activist for land rights. 



This traditional robe from China was interesting.  It's made from plastic and hand embroidered with fishing line.  It represents the contradictions of a rapidly changing society, and the relationship between  tradition and modernity. A revered traditional costume has been made from  "vulgar, cheap, versatile, omnipresent, environmentally unfriendly high tech junk. "  The artist worked on this for nearly 10 years,

The following pictures are from another exhibition : "Across Australia" - celebrating the Gallery's collection of Indigenous Australian art.

Lajla looks a little worried she's about to be lunch!

 These are wooden carvings of 'camp dogs' from Arakun on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula, far north Queensland.  Stray dogs roam in packs in most Aboriginal communities, and around sunset they'll look for an "owner", someone to give them a feed.  Usually the Arakun people carve totems, which are sacred to different family groups, so the artist will work alone, but since camp dogs belong to all, this project allowed people to come together and  collaborate and to share their art
 

These are firestick figures from far north Queensland, made from clay, ochre and plant material.  They were made to carry firesticks from one camp site to another, and the carrier was under a great deal of pressure to ensure the fire stick stayed dry and alive.



 A woven vessel (erkel) from Queensland, made from spinifex grass twined with nylon thread, red ochre and galah feathers.  The photo doesn't do justice to the vibrant pink in the bird feathers.

Inside view

This is just a glimpse of the many wonderful pieces on display.  I might show some more another time.  There were a couple of large tapestries which sadly I didn't photograph, but they were amazingly detailed, handworked embroideries of major events of displacement and genocide.  Perhaps just too raw and heartbreaking to document?  I found all the items powerful and their stories moving, and I loved the way threads and the work of many seemingly disparate hands have woven stories and images we all understand and resonate to at some level.

.............. how spectacular is this?

My birthday finished  in a blaze of colour, with this stunning sky display at sunset

............and since I was now a year older, what better way to recover from the emotion, excitement and exertions of the day than to  find a cool spot with a breeze and have a little rest.

aah!

Day of the Goat

It's my birthday today, and I'm off to Brisbane for a day of fun and frivolity.....first to see an exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery - "Threads : Contemporary Textiles and the Social Fabric and then who knows what else.

.....and for those who were curious, here's the gift sent to Naomi that I gave a sneak peek of a few days ago....I think she liked it a lot.  She likes to sketch and draw, using pastels, pencil or charcoal, so I made her this folder she can pop in her bag and take with her and sketch on the go.  The cover's made from some linen I rust dyed.  I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

'bye for now

Stitching down the Moon

I have been thinking a lot lately about incorporating more practical, creative ritual into my days.  I used to do a lot, but lapsed somewhere along the way, and now feels like the time to start again.  I've decided to join  Peggy, Woman with Wings in creating Full Moon Art.  The idea is to stitch or paint a simple full moon piece each month and link with Peggy and others to share our full moon musings.

I took this photo of the moon soon after she'd risen, just as clouds were beginning to move across, and shortly after, she was hidden and there was just the ghostly glow of her light to be seen.  I got up early this morning hoping to see her setting behind the mountain, but the sky was still covered in grey cloud.

I did a small stitchery of that cheddary yellow moon.....and look, all you fellow TASTER's....fly stich bats crossing the sky!!  This full moon is in it's home sign of Cancer, and is about our ties to home, family, tribe and community and the bonds of love and compassion that connect us to others. To balance all that Cancerian watery emotion that tugs at us, I've given the heart roots to ground these feelings in the practicality that the current sun sign of Capricorn insists on....my own sun sign, with my birthday tomorrow.

I used scraps of my eco dyed fabrics to make this, and whatever embroidery thread my hand pulled from the tin was used to stitch with.

Happy full moon day everyone.

Outside and In

Inspired and encouraged ...."get stuck in, today!" by Kaite and the mammoth task she took on of digging out part of her yard and putting a stairway in, I returned to a task I'd started a few weeks (months?) back.  This hilly weed covered mound was part of the soil dug out for the foundations of the cat run I had had built, and slowly over time I'd moved that pile bit by bit...it was twice as high as this when I started.  I ran out of steam for a while, mainly because with winter rain then sun on it, it turned into a nasty rocky clay pad.

 I had got this far with clearing and levelling it, and removing most of the rocks and rubbish, when more enjoyable pasttimes called, and I stopped again.

 In the last few days, I've finished levelling the area, and yesterday evening I mulched it with straw from the chookpen, and will let it sit and breakdown now, and soften and nourish the still hard soil underneath, before adding soil and planting it out.  A rock edging needs to be added, a job for another day.

This small bed is right outside the cat run, so I'll plant it up with herbs....thyme grass, cat nip and cat grass, some lemon scented pelargoniums I struck from a cutting, and anything else I find that is safe if the cats chew on it, has some perfume and will deter the flies.

In dyepots in the garden are some bundles wrapped with amaranth, some silk, some cotton, and various vinegary and alum mordants.  One...the brownish looking one I think....has a tin lid wrapped inside the fabric....just to see what happens.  I'll leave them tucked up warmly here, and they'll solar dye for a month, as India suggests in her book, and do their thing.

 Indoors, I've been working on some stitching....just a peek, as the recipients haven't received them yet.  This was to be a Christmas gift to go to Sydney with me, for my son's fiancee.  With about 15cms of sewing to go, my machine refused to do anything, except chew the fabric, so sadly I had to leave it behind.  I set to when I returned, and gave the machine a good clean, hoping after a little rest it would behave, and get to work without needing to be taken away to fix something serious. Happily I got it going again and finished *this* for Naomi and sent it on it's way.  I'll reveal all once it's arrived at it's destination in the Blue Mountains.

The second peek is a fabric postcard.  For the second time, I've joined the Stitchinfingers Fabric Postcard birthday swap and the first two birthdays are this month....

this one's going to Tahlia, in the USA

and I received this one from Teresa, just up the road in Brisbane, for my birthday next week.  There are 12 of us swapping, but our birthdays aren't spread evenly across the months....some months 2 or 3, others no birthdays at all.  If I'm organised, I'll work on them in the free months....ha!

And I'm working on this yummy looking pincushion as a gift for a friend, it will be joined by a needlebook, in a small basket, with a tape measure, pins and needles and little scissors. She has just bought a sewing machine, so I thought this would be a fun way to celebrate.
There'll be flowers added, and whatever else takes my fancy.  Maybe some flystitch for TAST?  Has anyone done their bit yet?  I thought I might today, I can't decide how though....whether to add stitches to a cq I have in progress, or do a sampler....hmm, tough decisions.

Off to drink tea and stitch now......bye.

A new day, a new year

I welcomed 2012 as the first sun of the new year turned the clouds over Mt Warning pink, and tinged the hedge with gold, with a rather chilly (for summer) stroll around my garden

The poinciana is losing the last of it's fiery red blooms, and leafing up beautifully to shade the front of the house from the morning sun, and similarly, the jacaranda out back has lost almost all it's gentle mauve flowers and is providing a dense shade canopy to shield the western side of my house from the fierce afternoon sun.  It also provides deep shade over the chook pen.  At the moment it doesn't feel like that burn of summer will come, as it's still quite cool, even at mid morning.

These shade loving calladiums, impatients and bleeding heart vine provide a burst of summer colour in a sheltered spot under the front stairs.

Snowy white cosmos and petunias glow in the morning sun

I use the leaves from this showy purple red amaranth in salads and juices, and now that it has a seed head, I'll try dyeing with it.

The garden is starting to wind down now, and it's getting too hot to start any new plantings, so soon I'll start to mulch over the beds, and plan the planting for autumn, but the button squash are still producing,
and there's always tomatoes to pick.

These self sown marigolds provide a nice groundcover to keep this bed free of weeds until I'm ready to plant again, and once the flowers start, the bees will come in droves.

 
On the back fence in the lane, the banksia is setting seed. 

These wicked looking seed pods were the villains in Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, an iconic story of the Australian bush, written by May Gibbs and first published in 1918.

The frangipanni is just starting to flower, but already their heady, distinctive perfume fills the air, a scent that always takes me back to my childhood, of long summer school holidays, spent at the beach or in the pool.

Curious chickens, Edie and Juno, hoping for a treat, or even better...to be let out... sorry girls, not until later this afternoon.

                                                

 I'm not sure what this plant is, I've always called it a balsam, but when I looked that up, it looks nothing like this.  I think it might be a weed, but it makes such a bright show against the fence and survives well with no care during the hot weather that I let it have it's way.

I wish everyone an enjoyable day as we start our journey into 2012, and hope the new year brings joy, blessings, peace and happiness for all.

Head down, bum up

I've been busy!!

There's been knitting .....

and sewing

These cheery babies are ready for their journey to Pip, of Meet Me At Mike's.  (Sorry, can't seem to get the link thingy to work, giving up after X amount of tries and much **#@*##!)

I'm going to miss them

.....................there's been snuggling and napping in warm places, because it feels like winter, not summer!

.............parcels have come in the post

 a generous gift of sharing from my Christmas decoration swap partner, Rhonda.  Some yummy pieces of fabric to play with.  Thankyou Rhonda, it was very generous of you.

and I treated myself to some of Arlee's eco dyed silk

http://albedoarlee.wordpress.com/

Detail on Wish Upon a Star

Close-up of Rosier Park

The photos don't do justice to the beautiful subtle colours and ghostly markings.  And they smell delicious too, like a forest floor. 

What else? 

I supported the Tweed Shire Women's Service's 16 days of Activism events, and joined the Sistas Against Violence Lantern Parade last Friday night, an event organised by local Indigenous women, and the White Shirt walk on Wednesday.  No pics from these events, as it was quite cold and wet, we just wanted to be seen and heard and get out of the rain. I've attended similar events for years, and it's disturbed me that  often they can be quite militant, which I think, is counter to the message of non-violence we're trying to get across. But both these events were peaceful, with a lovely quietness at the start, and building to an intensity and passion that felt hopeful and determined, but without the aggression I've witnessed in other years.

The 16 Days of Activism is an International campaign calling for an end to violence against women and children.  There's history and information here,  there were some gruesome and horrific crimes perpetrated against women which, sadly, were the platform for these events which are now held to raise awareness that there will be zero tolerance for violence against women.

......and on a lighter note, the Christmas tree has been put up

and there's more knitting and sewing to be done for Christmas gifts and Secret Santa presents

 The sun has just come out here after a week of rain, and I hope, wherever you are, there'll be some brightness and warmth  in your day too.