new designs in my prints

I've been working away steadily for the last few months making new clothing designs and getting fabric printed with my art. Heres some of my recent creations

Green Woman tunic with my painting shown behind it

Sashi tunic. The beautiful image of an Algerian woman is an archival photo, late C19

Sunspot Daisy, with my original artwork on the wall behind, acrylic painting/collage

There are another 12 designs I haven't "revealed" yet.

My plan has been to publish and sell the patterns as pdf. But its been about 30 years since I did my trade certificate in patternmaking and though I've continually kept designing and making since then I haven't done much size grading. I keep prevaricating because I feel so daunted to take on that technical task.

I hope something will push me to "bite the bullet' soon!

Any comments on my designs are very welcome!

Red Moon, green eyes

playing with Photoshop again tonight

Tessuti Competition

Today I sent off pictures of two garments I designed for a sewing competition. The fabric shop Tessuti sponsors an annual competition where you can make anything you choose, but everybody has to use the same fabric. The  fabric offered was a knit in either a black/white or beige/white stripe. I decided to go with the beige because it would be more challenging for me to work with.

The Tessuti fabric shop has outlets in Melbourne and Sydney, according to their website, but I have only ever made purchases from their online shop. They have a wonderful range of fabrics and the service is very prompt.

http://tessuti.blogspot.com.au/   go to the Jaywalk competition to see the entries

I really hate being photographed, so this is likely the only time you'll ever see me modelling my own designs in a picture! It was a condition of entry that the garment had to be photographed on a person.

Trinity tunic, showing fullness and cut

back of Veronica tunic, the cut is the same at the front, just a lower neckline

Trinity tunic

Veronica tunic, sleeveless but shown worn over a top

Rhonda's Creative Life: Monday Morning Inspiration

Rhonda's Creative Life: Monday Morning Inspiration

Posting this link to a blog I follow. These are truly awesome creations by iconic designer Issey Miyake.

design by Issey Miyake, 2014

Wear my art is no empty slogan...

I read this a few days ago and it really resonated.

Its hard to make a living out of art and hard to make a living out of designing or manufacturing clothes. So being one who has more optimism than good sense I have combined these 3 really hard things into the one thing I'm striving to make some sort of  "living" out of.

Being 55 now I've seen the effects of globalisation on the fashion industry in Australia and New Zealand in the last 30 years. I trained as a pattern maker and sample machinist in 1984 and made an adequate living out of designing clothes, manufacturing, running a small retail outlet and wholesaling for a couple of years after that. After moving to Australia in 1986 I decided to stay home and do outwork sewing so I could be a better single parent to my 6 year old son. Initially I made good money doing patternmaking, sample making and short runs for small fashion companies in Sydney but by 1992 I was struggling to make an hourly rate of $10 because so much of the manufacturing had relocated to third world countries where the rates of pay were inconceivably low - the $10 an hour rate of pay which put me into (genteel first world version) poverty was more than most of those workers earned for a 50 hour week!!! Can you get your head around that...?!

By the turn of this century women workers in the clothing manufacturing industries in Australia/NZ were disenfranchised in droves and left the industry. Hundreds of years and knowledge and skill left with them....

In the next few decades things will gradually regain a better balance as overseas third world workers overcome in a struggle with those who exploit them to gain decent working conditions and wages....however, thats no great solace to me at this point as I'm intensely negotiating my own struggle to create some sort of sustainable "business model" which combines the things I love doing - art and clothing design. After years of inchoate longing to do this I finally started taking the risky steps late last year, when I cut back my working hours to only 10 a week. I've been really happy and satisfied these last few months going as often as I can to my design studio and making things for sale. The local Murrurundi women have been immensely supportive and buy items from my retail shop often enough that the business costs break even. THANKS!!! My wonderful husband is the one who enables all this to continue for a while longer because he is prepared to support me financially while I try to figure out and instigate a profit making business model....

That process of creating a more secure and consistent way of generating income is still unfolding. Its very tough trying to compete with a K-Mart or Millers style that sells for $20-50 when this is frequently more than the cost of the fabric for me!

The latest concept I'm working toward is to set up 3 tiers of product. I will market a range of my clothing patterns (1) offer kits that have my original textile designs sufficient to make up the design plus the pattern (2) and offer clothing made to order from either my textile design or other fabrics (3). Its taking a while to develop the patterns as they have to include detailed instructions with photos and diagrams so I think it will be about another 2-3 weeks before I'll revive my Etsy shop to market this newly conceived range of items.

These are 2 of the designs which will be the first I'll be offering...

Close up of "Domino" showing my textile prints

Domino tunic

Green Woman tunic

New textile designs

Some of the new fabrics I've been designing lately....

Golden Sashi

Sashi

Stripes and spots contrast for Sashi

I did well in the Murrurundi Art Show. I won the section "Fibres and Textiles" with my dress featuring the digital image "Petal". My acrylic/textile painting "Chrysalis Woman" achieved a Highly Commended (this artwork is featured in my textile "The Green Woman")

Sandra Pearce workshop soon!

Tonight the Murrurundi Art Show opens 6pm at the RSL Hall so I hope all my local blog readers will be able make an appearance and enjoy seeing the fantastic efforts of our local creatives. Huge thanks to our generous sponsor Peter Norvill who stumps up the $2000 first prize. If you can't make it tonight the exhibition will also be open next weekend.

I entered 4 works - a miniature, a large painting in the Oil/Acrylic section and 2 garments in the Fibre/Textiles. Rodney also entered 4 works.

We have a fabulous workshop coming up on the weekend of May 17-18th. Sandra Pearce is an enormously talented Queensland printmaker who will be our tutor for 2 days of instruction in gelatin printmaking. The workshop samples will be done on paper but the techniques can also be done on fabric. You just need to use textile paint instead of inks. Heres some examples of Sandras exquisite monoprints done by the technique we'll be learning.

Visit Sandras website for more images....www.sandrapearce.com.au  ....though I don't think you'll need much more convincing how wonderful the work is. This workshop is incredibly cheap at $70 for the 2 days because the Arts Council is subsidising her visit. It is limited to 12 places so get in quickly by phoning Love Appleby at 0431 398833 to book your place and get the requirements lists.

Personally, I'm very excited! see you there....

more fabric designs

This is a fabric I designed this morning. I began with the photo below and digitally altered it in Photoshop. I wanted to make a monochrome image to print on cotton/canvas for making cushions or a cloth bag.

This is the original photo of Ashleigh that I used as the basis of the digital manipulation

Here is a picture of the textile I designed, at a half repeat

The finished textile at a half repeat (52x18"). I called it "Sweet Leah"

I positioned the image so that a metre of the fabric would make 3 42x42cm (17x17") cushions. I can't sell any of this fabric until I've bought some myself to physically sample that it has printed satisfactorily! But some time in the next few weeks I hope to show you the finished cushions and a tote bag. At present only 2 of my designs are available for purchase by the metre.

You can see more of my textile designs at   http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/la_perla  My Spoonflower shop is "la_perla"

Also if you go over to check out the Spoonflower website go to their homepage and have a look at their weekly fabric design competition. The current one is to design a reusable cloth shopping bag to celebrate "Earth Week". I entered a design I called "Earth Angel grocery bag". You might like to look at the entries at vote for your favourites. 








http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/la_perla

April already!

Murrurundi had a short but intensely hot and dry Summer. There was no rain for over 6 weeks between the beginning of December and the middle of January. Our fishpond dried up and we lost 99% of our goldfish which saddened me greatly. The towns dam storage was at dangerously low levels and we went onto level 5 water restrictions which meant you couldn't even wash your car - let alone water a garden or fill the fishpond! Fortunately, though it became very stressed, most of the garden survived. The water level in the town dam became so low that poisonous blue-green algae bloomed and the towns residents were warned the tap water was too dangerous to drink - potentially life threatening! So for 10 days the regional Council handed out thousands of litres of bottled water in a daily delivery round to everybodys houses.

Towards the end of January it finally rained and the weather changed quite abruptly.  Daily temperatures fell from averaging in the mid 30s to the mid 20s (celsius) and rain was falling at least every 10 days. The ground which had been parched yellow straw and dust was a carpet of luminous bright green within a week! the resilience of grass never fails to astound me.

Rodney and I have been doing some home "renovations". I put that in inverted commas because our definition of renovation is probably not the conventional one. Our philosophy is to update only what is absolutely necessary and to recycle, upcycle and make do with what we have available with the intention of minimising consumption of new materials. Of course its an easy philosophy for us to live within because our financial resources are negligible and our taste in decor leans naturally to the rustic and bohemian...

I have also been plodding away at my own creative enterprises. In January I discovered Spoonflower, the American company which prints textiles in small runs starting from only one metre. This inspired me to start working on an exhibition concept for later this year. I've designed some textile prints and made them up in my clothing designs. For the exhibition I want to show the continuum from the original art (working drawings, paintings, image boards, fragments, collages) to the patternmaking and the production of the finished garment.....

Heres pictures of the 2 dresses I've made so far.

Murrurundi art workshops

2 weeks ago we had the pleasure of hosting Australian artist Tricia Reust to teach a multi media workshop in Murrurundi. 12 students attended the 2 day class and enjoyed the tuition immensely. Not only is Tricia a greatly accomplished artist but she is also an excellent teacher.

I did 2 works...untitled, 90x90cm

And the second was an interpretation of my digital image "She Glows", 90x90cm

Murrurundi Arts Council is sponsoring another workshop on the weekend of May 17-18th with printmaker Sandra Pearce. See some of Sandras art at www.sandrapearce.com.au. Rodney and I will be doing this one too and we invite all others who would like to join to book now by contacting Love at 0431398833. The cost is a very modest $120 for the 2 days.