Playing and filling the empty creative well

Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it.   
Andy Warhol

After exhibition exhaustion has crept in.  And a few weekends away haven’t helped.

I have spent way too long trying to tidy my workspace and completing a work for the Margaret Oppen competition (Embroiderers’ Guild NSW)  and now I have began to play.  

I’m not much interested in doing anything too serious.  All the things I put off for the last six months are on the table.  

Polymer clay earrings

I have pulled out my polymer clay and fired up the toaster oven and made some jewellery.

I looked through all that crewel wool and started some simple meditative stitching.   I am a few stitches away from completing a panel.   I think it will become a cushion.

Bargello in browns and greens

I have heaps crewel wool so another is planned.   This one will be a palette of blue greys and planned a little more rather than the serendipity of just grabbing a colour and stitching with it.

And yes, there are projects in the wings.   I am thinking about a small body of work for a joint exhibition with several felters in the middle of next year.  As the primary focus of these textile workers is wool the aforesaid cushions may end up being part of that exhibition.   Or they may end up on my couch.  Time will tell 😊.

I have postponed finishing/starting/making some soft sculpted dolls and have a “Sweet Alice” pattern printed out begging to be made.   The pattern has been shared by doll artist Sharon Mitchell on her Facebook group Cloth Doll Crafters.  I have been a member for quite a while and enjoy seeing what people create.   Now I’m going to indulge myself. 

Cloth over air dry clay

And I have a rabbit head sculpted in air dry clay that has been waiting for a body for 12 months.   His time has come.   I have missed doll making.   Yes some of them are cheesy but so much fun.  Doll making involves practising observational skills, thinking in 3D, painting, sculpting, fabric , found objects and stitching - just about everything that floats my boat.

The balance of this year is going to be play.  But play with a purpose.   Whilst playing I am thinking about future works.   I will use the play as a way to sample/process some ideas.   

Some polymer clay jewellery WIP - just to show I venture past black and white !

There are four local exhibitions and/or competitions I want to enter next year.  And I would like to continue exploring bees in fibre art form with perhaps another exhibition.  But not till mid 2021 .  Lol.    I did learn some lessons about over extending myself this year.

I have been negotiating with a public gallery towards a group exhibition in 2022!  Yes, that’s miles away but galleries plan so far in advance it is absolutely imperative to plan ahead.

And did I mention I am so excited to be going to the Contemporary Craft Retreat at Canberra in October and a mosaic play weekend with my sister at Moulemien in November.  Yep.  Its all happening!  I'm filling those wells of inspiration with activity.  And there will be one last hurrah to Sydney to catch up with fellow artists and collect my Off the Beaten Track works after they bump out of the last exhibition space there.

Grandmother's Garden and return to stitching

I have had a burst of soft sculpting and created some grannies and aunties for my exhibition Grandmother's Garden.  It was fun but exhausting.

 Grandmother’s Garden included an installation of hanging pieced hexagons.  The installation is a play on the quilting pattern of the same name.  It is a tessellating pattern which builds upon itself.   I have used old embroidered table cloths, tray cloths and napkins.

The earliest hexagon template that quilt researchers have found was made in England in 1770. Hexagon became one of the most popular patterns in England by 1830.    The pattern at that stage was know as honeycomb or hexagon.

Hexagon patterns bloomed in the United States in the 1930s under the name Grandmother's Flower Garden.  Many pieced quilts used fabric remnants or repurposed cloth to create a very distinct pattern.

I ran a couple of workshops during the exhibition and we paper pieced small bowls - we used old table linen and it came up a treat!

Its been a while since I put a needle into cloth with a decorative purpose in mind.  But glad to say I managed to lay out a fabric collage of sorts and started stitching.   Thinking they may become small bags.   Or just a piece of embellished fabric.   But trying to stitch sustainably and looking to my stash rather than buy new fabric and threads.   More later.

A wrap of of 2017 dolls and stitching and tutor recommendations :-)

Well its 2018 and I am back in the saddle after 2 months of no posts.   But in the interim I have been busy travelling and stitching and doll making.  

In late October 2017 I went to the ContemporaryCraft Retreat at Canberra and did a workshop with Bobbi Oliver – a doll maker from the Central Coast NSW.   I highly recommend her – she is generous in her skill sharing.   After two days I came away with “Mago” – a fixed doll with wired, padded and wrapped armature and sculpted polymer clay head and hands.   I was chuffed.

I also did a class with Lex Sorrentino using Makins Clay.   Lex always  seems to comes up with techniques I want to try.    In Lex's  workshop  we made a  hollow fish form - the wire armature was covered with Makin's and partially covered- a bit zombie like.   

Zombie Fish WIP

November was a busy month.

I made the plunge and exhibited a selection of works at the  Albury Horicultural Show.  And was staggered to be awarded  Best of Show.   I entered a painting, a paverpol Llama, some stitchery and a cloth doll and a small mixed media doll.

I travelled to Swan Hill Vic and lead a Paverpol weekend with 9 ladies at a CWA craft retreat.   We made bandaged birds, a small person form and a larger lady.   It was bags of fun.  They were a great bunch of women to spend a weekend with 😊

Circque de Soliel inspired girl - yet to be named

.    

Pietro - my medieval inspired boy

At the end of November and early December I had a catch up with some girlfriends at the Gold Coast and we had a crafty few days with doll maker Susie McMahon.   We sculpted faces with Creative Paperclay and after three intense days had completed a cloth doll with a paperclay face mask and sculpted a full head with a shoulder plate. Susie's technique included covering the sculpted face with cloth.  As a textile junkie I really like this look.  Susie was generous in sharing her moulds and I also came home with a baby face mask and a child face mask.    

Lots of learning and lots of fun.  I am in love with the other worldliness of these two dolls and will make more in the format.  Susie will travel to conduct classes and I highly recommend her to you.   

Add to this mix a workshop with textile artist and tutor Sue Senewiratne (and sequin lady extraordinaire) where we sampled and sewed sequins in a Bollywood Bling style.    Sue loaded her car up and travelled 4 hours up the highway from Melbourne to Albury with an amazing selection of sequins, braids and beads.   Her workshop instructions included a number of Indian style motifs.   I was so enthused I did another two motifs and a sampler in the next few weeks.   Sue has a lovey easy teaching style and coped with my dive into the deep end approach!

Two of Sue's examples

My sampler

Last year was a great learning year.  The challenge is to incorporate what I learnt into my projects this year 😊.

Rabbits on Exhibtion - Tempetuous Nature

Last night the exhibition Tempestuous Nature was officially opened at Creators Artspace, Lincoln Causeway, Wodonga.  

I was invited to join the exhibition by fibre artists Cathy Upton and Leanne O'Toole.  Cathy has on display results of eco dying on silk, cotton and wool cotton mixes.  Leanne's works are in the form of bags - cloth, felted and both.  Also on display were two felted wearable art dresses on which Cathy and Leanne had collaborated. One of the dresses was a winner at the Wool Fashion Awards in 2014.  Their work is amazing and I was really chuffed to be asked to contribute work - but rabbits?   Well it worked. 

Henrietta is the bunny that started this journey.    Leanne had seen Henrietta and thought that rabbits would fit the eclectic mix of fibre art.in the exhibition.

Henrietta is a true mixed media creation.  I wanted to try clay over cloth which is how her face came about.  Her ears are florists wire and papier-mâché made from tissue that came with a new pair of shows. Henrietta’s little jacket was a failed felting experiment.  The felt came up a treat in its new guise.  Pants were made from a scrap left over from some long forgotten project.  

Bunnies in the buff posing with One of Leanne O'Toole's Cloth bags
and two of Cathy Upton's eco-dyed scarves

 Bunnies in the Buff

These little fellows are made from a test scrap of cotton fabric that Cathy eco dyed.    I just loved the colour and the bunnies have such an exuberant feel about them that I couldn’t clothe them.   

I just gave them simple  embroidered faces and lovely fluffy tails made from unspun sheep wool.

 The Border Mail gave us a nice write up.  You can find it here.

In making my bunnies I have tried to imbibe them with something of a tempestuous nature.  If you look you may find that they are have elements that are emotional, passionate, intense, impassioned, fiery, unrestrained, temperamental, volatile, excitable, mercurial or unpredictable.

I have endeavoured to stick to the principle of not buying anything in making the bunnies. Remembering where lots of the bits came from has added to the fun I have had in making bunnies for this exhibition.

 

As adults, we often eschew childhood toys and forget the joy they gave us.   These bunnies are toys for adults and can be hung on the wall or sit on a shelf.  I  will post more photos over the next couple of weeks.  I hope my bunnies give you as much pleasure as they do me.

The value of play

I have been very strict with myself recently.  I have not let myself digress from a big project which must be ready by the end of the month for photographing.

The project is comprised of three disparate parts which I have been working on irregularly over the past year and a half.   I have spent so much time thinking about the project and collecting materials that I thought I was much further on than I actually was.  Add to this a measure of procrastination and boredom (because I had over thought it all) I was feeling over the whole thing!  The project seemed to take forever to come close to finishing.   Drag on execrably in fact!

Anyway, the long and the short is that I decided to give myself a play day and do anything I wanted to – have a play 😊.     And I did.   I made some very simple doll forms (cat shapes) and stuffed them and painted them with gesso.   All so I could play with a bit of paint on cloth.   And I started to paint.

It was fun to do and took my attention away from 'The Project'.  

What I discovered was that whilst I was working on the cat forms I solved problems I was having in the design of an astronaut doll body which is to accompany one of the parts of the series of works.  

As the cat forms had to dry I had time to start the astronaut.  And I was happy to do so .  At this time all I had was an ear less head with no neck or body.

The day flew.  In the time I stuffed and painted the cats I worked out how to progress with the astronaut. Here is a photo of him in his skin so to speak.

His head is sculpted from polymer clay.   His gloves from Makins clay.    I have added some aluminum wire (which is baked into his shoulders) which allow me to pose his arms. I will paint is boots and gloves and I have some lovely aluminum foil snaffled from leftovers of a recently installed ducted heating system which will make his suit.  He will float in the air in front of a mixed fabric and felt “spacescape”.     And I worked out I could make a papier mache helmet and to stop fussing about a glass visor.

Conclusion:   Play gives you time to creatively solve problems.

Resolution:   Let myself play at least once a fortnight so I can step away from bigger projects which go to make a body of work.

What do you do to keep yourself happy and on track with your projects?  I'd love to hear.

Playing with paverpol

Had a play day with my daughter and we made diva's.   Well that's what they looked to me :-).

Materials -  Timber, wire and alfoil armature, interlock body, lace and braids all stiffened with tinted Paverpol.

Up date on doll making

In November last year I posted that I had become interested in doll making.

Whilst I haven’t written about it since but I have been slowly progressing with my skills.     

I got two craft orientated presents from my better half this last Christmas a: doll pattern by Cindee Moyer and an online course  with art doll maker Deb Wood through A for Artistic (no affiliations).   Deb's course was polymer clay face making over four weeks  I haven’t quite made the soft female faces that Deb makes but my faces have improved leaps and bounds.

Meet Arnold -  not quite the beautiful smiley girl I set out to create.    But he is alive with humour and is patiently waiting for a body.

The next face I made was more like an old crone.  But Deb kindly said she reminded her of one of her fairy godmothers.  I have made a few more and there are more faces in the pipeline..

Cindee's pattern was called "the Gatherer" and involved simple needle sculpting and a a lot of mixed media :-).

In the past I have resisted courses because I didn’t want to duplicate other peoples’ work or replicate their projects.   Silly me!   Very rarely is anything ever exactly the same.   And now I realise that have missed opportunities to learn.   But most importantly I have missed making friendships and connections in the creative community.  

And of course like everything in life, if you want to get better one must practice, practice, practice.  Which is fun, fun, fun when it comes to creating.  

To this end I have been working on a small series of cloth dolls which I have called Garden Girls.   They are simple skittle shape and the  purpose is to practice painting faces  and designs on cloth.  This is Lily who is singing in the garden.

I have heaps of idea to work on  - recorded in my visual diary   The trick is to remember to look through it occasionally :-).

So where am I going next in this doll making adventure ?   I will keep at the faces and bring embroidery back into the bodies or the costumes that I put on them.    I have ideas tucked away in my visual diary for garden girl variations and will remember to look at them.

And I am finalising pieces for a group exhibition with Six Running Feet.   We are five textile artists who have each worked on pieces which reflect what "off the beaten track" means to us.   We have a date next year and I will tell more next week.

Cheers

Canberra Contemporary Craft Retreat - Laughing and Learning - Dolls

Well it’s been a whirl wind few weeks.  I am exhausted from learning and laughter.  Not to mention travel.

I went to the Contemporary Craft Retreat held in Canberra, ACT in late October and did  workshops with artists Susie McMahan and Janice Laurent. 

Susie is a doll maker from Tasmania.  I only had to travel 3 ½ hours to get to Canberra.   Susie had 3 times the distance to cover.   I am so glad she did.  As well as coming home with 2 completed projects I came home armed with heaps of new skills.

Susie showed us how to make and paint two dolls she has designed:  her Sukeshi Doll and Sorry Doll.  I really wanted to learn how to draw and paint on fabric to create faces.  And I did J .  Not to mention learning some practicalities of soft doll making which I hadn’t done before.     

my Sukeshi Doll

The Sukeshi doll was fun and I learnt how to confidently apply paint to cloth.  The little doll had a simple form so I didn’t get lost – just face and hands outlined then filled in and then other decoration added as desired.  It was fun and Susie is a generous teacher.  It wasn’t until I was on my way home I remembered I had done an online class several years ago with American mixed media artist Suzi Blu on drawing faces.   I had forgotten.   Back to my notes now to combine what I learnt with Susie and Suzi J.

Embroidered but faceless cloth babushka

Some Paint applied

The back - added a kerchief

 Anyway, I got home and painted up a couple of little babushka type dolls which I had embroidered.  I was interested to see what I could apply from Susie McMahon’s lessons.   This is the result.  They need some refinement – and also the ‘canvas’ was not large.  Interestingly, the one I was least happy with and kept overpainting ended up being the one I like the most.  I think the under layers of paint give more depth. 







And that was something Susie talked about and showed us in the Sorry Doll.

My Sorry Doll

The Sorry Doll took 2 days of full on work and concentration.  Susie supplied us with a head and pattern.  The body was sewn and cut out at home.  The fun began at the Retreat.   With the encouragement of new friends Monica and Kay I made hands with separated fingers.  I had opted for a simpler hand but Kay had cut and sewn a spare pair.  Monica and Kay chivied me along when I made mistakes, burst through seams and decided to revert to the original.  Thanks girls – so glad you did!  

On the last day I did a class with Janice Laurent making a relief face in Makins Clay.  I love working with this clay and it has been a while so it was a good fun refresher.   The face is still a work in progress and I hope to finish it before Christmas.  If life events permit (which are also taking lots of time at the mo)  I will finish the face before Christmas and post a photo J.

The weekend following I went to Wagga Wagga to see “Tryp(s)tych” - an embroidery exhibition.  It was put on by a group I belong to and the work the members of the group does is amazing.  I didn’t take any photos and am hoping I can get hold of some to show you.

This last weekend I went to Swan Hill and did a gold work techniques class at the CWA Craft retreat there.   Again I didn’t take any photos. I will write a separate post on this too.      But I did sleep over with these two vintage girls at Carols house :-)

More Fey Folk = Art Dolls

Feathers from a vintage duster and an old silk scarf

Gum leaves for wings

Paper bark wings and recycled fabric

I have found that I have been working in a series by default.    I have been making these little art dolls for a while and finding that by repeating I am learning and exploring.  All that I have read and heard has said this but when I have set out to do this on purpose in the past I have failed.  I was encouraged to make more (thank you Penny) and ended up with a number of little art dolls. :-)

I have been using odds and ends, buttons collected over time, vegetation collected from walks with the dog and from the garden.  I have recycled/repurposed/upcycled clothes and fabrics given to me.
Friends know I have an interest in repurposing and I get given great things,   I love the vintage feather duster I was given.   You can see I have used some feathers in one of my fey folk above.

I have made little faces from either polymer or air dried clay and then made molds with which to easily create more faces.  They distort a little when I pull them out of the mould do they have familial sort of resemblance but are not exactly the same.  There are some that have no relatives -  the fellow with the bottle brush twigs wings in the photo above is one.