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.

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