one step forward....then another back!

After making that blog post this morning I went up to Tamworth for another X-ray and inspection of my ankle this afternoon. It is still not mending (after 2 months) so much to my surprise the osteopath asked me to come back to hospital tomorrow to have surgery. Apparently he will put in some temporary screws to encourage it to knit back together.

So...bahh-gaah! no art today and none tomorrow either. I may have to stay overnight after the surgery so possibly won't be home till Thursday afternoon.



I did make a start on a new work yesterday, as above. The face has been painted. The figure will eventually be trimmed back to be mounted on the canvas behind it which is painted a pale metallic gold. It was inspired by one of the famous masks created by W T Benda in the 1920s. This iconic face has appeared in hundreds of photographs throughout the 20th C. After painting the face I was playing around with fragments of textile embellishments from my collection, trying to decide how to finish the work. The pieces that are shown in the picture below I had initially rejected but when I showed Rodney he really liked them and urged me to use them.

I was reluctant to use these pieces because I often judge my work as too pretty pretty. I really wanna be more surrealistic and gothic!!!....waaahhhh!!

I'm referring to this one as "the golden collar" at the moment.....but are open to alternate suggestions as usual!

a step in the journey

Pearls studio window

 It has been cool and windy the last few days and I had to shut my studio window....uhhh-ohh! look at all those vines clambering in. With my ankle broken I haven't been able to mow, whipper snip, weed and tidy the garden as I normally do. Rodney has taken over the mowing these last few months but he tends to do just the middle bit and the outer edges are getting a bit rampant!

In the middle of the window sill is a clay face I sculpted for "Petrouchka" a doll made in 1998. That was the year of the exhibition of the costumes collected by the National Gallery of Canberra from the Ballet Russes. I was only vaguely aware of the Ballet Russes then, mainly because I have always been a huge fan of the Cirque de Soliel, and the exhibition that year introduced me to the marvellous heritage of this group of early 20th C artists. I did a whole body of work based one of their principal male dancers,Vaslav Nijinsky. One of those paintings from 1999 is presently displayed in my gallery. It is based on a black and white photograph of him in the ballet "The Blue God". Another work was this doll "Petrouchka" from another ballet Nijinsky danced in.

The Blue God, 1999

Petrouchka, 1999

I just relate this story because 1999 was when I went to University to start my Visual Art degree and the Ballet Russes inspired work was part of what I submitted as my portfolio to gain entry as a "mature age" student. All of the the other artworks I made as part of the Ballet Russes inspired phase has been sold or given away except the doll and the painting. I'm quite sentimentally attached to them not so much because they are particularly "good" art but because they represent a sort of transition stage in my journey as an artist. That was the year I segued from regarding myself as a talented hobbyist to believing I could be a "real artist"...

To me these works represent 2 transitions that were being made at the time - the psychic striving from perceiving myself as a hobbyist to serious practitioner and the other transition was ending of the period of making sculptural forms and going back to 2 dimensional representations. In 2012, some 13 years+ after these works were made all my work is now 2 dimensional, I haven't made an art doll for about 6 years.

However! there is one constant in my "art journey" that always amazes me as it goes right back to the very first painting I did as a 17 year old when the thought first came into my mind that maybe I could be a professional artist. I don't have that painting any more but I remember it well and it's a memory I turn over with some sentimental awe because how could I know in 1976 that I would still be obsessed with exactly the same themes in my art in 2012!!! Sometimes I think I should try to reproduce that picture...!

That picture I painted was of the historical Indian Queen Mumtaz Mahal (wife of Shah Jehan and she who is famously entombed in the Taj Mahal. (I visited the Red Fort, which was built by Shah Jehan and the Taj Mahal in Agra, India when I went there to collect textiles in 2001) I think I must have must copied it from some original source material but I don't remember exactly where the concept came from. What I recall painting was this exotic Queen of India depicted kneeling on a lavishly patterned turkish rug wearing her regalia of crown, earrings, necklace, heavily embroidered sari. A very decorative woman clothed in and surrounded by glorious embellished textiles and jewellery!

Astounding to realise that 36 years later I am still depicting the feminine figurative, and that textiles, design, colour, jewellery and the decorative are still major fascinations.

art of March

"March Girl" 

"March Girl" was finished this afternoon. Here is a picture of the whole completed canvas, measuring 75 x 54cm at the moment, but will end up more like 68 x 47cm when stapled over stretcher.

Thanks for your comment Caitlin! Any and all comments are welcome from readers - whether long, short and sweet or complimentary or critical. I also invite readers to make suggestions for naming the works!...I will always give these serious consideration and happily use them if they feel right to me! I always struggle with choosing names, my aptitude is with the visual not the textual! So unless somebody is inspired to make a suggestion for this one she will retain the title "March Girl"....

Here is a close up detail of the face. The stitching to simulate strands of hair took much patience and felt a test of my skill. To achieve some of the subtlety of colour tones I used very thin layers of felting fibre, dyed in multiple hues, which were laid onto the background painting and stitched over with free motion stitching. I used 9 different colours of embroidery thread to do the hair effects.

I have enjoyed the process of creating March Girl. Getting the faces right is so often a struggle but this one came together remarkably quickly (don't ask me about hands!!!! sheeeesh! I try to avoid them altogether! arrrrrghh!) From beginning to finish today the whole picture took 3 days or about 20-25 hours which is about as quick as I work.

Tomorrow I'll start a new work. I have researched the idea and have the canvas prepared. This next one will be a face only. I am already thinking beyond that to the next work!

An update on my broken ankle. I will still be off work until at least the end of this month. The X-ray I had 2 weeks ago showed the bones are being slow to knit together. A blood test showed I'm a little low in vitamin D, quite common for women over 50 but I have started taking Vit D supplements at Doctors advice to avert the potential of developing osteoporosis.

March girl, quick update

Last night this is where I'd gotten to with the work....

March Girl

 Yesterday I started this new work. I was going to take pictures of it this morning, at a much earlier stage, to document my progress as usual but found the digital camera had gone flat and when I plugged the battery into the wall socket to recharge it blew up quite spectacularly! So I went on painting for a few more hours while the camera charged with a replacement usb cord.

At the moment the work doesn't have a "name" I'm just referring to it as "March girl"....any ideas? I'd be happy to consider any suggestions from my blog readers if you want to use the comment facility! I often find coming up with a name more challenging than creating the whole work!

I'm showing this other picture of how Ive developed the face from its original source material. In this case I've used a photograph from the very famous American fashion photographer Edward Steichen. The original photo (of a full figure, I have cropped the face only for my purposes) was taken in 1924 and is of the Princess Youssopoff, whom Steichen regarded as a style muse. As I don't do much life drawing or seldom take photos of models from real life I often use images such as these which are out of copyright. As you can see I have "interpreted" the image quite differently from the original source.

The arm has been completed with a section of embellished textile. In the next few days I'll finish the dress, probably add some fibre and stitching to the hair and are contemplating adding a plant like decorative form down the right side of the canvas...but then....the work is quite lovely with its present space and simplicity...I wonder if I could rise to the challenge of not altering and adding much more to it...ha!

The face isn't quite finished, I'll do a little more detailing on it tomorrow.

All living under one sun

All living under one Sun, detail

I finished the new work this afternoon and called it "All living under one Sun"

In this picture there is a lot of textural detailing and no embroidery at all! There are still a lot of fabrics used to create the composition. The "dress" part of the figure is stiffened open weave cotton. To put texture over the background the entire board behind the figure had fabric adhered to it. I used an old synthetic curtain for most of that and also some left over scraps of lace from my wedding dress! The shapes in the upper right corner and around the head are paperclay imprinted with stamps then painted with several layers of paint.

The picture measures 75 x 35cm and is on the deeply rebated 5cm frame I like to mount all my work on.

Here is a picture of "Plumage" hanging amongst other works in my gallery.

I have a new work to start tomorrow!

where its at

Dusky, end day3

As at this afternoon this is the figure cut from the canvas and adhered to a backing board. Tomorrow, Rodney will construct the timber frame with an MDF surface (thanks darling!!! hugs and kisses, mmmmhhhmm) and I'll be able to attach the figure to the rigid background. At the moment the textile is only pinned over the body, see the pearl headed pins at the shoulders. I have to wait until its attached to the background before I can saturate the cloth with Paverpol and arrange the fabric folds so they set rock hard.

You will observe that the left arm is cut off in a straight line. When mounted this will lie along the left edge of the frame. The hem line of the skirt will be the bottom edge of the frame. The finished board will be narrow and tall = 35 cm wide by 80cm tall.

In my next blog I'll explain how texture and colour will be applied to the background....

And now for something completely different...

OK! - "completely different" I'll admit is a slight exaggeration. I'm excited because the new work started 2 days ago is developing somewhat outside of the aesthetic that has been predominant in the last few months. It is still within my paradigm of "female form with textile/mixed media surface embellishment" but has moved away significantly from strong use of colour and decorative stitching....thats how its coming together at this point anyway!

Here are some pictures showing the first day, firstly my sketch of the head and shoulders to the left being transferred onto a small piece of prepared canvas. Because I want texture a strong element I then did a streaky layer of texture gel and let that dry before working over it the next day with more texture medium and paint (it looks opaque white before drying)

The reason I have used the small piece of canvas, approx 25x40cm, is that the intention is to cut out the figure and adhere it to a backing about 6mm thick which then gets pasted onto a hard surface. The backing behind this separately created figure will be MDF board which forms the top of the framed work. I used this method with the work "Tribute to Frida" which I showed on a blog about a month ago.

The purpose of this is so that I can easily manipulate the figure to stitch into by machine or hand. However I need the background to be firm, rather than the flexibility of canvas, to be able to create and attach some very heavy elements to, such as paper clay and fabrics stiffened with mediums such as gesso or Paverpol. With the Frida work I used a gritty background texture medium with thick gesso because I wanted to simulate the look of the plastered garden wall that she was standing in front of when the photo was taken. Obviously I couldn't have stitched into, or rolled and folded the canvas in the way I need to when machine embroidering if the background had been prepared like that in advance of putting the figure into it. I was very pleased with the way the final composition worked out; the way the figure was separate from and slightly distended from the background, so I knew I would eventually use this method again.

Dusky, painting at end day 2

This is where the painting was finished as of yesterday afternoon. Some open weave cotton has been pleated and stitched along with a piece of very open lace work that will likely form the surface.

Up and away!

Plumage, complete but not on stretcher

Finally, after nearly a month of restriction, my broken ankle has healed sufficiently that I can hobble around without crutches. I've been able to get down the back yard to my studio and resumed work on Plumage about 3 days ago. Fortunately the work was at the stage where most of the work was embroidery while sitting at the machine rather than standing and painting at the easel. This afternoon I sewed the last stitch and called it finished! Here is a picture of the unframed canvas which presently measures 63x 91cm. It will be approximately 50x 78cm when stretched.


Here are some more pictures which show more closely the surface detail

I still have possibly another 3 weeks off work until the doctor considers me fully recovered enough from the injury to be able to start work again. So it is great to have some relative mobility and be able to anticipate quite a bit more time for working uninterrupted on some more art. It would be fantastic to do perhaps 2 or even 3 more completed works! A canvas on the scale of Plumage generally takes 40-60 hours from concept, research, working drawings to completion.

I have an idea for the next work. Have done some preliminary drawings, though I seldom spend a lot of time  plotting things out in a very organised way. I have a concept visualised for the face and stance of the figure. The figure contained within the canvas will be the face, right shoulder and torso to the waist. I want to work in an "earthy" palette of colour; browns, cream, ochres and orange with strong linear black detailing....I want a lot of textures in this work....

Work will begin preparing the canvas tomorrow and I will return to more regular updating of the blog to describe the progress

Crutch club newsletter

It has been a few days since I wrote anything. Not much of interest happens when your world shrinks to being in bed 23 hours and the other hour is spent hobbling to the bathroom and back....

I did have a delightful visitor yesterday afternoon when Charlotte from down our street dropped in and bought a yummy homemade chicken casserole made by friend Meredith. Many thanks! My sister Kerry rang from Sydney this morning to commiserate and give me some helpful tips on membership in the crutch club. Perhaps its a hereditary weakness but she also broke her ankle last year so she had lots of legs on advice from personal experience.

Fortuitously some books I had ordered from ebay a few weeks ago arrived. I love my craft books and have 3 bookcases to accomodate them. As wonderful as the ebook technology is I can't ever imagine it replacing the usefulness of having hardcover reference books. The oldest books in my collection I've had for about 30 years and I think I buy around 10 -20 books a year. Craft and art books usually reflect contemporaneous interests and are usually out of print within 2-3 years and are rarely republished so the vast bulk of what I own wouldn't be replaceable unless I found them second hand. Often I come across ideas and inspirations just through the serendipity of pulling a book off the shelf when I've just been standing there idly perusing. An ebook collection could never work like that!

One of the books I bought off ebay was "Shaped Beadwork" by American Diane Fitzgerald. It has been a rarely experienced indulgence to immerse myself in this book to learn a new technique for the last 3 days with hardly any interruptions. The technique is loosely based on the peyote stitch which is my all time favourite beading stitch and the one I'm most adept at. The beadwork is put together in a modular way as the motifs are constructed as separate pieces then collaged together. Pictured above is a necklace I just completed a few hours ago. In this work I have only used the motifs as flat items, rather than using the potential to make 3 dimensional constructions.

I got Rodney to drive me down to the Pearl Red Moon Gallery and opened it for 5 hours today. I figured what I was doing in bed at home - sitting there with my leg up and beading - I could do just as comfortably down at the Gallery while also doing something useful in having it open for the public to visit. If there is anybody in Murrurundi actually reading this blog who would like a free introductory lesson on Peyote Stitch I invite you to the Gallery any time between 11am-2pm next Sunday. All materials, tools and tuition provided for the cost of bringing me a cuppacino! (no sugar please)