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.