Elizabeth Arnold, Patricia Armour, Marilyn Rea-Menzies and I are having an exhibition of our tapestry weavings at Clear Water and Clear Skies Galleries, 204 High Street, Blenheim. 

As the title suggests, this exhibition will reflect where each of us are heading with our work. This is a great opportunity for visiting tapestry weavers to view how four established weavers approach different aspects of design, and the visual diversity that contemporary images in tapestry has to offer. 

The exhibition runs from the 20th April to the 6th May. As the annual Creative Fibre Festival opens on the 26th in Blenheim we will be having a meet the weavers morning tea from 11am-12.30pm on Thursday 26th April to coincide with the opening of this event. 

I'm looking forward to the opportunity to explore viewer reaction to this ancient craft presented as modern art. It is this aspect of tapestry weaving that I find the most exciting and I am loving this opportunity to have my work out there in the same arena as these other three very able and professional craft artists. I will be popping into the gallery most days between the 19th and 29th April so if you want to meet up with me I'm sure the gallery staff will be able to let me know if you would like to arrange a time to meet and talk about my weavings.

WEAVING AND WELL-BEING

"The Forgotten Fruit Years." My last Exhibition
held in Devonport at The Depot,  March 2008.

For the last 5 weeks I have been unable to weave at all due to some hideous un-diagnosed muscle pain problem. I will be seeing my doctor again this week to say that I am very grateful for the 800!!!! odd pain relief tablets prescribed, and will agree the advice that I was over-doing things was a good excuse to do NOTHING for a fortnight, but I really would like to get back onto the loom... THANKYOU.

I have so much to get up and going for various exhibitions, including my own. The last exhibition took a years weaving and planning and I am now down to 6 months weaving for the next one I am having in June next year in the Communnity Gallery of the Franklin Arts & Cultural Learning Trust .

Luckily the pieces are all very small and are being woven with the title of the exhibition..... Woven Tapestry Fragments... in mind.

So to all you weavers who have had a forced absence from the loom through lack of health at any time in your career, I now know the horror and frustration that our own frailties can have on our art practice. 
The wonderful flip side of this of course, is that the drawing and planning activities involved with creating our hand woven work gets extra special attention, forcing/allowing us much more time for planning and re-working our  ideas and designs. This in turn can only mean a much more resolved and therefore stronger end design. 

Portriat weaving "Evad" hangs between "Matariki Through Window Arches"
Invitation by Gallery to exhibit at Franklin Arts & Cultural LearningTrust 2010.

Close-up of weaving and hand-stitched detail in Window Arches shown above.

Travelling Suitcase Exhibition 2010

I have been contributing work for the Travelling Suitcase Exhibition since 1998. This is a non-selected exhibition of 20 x 20 cm. tapestry weavings produced by N.Z. weavers, and is open to anyone who is a member of The N.Z. Tapestry Network.

The Exhibition spends a year travelling the country from venue to venue in both the North and South Islands. It is well supported by some of New Zealands leading weavers and I highly recommend viewing the exhibition if it has a venue near you. Here is a sneak preview of one of the two weavings I have been working on for this years show. I will put the dates and venues of this years T.S.E. up in one of my next posts.