Dyeing....

Scraps and rags dyed with brown onion skins.  An old pair of jeans with such an enormous rip in the backside, they were irredeemable as clothing.  Some silk snippets...a beautiful cream piece with delicate embroidered bees, some recycled torn sari, and an old scarf that fell apart in the wash.  The things I might have once put in the bin, but am rethinking now, rediscovering their tattered beauty.  A piece of pale apricot silk...left over from my wedding dress...with a 'shibori' style experiment in resist stitching.  The poor onion skins had dyed everything else by this time, so the colour is quite delicate, but it worked well enough for me to see the potential.  I will be trying it again.

I had plans for these, but I think I've changed my mind.  I think I am going to just start, and see where it takes me, see what I end up with.  Something just for me.  I won't be selling this piece, it will be large I think, and take a long time.  Too much to put a price on, and it will spoil the pleasure of making it if I worry about that.  It might become a gift...but I think it might just stay with me.  There will be memories stitched into it.

A little stitched choker I made for a lunch with some old friends.

And I've added a Facebook widget in the right column...so you can 'like' me...if you like.  :)

Music that moves me....

NIgra Sum©KMazzella/Peermusic by Kavisha

Kavisha Mazzella is one of my favourite artists.  A wonderful singer/songwriter, originally from Fremantle, now based in Melbourne.  Not only is she a stunning solo performer (and she tells the most wonderful stories), she is also a community choir teacher extraordinaire.  I've had the privilege of being in a couple of workshops run by her, she has the most amazing ability to get a group of people singing together.  I learnt this particular song, 'Nigra Sum' (about The Black Madonna) in one of them, and it is still so powerful when I hear it, just something about those harmonies!  The latin chorus "Nigra sum sed formosa" simply means "I am black but I am beautiful."

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of Kavisha's work on Youtube, but you can get a taste at amazon.com or amazon.co.uk.  Her voice is gorgeous.

And here's a snippet I did find on YouTube.  Her song for the 100th Anniversary of Woman's Suffrage in Victoria, in 2008, and the choir she directed singing it.  She's the little bundle of energy in the red scarf conducting down the front.  If you ever get a chance to see her, or buy her music, do it!




Lyrics HERE if you want to read them.

Phew! I think they're sort of finished...

Finished at about 2pm this afternoon, photos taken and emailed off at 3pm, so hopefully they were received alright.  There will, no doubt, be some final tweaking and twiddling and embellishing...and of course, some varnishing, but that's a job for next week...or maybe the week after, if my work is selected, as they don't want the actual paintings till the end of September.  I won't know till next Wednesday, so fingers crossed!

This is Shipwreck Coast - Tethys gathers them in

(I hope she doesn't look too much like Sideshow Bob's sister!)

I wrote the Seafarer's Prayer at about 1pm this afternoon (last-minute-mermaid, that's me), and the text along the bottom are quotes about shipwrecks along the 'Shipwreck Coast' from a book very conveniently co-authored by my clever mum, which is why I got a free copy!

And this is my little Ocean Heart, with more mermaid scribbles.  I don't think this is quite finished, but it had to do.

I really should be painting...

Terribly typical of me, I'm flat out painting 2 paintings for an art competition, and entry forms need to be posted tomorrow morning (to arrive by Friday afternoon) and, most inconveniently I must say, they want to see images of the paintings entered by Friday as well.  I say inconvenient because my usual modus operandi is to put in the entry form THEN paint the painting.  I HAVE mentioned I'm terminally disorganised before, haven't I?!  So I really shouldn't be sitting here, but I do like to come up for air occasionally and read my favourite blogs.  I've also mentioned I'm a terrible procrastinator, haven't I?!  So I haven't anything new to show, but if all goes well, I will by Friday.  In the meantime, I'll pin up some pictures of old works to brighten this post up a little.

I've posted previously about the small book I made to go with this set of paintings, but haven't actually posted the paintings before, so here they are.  'The Four Elements', all completed in 2007.  They were a difficult bunch, very headstrong with VERY definite ideas about how they wished to be depicted.  'Air' particularly gave me a lot of trouble, and I repainted large sections a couple of times.  'Earth' just turned out completely different to how I intended her to, but after the struggle with 'Air' I figured it was best to let her decide.  Worked well, I think.  I'll probably put these in my Etsy shop as prints sometime soon.  The originals were all bought by one lovely lady, who saved up and paid them off in installments.

That's a lot of breasts all lined up!

And, as I'm feeling in a green mood at the moment...a small green man mask.

The pic on the left is a page from my journal, and you can just see the edge of a painting I've stuck in by Terri Windling.  An inspirational painting for me, of a Green Woman, about keeping our connections to the wild (both outside and inside of us) open and free.  You can see the beautiful original (and many more of her beautiful and full-of-magic paintings) at her website here.

Better get back to painting...hopefully my experimental glazes will have dried enough for the next layer!

A pendant off to a new home!

Just a quick post to let you know that this little pendant with the three leaves has been sold.  Lovely Shannon at Mothering with Rhythm and Rhyme has claimed it, so it will be winging its (probably quite slow...good old Australia Post) way to Brisbane.  Do pop over to Shannon's blog, she makes the most gorgeous felt and fur creatures, and if you're quick, she's having a giveaway this weekend.

I'm toying with the idea of making some Autumny versions, for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere who are moving into the "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" as we move into our Spring.  What do you think?

LATE NOTE:  The other pendants are now available in my Etsy Shop, and I'm feeling quite chuffed because I sold another original little drawing today too.  This one now has a new home!

Hmmm, time for a cup of warm milk and honey with ginger, and bed!

More olive wood pendants, and Spring has come.

We've barely had a winter.  Yet my almond is in blossom, my apricot is in blossom, and my jonquils have been out for two weeks.  My jasmine has just come out and I could smell its scent as I took these photographs.  Three more olive wood pendants.  I think they ARE pendants...I wore one the other day and got a lovely comment about it.  Two curling green trees and a Greenwoman Spirit.

These are available to buy, and are $45 USD each (not including postage).  Each one will come in a little gift bag that I'm making from my 'stash' of fabric.  I'll hopefully get them into my Etsy shop by the weekend, but if one of them grabs your fancy, do let me know (and if you have a colour preference for the gift bag).  The first little one went as soon as I put it on my Facebook page!

Green trees and pendants...

So many lovely comments about my little Olive wood hanger/pendants, thank you all!  As several people have enquired, yes, I'm intending to put them into my Etsy shop, I just haven't got to it yet.  But I must tell you that the Green Tree with the gold background and glass leaves (above) has been sold, and is already on its way to its new owner.  But I have more on my work table (which is currently the dining room table as there's not enough room in my overcrowded studio at the moment), and I think green things are calling me, so there will be more curly trees and leaves to come, similar but not the same of course.  This one sold for $50AUD, which is about $45USD at the moment I think.  They may not necessarily all be that price, it really depends on how fiddly and detailed they are.  I'm using acrylic paints on them, but am experimenting with finishes.  This pendant has a hard-wearing acrylic resin finish, but the little nasturtium leaf and my pyrographic 'doodle' featured a few days ago are finished with a natural furniture polish.  I will post new ones here as I finish them, so if you do see one you want, let me know rather than waiting for me to put it on Etsy.  I'm a bit scatterbrained at the moment, and it might be a while before I get around to it.  I can always create a 'reserved' Etsy listing for you to make payment etc easier, or use PayPal direct.

I have been thinking that I need to draw away from 'art as a business' for a while.  Not to give up, but rather to regroup.  It's been a very slow and rather disappointing year in that respect (for a lot of people I suspect), and I feel I've lost a little of my creative 'mojo'.  And at the moment there's so much work to be done at home, the garden is crying out for attention, there are walls to be painted and window frames to be oiled, and we have set ourselves the goal of having it all ready to put on the market in a year's time, in anticipation of a new adventure in our lives, a move to the country.  So I think art might go back to being a hobby for a while, to make some small and beautiful things for the sheer joy of it.  And, of course, to go on blogging about them!

There are other things too needing my energy.  A decision to be made.  A hard one.  Something that over the years has caused me worry as I've stood on the sidelines knowing I can't do anything, and I finally realised is never going to change.  But if I step away and let it go, I will lose something very precious.  I need some space to think about it.  Some time.