Tapestry Exhibition Photo's

Taking it all in my stride.....NOT!!!
Friday putting up the tapestry weavings.

It is actually quite nerve wracking posting up the pics of the exhibition when you are not sure who is out there keeping an eye on what you've been up to.

You really do have to be brave to do this kinda stuff,  Ta da... it's me.... and this is what I do. I don't know that I will ever have a solo show again as I am hopeless at promoting myself and always fail in this area of my professional responsibilities.

This is a retrospective exhibition of my past works rather than a showing of the new. However I am o.k. with that, as this show has been cathartic in getting a grip on what I can do rather than what I can't do and it has led to a very positive need to get myself up and running again. Illness certainly works in mysterious ways and I thank you for bearing with me over the last nine months of reasonable inactivity on the loom. 

I put this in the exhibition because unless you have visited my studio and seen this piece on the wall, you probably won't have seen it. It was woven during the anti-G.E rallies down Queen Street, Auckland in 2000.

My focus has been on my drawings and design strengths and I know this has been a VERY important process that will now produce a flurry of activity back on the loom.

Sketchbook drawing

Allowing the design aspect of my process to take precedent over the last few months has been the right thing to do to allow me to move forward from this point and between now and February 2012 I will be sharing some of the making of five larger works I have to complete within this time-frame on the blog from time to time. Taking time to design  has been inspirational in allowing me to come to the conclusion that I actually only need to produce 4 or 5 larger and better weavings each year anyway. 

Woven shaped Tapestry panels, sewn on canvas and laced onto pohutukawa branch.
This sculpture is an idea that has evolved into the designing of a piece I am working on to submit for the NZ Professional Weavers exhibition next year.

This posting is a peep into the gallery during the set-up on Friday and at the opening on Saturday. To those who got there on the day a very BIG thanks to you all.

Waiuku Spinners and Weavers

I was less than enthusiastic during the build-up to this show for strange and varied reasons, but of course the whole point of exhibitions is to see your work through the eyes of others to help you move forward with your work, to identify any weaknesses, to ponder on what was perfect and what could have been improved upon. And exhibiting is the final stage, a reflection as a grouping of work that allows you to move forward from that defining point. It is a place to share with others where you are at with your work so that they have a comparison point from which they can mark future work you create.

Max at the opening, appreciating the fact that his Granky Steph appears to be as much into titties as he is.

Exhibition of Drawings, Sculpture, Hand-Woven and Embroidered Works. Franklin Community Gallery - Next door to the Library and Steel Gallery, Pukekohe.

 

To everyone who is interested in fibre-art. I would like to invite you to come and see my new exhibition. Join me at the opening for morning tea and cup-cakes and help me to celebrate my 50th birthday with good company, art and fibre.

Retrospective Works

These two weavings were two of the first tapestry weavings I ever sold. I remember both of these tapestries had a 3 dimensional quality about them as the advice I received on the warp count was a bit high for the weight of the weft I was planning to use, and my weaving skills were still very much being worked on! The result of this combination of novice beginnings meant that the darker areas which were of a thicker quality yarn, spread the warp slightly as I wove it, creating a puffed out effect around the eye area. As an artist it is often strange to think of these earlier attempts at creating art-works being bought in the first place yet alone still being enjoyed by the purchaser, however I do hope they are still in existence purely for the fact that it is part of the record of tapestry weaving in New Zealand. as there are so few of us involved with this specific weaving genre.

Looking back at these images now, I still like the theme but do not so much like the darkness they now appear to conjure up for me. So I am going to have a go at re-doing them by playing around in a different/faster medium to see if I can come up with a lighter feeling image. There are also separate elements within each weaving that I really do like so I have decided to weave a therapy scroll, a long narrow width of weaving that can incorporate different fragments of ideas, colours and designs.
 

 

  

Freda Brierley -Machine Embroidery

On The Edge   48x38cm

This image is the work of textile artist Freda Brierley whose work I saw in an exhibition with Aillie Snow at NorthArt Gallery on the North Shore in 2002. I found her art a  wonderful inspiration of subtle and somewhat dark images, and recognized it as a possible medium I might one day want to explore. I have played around with sewing images onto stiffened organza with reasonable success in the past.

The need for me to experiment further with machine and hand embroidery has now arisen again because of illness. As my hands have limited movement at the moment I am being very selective about how I spend my time on the loom, and machine embroidery gives me the opportunity to make pictorial works off-loom.

I have an exhibition of these new works as well as a retrospective selection of older drawings and tapestry weavings that will be on show at the Franklin Steel Gallery, in the small Community Gallery space. You are invited to join me for morning tea on Saturday 11th June, 10.30am, where I will be discussing the work on display, share where I glean my inspiration for my art, and talk about the technical side of producing my images.

Five small framed works measure approx. 6x6cm

I bought these five small framed Freda Brierley works which I selected from about 30, possibly more (if my memory serves me well) which she was selling at the time her exhibition was running. I am so very pleased that I bit the bullet and did. 

Often it is these smaller more affordable works that give you a very real and tangible connection with the artist. Although these are usually not as complicated or meaningful as larger pieces, they are still enticing and charming to have if you are a collector of fbre art, and purchasing these always helps the artist re-coup some of the expense involved in putting on an exhibition. It is this mutual benefit of inter-play between the artist and the viewer that really makes an exhibition successful and enduring, long after the exhibits have left the gallery.  

50 Top Tapestry Weaving Blog Sites

I have just been advised that my blog has been added to a list of tapestry weaving sites that are considered the 50 top Blogs on tapestry weaving. The list includes many other weavers whose work you may want to know more about. The link is

http://www.liberalartsdegree.com/sewn-together-by-a-thread-top-50-tapestry-blogs/

If this is the first time you have visited my blog, welcome. For the best overview on what I have been recording of my work I suggest going to the Blog Archive shown here on the right. Click on one of the years to get a good overview of what I have been sharing.

TWIST IN THAMES

"Twist in Thames" is the title of this National Creative Fibre Festival, offering a feast of activities for fibre fans. Based in Te Puru along the Thames Coast Road heading towards Coromandel Township, this is a beautiful area to spend a few days, or just a great opportunity to take a road trip with a couple of friends for the day. 

Although it is not a full festival as it has a smaller theme based exhibition instead of the usual large Exhibition format, there will be plenty to see and do with guest speakers, fibre related sales and spinning, knitting and weaving action competitions.

It runs over the last weekend of April, from Thursday the 28th April until Sunday the 1st May. The creative fibre website is your point of contact.
Go to www.creativefibre.org.nz for more details about the festival or to join a Creative Fibre group near you.

Tapestry Weaving from Drawn or Painted Design to the Finished Woven Image.

Above is a cartoon I have documented as it is being woven in the photos below. The original painting has been adjusted in Photoshop to produce a workable cartoon. This process helps to clarify and select clear boundaries within the painting. By simplifying the original painting with Photoshop or a similar program I was able to create an image that still retained the integrity of the original painting, while at the same time creating a weavable cartoon which better suited the technical restraints of the low warp count I was working on. 

Note that in this instance the weaving has well and truly deviated from the exactness of the detail, especialy in the dogs main body area. There are 3 reasons for this. The first is that the warp count was too low (there should have been more vertical threads). The second is because the size of the weaving space is too small (it would need to be a much bigger weaving to allow for the detail to be included). And thirdly, it was a play piece of my own, which enabled me to have the freedom of extreme artistic license. It now belongs to Su anyway, who lives near the dingo isle of Fraser, and who also happens to have been born in the year of the Dog.

                                           1.

                                           2.

                                           3.

THE MAIN BODY AREA OF THE DOG HAS BEEN WOVEN USING HAND-SPUN DOG HAIR. OTHER YARNS USED ARE RAYON, WOOL, COTTON AND SILK.

  

TRAVELING SUITCASE EXHIBITION CLOSES

Temperature Rising

This tapestry and the one below are the 2 entries I submitted to the 2010 Suitcase Exhibition.  This and the one below are the finished works that I wove in response to the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen. 

Temperature Rising is a comment on our desire for consuming goods and how our desires have a suspected influence on global warming.

                                          Summit Inertia

Summit Inertia shows our Heads of State discussing important matters concerning all of humanity and how they propose to plan for the future state of the planet.