the Countdown Continues.....

Another busy day as my opening approaches.  First, here's a picture of the invitation (and yes, you are all cordially invited!).  Sorry about the quality of the picture, but I didn't get a digital copy (it was designed by the gallery), so the best I could do was a photo of the actual card.

Today's job was to make the display boxes for the greeting cards that I'll be selling at the gallery.  The picture below shows the boxes during construction.  I had no idea how I was going to make them, but somehow when I got to the studio and looked at what materials I had available the construction method just fell into place.

After this stage all the seams were covered with masking tape and the boxes were then painted.  I had some red/brown paint left over from my studio renovations and after a few coats they should (hopefully) have the look of Japanese lacquer ware (with a few lumpy bumpy bits where the taped seams overlap).  Anyway, they should do the job.  Making the 5 boxes took about 3 hours which left me with a few hours to do some stitching.  It's only been a week since I last did some embroidery, but if I don't get into the studio often enough I start to lose my centre of gravity (I'm sure all you stitch addicts out there know what I mean!).  As I tick off the tasks I have to do each day I get a little less stressed about the opening.  I'm hoping that on the night I'll just be able to let go and enjoy myself.

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Show Preparations

It's less than a week until my show opening and I am still busy making preparations. Yesterday I baked 160 mini cupcakes.  The first batch - gluten free red velvet ( I have lots of friends on gluten free diets).

It took a LOT of red colouring to get it to this shade.

Yummy swirls of colour.

Dough in the patty pans ready to go into the oven.

Sadly, after baking, they were not as red as when they went in.  It seems no matter how much colouring you put in they tend to revert back to a chocolate brown (on the outside at least).  

The second batch I made were banana (with passionfruit frosting).  All are now safely nesting in the freezer.  I'm going to make another 200 today - lime with coconut frosting and flourless chocolate with a rich chocolate ganache.  Then all I have to do is make the frostings a day before the opening.  I have a hair appointment and have left myself a couple of hours to frost them all before the show.

As the day approaches I am finding myself feeling less and less stressed.  Hopefully on the night I'll just be able to let go and enjoy myself.

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So, so busy

With only 9 days until the show opening I have been run off my feet.  Posting invitations, putting invites in stores and cafes, making sure all the right people have been notified.  Yesterday I had a photo shoot with the Mercury (the Tasmanian daily newspaper).  There will be a story in the Sunday Magazine of the newspaper (I'll post a link when it comes out).

Between now and next Friday I have to send more invites, bake 200 mini cupcakes for the opening, make myself a new necklace to wear, make a presentation stand for the greeting cards I'll be selling at the show. I also need to write an article for a textile magazine and put in an entry for the City of Hobart Art Prize.

I was planning on having a bit of a day off today, but there are so many things on my mind that I don't think that's going to happen!  I can't wait until the opening when everything is done and all I have to do is enjoy showing my work.  It's going to be a long week! Pin It

More Work in Progress

Today I finished the middle section depicting the river delta in the Turpan Depression.  This was a really difficult section to complete because it interlinks with the section below.  Whichever section I worked first was going to present difficulties as there are important landmarks in each section that help to proportion the work (I hope that makes sense!).

Here's how the whole thing is looking (more or less).  It's a very large piece and I am having difficult fitting all of it into one photograph.

Here's another attempt to capture the whole thing.  Click on the picture and you'll see a larger version.

Photographed from the right edge you can see a bit more detail and how the middle section fits with the top sections.

Detail of the right side of the work.  It was surprisingly difficult to work those meandering lines so that they looked random and natural.  Some worked better than others!

Interest is maintained by using various shades of relatively neutral colours.

This photo details the left one third of the work.  The brown sections will make more sense when the bottom portion is completed.

This photo shows the open weave texture of the whisper silk.

The line of black stitching near the top will be removed.  It was stitched to hold the whisper silk in place.  Even so, this fine, open weave silk fabric just wanted to fray at the slightest touch!

I probably won't have much time for stitching over the next two weeks leading up to my first solo show as my time will be taken up with distributing invitations and other organisational matters.  I'll post more about that as happenings arise.

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Sometimes Creating Art is Just a Long Hard Slog

Having finished the upper section of my new work I found that I had not dyed enough colours to complete the next section.  I have spent the last couple of days sorting out this problem.  First I had to skein off some new silk thread of a 100 g hank.  Normally this is not a big deal, but whereas I normally buy my silk directly from India, this silk I bought from a store in Hobart (interestingly enough they buy their thread from the same supplier in India, however it seems my supplier no longer sells this particular thread so I bought it retail).  Because the silk had been on the shelf for some time and, no doubt, handled by many a would be buyer, the threads in the skein were somewhat tangled.  After many hours of patient (slow) winding and detangling (about 1/3 of the skein) I was able to wind the thread without too much trouble.  In all it took me about 5 hours to wind the 100 g of thread into smaller, dyeable skeins.

I then dyed the threads I needed which again took longer than I though it would as I had to make up new dye solutions for about 12 colours and then agonised over creating just the right shades I needed.

Here you can see the beautiful subtle shades I dyed drying by my wood heater.

Sadly the photos don't show the gorgeous lustre of the thread, nor the true beauty of the colours.

So, after embroidering for one and a half hours, the threads were dry and ready to wind onto cards.  I always wind very large skeins so that I am sure to have enough of any one colour to finish my projects.

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Count Down to My First Solo Show

It is just 3 weeks until my first solo show.  It has been so many months of preparation it seems kind of unreal that the date is nearly here.  If you are in Tasmania the opening is on April 27 at 6 pm at the Goulburn Street Gallery.  The gallery website has me down for April 20, but that is a misprint.

I have 28 works in the show, 19 in the Flow Series and 9 in the Crop Circle Series.  For a sneak peak you can go and have a look at my website.

It's Good Friday, a traditional day of rest in our house.  The cleaning is done and the hot cross buns are rising before going into the oven.  Happy Easter to all my readers. Pin It

Work in Progress Continued

I have been working furiously in my studio over the last week and have achieved quite a lot.

When I wrote my last post I had just finished the red ridges and white geometric areas (representing the peaks above the snow line and the snow capped mountains below of the Turpan Depression).  This week I softened the white area by interspersing the white shapes with directional seed stitches.  Then I went about defining the next section, first with raised ridges of palestrina stitch, followed by thinner, less raised lines of stem stitch and finally finer lines of stem stitch to provide directionality.

Here's how the entire piece looked after all the solid lines were stitched in.

In this photo you can see the seed stitches in between the white rectangles.  (Don't forget you can see a larger photo by clicking on the image).

Here you can clearly see the three levels of linear stitching.

And in mega mega close up showing the row of tiny knots formed by palestrina stitch.  To give you some idea of how fine the stitching is, the ground fabric is 24mm silk habotai with a very fine dense weave.  

I love the way the close up photos show the myriad fine, shiny silk strands that together form a single thread.

Today I proceeded to fill in the linear areas with directional seed stitches.

Notice how the colour of the dyed fabric is brighter than the thread used for the seed stitches on top, thus enlivening the image and giving greater textural and directional definition to the seed stitches.

By my calculation it will probably take me another day and a half perhaps (about 10 hours) to finish the seed stitching.  Then it's onto the water way in the middle that will be the focus of the entire work.  I will need to do some thinking and contemplation to find a way to meaningfully represent this area of the work.  I love the puzzle solving stage and the meditational act of stitching afterwards.  Stay tuned for more updates.

By the way, have you checked out my facebook page yet?  If you haven't you're missing out on lots of great stuff.  Inspiring images and links to other blogs and websites.  Why not take a minute to "like" my page and then receive updates via your facebook account?

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