Archive for August, 2024
Artist Residency Day 5
Thank you to Jennie-maree https://www.instagram.com/jemartem.textiles/ for a fabulous 5 days in her beautiful studio and tiny village of Jam Jerrup, such an inspiring place to spend a Textile Art Residency. Today was open day at Jennie-maree’s studio and we had a few people drop in for a visit/chat/browse. See the instagram above for a great reel Jennie-maree made from my photos to advertise her open day today.
June from Leongatha Embroiderer’s Guild dropped off the ATASDA Travelling suitcase for its next journey to Norwood Secondary College. June was blown away by J-m’s studio and amazing art works, so much so she will be returning with a group from Leongatha in the future. Next up was a pair from Canada who are stopping at J-m’s airbnb for a couple of nights. They were also blown away by the beautiful studio and artworks then went off to feed the cows, Jennie-maree’s barn has it all.
I would like to sincerely thank ATASDA for their Grant which enabled me to spend the week with Jennie-maree, I am thinking there was a great cross pollination during the week of ideas, techniques and skills.
I managed to nearly finish two postcards from Jam Jerrup, free machine stitching onto some beautiful green felt: ‘Speak for the trees’ – I am thinking all the bits of threads from this week might end up stitched in washaway to add 3D leaves to the postcard and ‘Coastal erosion 1’ -nearly done but I did not have the right blue thread for the water.
The second finish was the eco printed 100% cotton paper into a concertina book. I bought the dictionary in an op shop and selected appropriate pages for printing using the mangrove stencils made from old overhead projector sheets. The dictionary also contains some wattle flowers being pressed ready to go into the book.
Stay tuned for more finishes from the Art Residency over the next few weeks.
Day 4 Artist Residency
Now that I have settled in to this beautiful place it is time to leave!!
Only 1 day left before I pack the car and head to Phillip Island for a recovery weekend. An Artist Residency is not for the faint-hearted. It requires commitment, planning and packing a huge amount of ‘stuff’. Luckily for me anything I did not manage to get into the car Jennie-maree had available in her studio.
My focus in my art is very often about the environment and from walking around this area, collecting photos and marine debris, this ‘place’ has been a huge stimulus for art making. I now have a large body of pieces that will be utilised for an exhibition in November. For the exhibition I will be creating three distinct groups of works based on Earth, Water and Sky. The pieces I have produced during this week at the Bass Coast will become part of the Earth and Water sections of my work.
Today was all about printing in response to this beautiful coastal location. Over breakfast I sketched out how the ‘Water’ hanging piece might look. This gave me some ideas on motifs, composition and colours. I began with cutting a linocut of the Australian Grayling. For many of the fish in this area the mangroves are an essential survival nursery. After cutting I set up an area for gel, stencil and block printing (using the linocut as a block). My intention was to create pieces that could be incorporated into hangings, therefore the colour palette was intentionally restricted to ensure all the pieces, or parts of, could be utilised. The base fabric included bits of an opshop shirt, my previously hand dyed fabrics and some white PFD Pima fabric from my stash.
An intensive day resulting in over 25 pieces.
After cleaning up I was able to pack quite a few bags into the car, leaving out just the ones I will have time to stitch on tomorrow. I have four postcards from Jam Jerrup and also a section of an eco printed piece. I will blog my progress tomorrow evening on these.
Jennie-maree has an open afternoon at her studio most Friday afternoons so I may have some people to chat to about the Residency. I did take a video but I don’t think that can be loaded here on the free blog!
Day 3 Artist Residency
The beautiful weather continues in Jam Jerrup and so does the walking and collecting (of photos and marine debris). Today’s walk was back to the north to explore the cliffs and the problem of erosion.
Access to the cliffs is via Lang Lang beach at low tide and the erosion is clear to see, as are the unstable cliffs. Taking photos means not getting too close! The cliffs have become my fourth postcard from Jam Jerrup.
Today was also the ‘unwinding’ day, my favourite part of eco dying and printing. The bundles of local foliage and seedbeds created beautiful subtle impressions of place on cotton, silk, wool and 100% cotton paper. I am looking forward to working on these further and have some perfect pieces for a hanging.
This afternoon I explored my photos of the mangroves biodiversity revegetation, creating some stencils for printing using old overhead transparencies. Firstly I tried the stencils on a page from an op shop dictionary (m for mangroves). After trialling I then moved onto printing on an A3 sheet of watercolour paper, this may become an origami folded insert into the eco printed paper book (a project for tomorrow).
Taking photos is a good way to check the design and composition. I will alter this when adding to fabric tomorrow.
This evening I will continue twining the strips cut from op shop shirts.
Day 2 Artist Residency-The importance of trees
This morning I set off for a walk to investigate mangroves. The mangroves are essential to estuaries and wetlands as facilitators of complex eco systems. Birds, crustaceans, worms, fish nursery all depend on mangroves and here on the Bass Coast they were diminishing at a fast pace due to humans. Regeneration is starting to show results:
A fabulous old man banksia, love the texture on that trunk:
Large old trees are essential for providing nesting holes for many of our birds and mammals:
After an hour walk to listen to (and try to identify) the birds in the wonderful, massive trees retained in this area, I headed south along the beach at low tide to investigate the mangroves regeneration. The locals and Parks are also, like many coastal areas, fighting the battle against erosion by storm surges and king tides along the Bass Coast. In this estuary large granite rocks have been used to stabilise the coast.
After collecting some broken glass and hay bale twine it was back to the studio to begin transferring photos and collected items into some textile pieces. First up foliage was soaked and bundled into wool, silk and cotton; eucalyptus leaves and bark and rusty items were cooked up in Jennie-maree’s massive pot; bundles added and simmered for an hour. The pot was left for an hour and the bundles which had quickly darkened were removed to cool. A cotton tablecloth from the op shop was left in the pot overnight.
The big unveil tomorrow. Next was some sketching and watercolour in the sketchbook:
Three postcards were begun using inktense crayons to lay background colour onto canvas:
And the art work for this evening will be twining this deconstructed soft cotton shirt in readiness for stitching tomorrow:
Day 1 Artist Residency
After arriving at the studio and bringing in ALL my materials I quickly organised my backpack and water bottle and set off for a walk along the cliff. I am staying and exploring a RAMSAR wetland of international importance (Bass Coast) and will develop some artworks based around ‘Place’.
My artwork will focus on representation of the important ecosystems of the wetlands including flora, birds and water. I am attaching a few photos of the initial walk which was north along the cliff. The next walk tomorrow morning will be at low tide and will enable me to collect more information and materials about the flora and birds to incorporate into eco printing and dyeing, creating lino, gel and stencil prints onto fabric. I will also begin some sketches of possible ‘postcards from Jam Jerrup’ that will incorporate the flora, birds and water of this place.
You can check out this website for information on birds sighted here where bird sightings have been quite high in August.
Photo of the shrubby glasswort which is important food for the severely endangered orange bellied parrot:
Clematis aristata is an indigenous species:
Regeneration of eucalypts:
And of course the wattle is flowering:
And finally the sun setting through the sheoak:
More tomorrow.
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