Reflecting

 

September was a month of thinking, administration and a touch of play.

A meet up with Creatives at the Farmers Market at the very end of August was great fun.  Keep an eye on  Danielle France’s insta Dwellingartmagazine  for updates.   Bring some tools  with you and be creative.  Danielle has some oil pastels with her. I hadn;t used them before and tried them out and drew my coffee mug,

My exhibition A Mirror to the Multiverse  is now up.  I am very chuffed to be rubbing shoulders with other artists and in a wonderful space.   You are invited to an Art Bar Event (see below) if you are in the area on 18 October 2024.

I have found my stitching mojo again and been turning up to the Embroiderers Guild meetups.  I have found my happy place with a small group of women who like to think outside the box and  experiment with different techniques.   Recently the focus has been on variants of stitched collaged fabric and dying using to get marks and stains using iron, tea and rusty objects. 

Connected by a Thread, the textile interest  group I belong to met up and had a play day lead by member Pauline.  We experimented with watercolour paper, watercolour paint and stitch and I was quite taken with some of the results.  I  think it is a technique worthy of  adding to my tool kit.   The group has been planning an exhibition for some time and we have agreed on November 2025.   It will be a busy lead up to the as my solo exhibition is on at the same time.  Have to say I love a deadline though. 😊.

 Sit and snip beside my chair

I have been cutting out roses again – or still.   They will be at the heart of my solo exhibition in 2025.  I am  planning a major piece which will cover a  wall in Gateway Gallery, Wodonga.  I have  been cutting out  10- 30 roses of various sizes in an evening .  I feel that will cover about an A4 sheet of paper.   Since I don’t wield scissors every night, I think I will be cutting out roses well into the middle of next year.

I have also been researching an eco-themed work and developing a small story map.   This is a big transition for me.   The story map uses software to turn maps and geographic information systems (GIS)  into interactive content.  I have learnt that I can add artwork into this 😊.  The research I’m doing is going towards a long-term project (3 years) with the Creative Practice Circle.  It is lovely to have a continuing project to slowly work on.  The collage play (both fabric and paper) that I do with my other groups will lead to the development of work for the story maps.   I love that my experimentation and play feeds into and informs the work I do and across the different groups I belong to.

Now I ‘ve read what I’ve written I think I should change the opening sentence to say a lot of play.

Yep – I’m project driven, and I need to work in concert with others.

Exhibition deadline reached 😊

Raven World (Collage)

Another month has passed by. My deadline for works and amin for an exhibition reached. It is installed next week in the Hallway Gallery Wodonga Hyphen Library Gallery. A big thankyou to the panel and curatorial team for considering my application and taking on my idea of works reflecting the concept of Multiverse - somethings that’s not observable beyond our immediate world. 

My bio for the exhibition explains a bit more. 

Donna Caffrey is a local artist whose practice involves collage using paper, textiles and found images. The tactile, playful act of tearing, cutting and placement of papers underpins Donna’s love and connection to collage.

In this new body of work, Donna plays with the ideas of portals and the Multiverse, where all possibilities and probabilities become events somewhere. In this new series, Donna explores themes of portals and the Multiverse, envisioning a space where all possibilities and probabilities are events in different realms. Her work examines concepts of space, horizon, and distance, capturing moments often with humour and the idea of layered realities. 

...

PORTAL: A doorway, gate, or other entrance 

MULTIVERSE: A term that scientists use to describe the idea that beyond the observable universe, other universes may exist as well.

Hyphen is having a bit of a shin dig on 18 October 2024  from 6.00 pm at the ART BAR.  Not in the listing yet but you get the idea.  Hope to see some of you there.

MIA and back again

It pops in my calendar – every month – BLOG POST. I’m finally taking action and writing something. But I'm giving myself a bit of leeway. When I look back realise life has been full. I have been sort of busy each month. January took me to Sydney to see exhibitions and catch Covid. February was spent recovering.

I was away in March, exhausted in April, ran a collage workshop in May and have been madly cutting and pasting to get ahead for an exhibition commencing September at the Wodonga Hyphen Library Gallery. I am about to draw a line in the sand for the exhibition, I have more works than needed and they will be selected next week. Working on two more pieces and that’s it.

I have been tinkering with textiles and finally found my mojo in that regard. I wonder whether it’s the cooler weather. I had the oportnunity to share some design exercise workshops with other textile groupies. The top photo above is a collage using real leaves and adding stitch. This came out of the collage workshop in May and was inspired by the participants. The other is a stitch play on the word 'stitch'. I’ve picked a couple of unfinished pieces and changed my mind about what I want to do with them – especially all those small black and white hexagons. Perhaps next month I’ll have photo to post showing what I’ve actually done.

So what’s next? The Mayday Hills Artists Society has invited me to speak to them next week and I’m looking forward to sharing what I do. Grateful they think I’m of interest. I’m working on couple of collages and a textile piece for upcoming group exhibitions at Gateway Gallery. And, I get to share my love of collage and will be facilitating some collage events at Gateway in September. Keep creating. Donna