Nose down working towards BEE happy -a solo exhibtion

Bees are little birds.  Lino print.

Is been a busy start to the year.   I was asked to be part of  Four legs...working with wool.   The exhibition was great fun.   It was a lovely opening night.   Five exhibitors meant we had a diverse number of people come and it turned into a party.   My works included my exploration of penny rugs and  cute pop art faces in felt.

I am part of a group of textile artists who some six hours away from me.  Our efforts finally came to fruition when Off the Beaten Track opened in Shoalhaven Regional Gallery on 8 June, 2019.  They will move on to Cessnock Regional Gallery in August and then into Sydney in October and November.

Still life with bee.  Mixed media collage.

And I have had my nose down working towards a solo exhibition - BEE happy 😊.   The exhibtion runs Tuesday to Sunday from1 to 20 August, 2019  (11.00 to  4.00) at Creators Artspace Gallery, Gateway Village, Lincoln Causeway Wodonga Vic 3690.

BEE happy came about as a result of my exploring native bees in the area I live in.  The Albury Wodonga area sits on the Murray River where the Riverina (a geographical region in New South Wales) intersects with the southern slopes of the Victoria Alps.  (Sorry, can’t help myself ‘too much information’ should be one of my middle names).

Anyway, have been on a wonderful frolic of discovery and creation and am close to being ready for hanging/installation on the 31^st of his month.   

Teatree blossoms.  Stitched WIP with source photo.

In earlier posts I have been banging on about process.  It is still sort of haunts me.   However, working on BEE happy has given me another opportunity to ponder about process on an unconscious level.   I am still asking:

·       Is it sticking to one medium?

·       Is it exploring one theme?

·       How is the creative process driven?

I found that when I was working on piece for BEE happy I would daydream /zone out.  I solved problems on a previous works and thought of new works that I could create on  the same theme but exploring a different medium.  

I let myself go and revisited collage.  I forgot how much I enjoyed the process.   I stitched.   I played with fibres.   I put my hand to simple prints.   Some of the prints ended up in collage or on linen.  The linen got stitched into.  Some of the collages got stitched into too.  I used paint (which scares the hell out of me).  And I have made  sculptures using fabric and fabric hardener and/or apoxy sculpt.

 

Honey bee.  Collage with found papers (part of a magazine image), stitch, ink and paint.

I have been in my happy place.  And I found that having several works on the go enables me to think through and finalise or discard ideas.  It enables me to take time to think, plan and put words on paper in my morning journal. 

I have a few interesting online articles in recent times about multitasking and slow multitasking.   The bit that appealed to me and I took away was working on several projects stopped boredom and gave you time to think about all your projects on several levels.  The articles didn’t advocate that you rush from one thing to another.  Rather, it was suggested that move between projects enabled to rest/reset/refresh/rejuvenate/retune etc.   

Here are a couple of links I found interesting:

·       An article on the value of daydreaming in The Guardian, and

·       A TED talk by Tim Harford

So what have I taken away from all this?    

My answer - keep playing!

Cheers all.

Donna