Over the past couple of weeks I have had very little time for anything at all related to email or blogging and will try to do gooder over the next few weeks, although I will be on the move again, in the USA, including QN07, SAQA and SDA, with a couple of brief family visits fitting in between them.

The 8 days in New Zealand, based on Waiheke IS off Auckland, with my two sisters, was fabulous . On one day we spent several hours in Auckland’s War Memorial museum where there is a wonderful design gallery where I took some snaps of a few interesting fibre related things and pics of these will pop up in the next couple of days. We also fitted in some time to browse in book and shoe shops before going to a terrific comedy show, The Kransky Sisters, a rather dark domestic comedy routine from Australia – that seemed appropriate since we three were there together. The dynamics of each 3-sister group , Kranskys and Padmans, were at times parallel, and we totally related to them.

We visited the home of a noted NZ interior designer Neil McLachlan and marvelled at the design features there, including a beautiful enclosed courtyard garden complete with almost art deco gates, and as always seems to be the case in NZ, a fabulous view. Everywhere we went it seemed so hilly, up and down all over the place, that either reflects or formed New Zealanders’ hardy national character, I’m not sure which way that went, but I feel less indomitable people would never have persisted !

One thing I was very aware of was the water themed nature of the NZ contemporary art and fine craft I saw in various places. By contrast, Australian equivalents are earthy, land-themed, and this is especially noticeable in colours used in each country. To me it is a perfect reflection of the different history of human colonisation in each land mass- the Maori people came from Polynesia by sea, the Australian Aborigines moved over land, for the most part, from the Asian land mass, and much further back in time. I know from my passing, ie not very deep, acquaintance with the mythology of both peoples that their legends also bear out this different ancient history.

Apart from a bit of local history and culture there, we spent a few days up in the north of the North Island around Tutukaka and went beyond up to Kerikeri to see the very early mission station up there, which in the early 1800’s was under the supervision of an early twig in our Aus family tree, The Rev. Samuel Marsden, aka The Flogging Parson of Parramatta (in the aus colony then known as New South Wales) Reading through some of the mission station records, what we were totally amazed at is how this man, so dreaded and loathed in NSW, was so totally beloved by the Maori of the northern regions.

So, I have crossed the Pacific and am cooling my heels in Santiago once more awaiting a flight to Montevideo very early tomorrow. More soon.

Suffering a little jetlag still, possibly, today I found myself awake at 4am, thinking about my current work and where that might be going….. when suddenly I thought of these two embroidered panels, which live on one of the walls in our living room here. Made for my solo exhibition “Sunburnt Textures” in 1987, I recall they are titled “Behind the Scenes”, although I can’t confirm that since I can’t lay my hands on a catalogue from that show, but know there are several upstairs somewhere in my sewing room. Every time I come back to Perth I think I must go through all the stuff in that room… but somehow never have the time or the mental energy required as it’s going to be quite a job, involving lots of trips down memory lane, for one thing.

Back in 1987 I was preparing pieces for the exhibition and my son commented as he watched me lacing a panel of fabric over a board by zig-zagging the lacing back and forth, that the back of a piece was interesting in its own way. Taking that observation as inspiration I came up with these, with stitchery wandering over the detached framework of such lacing. I have always been keen on various kinds of needlemade structures, and hugely inspired by the book on needle lace and needleweaving by Jilly Nordfors which I bought in 1977. I haven’t done any of this stuff for 20 years, but find myself thinking of it more about these days. Come to think of it, I do know where that book is, and might take it back with me…. or at least flip through it while I am here.

Talking of things in books, I have had an Agnes Martin catalogue out this week, ready to lend a friend. I had not read it since I was presented with it by the gallery owner at La Spezzia Cultural Space in Pocitos, Montevideo, way back in 1999. In his talk at the opening he not only thanked me for bringing my locally unknown art form to Uruguay, but also presented this book to me with an expression of appreciation pasted inside. That totally blew me away, and with my friend Laura beside me translating each sentence, I was able to think very quickly on my feet and respond suitably to such an unexpected gift. Having just re-read it, well the english bits anyway, I now have an even greater understanding of why that particular book was given to me – not only are her observations of life and art fascinating reading, but several of the pieces pictured bring to mind contemporary variations of some of the elements of traditional geometric patchwork. I do not recall consciously feeling inspired to follow some of these ideas or even remember them since 1999, but perhaps I have without realising it, or perhaps this is the way things sometimes come together after seeming to have no previous connection …. anyway, my friend had better hurry around for a quick borrow because I think this book might head out of Perth with me when I leave here next tuesday.

In the last few days I have been tearing around getting ready for several weeks travel, to Aus(family, business) and then up to the US (QN07, SAQA and SDA and family) At the last minute a few curly Qs requiring a bit of computer work to settle problems re an exhibition later in the year meant time doing what I had not planned to do! But I did also manage to get some good photography done with avery good Montevideo photographer, Eduardo Baldizan, which will enable me to get slide dupes done (better) in Perth. So, at last, en route, greetings from Santiago de Chile where I am obliged to spend a few hours.

Over the past couple of days on the quiltart list there seems to have been a larger number than usual of people wondering about technical questions and whether or not it is appropriate for ArtQuilters to do things this way, or that. IMHO it really doesn’t matter how one finshes an edge, or whether one burys threads or leaves them hanging, so long as that fits with the integrityof the work. At times the heated discussion has showed how nervous some people are about just trying it and seeing what the effect is….one of my pet peeves being how the sense of exploration, of experimentation, seems to have been forgotten, and perhaps is not being encouraged by current teachers in the quilting world. I thank my lucky stars for having come under the influence of the(late) great English embroiderer, Constance Howard, the english expat Cynthia Sparks and Meg Douglas in Australia – these three in particular encouraged an approach of try it and see…. SAMPLISING, in other words.

I am looking forward to picking up some new Aus books while there, and with this in mind have brought none with me -I always watch at least part of a movie and then go to sleep on the plane anyway, so I’m just catching upon a weekly bit of news reading in the Economist. If needs be I will buy a magazine or book when I get to NZ in the morning. Also, some of my close quilting friends are having their monthly get together, joined this time by myself and Ilze Ivaks who will be visiting Perth next week to teach. It is a long time since I met her back in our Denver days, and I am looking forward to hearing and seeing more of what she has been doing and teaching. Well, what they have all been doing in the last 8 months since I was there.

On the way back I am having a week in NZ with my two sisters, first time it is to be just us 3, sans kids, grandkids or husbands, in 20 years. And so its about time, but we are all so far flung from each other. This will officially mark my 60th birthday late last year, sort of like the Official Queen’s Birthday, which is quite different date from her actual one, which is I dunno when.

Some of the amazing cloudforms here late yesterday, racing across the sky
accompanied by lightning, massive thunder rolls and torrential rain.
Somewhere east of here there is sure to have been storm damage.

A ceramic pot by artist Helen Foster of Margaret River, Western Australia.

The beautiful relief design on this pot speaks to me of bits of dried grass at the top of a sandhill, or something washed up on the beach and dried.

At times this blogger thing is a bit frustrating, as even when you think you are planning out things to appear on the page in a logical order, sometimes with the best will in the world, they don’t! And, since I have a quilt calling to me from upstairs, I am not going to linger longer on this. I have confidence my readers will be able to link the three pictures and read the text in slightly wrong order OK.