Kitchenalia

The Travellers, 2014. Image by Christina Arsenault

I was invited to participate in a group exhibition entitled Kitchenalia by curator Angela D'Elia at the Goulburn Regional Art Gallery.  17 artists who either worked with kitchen items or made works that represented kitchen items participated in the show.

I chose to submit my recent work The Travellers, made from antique kitchen strainers, combined with brass and copper patina-ed wire, machine embroidery and resin.

The Travellers was inspired by immigrants from the United Kingdom who left their homes to seek fortune and opportunities in foreign and often hostile lands when Britain was establishing new colonies in Australia and North America. Passages of writing by early British immigrants, who experienced the inconveniences of first settlement and the destruction of their precious personal items that travelled the rough bush roads to their new dwellings inspired my work. Despite adverse conditions their pioneering spirits never faltered, allowing them to follow their dreams and create better lives.

More information about The Travellers creation can be found here.

Participating artists include Jacqueline Bradley, Hamilton Darroch, Melinda Le Guay, Stephanie Jones, Waratah Lahy, Birte Larsen, Nongirrnga Marawili, Ellie Mucke, Alison Munro, Mylyn Nguyen, Susan O’Doherty, Rachael Roxburgh, Niomi Sands, Kate Ward, David Watt, Anthony Whyte and various knitters.

Kitchenalia runs from 28 August to 11 October 2014 at the Goulburn Regional Art Gallery.

Hollowware: Egg Cup Design

Earlier in the year I designed and created an egg cup in my Hollowware course.

When it was first made it had the most amazing and unusual purple patina. (Pictures of the egg cup in an earlier post can be seen here.)

Now, a couple of months later it has faded to an aged icy turquoise blue. The high polish on the 'tentacles' has remained a beautiful dark copper colour. The blue patina was achieved by placing the copper with a green patina in a lidded bowl full of wood chips soaked in ammonia. The fumes of the ammonia turn the green patina blue!

And below are some of the designs that were discarded in the designing process. 

I would still like to make them....... maybe one day! 

Here are some websites on how to make different coloured patina's using ingredients generally found at home:

Blue patina 

Blue green patina

Green patina

Hollowware: Learning to fabricate

Our second project in Hollowware was to learn to solder joints, and make a 5 sided cube.

5 sided brass cube being held together with wire before soldering

 Although it looks relatively straight forward, the project is incredibly tricky, trying to get all angles at 90 degrees is more difficult than it looks!

And then there are the hours (literally) of sanding and polishing and elbow grease to get it to look like this....

Phew!

After learning how to make cubes we were given a project to design something that would hold an egg.

Starting with the basic concept of a cone, I explored many variations before coming up with this one.

Copper finished with green patina, and highly polished tentacles

The green patina then turned the most amazing purple from a couple of hours soaking in ammonia fumes.

Fun stuff and the purple was the most wonderful iridescent colour... and not even a colour our teacher had seen before either!

Animated kitchen utensils

Over the past couple of weeks I have been learning the basics of stop animation.

You may remember my post from last week about the vintage kitchen utensils, well, my sketches for them have become the basis for my very basic stop motion animation.

The fun thing is they have all developed personalities of their own. Cheeky things!

This one above / and below, is based on an egg cup I designed in metal. Im in the process of making it! When flipped on its side it turns into a squid. Neat huh!

Vintage kitchen utensils

Whilst hanging out in my favourite antique shop I found a delightfully old strainer with a painted green wooden handle.

I thought it would be perfect for my continuing exploration into pioneering history from a women's perspective. I have become interested in the ideas of isolation and communication and how location would have impacted on the early settlers.

My original idea was to build a house out of wire on top of the strainer.

But there was something nice about the movement of the wire when held with the house structure upside down.

Im not too sure of the direction this piece will take yet - but Im having fun exploring the possibilities!

Blue and White Ceramics in their new homes

Ive just received some more images of my porcelain wares in their new homes.

Below are images from Vicki who just happens to be the editor for a prominent Australian magazine dedicated to ceramics. 

Image by Vicki

My 'CrabApple Tree in Blossom' vessel is on display in her office (middle vessel). Behind it sits the accompanying card made from an off-cut of lino print from my time in Hill End.

Image by Vicki

How very exciting that my ceramics have ended up in such a wonderful place!

More blue and white ceramics for Pozible

December has been spent making, delivering and sending out pozible gifts (lino prints, tea towels and ceramics) for my supporters. 

Left over bits of my lino prints for the gift tags.  

Notice my handy assistant, Kochira the cat, keeping an ever watchful eye on me (and the fish) in the background! 

I wanted to get the ceramic gifts out before Christmas, and consequently forgot to take nice pictures of them. I only have one of them lined up in my studio.

Thankfully I have received pictures from some of the recipients - and its lovely to see the ceramic vessels in their new homes.

Image: Bel and Shane

Image: Josie

Image: Liz 

Image: Murray

Im still collecting images of the gifts in their new homes. If you were one of my supporters Id love to see how your gift looks in its new home.

Blue and White Porcelain Ceramics

Some of you will know that I have been inspired by the writings of Australian author Miles Franklin who is well known for her novel My Brilliant Career, which for the most part is set in Goulburn, NSW. 

Crabapple Tree in Blossom

In April 2013 I partook in the self guided tour of Goulburn and observed many of the buildings she wrote about in her novels. 

Domestic Interior with Antiques

Indeed, it was her descriptions of pioneering Australia that set me on the path to further research Australia's history that led me to the Artist in Residence at the historic gold mining town of Hill End, and then internationally to explore pioneering history in Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada. 

"The two towers of the office rose like sentry boxes which in the long main street that ran empty in the moonlight to the south"  

Further images from my Hill End residency:

In the studio

Life in a slab hut

Textures

Fences and gates

Goulburn Post Office

So inspired I sketched imagery of Goulburn's historic buildings incorporating text from 'My Brilliant Career' that was published in 1901. 

"I bought a ticket at the Goulburn railway station"

 These sketches have recently been applied to porcelain ceramics using scraffito and mishima techniques.

Goulburn Railway Station

Earlier in the year I ran a crowd funding campaign to assist with my travel to Halifax, Nova Scotia to participate in the Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and Design's Summer residency.

"I borrowed every book in the neighbourhood and stole hours from rest to read them"

 One of the rewards for my crowd funding supporters was a porcelain ceramic vessel an image relating to my residencies. 

The Music House 

"I love the organ music and the hush that pervades the building" 

So some very lucky people received these 'one of a kind' porcelain vessels.

St Saviours Cathedral

 The shapes are inspired by pioneering bushmen's mugs, which were fashioned from recycled tin (which would've originally contained food) with a wire handle added.

"I left the train and went to the Commercial for the remainder of the night"

The Commercial Pub, Goulburn.

Printing fun at Megalo pt 2

As promised here are some more pictures from the 6 week block of Introduction to Screenprinting on Fabric I taught at Magalo.

Thank you to Claire, Barbara and Ngaire who have shared their images with me, so that I can share them with you! 

Screenprints and images by Claire

Claire created some lovely patterns through repeating a single image printed in different colours and explored printing onto pre-cut fabric pieces with the intention of sewing them into garments. I look forward to seeing the final product!

Screenprints and images by Ngaire 

Screenprints and images by Ngaire

 Ngaire combined beautiful hand drawn images with text which resulted in lovely compositions.

Screenprints and images by Barbara

Screenprints and images by Barbara

Barbara experimented with combining imagery created using the photo-emulsion technique combined with paper cut stencils. She printed lengths of fabric by randomly printing the image onto cloth. I love her use of fabric as a shade cloth over the deck area which is perfect for afternoon drinks, morning teas and hanging out in the hammock. After Christmas the shade cloth will be taken down and used to make PJs.

Such a wonderful and creative bunch of people. I am always so impressed by their creativity. They were so inspired that they are going on to form their own print club to continue printing at Megalo next year!

Printing fun at Megalo

I have just finished teaching a 6 week block of Introduction to Screenprinting on Fabric at Magalo's new facilities in Kingston. The new space is amazing and such a pleasure to be in.

And of course, I had a ball sharing my knowledge and passion with 8 keen soon-to-be-addicted-to-screenprinting participants.

Screenprints and images by Kahlea 

I always love how diverse everyone's designs and images are, and printing onto textiles lends itself so nicely to repeat motif printing.

Screen prints and images by Muzi

There was lots of experimental works being created, including Paal's printing onto old tea towels and doilies and achieving great effects, Muzi's striking colour combinations in geometric prints and Kahlea's fabulous patterns.

Screenprints and images by Paal

I got so carried away teaching that I often forgot to capture the creativity. A big thank you to Paal, Muzi, Kahlea and Mandy for sharing your images with us.

Screen prints and image by Mandy 

Mandy's image above is a great example of the different sorts of effects paper stencils (using both the positive and negative cut outs), and combining it with a line drawing that was translated using photo emulsion techniques.

Sam, Barbara, Ngaire and Claire also created some beautiful artworks which I hope to share with you soon.