Clown bottoms, confidence, and books

To return to one of my (very few) topics of recent months, Demelza has now posted a whole set of great photos of 'An ode to the pleasures of minor encounters' - now you can see the piece from all angles. Love it.

And now, the story of the little prototypes that didn't. Before the pumpkins, I had an idea of making felted soup mugs for the exhibition - something like this in shape (scroll down to the big photo). These purple ones are unfinished - I was planning to attached the handle with a button, like this jug from years ago. But after several iterations to tweak the shape, I decided the fabric was too floppy. I moved on to different wool (not in this photo), but didn't like the colour combination as much, and at that point I ran out of steam... the pumpkins seemed like a better bet. I'd like to have carried this off, but let's just say it needed more development time than I had available.


No. To be honest I also lost confidence in my idea - particularly its appropriateness for the event in question, but also whether what I was trying to do would make any sense to others. The exhibition was very much conceived to be about functional vessels, and mainly for pottery. I do like the idea of trying to mimic pottery with felt (without dismissing textiles entirely, hence the button), but I'm not sure this was the right outlet.

And to return to one of last night's subjects, Shaun's comment, as well as being a good suggestion, which I also don't plan to do (ha!) reminded me that I used to keep a sort of lazy book journal. It was just a word document where, as I finished each book, I would put down a few brief thoughts. I would also add any quotes that I was sufficiently enamoured with to write down.

Reading is a constant pleasure in my life and I wasn't willing to turn it into a chore (or associate a chore with it) so I never made myself write much about each book. And even so, it did become a chore and I always seemed to have a backlog of books waiting to be added to the list. I stopped bothering a few years ago, not long after I got into the habit of using Librarything just to to list each book as I read it. That was because I wanted the widget that you see on the right hand side there. I don't know if anyone tends to look at it, but if you ever find yourself reading something around the same time as me, I'd love to talk books! Since late last year, I've mainly been cycling between two excellent series, Stephen King's Dark Tower, which I have been meaning to dive into for ages, and Gwyneth Jones' Bold as Love series.

So anyway, my old book journal tells me that I first read American Gods in 2003. Ten years ago! Maybe I can let myself off the hook for my poor memory of it.

Off the square (in Le Marais, and Marriage II)

I seem to have fallen into a time warp recently. It was over a week ago that we went to have another look at the Off the Square exhibition before it closed. And I've been just about to post photos here, every day since.

There were signs asking people not to photograph the exhibition. So I asked special permission, and  kept the works other than Mum's only in the background.

The woman's jacket is 'Marriage II'




And the man's, 'Off the square in Le Marais'

That's gold leather applique, on corduroy. Yes!

And I need to apply myself to getting the white balance right, or at least consistent if I'm going to present a set like this.

An ode to the pleasures of minor encounters

Here is Demelza's piece, currently in the Workers Window. It is a jargo, a clown act consisting of a two-person animal costume. I really like the combination of cardboard and fabric.

Exhibition time

It's a bumper week for my family - Demelza Sherwood has just installed her tableau 'An ode to the pleasures of minor encounters' in the Workers Window at Seventh Gallery, where the new set of exhibitions open tomorrow.

And, Rozalie Sherwood has two beautiful pieces in 'Off the Square,' opening at the Belconnen Arts Centre on Friday. So excited for both of them!

I can't remember kissing him goodbye

I've been really lax, not posting these sooner. The Call of the Small is finishing this week. It has been a wonderful exhibition to be part of and I really appreciate having the opportunity to take part.


Context: how small it really is.








Yeah, this one shows my coarse little pods, but more importantly, I think my favourite pieces in the whole show, Robert Boot's acrylic bowls. They are turned on a lathe and you can see how he does it, here.


Granted, my photos have some interesting reflection effects - I particularly like the one above, if you squint it looks like the (mini) gallery has large windows high on the walls, even a ghostly staircase.....(a bit big maybe)

But if you didn't make it to the real thing and want to see it all in nice clear detail, Anna-Maria did a series of posts with excellent photos of the four galleries:

White Knight
Red Hots
Curiously Strong
Allsorts

Very last chance - I think you can still see the show tomorrow, as they extended it by a few days. I'll be going to CraftACT at 6pm for Re-Loved Re-Vamped, the next iteration of a fashion parade focusing on recycling and reusing textiles.

At the opening

opening tomorrow....

The Call of the Small exhibition opens tomorrow night at Craft ACT, along with two other exhibitions. Curator Anna-Maria Sviatko had the brilliant idea of using the unusual Crucible showcase to create a craft exhibition in miniature. (if you're curious there is a picture of the crucible space - basically two large window spaces - here.)

Many of the artists and artisans invited to participate had not worked in 1/12 scale before. It was a challenge for me, and I'm happy with what I came up with, though of course I also wish I could have done more, and better, and smaller and finer, and...well, you never can be completely satisfied with your work. It will be fantastic to see the whole thing come together, having seen a few hints over here.

paper truth in strings, hearts and broken things

I am happy tonight because I managed to affix stalks to all my pears. Sometimes it's the little things. Ha! By the way that is my mobile phone in the background of that photo, just for an idea of scale. The pears are around 9-10mm high.

The method I was using for the stalks was such a nuisance - felting a strand of brown wool for the stalks, cutting a small piece once it was dry, and trying a combination of sewing and needlefelting (which I am seriously not good at - I may need to do a course) to stuff it into place at the top of the pear and make it stay there. And then sometimes the stalk itself would fall apart - I think because they are really too small to for the fibres to hold together.

I had already found that I could stabilise the little stalks with watered-down glue. Tonight, I realised that there was little point felting the stalk first, and I might as well apply it to the pear as unfelted wool, and then felt/glue it to a proper level of stiffness. This meant I could thread the wool right though the pear and sew it in securely much more easily. And I finished in one session what I thought would take much longer. And with less swearing.

Reputation's changeable, situation's tolerable

Okay, it wasn't so bad. Most of the mini pods that hadn't felted too well just needed a little more coaxing. I'll need to have another go at blocking them though - at this size they need careful coaxing to sit on a flat bottom and look balanced, not wonky. A little bit of hand-made charm at the usual size can translate to something pretty shoddy at miniature size.

Mama Leone left a note on the door

As well as the pears, I'm hoping to have some mini pods/bowls/vessels for the Call of the Small exhibition. Since this photo was taken (on Wednesday), I've discovered that some of the fine wools I was using did not felt very well. No matter, I went stash diving and found some old handpainted laceweight from the Knittery that does work. I always like a bit of variegated colour for felting. And I'm using such small quantities that I should still be able to use that skein for something lacy.

Here's one I prepared earlier

The Shopping Sherpa is curating a miniatures exhibition at Craft ACT next month. For quite a few of the participants - including me - working in 1/12 scale is a new experience. It's been quite a challenge but I have enjoyed getting my head around it. Not just technically how to go small enough, but also the logistics of handling and and storing tiny, light, 9mm high pears. (I handed one to my sister the other day and it bounced away to the floor - luckily we found it easily).

TSS came over this morning for a 'studio visit' and took photos of the process of making these little pears. They are not knitted, but wet-felted like this one.