Around the World Blog Hop

Today I am posting as part of the Around the World Blog Hop. I was 'tagged' by Alison Schwabe. Alison currently lives in Uruguay, but I first met her when she was based in Perth , Western Australia. This is a link back to Alison Schwabe's blog.  When I first saw Alison's work, she was working on a  series called 'Ebb and Flow' which I still love. If you want to see more of Alison's quilts click the link to her blog and choose 'galleries'.

As part of the blog hop we are asked to answer four questions.
1. What am I working on?
2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?
3. Why do I write/create what I do?
4. How does my writing/creating process work?

I am working on a textile piece for a show in the UK.
I belong to a group called 'Though Our Hands' and we are having a group exhibition next year. Here are the details. The Show is to be called "THe Liberated Quilt: New Work From Through Our hands" at Bilston Craft Gallery from 9th of May to 4th of July 2015.

Anyway, as I said, I am working on a piece for this exhibition, here is what I have so far, but I have plans, and it won't look much like this at the end. The final piece will be dyed whilst it is hanging on the wall of the gallery (as long as the gallery can cope with that).

These are actually completely white pieces but they are extremely hard to photograph so I put it on the table so there was some color coming through. I have no idea why it turned out so blue but it gives the idea. here it is, in front of the window so you can see that it is translucent.

You are seeing my neighbor's house and the hills on the other side of the valley.

Today I also dyed 20 metres of fabric for my own use and to sell at a market day coming up. I WILL get around to ironing them before the day of the sale.

How does my work differ?
Hmmm well no-one I know of dyes their work on the wall of the gallery, so thats pretty different!

Here is a before shot of one of my installations in Objectspace, an Auckland Gallery and below is what it looked like after red and yellow dye had run down it for a few days.

My work usually has some kind of theme, in the past I have made quilts about pollution, the weather, climate change and human genetics. I'm not against decorative quilts, I make that kind for the beds in my own house, but the quilts or textiles that I exhibit usually have a message somewhere.

My current series was inspired by a remark that you could predict the next seasons trendy colors by looking at dye pollution in rivers on Google Earth. Then I started thinking about all that dye getting into the food that people eat so the bowls at the bottom have food in them.












3. Why do I create the things I do?
I really like to draw people's attention to issues, and I just happen to do that with fabric and thread. I originally trained as a radiographer and then did a science degree and then did an art course specializing in printmaking. I like to make stuff with my hands and I like to show people new ways of looking at issues.

4. How does my creative process work?
Well I went to art school, and I was trained to write everything down. Every idea, every new recipe, every artist who  might have influenced my ideas. We were trained to constantly ask ourselves why we were doing something. So I have masses of sketch books, full of 'stuff', even after graduating ages ago, I still write stuff down. I do a lot of research, I sketch, I make samples.

Some of my sketchbooks

Inside my current sketchbook

This is just what I am working on currently, if you would like to see some of my older , more traditional quilts please have a look at my website, which I am afraid is very out of date, I'm hoping to have a new website soon .

The next people I have tagged on the blog hop are:
Shirley Goodwin, from Oamaru, New Zealand.
Lisa Call, from Denver, Colorado.

Shirley is a quilter, a dyer extraordinaire and also teaches for the Academy of Quilting.

I met Lisa Call  at least 22 years ago, on Quiltnet, we connected because we both had kids the same age and were struggling to be creative as well as be parents of young children. When she came to New Zealand with her family we met in person. Her style of quilting has evolved hugely in that time, and now instead of being a computer programmer, she is a professional and very successful quilter and quilt teacher. Lisa is coming back to NZ, this time to teach at Fiberarts NZ in Whanganui on April 12-18th 2015.

Artist Blocks

Magazine to Through Our Hands, editorial team: Annabel Rainbow, Laura Kemshall, Linda Kemshall www.throughourhands.co.uk

Art Blocks

I have been a bit out of circulation since January when I discovered I need treatment for my thyroid. I am just starting to get enthusiastic about textiles again. I think part of my quilt 'block' was lack of the right  medication but also a leftover 'art block' from art school. Every time I spend some time studying art it takes about 2 years to get back to making again. In that time I still make simple quilts and knit and do other creative things but I find it hard to get going again after the angst of art school. I needed 2 years off after art  school in Goulburn , Australia, and 2 years off after both stints at Whitireia in Porirua. Thats just me though.

Do other people have 'blocks'? What causes them? Is it after a major solo show? Or is it just me?

When i have an art block,  I think that all my ideas are rubbish. What I am doing is 'self censoring' to a very high degree. It's as if I have a tutor sitting on my shoulder saying "I think you can push it further", "have you thought of …", "I think you are on the wrong track", The answer is often just to make something simple, which leads to something else, and slowly ideas start to flow. Of course, most of the ideas happen when I am on a plane, on holiday on a Pacific Island where I have no access to a sewing machine or dyes/paints, or while  waiting in the ER with a friend. By the time I'm home again, the idea doesn't sound so good any more or the drawings don't make sense.

Anyway, thats just me, how about you?

Anyway, as I said , I'm coming back to my creative life. I have just had a work accepted for World of Threads Festival in Toronto in November. I really wish I could go to see the show, I have been getting the World of Threads weekly newsletter for over a year now and they profile some amazing textile artists.

I will also have work in the UK in 2015 as a member of 'Through our hands'. See the free magazine above , Annabel Rainbow, Laura Kemshall, Linda Kemshall www.throughourhands.co.uk

The exhibition details are below

Bilston Craft Gallery, Bilston, West Midlands, UK. http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk The exhibition will run from 9th May to 4th July 2015,  Then of course, there is the New Zealand Quilt Symposium in January, where hopefully I will be teaching 4 different  classes. I say 'hopefully' because I am waiting to see whether the classes have filled enough to be going ahead. The New Zealand Quilt Symposium . I leave in 3 weeks for 2 weeks in Seattle, San FRancisco and Boston and then another 4 weeks in Eastern Europe (Berlin, Krakow, Prague) then finish in Copenhagen at the end of October. So I need to make a whole quilt to enter in the symposium in the next 3 weeks, I have an idea, I just have to clear the decks first… Let me know in the comments section about what causes you to have an artist block (if you get them)? Clare

Surgery :-(

Hi everyone
I wasn't sure whether to post this or not. It feels like I am just making excuses for not updating my blog but in the end I decided that I would write it down in case it helps anyone else.
After many years of having a lump on my thyroid checked it was biopsied and suspicious cells were found. At the beginning of February I had a thyroidectomy and on Monday I will also be told of the pathology results and plans for follow up treatment. If it is cancer, it is very treatable and most people do well after the initial hiccup of surgery then getting medication right. So if you have a lump in your neck, go and see the doctor.

I'm not getting very much done at the moment, I'm sleeping a lot and going to a lot of appointments either for myself or with my mother who is also going through hospital treatment. I have however been invited to join a group of textile artists who have a website called Through Our hands. They represent a wonderful lineup of textile artists and I'm very excited to be asked to be a member of the group.

here is the only thing that I've worked on recently, it is a class sample for the New Zealand Quilt Symposium in January 2015. I'm hoping to quilt it and take better photos next week when my scar has healed up a bit. At the moment it is a bit hard to stretch my arms out, looking up is even harder!