It’s a cold dank day here in Montevideo, and at 11-30am the fog still hasn’t lifted – it might not.  The airport is prolly closed- I haven’t heard any planes on what is usually a busy morning. Despite the fog many were out on the beach walking/jogging/running/fishing, and my own time on the beach today again led me to some interesting water drainage patterns on the sand.  In the collage above you see two pattern photos I manipulated in a program which made them look like pencil sketches, an interesting effect.  It’s not that I can’t draw, I can a bit, but I love how I can get this effect by moving the controls back and forth over the image and clicking into place when all’s done.  I first discovered it when just fiddling around, (as you do and should do, my son first reminded me years ago)  If you work on copies etc you can usually undo or at least do no harm if something doesn’t work out.  I have taken many pics on the beach, as my regulars know, and some of them I converted to pencil sketches like this:

which I included in a submission for an inaugural contemporary quilt exhibition being held in a gold mining district of Victoria, Australia, next year.  Full details later – its not till february next.  But having been accepted a few weeks ago, my attention has now turned to creating what I had in mind.    The title of the exhibition, “Golden Textures”, is hugely significant for me, and not just because I love a bit of glitter! My husband has spent a lot of his professional life looking for and finding gold deposits, which has meant I spent a lot of time in Kalgoorlie Western Australia in particular, but have visited and passed through many other gold mining centres, ancient and modern, too.  Since studying geomorphology at uni in the ’60’s I have been fascinated by the earth’s textures and those processes that shape them on large or small scales.  My first solo exhibition of original creative embroidery,  1987, I titled “Sunburnt Textures”,  was an early reflection of that ongoing fascination, and you’ll find a few pics from it in the first drop down gallery at the top of this page.  Any kind of earth texture, sunburnt or not, is a principal underlying theme in my textile art.

In addition to the resume and outline of my proposed entry,  the submission required images of previous works, and so along with full views of several relevant and important works, I made and included this collage showing some details of how my inspirations have translated into designs and my use of materials and techniques my work would include if I were selected :

So, the actual work began this week.  While in Colorado a few weeks ago, visiting with Boulder friend and colleague Judith Trager, we just happened to drop in to a fabric store, as you do, where I found this wonderful greyish-purplish-brown gabardine and bought it; and as it happened this was the day I later received notice of acceptance into “Golden Textures”.  What serendipity there – it’s perfect background fabric for what I outlined in my proposal.  The designs of each piece roughly correspond to shapes in the ‘pencil sketches’ and are starting with patches of gold leather attached to the background in arrangements suggested by each pattern.   I have chosen several very different patterns of sand ripples, but each piece will have materials and technique in common.  The completed size of each work will be 40cm x 60cm.

I don’t yet have any title for this multi-part work, but have plenty of thinking time available;  something just right will surface in due course.  Feel free to leave any suggestions below!