New designs for Boho Banjo

I have a really hard time being patient....and this month has been testing me to the limit! So many things I'd like to be doing, making and getting under way. As from next week my (real job) working hours fall back to 16 a week, allowing me at least 2-3 more days for Boho Banjo. I will soon be launching the Boho Banjo etsy shop - by early next week I HOPE (or will surely explode with frustration!) - it has been a huge job to photograph all the clothes - front, back, close-ups, all the necessary angles - then upload each item to the shop with all the necessary descriptions and measurements. There are still about a dozen more items to add before that job is "done". After that it continues to be an ongoing task with each new item produced.

Heres some of my new creations....

"Pink Swirly Girly" shift, lace and ornate applique

detail of applique on Pink Swirly Girly

The top below is one of my "repurposed" designs. Its a recycled top which I've stencilled and added the lovely digitally altered image of Frida Kahlo 

"Terracotta Frida" repurposed knit top with stencilling and image

New clothing designs

Here are some of the clothes I've made recently.

A bit of background about how they came to be...in the last 12 years I've made 5 trips to the United States, spending most of my time in the south west states. I visited cities such as Houston, Dallas, Albuquerque, Miami (Florida) Lexington (Kentucky) and my most favourite place of all - the lovely and extraordinary city of Santa Fe, in New Mexico. In the southern states I encountered the Mexican traditional celebration known as Dios de los Muertas, or "Day of the Dead". American culture adopted the concept as "Halloween" - a sort of mashup from the ancient English celebration "All Hallows" and the spanish/mexican "Dios de los Muertas". Initially I felt quite confronted by the imagery of skulls and skeletons, it was so alien to the culture I've grown up in where we have virtually no acceptable symbology of death, except perhaps lilies and crosses. Growing more familiar with it over time I came to understand the folk traditions of the iconography.

Dios de los Muertas Frock, 100% ivory coloured cotton knit with stencilling and appliqued with sugar skulls

Dios de los Muertas Happy Coat, 100% cotton knit and voile, stencilled and appliqued

Dios de los Muertas Happy Coat shown full length over a jersey tee shirt dress

Boho Banjo

Last weekend at Art Bazaar Singleton market went well.

I'm actually having a hard time keeping making enough stock to replace what is selling!

This weekend Boho Banjo will be going global! Rodney and I plan to set up a website for the shop and from early next week I'll be linking an advertisement for Boho Banjo to my favourite bloggers website - edenland

Knit tunic with renaissance girl face

Green cotton knit singlet dress with red zigzags

I'm so busy the last few months working on getting this clothing business established and flying that my blogging has become very sparse and brief. The low activity here is completely at odds with what is happening in my real life! I'm a whirlwind of activity and every waking and sleeping moment is dedicated to Boho Banjo.

Art to Wear by Pearl

reverse applique, red and green zig zags

Applique and stenciling

"Sandgate Angel" 

Pictures of some of my "art to wear"garments available in my shop.

Rodney and I will be at the "Art Bazaar" market in Singleton this coming Sunday. Civic Park from 10 - 4pm.

Tah dah-dah!!! Fanfare for shop opening!

Pearl outside her shop, on the New England Highway, Murrurundi

I'm back after another long non-blogging sojourn.... 

....BUT! a lot of art has been happening!

With very little fanfare I opened a retail shop in the middle of Murrurundi village a month ago. It is at 71 Mayne St  -  or more simply in the middle of Murrurundi township, directly opposite Dooleys Store.

I'm making womens clothing. Original one of kind items - hand painted, dyed, stenciled, appliqued and embellished. 

At present I'm only open Saturday and Sundays 10am - 4pm. Next month opening hours will extend to 4 days a week.

The room behind the shop is set up as my studio where I sew, paint and print in the room adjacent to the retail area and can therefore look after the shop at the same time. My fine art canvases are also on display and for sale.

 

What she saw

Another digital image

"What she saw"  digital manipulation, Pearl Red Moon, 2013

Head Nest, tired and heading home

Textile and Art Academy finished yesterday. Rodney and I both did great classes and enjoyed our time away immensely. This afternoon we start heading home.

I received some images from the photographer Sally Alden of the lovely young model we styled and photoed a week ago. I had a quick play with photoshop this morning and produced this image. These digital manipulations will be used as the basis for pictures ....yet to be made

Jade Lace

HUZZAH!! Rodney and I set off to Brisbane tomorrow to have our annual holiday at Textile and Art Academy. We will both be doing 5-day workshops. Rodney is doing a mixed media drawing class and I'm doing nuno felting with Catherine O'Leary. We spent many hours packing up the van this morning. I'm always anxious I may have left a kitchen sink behind....

This afternoon we did a photo shoot in collaboration with professional photographer Sally Alden over at Willow Tree. We had a most extraordinary young model who was fabulous to style and work with. We look forward to getting some great source material for basing new artworks on. I'll share some of those images eventually and show how we use them as the basis for imagery to develop into new pictures.

Meantime this evening I had a little fun playing in Photoshop to create this digitally manipulated image I'm calling "Jade Lace" I send the two original images it was evolved from just to give you an idea to what degree it is altered. The face was taken from my work "Out of the Violet and Blue" (2011) and integrated into a picture of a piece of lace made in 2008.

"Jade Lace" digitally manipulated image. Pearl Red Moon, 2013

Visage book sent to Brisbane

Over the long weekend I finished the container for the visage book and the whole thing was sent off to Brisbane on Tuesday. I'll see it again at TAA after the 24th when the whole collection of Project 22 books will be on display.

I made a container of painted, stencilled paper which was hand stitched onto a wire frame I constructed. two flaps close over the cover of the book.

Looking down on the book in the container, flaps closed

Book in the container, shown from the back, flaps opened

Book in the container, flaps opened

Visage book is almost finished

Only a couple of weeks to go before Rodney and I head off to Brisbane to be students at Textile and Art Academy 2013. Almost a couple of years ago I joined Project 22, an altered book project that was proposed by Lena Tisdall, the convener of TAA. She called for 22 participants and laid out a very loose set of suggestions for creating a book. Virtually the only requirement was that at least a portion of a certain book she had selected should be used in the project. All 22 participants received the same book. The finished books will be on display at the event for the 7 day duration.

I started work on the book about six months ago and are finally close to finishing. Very little of the original book is identifiable. I completely dismantled it, cutting off the spine to release the individual pages then glued 3-4 together to create rigid boards and then gessoed over the original text and pictures. I assembled my art on the pages and stitched them onto a strip of canvas which was folded concertina style and stitched to a spine. On pages 7-8 there is small flap which is the only identifiable fragment of the original book.

Pages 7-8, the image to the upper right is a flap that turns back

the flap turned back, revealing an image of a little ferry boat and the word "River" at the upper left, which are cut from the back page of the original book. The frame of the flap surrounding the faint image of the eye and nose was also from the original back page of the book

pages 8-9

pages 5-6

The last thing I have to do today is make a box or container to enclose the book then it will be sent off to Brisbane next week.