Raranga Exhibition - Te Wananga o Aotearoa Porirua 2018.

Raranga (weaving) exhibition, 2018.

Potae (hats)

mostly kete timata

mostly kete pikau (backpacks)

ipu putiputi (flower arrangements, kete, wallhangings)

Bitter Harvest dyeing

Last Thursday was the opening of 'Wind it Up' the Whitireia student exhibition. Here are some pictures of my pieces as the dye starts to travel through them. I really hated the lurid colour of the turquoise in the middle one so went back the next day and added extra dye to the cups which changed the turquoise to something less nasty.

The bowls at the bottom of the panels contain from left to right: Barley, Wheat and rice.
The barley and wheat are not human food grade and were sold as animal feed , anything not contaminated will be recycled as wheat bags or given to chickens. The rice was from a damaged bag begged from the supermarket. They were going to dump it in the skip. So I don't feel like I am depriving anyone of food. I am a bit worried that the smell of the grain might entice rats/mice/sparrows into the gallery though - so far its been OK.

 Day 2. I added extra dye to all the cups. The two on the left are made of pre-washed fabric. The one on the right is made of unwashed fabric.

At the opening of the exhibition there was a prize-giving. I was taking photos as 'official photographer' but had to have the camera taken off me when I won 'Best in Show' which was a big surprise.

I am in the centre, with the joint course coordinators, Chris White (left) and Deb Donnelly (right).

This is work by Kerry Reddy who was in my class. She is also a quilter, and there is an article about her solo exhibition work in the latest New Zealand Quilter magazine.








Below is a detail of work by Chloe Reweti. It consists of hundreds of laser cut screenprinted moths attached to wire stalks which are drilled into the wall. It is very time consuming to put together but very effective. It is on the feature wall of the exhibition at Pataka.

To see more of all the students work go to
http://winditup2012.wordpress.com/

Exhibition

If anyone would like to see another example of vertical dyeing, my work will be on display at Pataka Museum in Porirua (New Zealand) from 14th December to 14th January 2013. The work will be dyed during the exhibition and the dye will follow seam lines into bowls on the floor. If you would like a preview of the whole group exhibition please go to this blog for 'Wind it Up' .

As my work is already showing on the group blog, I think I can safely show it here too.

The pieces are based on Korean Pojagi and the first two I made used up the scraps left over from the previous 'Watermark' exhibition.

 These are the three which will be in the exhibition. The dye follows the lines down into the bowls at the bottom which contain grain. Wheat, Barley and rice.

Here is my artist statement

Bitter Harvest

Clare Smith

Sometimes it is possible to forecast  fashion colours for the season ahead, from the colour of rivers seen on Google Earth.

This is a spare wallhanging that I made, I tested how the dye would run through it and it wouldn't be as effective as the three chosen so I will keep it to show separately.

I hope some of you will be able to see the exhibition while it is hanging, if not, I will put pictures on this blog after the dye starts to run.

New work

I've been working away on my pieces for the end of year show which is a groups show with the other graduating students from Whitireia. The show is at Pataka in Porirua from the 15th of December to the 15th of January but the work has to be in on Monday (5th ) for marking. Once again I am working with white fabric so I am having to do most of my work at home or the fabric gets very dirty. It's hard to work with white in a shared space. As technician I am also helping the students with their work and its getting a bit too close for comfort for some of them who left it a bit late to get started.

Here are some detail shots of my work for this show. They are based on pojagi, Korean pieced textiles and the patterns are field patterns from google earth. Once again they will be dyed vertically in the gallery but the dye will probably only run on opening night as it is too hard to control unless I am there all the time. The dye represents the dye which is dumped into rivers which then is used to water crops such as rice or wheat.

Actually I don't even know whether I will be allowed to run the dye in that gallery space. maybe I should match the dye I use to the carpet colour just in case!

These are detail shots only. Don't want to give the game away before the exhibition opens.
C

getting a bit behind with stuff

It is holiday time and I have been frantically trying to make work for the end of year exhibition before we all go back to work next week. I work part time as the 'tutorial assistant/technician' and do a few hours of part time teaching as well as being a student myself. I am trying to get ahead so that my own stuff is nearly done and then I can help the other students with the technical stuff to get their work done.

Looks like there will be  lots of screenprinting and silk painting to keep the textile room busy.

I've made one and a half wallhangings which is way less than I had hoped to get done so I feel like I am getting left behind. It is all due to be handed in on the 5th of November.

Does anyone else feel under pressure from technology these days? It isn't good enough just being able to use a computer and a cellphone any more. I feel a bit of a failure that I'm not really able to do wizzy things in  photoshop, make images in Illustrator to use for Lazer cutting, take my own top quality photos of my work (even if they are hard to photograph being nearly 3 metres long), set up my own super duper website, do video editing etc. Comments such as "You should video this and use it in the next exhibition" are guaranteed to make me feel inadequate but with the help of the Whitireia computer technician I did actually manage to video one of my Watermark wallhangings being dyed, filming and editing the video took 2 days of the holidays.

Some technology is fun though when the pressure is off. I used my prize money from the Queenstown Symposium to buy an Ipad which I love.  The Ipad makes great kaleidoscope patterns. I was helped by a 13, 10 and 5 year old.

 Agapanthus flower on concrete

 These few are pictures taken of an Agapanthus flower on a wooden table

Apart from Kaliedoscope pictures you can also do some very strange mirror image pictures and make weird soft toys and cars

Watermark day 5

 Here is todays wallhanging. It is Zealandia - Karori Sanctuary in Wellington. It is a fenced sanctuary for native birds and has a big predator-proof fence.

 I chose the traditional blue like the willow plate but couldn't resist adding a bit of pink which turned purple.

 This is a final shot of the whole gallery with all 5 dripping dyed wallhangings. No. 1 and no.5 look as if they are  similar colours in this photo but they are quite different blues in real life.

Thats it folks - the show is over. I'd like to thank Clare Plug , Ian Smith, James Wratt, Margery Smith, David Wratt, Chris Wratt, Pheobe and Nina Smith, Deb Donnelly, Peter Deckers, Viv Atkinson and all the staff at the Visual Arts department of Whitireia Polytechnic for their help with this exhibition, I couldn't have done it without you!

Tomorrow- images of the shadows formed on the walls behind the hangings, incidental details, hopefully images of the fabric which mopped up the dye at the bottom (rolled up in the guttering).

Watermark Day 4

Hi everyone
Today the wallhanging which got dyed is an image of the Victoria bridge on the Waikato River. I have dyed it green and red.

Here is the original (BTW they are photographed against a grey background to make the white image show up. Otherwise the white on white design would be too hard to photograph).

I took 80 photos of this one. I was trying out time lapse photography hopefully to turn into little movie. Tomorrow I am going to try videoing - it will have to be sped up about 6 times.

The picture of the ducks is by Melissa Anderson who came in just in time to see the ducks turn red.