Studio Work ABOUT my art & others

I began here 3 days ago. Day 3 and the third pass. I am losing exactly where i am at as i am now mixing it up.  Some of the first lot of cloth i have kept as is, others i have taken from the onion pot into the avocado pot and then, some of that lot back into the gum leaves and many of all these cloths, including some dry ones have gone into a copper pot. A few pieces are also already stitched works mainly monocolour and/or white on white.  I am using a repurposed urn and interchanging the buckets to heat them up.  It is fast becoming a dirty pot but i am liking a lot of the effects and colours that are coming up. 

I was so excited to be a finalist in this exhibition. An update has been posted here on blackfisharts Art Gallery with a link to see the whole exhibition and this work in situ.  artist statement here.

  My Backyard Series - small cloth wall hangings - just putting them up in the shop - various cloth, plain and patterned, stitched collage style using my own freeform stitching, kantha and other.  Various cotton, wool, gauze, found repurposed cloth, cotton, silk and wool thread.  Details and blog posts here . available online

With Christmas just a few weeks away, consider supporting a local artist and gift one-of-a-kind artworks to a friend, family member or yourself. I have been working on my site and various blogs this year, with artworks going up recently, so this site is under construction (continually).  let me know what you think. A few artworks are up on blackfisharts tasmania site -  there are paintings across media such as acrylic, oil, pastel featuring abstracts, pears and landscape. and  prints , most being one of a kind monoprints or digital.  Textiles are new to the site - years of slow stitching at night culminate in wall hangings such as these.  The section  Collage includes the textiles due to the way they are worked - a few analogue collages are loaded on the site. .   .  .         

When i began this piece I didnt know what the story was. It evolved overtime and with each decision made, it became. As many of you know I am in the studio every day and it is at night, when I go up to the house, I do slow stitching.  This piece was set aside many times over many months, where each stage brought with it a 'what now?' or a 'what if'. Slowly it became 'Under a Big Sky'.   This is how it went.  I began by creating little squares from my shibori scraps, brought in white and eco printed cotton, silk and linen, ironing the little squares around a template i created. One evening, from the box of 'little squares', i began to lay them out in what was a pleasing arrangment to me.  Sewed the squares together into a single cloth and then i tacked it to a calico cloth backing, extending the borders. After it being set aside for many months, i came to the orange stitching idea - a stacking stitch created within a circle. This image shows the stitched ...

I wrote  here  about delivering 4 works to the Out of Hand Exhibition held by Stitching and Beyond.    This year, I have exhibited, for the first time, in the exhibition held by Stitching and Beyond, Hobart.  I have been a member of the group for a few years and have been stitching for many many years; decided for the first time to exhibit.  With over 200 entries in the exhibition I am honoured to have received the Curators Choice Award for this piece 'Conversations by the Creek (Winter) the other 3 pieces are Conversations by the Creek (Summer) and Conversations by the Creek (Early Spring) and Under a Big Sky .

I took a few photos of the exhibition at the opening and after all the excitement of winning the Curator's Prize I never got back to it. This is the Out of Hand exhibition organised by Stitching and Beyond Hobart. I love these baskets ...   As well as hunting down my own pieces, these are some of the entries that took my eye at the time.  My apologies to those whose names i did not get - if you know please let me know to update my images.   my blog post does not do the exhibition justice - do get along to see it if you are in Hobart.  a few more links here to explore about the 2025 Out of Hand Exhibition - Christie Lange  Salamanca Arts Centre Stitching and Beyond

Heading to Hobart to deliver works for 4 of us from the Northwest. The Stitching and Beyond annual exhibition called "Out of Hand" opens on Thursday 25 September 6pm at Long Gallery Salamanca Place, Hobart. a sneak peek here - i will post each one in full once the exhibition opens. I have been stitching for many years - my night time activity while watching shows on TV.  This is the first time i have chosen to exhibit textile works - it took some figuring out how to hang them; each requiring 'something different'.   

 A day of sorting through cloths in progress and working out the hanging situation of others.  Lovely winter nights to be stitching, inside where its warm and starting early as it gets dark earlier (for the time being).  and some turn out to be 'samplers' unless (or until?) i can imagine them into something else.  all images here are detail of larger pieces. picked this one up last night ... on the home stretch to finishing it !  looking at how it might hang - will post more on this one as soon as it is ready to go .... soooon

so many projects on the go (always) - a few here, some still in progress, others merely an idle thought.  my work is research and process based so there is much experimentation and intuitive 'doing'.  images here of asemic writings, paintings in progress, books completed and in progress, slow stitching and chemigrams. find our youtube channel with various playlists including art and artist books  let me know what you think.

a couple of 'what if' trials & experimentation in slow stitching - with a little help from my friend. I am enjoying what is coming from this sesssion. There is a video on our youtube channel speaking about these cloths - you can view it here.