ship in a bottle / cat in a bag

Yep, that's pretty much my life at the moment.

Thesis editing is probably the most boring, labour intensive and soul-destroying job bar none, but on 30 November it will all be over, and after that I can turn my office into a crafting haven, read books for pleasure again, cook lots, get fit and healthy, catch up with friends, find a job and generally rejoin the world again.

Until then, edit, edit, edit...

I'll be back at the beginning of December with a Mosehouse giveaway to celebrate my freedom!

the big week

It was a big week last week. I finished my last thesis chapter and the textile show opened at Waiheke. It was a lovely occasion, and because there were three exhibitions opening on the same night, the gallery was jam-packed. I was stoked to see that my birds had been given a whole wall to themselves, and on the adjacent wall there was the most beautiful display of Rosemary McLeod's felted tea cosies with lavishly embroidered detailing. There was so much beautiful work in the exhibition that words are inadequate to describe it, so I'll be popping back to the gallery before the show closes to take some photos, which I'll post here shortly.

But by far and away the most important event last week was my one and only sister's birthday! I put together a little stash of treats for her - a sage green Nana knitted cardigan, two handpainted plates from the 1940s, and a cluster of my wallflowers. I try to get a new prototype jewel made in time for Tazey's birthday, so this year's offering was a long string of beads made from tightly rolled strips of finely striped 1970s wallpaper. The thing I like best about it is that the density of the pattern meant that every bead came out differently.

I'm taking a couple of weeks off from crafting to finish writing my conclusion, and then it will be full steam ahead into Christmas productions, with special emphasis on turning the four kilo bag of merino roving (a birthday prezzie from my wonderful in-laws) into a range of beautiful felt prezzies. Back soon...

Textile Exhibition

Red Bird (after Jill McDonald, 1966)

The birds have been packed up and sent away to be installed next week. Here are the details of the exhibition in case any of you fancy a jaunt to Waiheke Island to admire or buy some beautiful contemporary New Zealand textiles. There will be home furnishings, toys, articles of attire, sculptural pieces and accessories created by a diverse range of contemporary textile artists including Rosemary McLeod, Rona Ngahuia Osborne, Miranda Brown, Paula Coulthard, Merrilyn George, Margaret Chapman and more.

Feel of Fibre

Curated by Judy Rae

25 Sept - 19 Oct 2009

Opening Friday 25 Sept. at 6pm

Waiheke Art Gallery

2 Korora Road, Oneroa

Waiheke Island

For sales enquiries or further information please contact

Linda Chalmers

director@waihekeartgallery.org.nz

some say less is more

Not me!

More is more as far as I'm concerned.

Here's the completed backdrop and shelf/branch for the yellow bird. Jack thinks I've gone completely bonkers, but I'm a colour enthusiast and I don't think there are enough bright and outrageous things in people's homes.

I saw the movie Carrington recently - a lovely film about the English artist Dora Carrington and her relationship with writer, Lytton Strachey. Perhaps the thing I liked best about the movie was seeing Carrington transform a plain country cottage into a work of art - she painted beautiful murals on all the walls and filled every nook and cranny with decorative paintings, so that the eye was always drawn to something wherever you looked. That's my kind of house!

In the process of making the wallpaper backdrops for the birds I hatched the idea of making individual 'wallflowers' that can be pinned to the wall in random places around the home to add a little colour and drama to the quiet spots above doorways, around windows etc - those areas that wouldn't ordinarily be decorated. Clusters of flowers might be nice too.

Hmmm, lots of possibilities...

background

one completed tui with background

Tui

Tui (after Anne McCahon)

cotton and silk

Anne McCahon cover design, School Journal, 1954.

Yellow Bird

Yellow Bird (after Jill McDonald)

Has it really been three weeks since my last post? Sorry about that. It's been a busy time of thesis writing lately, but I've earned a couple of relaxing sewing days after completing my epic 12 part, 30,000 word chapter on Rita Angus's Goddess paintings.

The sassy young bird that you see above is made from a nice piece of yellow silk that I found at the oppie with hand embroidered detailing on the chest and a comb and wings made from upholstery fabric. The design was loosely inspired by this illustration by Jill McDonald:

Jill McDonald illustration for The Wind Between the Stars

by Margaret Mahy School Journal, 1966.

Next up I'll be making a pair of tuis (after Anne McCahon) - they should be a heck of a lot easier to make because the birds are in flight, so I won't have to make any legs, which are by far the fiddliest part of the birds involving a complex system of pipe-cleaners and rods encased in felt tubes...

custom orders

In response to a recent enquiry I wanted to let you know that although I don't yet actively sell my crafty wares, I am very happy to receive custom orders for any of my stationery or textile items - preferably closer to Christmas after I've submitted my thesis and can focus all my attention on making piles of pretty things.

In the meantime I'll be posting images of my School Journal birds as they are made, and for anyone who might be interested, all of the birds will be for sale (including the backdrops and props) through the Waiheke Art Gallery when the exhibition opens in late September.

wallpaper fanatic

My love of wallpaper continues to grow - my collection now fills two large suitcases and shows no sign of stopping. During the week I found a swag of remnants in lovely deco colours. It's great for making special cards, like this one for my brother-in-law, Ken, who's turning 50 in a couple of weeks time.

what's hatching here?

I've finally refined my idea for the textile exhibition in September. I'll be creating an installation called 'Rare Birds'. There will be eight textile birds - four of them are recreations of bird illustrations drawn by New Zealand women for the NZ School Journals in the 1950s and 60s: a tui by Anne McCahon; a magpie by Juliet Peter that illustrated Denis Glover's poem, 'The Magpies'; Jill McDonald's red bird (shown above), and a yet to be determined bird by Jean Angus (younger sister of Rita). The other four birds in the exhibition will be my own designs in reponse to the School Journal birds - possibly a bit darker and less whimsical than theirs.

The School Journal was a formative influence on many of our lives in New Zealand, so much so that Gregory O'Brien paid tribute to the journals in his marvellous book, A Nest of Singing Birds. I want to do the same by bringing to life some of my favourite drawings as gorgeous textile birds.

For the Poet Laureate

Michele Leggott's 18 month term as New Zealand's Poet Laureate has come to a close. She has spread the word far and wide in many and varied ways: poetry on the pavement; creating a digital poetry bridge between Florence and Aotearoa; the 1,000,000 poems for Matariki project - the list goes on... a remarkable laureateship that I'm sure will be a tough act to follow for the next talented wordsmith who gets the job.

Perhaps the strangest event that Michele initiated was a symposium in honour of a circus elephant named Molly who performed around the country in the 50s, but unfortunately died in Ohakune after eating the poisonous leaves of a tutu tree. Molly's skull is on display in the Biology Department at Auckland University.

A number of us are gathering at Michele and Mark's house tomorrow to help them polish off the last shipment of laureate wine courtesy of the Te Mata Estate vineyard in Hawke's Bay (tough job I know!!). Anyway, I wanted to make her something by way of congrats on a job supremely well done, so I made her a Molly the elephant. I hope she likes it...

the first bird

After a small reality check it's clear that there's no way I can get the Rimbaud textile book completed in time for the exhibition in September, so I will save that project for a later date after the thesis is done and dusted.
What I can manage though is a flock of birds, and this is my first one. I'll be making branches for them to stand on and backdrops using my stash of upholstery fabric remnants. By creating an environment for each bird I hope to signal that unlike my cats and elephants, I don't really consider these ones toys, but think of them more as decorative objects for the home.

Far Far Away

A sampling of works from the exhibition:

1. Stephen Brookbanks
2. Josephine Cachemaille
3. Josephine Cachemaille
4. The Crystal Chain Gang
5. Emma Smith
6. Emma Smith
7. Emma Smith
8. Alexis Hunter

It was such a lovely weekend. The exhibition looked fantastic and there was a very moving opening ceremony with beautiful waiata sung by the Omanaia Waiata Wananga Group, speeches by local Kaumatua, the curator Karl Chitham, and Project director Sue Daly, and the whole occasion was seamlessly coordinated by the wonderfully talented Dallas Williams.

We were put up in a beautiful house in Omapere - here's the view from the deck:

Karl and Emma in the garden

In between less healthy activities, Emma and I went for a healthy walk to admire the view.

By the way, I got severely trounced at Monopoly and although the Snakes and Ladders board looked so pretty, it's actually a fairly dull game when you're in your 40s and vices seem to have more appeal than virtues. Never mind - the food and plonk was great and the company even better.

Call me a hopeless romantic, but I love it when people declare their togetherness by scoring their names on park benches like this example at the look-out over Omapere. I know that I've left my mark in plenty of places around Napier where I grew up - maybe I'll track them down one day. Anyway, I hope Jeremy and Lou are still going strong!

PS: If anyone would like a copy of the Far Far Away catalogue, just let me know. I'd be happy to post one out to you.

The three B's

Boardgames, baking and booze - the three essentials for our road trip tomorrow. We're making our way to the mystical Hokianga to attend the opening of the Far Far Away exhibition in Rawene on Saturday. We'll be staying with a bunch of artists in a beautiful beachfront cottage in Omapere, so I'll be baking up a storm this afternoon (sticky lemon slice, monte carlos, and a batch of fruity muesli), and I've borrowed a stack of vintage board-games from Jack's mum, including this wonderful Snakes and Ladders. Don't you love the word 'pugnacity' on square 42. I'll take loads of photos of the exhibition and report back next week.
Have a great weekend everyone!

design rethink

cafe interior, Germany, 1950s

I've been having problems with the flannel board concept for the Rimbaud poem design, mainly to do with the fact that the fabric pieces don't adhere to the background for any length of time, and I can't bear the thought that the work will keep falling apart during the four week exhibition.
I realised that another design concept was needed.

A solution always presents itself eventually, and it arrived yesterday when I missed the bus from Takapuna and went rummaging through a second hand bookstore while I waited for the next bus. There I found a book of 1950s interior design, mainly from Germany, which focuses primarily on decorative wall treatments in houses, shops, schools and office buildings. Have a look at all these lovely murals and painted cabinets...

mural design in a children's theatre

Noah's Ark mural in a primary school

Stairway mural, primary school

Painted toy cabinet in a kindergarten

Mural for an optometrist's office emphasizing the importance of light

The front desk of a fabric shop - the mural composition is made from fabric samples

Millinery shop display

Decorative cupboards in a child's bedroom

It's a pity most of the images are black and white, but I love the free-flow compositions and the amazing use of architectural space. Seeing all this has inspired me to work directly on the wall, making a large fabric composition from Jack's translation of the Rimbaud poem with simple shapes, bold colours and with all the components pinned to the wall, something like a Richard Killeen cut-out, but with a narrative structure and a very 50s design aesthetic. Too exciting!!
More soon...

you can never have too many

notebooks

I made up a swag of lined foolscap notebooks over the weekend covered in different kinds of wallpaper that I've picked up here and there over the years. The idea is to personalise them depending on who I'm giving one to - like the seagull up above for my dad-in-law, who feeds the seagulls every morning without fail, collecting day-old bread and muffins from the local cafe and bakery while the birds gather on the roof, waiting for him to get home. Or the tree below for my mum-in-law, who has enjoyed the view of the forest that is their backyard for over fifty years.

Atomic Bombs, Pigs, and a sleeping Princess

An unlikely trio, I know, but they are the subjects of three picture books I found in a second-hand bookshop in Takapuna recently, which have been added to my collection:

Umberto Eco, The Bomb and the General. Illustrated by Eugenio Carmi,
(London: Secker & Warburg,1989)

A story about a group of harmless, peace-loving atoms who are captured and turned into a bomb by an evil general, and how the atoms rebel by escaping from the bombs, rendering them harmless, thus saving the world from destruction and bringing down the general.
(I love the combination of collage and water-colour for the illustrations and the simplicity of the compositions).

Colin Bell, Why Pigs Have Curly Tales, Illustrated by Gretchen Albrecht.

(Collins: Auckland, 1971)

I couldn't resist this one, mainly because the lino-prints were made by a very young Gretchen Albrecht (long before her foray into painted hemispheres and ovals). I wrote my MA thesis on Gretchen's shaped paintings, and she remains one of the most generous, warm-hearted and dedicated New Zealand artists that I have had the pleasure of writing about.

The Brothers Grimm, The Sleeping Beauty. Illustrated by Felix Hoffmann
(Oxford: Oxford UP, 1959)

I just love Felix Hoffmann's illustrations, especially the way he draws foliage and castles.

And I finally found a place on top of the New Zealand book collection to put some of my pretties (what big ears Baxter had!).

The nude soul

of a seven year old poet might look like this:

Something like a four-legged, winged sperm perhaps...

I figured that the nude soul needed to be fashioned from the imagination of the young boy poet, and therefore it should be made from something he would be likely to have on hand, like balsa-wood model kits, for instance. Pieces from an eagle and a butterfly were used to make this little chap.

Also, the concept that emerged from my reading of the poem is that the boy's imaginary life is much more vivid and real than his actual life, so I'll be making all the scenes and images generated by his imagination as three dimensional as possible, to contrast with the flat and lifeless reality of his day to day existence, which is represented by the 2d images stuck to the flannel backgrounds.

DIY Felt

I don't know about you, but I'm finding it increasingly hard to find pieces of quality wool felt and I find that the synthetic variety is raspy to the touch and not very satisfying to work with. So, being a DIY kind of girl, I thought I'd tackle the problem by having a go at making my own felt. I bought a sampler pack of 15 Ashford merino carded wool rovings from here and found friendly instructions for making felt here.

All you need is a cookie tray, a squirt of liquid soap, a piece of bubble-wrap, and a bit of elbow grease, and in the blink of an eye (or about ten minutes per piece) you have a bunch of gorgeous thick squares of felt that can be used for a huge variety of crafty goodies. Very satisfying!

Rimbaud in Flannel

Poets at Seven Years Old
Arthur Rimbaud
Translated by Jack Ross

Shutting her pious book, the Mother rose
and kissed her little boy ... what mother sees
in Angel-face, his big eyes free of guile,
bile and disgust tormenting the nude soul?

All day long he sweated to obey;
clever, quick, yet something seemed to say
- little habits, tics - that this was sham.
Alone in mildewed corridors, he would scream
shit-fuck! clench his fists, stick out his tongue,
screw up his eyes into a blood-red sun.
A door opened on darkness - the backstairs,
the one place he could lie and gasp for air
in the dome of a day a lamp hung from the night.
Burnt stupid by blank waves of summer heat
he hid himself inside the dank latrines;
there he could breathe - sniff something that was clean!

In winter, when the moon washed their back yard
with icy candour, he would creep out and hide
by the stream that ran inside their boundary wall;
trying to see by knuckling at his eyeballs,
he heard the pine-trees groan like ships at sea.
Although he felt some sneaking sympathy
for those trespassing kids who dropped their eyes
at his approach (stink-fingers black and creased
with yellow clay from damming up the creek),
they turned from him like dolts and would not speak.

And if his mother caught him at this game
and told him off, the fact he looked ashamed
fooled her into forgiveness. He was shy.
Those lips were always ready with a lie.

At seven he made up Westerns: wild romances
set in the desert - where freedom reigns (and Dances
with Wolves?); sunsets, rivers, cliffs, savannahs...
Staring at naked woodcut senoritas
till he turned red, he dreamt of foreign girls.
So when that saucy eight-year-old, her curls
bobbing, thin cotton dresses ... like a squaw
with soft brown eyes ... came over from next door
and jumped him - little beast - pulling his hair,
caught underneath, he bit her on the bare
bum ("wild women never put on drawers!");
then, scratched and beaten by her fists and claws,
he carried the scent of her back to his room.

Most of all, he feared Sundays at home,
brushed clean and collared, sitting with his back straight,
reading about a God he'd learnt to hate
in a mould-green Bible with a faded back;
the nightmares came as soon as it got dark.
He loved to watch those swart, roughly-dressed men
straggle home from work in the red evening
ready for the distractions of the streets
- his dreams were of wide prairies of ripe wheat:
gold thistledown, rich scents, in the calm light
of noon, till rough winds swept them out of sight.

He fixated most on things that were dark and old -
sitting in a cold blue room with the blinds pulled,
damp dripping off the walls, mouthing the words
of a story he could see inside his head
full of drowned forests; leaden, ochre skies;
flesh-haunted flowers; starry immensities;
despair; retreat; stiff salmon-leaps; and pity!
Engulfed by the vast engine-grinding city -
lying in the creased haven of his bed,
he bent his sails where a blind future led ...

Such a great poem! As you can see it's loaded with imagery with great pop-up potential.

I've started on the first flannel board spread for the textile book. I took advantage of the sale at the Warehouse last weekend and stocked up on striped and floral flannel pyjamas and sheets to cover the backing boards. What you see here is part of the first stanza, but I'm about to weird it up by adding lots of tendrils coming from the boy's bed, which will be connected to his nude poetic soul, who will be crawling away over the opposite wall and into the next spread.

I just have to work out what the inner poet of a seven year old boy might look like...