SAQA Bloghop -its my turn

Well today is my turn on the SAQA bloghop which is a brief overview of  each artists concepts and /or techniques used to complete their piece for the 20 x20 silent auction on the SAQA site.

My piece follows Robyn Mcgraths blog  at   SAQA Oceania blog

and  Susan Mathews -  susanmathews.info  follows mine on the 24th of August.

 

For a full listing of the timetable and the artists participating click on the following link

 Oceania Collection Blog Hop timetable

 

I feel my little quilt is a little different  to most of the others, that I am privileged to be amongst.

I'm a reasonably new quilter, and am still learning quilting skills as I go along. I can thank other artists such as Sue Dennis for showing me techniques such as basic bindings, that many others have learnt through years of quilt making practice. I, on the other hand have come from a 3D soft sculpture and mixed media background. So, I have always used textiles, but find that  most of the quilting  especially traditional quilt making is rather a strange and scary place .

 To date I have created only 11 quilts, but am privileged to have had each exhibited in juried and touring exhibitions. I love doing the tops, but get nervous when putting the quilt together, and talk of the quilt police, perfect backs and precision joining and points, makes me quite fearful -that's why I love art quilting,which has almost unlimited scope in techniques and presentation and allows me the space to play and bring a crossover of  mixed media techniques to my quilts.
 

I have discovered I am a circular person in a square world!

Journey 0n 1#             2mW x 1.6m L
Curently touring with SOTA13

But now  

    Journey On 2#

When we were asked to  consider creating a piece for the auction, I was unsure what to make.

 But since being ill over the last 31/2 years, most of  my work has focused on the nude female form ,especially  in 3D or high relief, usually in a neutral or limited colour palette.

My period of illness created severe depression, anxieties and other physical and emotional limitations ,that I am still working through. It included a 6-8 month period where I was unable to create anything. Its amazing how extreme pain and fear affects you.

 But now on the other side of  this journey, I am using the emotions, both positive and negative, that were experienced to create art. It is deeply personal but with some of the quilts already exhibited creating ,at times, quite emotional responses from the viewers, it has been very cathartic for me, and gratifying that others can feel with me through my artwork.

 I love sayings, and when I found this one " In order to shine ,you have to get through the darkness first!"  it felt right. This along with a small figurative study sample created for Forward Motion, a larger quilt that was exhibited at the Birmingham Festival of quilts in 2011, was a perfect fit.
 

Journey on 2# 's needlefelted figure,is naked and exposed,and in a protective stance. She looks at the viewer with sad, fearful and lost eyes, but in the background is a doorway with light shining in. The only problem is the darkness that is surrounding and between the figure and her exit .She needs to move through her fear (the

darkness )to get to the light.

The figure is needle felted from merino wool and backed with felt and multiple layers of wadding ,the face has basic hand stitching to emphasize the features, otherwise I draw with wool to create light and shadow and needlefelt through up to 4 inches of felt and wadding to give depth.

 

with a black background its not the easiest piece to photograph

 

The wording was hand painted on and then normally I would machine around it, but it was too hard on this smaller scale

and with the figure in place.

The background was needlefelted black felt. The doorway

 had gold foil applied over vliesofix and then needlefelted

 over with black merino wool tops, to look like shadows

blending into the light.

 I machine embroidered the background and used heavy

 stabiliser-Timtex, to keep the shape of the figure as it was stitched on

 

Unfortunately I forgot to take many photos during the

 production of this piece, as I was more caught up with the closing date, and I need to learn to do more step by step

 photos. I forget all the time to take pics of even the scarves

and shawls I sell. Its on my 'to do' list., or perhaps I should

say-my " remember to do"list. I hope you enjoyed   reading        

                                                         a little about my quilt.

 

 To see my donation please go to the 2013 SAQA Benefit Auction at

 http://saqa-oceania.blogspot.com/p/oceania-collection_21.html or

http://tinyurl.com/2013oceaniacollection

   My piece is on page 3a but there are loads of lovely eye candy up for auction for you to look at and perhaps purchase..

 

 To see more of my work and more of my quilts go to www.bearlytherecreations.com

Last day

The time had gone so fast and we flew out late that night , so today was our last chance to utilise Jan and Jean to finish off work, and pack up. I was exhausted and decided that I needed to have a slack day and use my last chance to explore the landscape and actually look at what was around the masseria. So with camera in hand I headed off to the no of small stone lane ways that lead away from the masseria. On my adventures I discovered an old truli and wonderful aged doors, as well as multiple images of my favourite aged and twisted tree in the middle of a local field. I spent a lovely few hours walking down lane ways and taking hundreds of photos from landscapes, foliage, fields , trees and rusty wire. Even a mangled old chandelier thrown in the grass.
We spent our last few hours having an early dinner and savouring the last few hours of Mediterranean weather, before heading to the airport , and the dreaded Ryanair, and then on to Stansted airport, London. It was a very late night , and sadly because of the passport control, once I got through to the outer airport everyone had left, so I missed out on saying goodbye. And sadly headed to the Raddison Blue and a nights hopeful rest.

Day 4

Today we spent the day finishing our samples, playing with the embellisher, and free machining using layers of sticky wash away and Romeo to layout threads and create imagery , then hand stitching back into them to create textural effects. We utilised the whole day and well into the night to maximise our time and getting samples finished. Everyone's work was so different. Jan and Jean were very giving in their instruction, happy to help out without overwhelming your creativity but not hesitant to give a critical eye when needed, or advice on work that needed a lift etc.

Day three!

Today we worked in the morning and then we drove to lunch in a local township of Polignano del Mare. On the coastline . It was a nice lunch in a seafood restaurant that I had steak in , to avoid my seafood allergies. Mmmmmm!! First steak in months- not quite Aussie beef but a welcome meal!
Then we had a few hours to wander around the very old township , with the mission of finding ancient crumbling walls, peeling paint and other textures , we could translate into stitch. It is also an interesting place, built on cliffs I that are being slowly eroded by the violent seas , leaving interesting caves and rock walls. This area is renowned for the seafood that is freshly caught daily in the region. Sadly I couldn't eat most of it but it looked and small nice.
This towns architecture looked like its had a much more Spanish influence in the architecture, with Spanish style bell towers everywhere .

Puglia day 2

Today we started playing with translating our sketches into mini art works using ironon transfer mediums, and intense and other pigment based crayons, felt pens and watercolour paints, to create backgrounds. From this we had to work out ways to stitch over them using a twisted chain stitch taught to us by jean. The premise was to get us using only 1 stitch in a no of ways and a no. of different stitching mediums.
Today was also my 50th birthday and the girls surprised me with a mini party at dinner, with balloons and Rosa baked a gluten free cake. It was sweet and a nice end to the day.

Puglia day 1

The first day in Puglia , began with jan and jean giving an outline of the course and then we plunged headlong into the course.
First order of the day was to make viewing squares made from L shaped card. We were given he task of heading out around the masseria to find interesting textures and compositions that we could translate into embroideries. Our task was 10 small sketches with various textures and line forms. After multiple cries of "we can't draw!!! " we headed out. Jan showed ideas to get us started.
After an hour of finding imagery and simple sketching, we headed in for lunch and then spent the afternoon drooling over jan and jeans samples and doing tutorials on assorted techniques. It was a full day.

P day (puglia adventure)

After a few minor disasters such as debit card being suspended, running out of credit on phone while trying to sort it out, and housekeeping barging in early in the morning as they thought I had left, waking me up in a panic, and the stress of ryanair and their horrenous excess baggage charges,but the day got better once my new felt artist friend Yulia arrived to take me to Stansted airport with a drop in to her home and studio on the way. Her friend and also felt artist Sue Pearl popped in , and we went for a pub lunch before heading to the airport. Sue kindly offered to mind my extra luggage while away, and take me to Heathrow on my return.
After I was dropped at Stansted and scraped in underweight by a smidge, I waited to meet up with Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn plus the other participants. We found a couple of the ladies and flew to Bari on the northern side of Italy and then a 1/2 hour drive to puglia in the dark , arriving at the Masseria at about 10ish at night. We were greated by Rosa, the housekeeper, and found the other 4 participants for our course awaiting our arrival. There were 12 of us in total including the tutors. I shared a room with a lovely older lady called Joy. We had a supper and intro to the venue and met all the participants - which included Ann from Houston, Elizabeth from Finland, myself and a mixture of girls from all over Britain. The morning light showed how lovely the property is! And how lovely the countryside is and very different from Tuscany in colour, stone and light. It is quite an arid landscape , it can't sustain livestock but does suit fruit trees and olives well.

The solo adventure begins!

After jeff and Lauren left I had 2 days and nights alone before flying to Puglia. I had decided that I would go to London tower to see more of Kendra Hastes wire work, but after adding the costs up- as most attractions around London aren't cheap plus a daily tube fare, and the weather was again dark and densely foggy. I decided to investigate the local area. I needed a light bag for my extra kilos of luggage and the concierge recommended a small local market. So I headed back towards Hoxton , found the bag I needed, along with fabrics, could have gotten loads of scarves and clothing cheap, but found a little DIY shop that sold amazing textured wallpapers. After chatting with the staff, they have me metre long samples of about 10 different ones- score!! And it was even free! From here I walked on to the Whitechapel gallery, which had interesting installations and I thought they had Damian Hursts Shark in resin ,but apparently it's rotting and leaking and no longer on display. From here I found Petticoat lane which has the most amazing African and Indian fabrics and I ended up back at Spital field markets, where I bought my top hat that I had wanted to buy but hadn't. Then with fading light and masses of traffic, I hurriedly walked back home. I wouldn't walk these areas at night.

Our last day together

This was our big moving day out of the basement flat in Hoxton, and then by mini cab to Marlin Apartments at Limehouse again. We left our bags there and used our Oyster cards for the last few times into London. We were all tired and generally not that excited as it was foggy and rainy and I can understand why they get sad syndrome, cause we had it bad. I did find my lifesize wire elephant by kendra haste at Liverpool station- very cool. I journeyed with jeff and Lauren through the tube stations helping carry baggage as many don't have lifts or escalators. In the end it was a rush to get them on the heathrow train and goodbyes were fleeting, which was probably good as I would have been a blubbering mess. So they flew home together.

Lavender hill and then the palace

This was our second last day together and jeff had worked out a plan for finding a model and sci fi shop, and then we were off to see the palace . It was a really wet foggy day. After a tube an train ride, then short walk , we found the shop and the characters that run it, and a saving grace was that there was a nice fabric shop next door, so that made my day. If only it was as light as silk. They had beautiful liberty fabrics by the mile. But I did get a few small pieces to add to the weight limit. We had coffee t a nice cafe and then bused and tubed to the palace. We met lauren, did the look around and then walked back through st James park. We loads of geese , ducks other birds and loads of crazy squirrels. It's sad that they going to kill around 20,0000 grey ones soon. I gather they aren't native and have overtaken red squirrel areas- but still I hate to see anything killed and they are cute but I imagine to the Brits it's the same as brush tail possums overrunning other species, still sad though!!!!