Catching up with paperwork and future classes

Every now and then I feel overwhelmed with paperwork. I feel like I get less and less made and spend more and more time sending off CV's, sending photos, sending needs lists and arranging dates for classes. Today I am catching up with all that stuff at once rather than spreading it out. So in all likelihood I will send the needs lists for Quilter Lane in Masterton to Christchurch and the needs list for Kapiti Quilters to the lawyer, while the lawyer will get an article on the Aotearoa Quilters show in Rotorua instead of the tax return from my mothers estate.

I have updated my booked classes list (see the right hand side of my blog) to show some new classes. It seems that Sashiko is the new black. Everyone wants Sashiko so I'm teaching it in three places around the Wellington region this year. Some groups may have spaces for non-members. Its a good class to take because you don't have to lug a sewing machine around if you don't want to.

The first class is  Wellington Quilters Solstice Weekend in Karori Arts and Crafts society rooms.
26th June. I also have a machine quilting class (Quilt Doodling) on the 25th. I know there are a few spaces so let me know and I will pass on the details of the organiser. It costs $20 for members and $40 for non-members.

Coastal Quilters has booked a sashiko class for 2nd July

Kapiti Quilters for the 6th of August.

I might have to make more class samples as they need to be in three places at once. In these classes you can stitch by hand or machine depending on what you prefer.

 
In January I've been invited to teach Indigo Dyeing and Shibori at the Lower Hutt Arts Society Summer School.

Indigo dyed fabrics from my class at Quilt Symposium 2015

This should be fun as indigo and warm weather go nicely together. More information and enrolment forms should go up on the website in the next few weeks.

I have also been invited to teach bookmaking at the Embroiderers Great Escape in Auckland from 24-26th of March next year. Since I'm going to be up in Auckland anyway,  I could move on to teach somewhere else in the North and make a bit of a holiday of it in between 'gigs'. Any suggestions? Its still lovely and warm in March for organic indigo dyeing.

Indigo turning from green to blue

Indigo fabrics changing to blue

Ta da!

Objectspace Exhibition, costumes etc.

This is what the wallhanging at Objectspace looks like today. Next week the curator will add another color. The wheat hasn't started sprouting yet!

This week I have been making hats for a ballet performance and now I have sprayed one of them with gold and have gold fingers and bits of gold on my glasses. The next thing to do is add gold foil.

I realize that this is quite a mixture, dance costumes and conceptual object art. I guess we have to be generalists as textilists, costumes are my 'bread and butter' that is 'when i get paid' although most people are happy to pay for materials and less interested in paying for my making skills.

Here are the two hats I have been working on:

Headdress for La Bayadere , the Golden Idol

 I tried a variety of methods before settling on using some Guipure lace I had in my stash. Now I just need to find more. Lots of gold spray paint and gold foil on top. I am very pleased with the result.

Turban for the slave master guy, La Bayadere

Objectspace Exhibition, Auckland NZ

On my way back from Melbourne I stopped in Auckland to help hang my exhibition  at Objectspace, which is at 8 Ponsonby Rd, Auckland.
Daily photos of the dyeing in progress will be on the Objectspace facebook page 

It is a very minimalist exhibition, just three wallhangings but it is a lovely gallery with really nice natural light and the work can be seen through the window of the gallery even when it is closed.

Bitter Harvest before dyeing on day 1

Start of dyeing day 1 - red and yellow mixed to make scarlet

The dye starts to separate

End of day 2

The exhibition is on for 4 weeks and more dye will be added each day.

Clare Smith

Artist Statement

My work investigates the relationship between commerce, the environment and the damaging effects of ‘the race to the bottom’, where the consumer and importer demand the lowest price and the manufacturer is forced to cut corners to secure a profit.

Water treatment is expensive and rivers in textile manufacturing countries,  run blue or pink or turquoise with waste-water run-off from the textile industry. The dyes are so strong that it is possible to predict fashionable colours for the seasons ahead by looking at Googlearth.

Materials

Cotton fabric and thread, spice racks, metal bowls, polystyrene cups, fabric dye, wheat, barley, rice.

Size: 1.5m wide X 2m high

Blogger for iPad

I just discovered the blogger app, which I can use when I am travelling. This is really a test to see how it works. In 3 1/2 weeks I start a trip I have Been looking forward to for months. New Zealand - Tokyo - Osaka - shikoku island - Tokyo - stockholm- London - southampton - New Zealand.

Just a few more weekend classes to teach, some things to make which need to be ready close to the date I get back and of course the rush to try and get fitter and lost a few more kilos because I know I'll be on my feet , walking and walking for hours. 

Some random photos from a trip to Auckland a few months ago, to see how the photo loader works.

Auckland, solo shows and 'stuff'

Sunset in Auckland (Symonds St)

Here are a couple of photos from Auckland. My eldest son has gone there to study Jazz at Auckland University and I took my younger son up there for the holidays for a visit. Music son was trying to fit in 8 hours of practice a day during the holidays so we didn't see much of him. My husband went to a conference in Marrakesh for pretty much the whole holidays.

Anyway, I managed to get to see the exhibition 'Kermadec' at the Maritime museum which is great. I really recommend this exhibition to anyone who has a chance to see it. The band 'One Direction' was staying at a hotel very close to where we were staying. I had to wear earplugs to get to sleep to cut out the noise of all those screaming teens.

We are only 2 days into the new term and  today is a public holiday for  Anzac Day so I have been working on some of the weird experiments required as part of the course. Today I have made a sponge and feather mockup of a sparrow, tried and failed to smash up an old road reflector and hung a line full of washing over a stream (with the help of various members of my family). The sponge and feathers sparrow hasn't been used yet so I can't tell whether it will be successful or not. The road reflector is a dead-end I think and the washing over the stream was supposed to look like dyed clothes dripping into the stream but the sun went behind a cloud and really all it looked like was a washing line on a camping trip. Never mind - we have to try these things.
I should explain that as part of the course we got 2 mystery 'materials' and a word and we have to use these together for experiments and try to incorporate them into our body of work for our solo exhibition (which is looming fast and I haven't even worked out what I am making).

So my 2 mystery materials were a packet of pigeon feathers and  a road reflector, (probably dug up in the numerous road works on in wellington all the time). My word is 'Impact'.

I've had fun with the pigeon feathers which I dyed blue,  however the road reflector is pretty much indestructable. I have hit it with a sledgehammer, attempted to crush it and hammered nails into it but most of them bent. In the end all I have been able to do is use it to make an impact on something else.

 It is very hard to make any sort of impression on the reflector

So I used it to make an impression on some camping mat foam. I'm short so I have cut the bottom 30cm off my foam camping mat. Then I warmed it up with the heat gun but heating it up with iron works as well, as long as you cover the foam with tin foil first. Then when it has been warmed till it looks like it is changing a bit on surface, push the object you want to get an impression of, into the foam. Then you can ink it up to make a print or paint it and use it for some other purpose.

The gold sprayed foam impressed with the back of the reflector which is studded with gravel, looks a bit like a slice of toast. Unfortunately I have no real use for toast-like bits of camping mat right now.

Here are some other shots from the park where we went to take fake pictures of clothes dripping into the stream.

 This is the Bucket tree. World famous in New Zealand :-)
Here is a quote * Tawa's Bucket Tree, which is registered as a notable tree, is thought to have been first pruned into shape by Frederick Westbury, who worked for landowner William Earp, in the 1880s. It is actually a group of about five macrocarpas. 


Underneath the tree is an amazing tangle of branches.

So this is what I did on Anzac Day 2012...