Porcine

Perhaps it was inevitable that I would end up making a piggy brooch working with pink... this brooch ended up looking like a pig quite by accident...

le fil blog

Exhibition curator Kath Fries has started a blog for le fil (the thread) it is so exciting and inspiring to read about and see the works by the other makers in the exhibition - can't wait to see it all up at gaffa at the end of next month! 

More Sydney Design 09... alter ego

Also as part of Sydney Design 09 I have been invited to be a part of the exhibition alter ego - the other I curated by the fabulous Zoe Brand. It is such a fantastic premise for an exhibition and a real challenge for the makers involved. I am so excited about stepping out of my comfort zone for this exhibition... and to be exhibiting with some of my favourite designers. Read more about the exhibition here It will be held at gaffa gallery from 14-22 August. 

August is going to be busy!!!

Workshop at Sydney Design 09

metalab have invited me to run a Take a ball of thread... workshop as part of Sydney Design 09 on Saturday August 2nd from 1-4pm. It should be lots of fun! Click here for more details.

Home on the range... and on jubilee!

My work arrived home from Adelaide today. I was amazed by how many pieces there are! I am seriously behind in blogging them all, so as I am stuck at home recovering from some surgery at the moment (I have been promised more pictures), I will set to and try to catch up before some of the threadiest go off to be a part of the exhibition Le Fil (the thread) curated by Kath Fries at gaffa gallery next month.  

Here's a start: Coil Brooch... (not the most imaginative name perhaps!) 

This piece along with some of my other works can now be seen on the Japanese gallery website Jubilee.

I am so delighted to have been invited by Masako to be a part of this wonderful website, not the least because there are some amazing jewellers are represented there including one of my all time favourites: Mikiko Minewaki! Thank you Masako. 

Installation at Zu Design

I have been such a bad blogger recently - so many projects on the go and time has flown by. The exhibition has been taken down at Zu Design, so here are the installation images I should have posted long ago... The pink work looked amazing on the blue walls of the gallery! 

Big thanks to the wonderful Jane and Roman for having the exhibition at Zu and to friends in Adelaide for their support and encouragement, especially to Lauren for looking after me so well as always. 

the icky and the crappy

Click here for a link to the talk that Damian Skinner gave about the work of Lisa Walker and myself at Craft Victoria last month. The brooch that he refers to is this one:

It was a very great honour to have Damian write about my work and also to meet him - he has been one of my craft heroes for a long time. If you are interested in fantastic, thought provoking writing about jewellery - bookmark his website: www.pauadreams.co.nz it is always a great read.

Hot off the press!

Here is the invitation for Take a ball of thread... at Zu Design.
Hot off the press! I love the sexy, thready font.

Talking, naturally

Next week I am off to Adelaide for the last leg (for now) of the Take a ball of thread... exhibition tour at Zu Design. I am so excited. I love Adelaide and have many good friends there, including the sensational Lauren Simeoni. Inbetween installing the exhibition next week Lauren and I will be spending some time together plotting and planning for our two lady exhibition to be held at metalab in October. It is going to be called Unnnatural, naturally. We have been working on the idea for the exhibition for over a year now - Stay tuned for more as the exhibition develops!

While I am in Adelaide I will be giving a talk at the Jamfactory, come along if you are in town!

I also recently gave a talk at salon a talks evening run by metalab and ECC Lighting and Furniture. The talks are held at the ECC Lighting and Furniture showroom in Darlinghurst. It was a real honour to be invited to speak and such a fun thing to do - I got to install my work on some stunning tables, lit by beautiful chandeliers and other designer lights for one night only! I took lots of pictures and will post them soon. If I was more organised I would have posted this information before the talk! But it was a big rush putting it together after coming back from Melbourne and I actually LOST the whole first draft (the long one with all the words and images...) so had to do it again! The process of writing about my practice is one that I always find interesting (and challenging).

Here are some images of my work in situ at ECC:

Workshopping

While I was in Melbourne last month I gave two workshops at Craft Victoria in conjunction with Take a ball of thread... Participants were asked to bring along their own ball of sewing thread and I taught a few simple techniques that I have been using in my work including how to make a tassel, some string and a pom pom. The workshops were so much fun and participants made some super pieces. Like this neckpiece in progress by Craft Victoria's lovely Carmel:

It was also exciting to have a sneak peek into the contents of peoples sewing boxes!

To see more pictures of the workshops click here

Vitalstatistix

As part of the Clog interview I was asked to provide some statistics about the project. I put on my thinking cap and this is an updated version of what I came up with:

800g of casting wax used
115 finger pricks
130+ objects produced (there were 78 pieces shown in the Craft Victoria version of the exhibition)
70 blog posts and counting
51 wax burns (approximately)
23 AA batteries
19 months and counting...
4 metres of 0.8mm diameter 925 silver wire
1 litre methylated spirits
1 drilled hand
and of course,
1 ball of thread (length unknown)

Clog-a-riffic!

Well, I am pretty behind on all my posting here, blame a hectic making schedule and recovering from jet-set interstate travel with the exhibition!

I have missed so many exciting things to post about. The first one is a link to the Clog interview mentioned in the previous post - you can read it here

clogtastic!

One of my very favourite blogs is CLOG from the wonderful Craft Victoria. Not only does it keep me up to date with all of the exhibitions and other goings on at Craft Victoria - it also presents profiles on the makers who exhibit in the gallery, window space and store. CLOG is informative, beautifully written and always jam packed with wonderful images.

Imagine my delight then at having my work featured! There have been several lovely posts about Take a ball of thread... including the wonderful essays written for the exhibition catalogue by Amber McCulloch and Debbie Pryor and a lovely review by Emily Bentley-Singh. I was also even more chuffed to be interviewed for CLOG! The interview should appear soon - I found responding to Kim's insightful questions about my work quite the challenge and agonised over my answers for ages... it is an excellent process to have to write (or present a talk) about your work - particularly responding to what other people see in it - which may sometimes be something that you have not noticed yourself because you are so immersed...

some sketches.

Here are some preparatory sketches done for the work made for the exhibition at Craft Victoria. Ever the obsessive drawer, I have begun drawing the work as a way of both documenting and planning as well as staying focussed on the project - previously the pieces were made intuitively, however now I am so familiar with process and materials I have been having ideas thick and fast - faster than I can make, so drawing has helped. It has been interesting that many of the designs that worked on paper have not been at all successful in reality. The painted drawings use the left over paint from some of the new work I have been making, I found some blocks of huon pine in a review of the contents of my studio and have started to work with this as a new material - I have been painting the backs and in some cases the front of this work. (I have also been developing a rather strong curiosity for the interior of envelopes recently...)

 

a new favourite!

This brooch is called Spill. It is my new favourite. It's made from a cut up plastic necklace I found at my beloved local market. I also made a horrible neckpiece using the necklace - I haven't photographed it yet as I hope to re-work it.Towards the end of last year I kept finding pieces of old costume jewellery that look like the work I have been making for this project. If you look verrrry carefully at the picture of my studio below, you might see them displayed on the black neck stand to the right. I have been prompted to look around myself at the things I collect and examine how they both fit in with and influence my aesthetic - I plan to photograph and blog them in the future.

exhibition opening at Craft Victoria

Here are some images of the exhibition opening for Take a ball of thread... at Craft Victoria on Thursday 22 January 2009. These images are from Craft Victoria's Facebook gallery, I will be uploading some of mine showing installation etc soon. A huge thank you to Nella Themelios and all at Craft Victoria for being so welcoming, helpful and generally wonderful! I would also like to thank Debbie Pryor for her wonderful opening speech; Eric, Debbie, Cesar & Nina for helping me to install the show as well as Mark & Francesca for being such a wonderful support as always.

not quite how it was meant to be

This neckpiece is based on some of my drawings (I plan to post those soon too...). It looked so good on paper, but the reality was rather unfortunate! Needless to say it now only exists in this photo. I have chopped it up now and recycled it into some new pieces... 

Another droplet

This brooch is the companion piece to the Droplet Neckpiece. 

cry me a river

This neckpiece is extremely long and called Cry me a river. It has watermelon quartz beads sewn along its length and the seep out of the rope like tears. Made during the winter of 2008, this piece was a long and laborious to make and I used the time to contemplate and mourn an event that had recently occurred. The title is a reference to how I was feeling and also the extremely guilty pleasure that is the Justin Timberlake song of the same name... 

Update...

I have been a very slack blogger these past months. I have been very busy making for several group exhibitions - two were held in December at Pablo Fanque and metalab as well as finishing up the year at work - always hectic with the student exhbition and so on!I have ALSO been busy making new pieces for the Take a ball of thread... to be held at Craft Victoria in Melbourne. I am so excited about this exhibition. When I was a student I used to dream about having a solo exhibition at Craft Victoria and I am still pinching myself that it is actually going to happen. I am flying down on Monday to install and the exhibition opens on Thursday 22 January, running until 7 March. I am giving an artist talk on the 22nd of January at 5.30pm and a workshop on Saturday 6 March at Craft Victoria 31 FlindersLane Melbourne, if you are in the neighbourhood, please pop in and say 'Hello'!

I have lots of images of new work and some installation images from Pablo Fanque to post... I will try and get all this up in the next few weeks along with shots at Craft Victoria! 

Meantime, here are some images of neckpieces that took a long time to complete. First, the Tumbleweed Neckpiece.

and below is the finished Cats Cradle neckpiece that I have blogged in progress a few times.