A Patch of Eco

I have now finally completed a round of eco dyeing and finished putting my patchwork scarves together. I'm quite happy with the results, although I had no idea it would take so long to finish these. Their first viewing will be this weekend at the Wollongong Artisans market, Wollongong City Art Gallery. Unfortunately the web photos dont show the true colors of the completed pieces however you can still get an idea of the end result. I have used mainly kimono silk linings provided by the lovely Jill of Kimoyes. Jill, is based in Canberra but travels all over Australia selling her beautiful, fabrics and silk creations. She has a regular store at the Old Bus Depot Markets , Canberra where we first met.

The most challenging aspect of assembling these scarfs was sewing into the kimono silk. I discovered it is quite a dense silk and that my sewing machine was at first struggling with its tension. It took me a little while to adjust the tension and find the right needle which did not puncture the material and was able to glide through the silk. I am very happy with the end results even though these scarves too way longer to create than I had first anticipated. Guess that is so often the case with anything creative!

On the right are may dyed pieces drying. Below is fabric soaking in a dyepot of osage orange. This is a dried plant I bought over the net. I dont think we get this plant in Australia.
The picture below the osage orange dyepot is another piece of fabric that has been clamped also known as the Shibori Itijame technique. The clamps are placed in a way that creates resists in the fabric preventing dye from penetrating those areas which leaves gorgeous patterns as the end result. I have used this technique along with folding and tying in this range of scarves.

I will be teaching a natural dyeing workshop in February. See my website: www.studioamara.com.au
for further information.

What a Weekend!

The serene surrounds where the retreat was held

The heavens had opened up on Friday morning down in Berrima with snowflakes as large as 50 cent pieces followed by torrential rain.

Of course, I had not packed my car yet, to make the drive down the highway to Canberra where the contemporary craft retreat was being held. Many of the other delegates had also experienced similar challenges with the weather however later that afternoon there was a complete 360 turn and the sun shined down for the rest of
the weekend.



Although the weather would not have stopped any of us from missing these three days!

Over the next 72 hours, the group of creative obsessives  that had arrived from all over Australia, consumed a smorgasbord of crafts which ranged from precious metal clay jewellery making, nuno felting, polymer clay, sculpture and doll making. There was so much on offer and only a limited number of hours to learn and play in this 2nd annual retreat. We were all determined to eat, create and be merry.

We all had a ball, meeting up with faces from last year's retreat while making new friends too. I taught two classes, nuno felting and polymer transfers with wire wrapping. In between teaching, I was very fortunate to participate in Pam Annesley's doodling on polymer clay class where I was introduced to zentangles. It involves using repetition of shapes to make interesting drawings. Oh no... I now have a new obsession. They are all the rage in the States at the moment.        

All students attended 3 - 4 different classes. At night, after dinner, there were many opportunities to keep learning and working or just kick back. There were many show and tells not to mention the endless array of raffle prizes. Sadly, all good things must come to an end. Before we knew it, we were saying goodbye and packing up our cars to return home again.

It will be another year to wait for the next retreat. Until then, here are some pictures from the weekend. 

Some zentangle tiles

Teapots made by Lara and a student

Students pieces from yours truly's polymer transfer, wire wrapping class

Lex's dragon class

Lara's precious metal clay class

Pam's class doodling on clay

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A new range of jewellery using polymer and silk yarn

 This week has been hectic with the passing away of my good friend John and having my parents 
stay. Not to mention getting ready for the contemporary craft retreat I'm teaching at this weekend in Canberra. I think it will be very cold down there as it was snowing this morning out of my window. It was stunning to see a white covered landscape though. In between all of these activities, I managed to complete my new range of polymer jewellery. These are mostly necklaces where I have crocheted silk yarn on a tunisian hook. For those of you who know how to crotchet, a tunisian hook is a very long hook and creates an effect that looks like knitting and crochet combined. I also put together some earrings and some more rings. Hope you enjoy the pics. I will report on the retreat when I return. Also stay tuned as I will be announcing soon a giveaway on Facebook to win a unique Studio Amara creation.

The Quirky English

Its been a busy week as I prepare for the Contemporary Craft Retreat where Im again teaching this year in Canberra. Amongst this I'm still working on my patchwork eco printed scarves and a new range of polymer jewellery which I will share with you soon.

In the meantime, heres another instalment from my big trip. This one comes from London, in the beautiful suburb of Nottinghill, made famous by Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant in a film of the same name. For those familiar with Paddington, Sydney, the two areas are similar in feel, interesting hip shops and lots of great eateries. Nottinghill adjoins the famous Portobello Road where one can shop endlessly for antiques.

The story begins with Anthony, my gourmet traveller brother and I walking through Nottinghill and doing our usual slow crawl as we both keep clicking away on iphones, immersed in our photographic sessions. I have looked up to see a bright, orange bambini sitting in a shop window.

This was not your usual Italian bambini. Inside the car was a very long piece of pizza extending from one end of the car to the other. I called Anthony over, and unable to resist this wonderful window display, five minutes later, we found ourselves woofing down the best pizza we had ever eaten. It was only 10am in the morning!

The store was filled with lovely visuals from the colorful food trays of English bus images to the cute story of how arancini made its way from Sicily to London through simple black line illustrations as shown here.

With our tummies full, we moved on only to find another example of interesting visual merchandising. The business is known in London as Bubble Tea and is owned by a Taiwanese business man. In Australia, we have the same product however it is not marketed in this creative way. Bubble tea are tea based drinks that come in many different forms and flavours. We loved the shop window with its test tubes creating a science lab feel, its quirky illustrations and most of all the staff dressed in their bubbleologists lab coats. How could we resist trying a drink or two? By the way, Ive never tried these drinks in Australia as I did not know what they were, nor did the merchandising attract me in any way.

Exotic Vietnam, same same but better !

Temple in Hanoi

The Vietnamese use bikes to transport everything

Yes, Vietnam is part of Southeast Asia and shares similarities  to other Asian countries Ive visited , yet it does have a truly distinct flavour of its own. I am skipping to the last country on my big trip as its in direct contrast to the serenity and order of France even though the French did occupy Vietnam at one point in history. There are still reminders of the French occupation in buildings seen in certain Vietnamese areas. This wonderful country is not for the faint hearted traveller. One must deal with extreme traffic noise, the risk of being run down by throngs of motorbikes wherever you walk, even on footpaths, unbelievable humidity, if visiting in the monsoon season, like we did and of course and being harrassed constantly for all sorts of services and goods.

The process of purchasing something Vietnamese is very entertaining though. This leads me to explain the same , same but better or different expression. I have published below an example off the net which sums up the meaning of same, same from the Lonely Planet.

It's used all over South East Asia. The "same same" part could be based on Malay/Indonesian sama sama (meaning same same) and/or a similar expression in Thai, and the "but different" part was allegedly tacked onto it by tourists who found it funny. 

Who knows why it got popular, but tourists and people in the tourist industry all over the region (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, maybe other countries as well) have adopted it enthusiastically. People wear the phrase on T-shirts and bags, and there are restaurants and guest houses that use it as a name. 

My guess is that "sameness" is simply a concept that comes up a lot while buying things and haggling about the price. I'm sure everyone who has traveled a bit can't count the number of times s/he has had something same same but different from the following conversation with salespeople with just enough tourist English to get by:

Gorgeous silk lantern shops adorn the streets of Hoi An

Buyer: How much is this?
Seller: 50
B: And this one?
S: 80.
B: What is the difference?
S: No different. This one bigger.
B: And this one? Is it the same?
S: Same same this. 
B: Oh. 
S: This and this: same same. This and other: no same same. 
And before you know it, you start doing it too:
B: Ah, so this and this also same same?
S: No! No same same this. This and that one yes same same. 
B: Ah, this and this same same?
S: Yes! Same same!
B: Same same! Good! 
Smile. Pay. Smile. Walk away with new "same same" vocabulary.

Now that you understand, the same, same concept, I suppose I better add a creative aspect to this blog. Apart from great food, interesting history , Vietnam is a photographer's delight with its stunning landscapes, varied art and crazy cities. Enjoy my photos!

Tribes person from Sapa village

Closeup of an umbrella

Sapa village baby boy

Sapa countryside

                 

More on Durfort

My  Parisian woman

As promised, I wanted to show you some of the work I created during my week in Durfort under the guidance of the lovely Dayle Doroshow.
I have not yet, completed any work however there are many plans afloat now. My Mogdigliani inspired Friench lady ( here on the left ) is the first of  a series of art dolls revolving around tassles I collected whilst in France. I intend to make some of my own tassles too. My mate, Christine, the other Aussie in our group thought my lady was a man in drag. Good thing, Im not easily offended, thanks Chris!
The other figure shown here on the right is my mermaid brooch. I have no idea why I chose a mermaid. I just got carried away with her hair. Does not sound like me to get carried away, does it ......

The beginnings of a journal cover

I've always been a book freak.  When I learnt that our first project was to create a journal cover from an old hardback book cover, you can imagine how pleased I was. The cover was removed from the book and recovered in fabrics, papers then embellished. The inside of the book has a number of treatments which include pockets,  foldouts and pop ups. The book will be a diary of the time in Durfort.

Another area we covered included making polymer appear as bone  or ivory. Below are some buttons I created.
This technique is very simple and has numerous applications.

I mentioned in my last blog, we played with all sorts of transfers. For polymer there's sharpie, colored pencil, heat, lazertran, gel medium and photocopies.

On paper we used Wintergreen oil, packing tape and learnt how to do a napkin and tissue melt. Dayle also taught us many different ways to transfer onto fabric too.

Lazertran transfer polymer brooch

Bonjour, Im Back....

Margaret, a workshop buddy wearing one
of her lovely creations

La Cascade

My retreat buddies

A million apologies everyone for my slack behaviour in blogging. I do have an excuse for the last two and a half months though. I know thats still not a good enough excuse. I will just have to try and make it up to you, if I can? 

I turned 50 in June and treated myself to a big trip. Now I have lots to blog about so you will be sick of me by the time I share with you what I saw and experienced.

One of Dayle's altered books

My first instalment starts with, a mixed media creative retreat I attended on June 26. The retreat was led by the wonderfully talented Dayle Doroshow, a mixed media, polymer clay artist from the United States. Dayle has been taking groups to La Cascade, a beautiful villa in the French village of Durfort  for over ten years now. Durfort is approximately one hours drive eastvillage  from Toulouse airport. It is a delightful reknown for making copper ware since the Middle Ages. I just fell in love with its beautiful artisans galleries, small streets, waterfalls and nearby villages .Oh and did I mention the French flea markets, known as the vide - greniers ! It was no wonder I had to mail a box home after only one week in this part of the world. I picked up a number of goodies, including an old letterpress box that housed metal letters in it for an absolute song! I was very chuffed with this purchase as I am collecting, ( yes, I know another thing ! ) pieces to create assemblage artwork eventually. My brother was not so pleased as he had to carry it in his suitcase for more weeks than he cared to know about.

  

A constantina, pop up book section

Artwork at La Casacade

Days in Durfort passed very quickly as we would spend half the day in the La Cascade studio learning a huge variety of techniques. Numerous ways of transferring onto polymer were covered. I thought I knew all of these. I particularly loved the packaging tape transfer one. Another area we covered was the technique of sculpting polymer faces , which will be great for my new found love of making art dolls. The other area we worked in was that of altering books. Suddenly childrens' books were transformed into magical works of art using gesso, paints, crayons, transfers, polymer embellishments, fabric, to mention only a few of the materials we played with. Dayle showed us several samples of art dolls with books incorporated into these which has opened up another world for me. I make canes and teach this art. Dayle had a very simple approach to understanding and making canes which I will show my students in the near future. Apart from studio time, each day was filled with field trips to nearby towns where we saw fantastic art exhibitions, flea markets to collect paraphernalia for our creations and general sightseeing. There is so much more to tell but watch this space and you may hear some more. Until then, a bientot, Kathy