sculpting fibre and felt 2011
Images of significant award winning an published artworks from the last few years
2006 Awarded first prize for most creative individual exhibit -Wild and Wonderful Wool Expo Maldon
2007 Award winner at the Australian National Sheep and Wool Show – Bendigo
2010 awarded The Buda Contemporary Textile Award – Inspired by Buda Historic Home, for a large felt artwork. A round artwork named “Frogs View”
2010 Finalist in Petite Miniature Exhibition at Wangaratta Regional Gallery
2011 published in Lark Books “500 Felt Objects”. Another round artwork. “reeds of reflection”.
“Every darkness brings a new dawn” – finalist at the Wangaratta Regional Art Gallery in the Contemporary Textile Art Award exhibition in 2011.
From these significant recent responses to my art, It is clear that I will continue in felt art contemporary landscape and sculpture work. The path that I am now following.
A successful joint exhibition held at the Stockroom Gallery in Kyneton in mid 2011 again confirmed this. Petrus Spronk and myself worked together to produce some beautiful art for this show, his ceramics and my felt sculptures.
2011 a Highly Commended award gained for “Where Time Stands Still” at the “You are Here” exhibition where 155 artworks were in the exhibition judged by Dr Dan Wollmering, Senior Lecturer, Sculpture and extended media, faculty of Art and Design, Monash University.
My work has been published in Textile May 2012 edition
My work is published in Textile the Art of Mankind edited by Mary Schoeser and published by Thames and Hudson later in 2012.
June 2012 awarded the Overall Winner Award at the Buda Contemporary Textile Award.
2012 Finalist in Petite Miniature Exhibition, Wangaratta Regional Gallery
Here you will see pictures of my artworks. I am a Visual Artist who works with fibres to make sculpture.
The materials I use are all natural, and the dyes are from local vegetation found here in the Australian bush.
For the past nine years or so I have been developing my art using fleece, threads, and natural fabrics such as wool, cotton, silk, and linen. In the beginning I used mainly commercially dyed materials, but began to use local native vegetation to obtain colour about four years ago, to provide a broader pallet to interpret my landscape designs.
The dye pot is always full of gum leaves, wattle, or whatever else is plentiful. It is collected when not in flower or seed, soaked, then boiled without mordant powders to provide a perfect dye bath for materials. I do not use flora that is endangered or rare, and the trimming of leaves is necessary to keep the fire risk down around my house and studio.
Art materials are sometimes collected from thrift shops, they are then hand dyed, designed, hand felted, hand stitched, or drawn upon using bees wax resist. A very slow process. Here where I live in a mudbrick house in the bush with the trees and birds, life is quiet and often slow. Its an alternate life that my partner and I designed and built ten years ago. Off the grid on solar power with a wood stove in winter, living around the sun, growing our own food. An active peaceful life.
Living lightly on the earth and making organic intuitive art.
