{"id":521,"date":"2009-07-16T22:08:42","date_gmt":"2009-07-17T03:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=521"},"modified":"2009-07-21T22:34:43","modified_gmt":"2009-07-22T03:34:43","slug":"some-disorganised-snippets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=521","title":{"rendered":"Some disorganised snippets ….."},"content":{"rendered":"

Greetings from Perth Western Australia,<\/span> where I am, with occasional sorties, for the next few weeks.\u00a0 Coming back to a place is always interesting, you notice all at once the sum total of change that has taken place in small daily increments since\u00a0the last visit.\u00a0 This is certainly how I feel – the skyline of Perth is cluttered with many cranes and half done buildings – of course the recently subsided mining-based economic\u00a0\u00a0boom generated a lot of this activity, but I understand most is still going on to completion.\u00a0 A year ago here everyone was talking about the boom boom boom – waving aside any words of caution\u00a0 that every boom is followed by a bust.\u00a0 Then the great financial crisis set in late last year and now many are really feeling the effects – same as everywhere, but not so mortgage driven as in the USA however.\u00a0\u00a0DH and I in our married life ( 40 yrs and counting) \u00a0have been through several mining-generated booms and busts here, and know that even when things are really grim eventually things do stabilise and cautious growth\/recovery begins.\u00a0\u00a0They say people in Aus have begun saving again – about bloody time<\/span> – nationally people were spending more than they earned for some time.\u00a0 On average of course – there’s always cautious people like me around who watch every penny…<\/p>\n

And, too, I notice some of my friends and neighbours look older<\/span> – so I guess I do too, appearing suddenly among them.\u00a0 The young teenage daughters of one of our neighbours have both visibly blossomed suddenly … there’s talk of learning to drive… good grief ! \u00a0when they first came to live\u00a0in this area\u00a0they were\u00a0mere toddlers, and\u00a0one still carting around a blankie.\u00a0 One day driving through the city I noticed a good looking oldish guy riding a push bike, with a eucalyptus leaf-stuffed basket on the front, and on top of that sat\/clung a large\u00a0yellow crested white cockatoo, totally at ease with the traffic <\/span>all round them.\u00a0 He’s probably a well known local character but of course I hadn’t seen him before.\u00a0 Another who is probably well known, possibly for different reasons since he seemed a little bewildered – an oldish guy, tramping through a city arcade rugged up in warm clothes topped by a this-colour-purple polar fleece woodsmans style hat<\/span>, you know, with fold down flaps over the ears – those were up.\u00a0 No self respecting woodsman wold be seen dead in such a colour, of course.\u00a0 The cap was festooned with glittery silver bits – in the quiltmaking world ’embellishments’ – which relates this post to my textile oriented blog.\u00a0 I wished I had just been walking along with\u00a0my camera\u00a0up to my face and managed to capture him in pixels.<\/p>\n

I went to an exhibition of the work by WA fibre artist Nalda Searles over at the John Curtin Gallery,<\/span> stunning to see a collection of her work including some from the 80’s and 90’s together with recent work.\u00a0 A great catalogue too, and this show will tour Aus\u00a0nationally over the next couple of years.\u00a0 Well worth however far you have to go to see it.\u00a0 I periodially have ‘discussions’ with friends, Wendy in particular, over the matter of artist statements, claiming as I often do that the best statement of all and in many cases perfectly adequate, is a seriously well chosen title.\u00a0 I tend to agree with Wendy though, that in the case of Nalda’s work it might not be as fully, deeply\u00a0understood at first glance by a viewer who knows little of her vision and ethos.\u00a0 You could read ‘ fascinating, beautiful, possibly\u00a0 short-lived works comprised of collected fibres and natural objects, collected stones shells and other objects, incorporating what are often gifted or inherited pieces of textile…’ \u00a0but that’s only the thin\u00a0outer skin of the collection.\u00a0 Soft sculptures of dried grass fibre or hay is vulnerable over time, but that risk\/eventuality is not a negative in her work – the processes of decay and change are part of Nalda’s multifaceted and deeply developed vision.\u00a0\u00a0 I was very impressed.<\/p>\n

Another exhibition I popped into the other day was of etchings by Jorg Schmeisser\u00a0with shibori textiles by Keiko Amenomori-Schmeisser at Gallery East in N Fremantle.\u00a0<\/span> I am sure people far more ‘qualified’ than I have commented on the superb prints of complex dream like and memory based inspiration and in\u00a0incredible fine detail,\u00a0and the beautiful\u00a0textiles\u00a0of beguilingly simple appearance, the Japanese aesthetic.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They enhance each other’s work – no real surprise there.\u00a0 A friend was telling me how she listened agog as someone\u00a0 (I have no doubt this ignoramus must have been a quiltmaker)\u00a0commented on the shibori textile works, saying she didn’t think they were that wonderful, nothing much really in them…. clearly had absolutely no idea of the shibori processes and the applied gold paint to those parts where the resulting texture from the shibori process was thrown into sumptuous golden metallic fields of dune-like texture\u00a0– uncluttered by shifts in colour or the presence of stitch – just\u00a0 texture.\u00a0 I thought it was wonderful.<\/p>\n

While staying down in Busselton for a few days with\u00a0my friend Kitty, we\u00a0visited our dear friend, ceramic artist Helen Foster, at Margaret River.<\/span>\u00a0 We did the trips down memory lane of course, as you do, but equally and \u00a0maybe more important to me, was to spend time with and see the work of an artist whom I greatly admire.\u00a0 Some of her latest work is exploring texture of natural objects and landscape, exciting to see.\u00a0 She is represented in key galleries in the area (Jah Roc and others) and at times other places around the state including up in the Goldfields, so keep an eye out for her work if you are travelling in WA.<\/p>\n

In addition to having my entry for the upcoming Ozquilt exhibition photographed, I had\u00a0this utilitarian quilt photgraphed<\/span> <\/span>for the record.\u00a0 \"ebbI pieced\u00a0it about 3 years back, the light fabric being cream rather than ecru.\u00a0 When it was assembled, however, I felt the overall effect was rather bright and wanted to tone it down a bit – so, great idea, tone it down in a bucket of tea – that’s\u00a0worked before, wonderfully.\u00a0\u00a0I dunked the top in, moved it about every now and then and a few hours later took it out.\u00a0 What I didn’t realise was some of the fabric was a different brand\/composition? and grabbed the tea dye more strongly (look down at the LL area)\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>So, totally annoyed I put it away, at the back of a cupboard for a while and forgot about it.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span> A year ago I was taking another quilt top to a long arm quilter in the US (generous king size, too big for these aging shoulders to wrestle with)\u00a0 I was teaching an experimental creative quilting w\/s while there, and thought I’d take the troublesome quilt along to use as an aid to class discussion on choosing quilting design as part of the overall work.\u00a0 The whole aim of the class was to enlarge options beyond\u00a0doing\u00a0quilting just in the ditch or echo quilting, or mindless machine\u00a0stippling and meandering everywhere\u00a0– I wondered what would they suggest for this one?\u00a0 I don’t recall the discussion details now, but\u00a0after that class I took it to the longarm quilter\u00a0( Jan and\u00a0Steve at Johnstown CO, \u00a0http:\/\/www.quiltedexpressions.com<\/a> ) \u00a0and together we worked out the ginko leaf in a variegated thread would be the go.\u00a0 DH sat in on the process of deciding on thread and pattern for each quilt, and found that most interesting.\u00a0 I added the red print binding.\u00a0 I love it now, and am going to keep it for use in our own home.\u00a0 It fits within the Ebb&Flow series of work, but I am not giving it a number since I am keeping it, will probably never seriously exhibit it, so it’s “Ebb & Flow, Scrap” for ID purposes in my photo files.\u00a0 I’m teaching over at Esperance the end of August, at Patching By The Port and will take it, and a number of others over for that.\u00a0 Looking forward to seeing you soon, Esperance!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greetings from Perth Western Australia, where I am, with occasional sorties, for the next few weeks.\u00a0 Coming back to a place is always interesting, you notice all at once the sum total of change that has taken place in small daily increments since\u00a0the last visit.\u00a0 This is certainly how I feel – the skyline of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uxpF-8p","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=521"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":525,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions\/525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}