Children's Workshops & Public Art - Let me Take a Leaf Out of your Book

Most kids seem to take to stitching like a duck to water.  Wendy and I have run a couple of workshops for children (and adults) to involving them in art project involving the Guild and the City of Canada Bay.  This  links with the embroidered letters that Guild members have been doing.

Tree of Knowledge - letters stitched by members of
the Embroiderers' Guild NSW

This aspect of the  Public Art project involves encouraging members  our community to stitch something which reflects something they have read.   Their stitched " leaf"  will be applied to a fabric covered tree form (think of a conical shape like a Christmas Tree) and live at Concord Library

I took a photo of the table set up at for the very first kids workshop but after that was way too busy to take any happy snaps.

I came home tired and happy.  The participants enjoyed themselves.

I am about to create a new page containing more information about how to go about making a leaf for those that have an inkling to have a go themselves.  I will post it shortly.

In the interim email me if you would like instructions in pdf format.

Big Horizons

I spent a few days in the Wimmera in country Victoria a couple of weeks ago. 

I felt the city lift from shoulders as I drive north from Melbourne.  The landscape flattens and the horizons grow larger and lower.  The grain silos stand high in the sky and the roads are long and straight.  My formative years were spent with horizons and vistas such as this and I feel renewed whenever I am in flat open country.

There are a lot of period houses in  Birchip .  (the town I stayed at) .  The gum trees in the street still had flowers on them and I couldn’t resist taking photos of them.  The camera in my mobile phone makes this so very easy to do.  (I am a late comer to grasping this aspect of phone technology and still cling to my camera – albeit a digital one)

I was delighted to get the opportunity to get up close and personal to the gum blossoms as I am still playing with ideas which have come to mind after reading the poem “Pruning Flowering Gums’ by Lesbia Hartford.

 One night soon I will play with some Makins Clay and see what I can do to make a blossom  or two J.