Mixed Media Madness



I had the joy of teaching my Mixed Media Madness to painters of the Buderim Craft Cottage last week.
What a lot of fun.
There were so many great paintings produced from a wide variety of materials and crazy hand made brushes, syringes, and spray appliances, that I have had to compile the pics into composites.

...but first some of the action.....

..and now for some of the amazing Mixed Media Madness Mark Making results....fantastic!!

Well done to you all.

Pojagi in Seoul

POJAGI [Bojagi in Korean] is the traditional 'patchwork' style of fabric construction, often from sheer fabrics, used originally as wrapping cloths to carry food, and all sorts of other goods - [the original GREEN BAG].

The POJAGI Forum in Seoul, Korea, had opened. I was hoping to go, but too much is happening for me back home.
However, I am thrilled to be included amongst the 35 invited International artists to exhibit at the conference.
If you have facebook, got to this link - there are some brilliantly wonderful works from all over the world posted here.

These are my contributions:

This piece is called 'Out of the Box' a linked series of about 15 x 3D silk forms [3 - 5 cm each], some tea dyed, with the traditional flat pojagi seams.

The next is 'Devil's Dice' - a statement about the mining industry's impact on the Australian interior.

This is the silk that I dyed with rust and green tea - amazing results from white silk.

This one is a little more traditional and inspired by the upcoming 'Peace Flag' project that many of us are involved in [World Peace Day - 21st September]



This is my statement sent to accompany the work for the PPP and promotion.

My Appreciation of ‘Pojagi’

I have always had a great connection with the qualities of ‘Simple, Honest and Noble’. The Korean pojagi, the Japanese boro, the Australian wagga, are all examples of textiles lovingly repaired and patched with whatever fabric was available. Not necessarily things of beauty, they have become objects of history, with a life and soul of their own, imbued with the energy of the time and place of creation. These traditional reconstructed fabrics were made in harsh times when money, materials and opportunities were scarce, but ingenuity, camaraderie, and ‘making do’ was prevalent. I imagine the [mostly] women sitting together sharing scraps of fabric, creating new and functional items for the home and family, at the same time sharing problems, hopes and dreams. The fabrics stirred memories from previous generations, helping to reinforce the traditions, stories and cultures that made each group or village autonomous and individual.

I feel very sad that in today’s ‘throw away’ society, we have lost these valuable connections. In my own way, I try to honour the traditions of recycling and reusing in my arts practice, bringing old energies to new life, and as a consequence ‘treading lightly upon the earth’.

Noela Mills

August, 2012

A Letter A Week, 'Dotty' alphabet

I have started my second alphabet for 2012. For more information on this fabulous international blogger network project, go to 'A Letter a Week' for the details.
These are my first 4 letters, created from paper immersed and allowed to dry in a rusty oven tray filled with green tea - great results.

...and my favourite piece of paper - yes, just green tea and rust on a cheap water colour paper.

This process also creates wonderful results on silk -

...which led me to creating some patchwork 'Pojagi' [Korean] for an exhibition in Seoul.

...more on that soon.

Deadlines

Whew!! Why do we work to deadlines - so stressful...Maybe it's because we [well - I- ] need them to get motivated.
I entered the Queensland Flying Arts exhibition for 2012 [no guarantee of acceptance] and was 3 days late with my photos. They kindly gave me the weekend to get my act together - trouble was, I had another 3 pieces for an exhibition in Korea to finish and photograph and physically send as well.
Firstly, the painting for Flying Arts [the rest will come in the next blog].

It's called 'Balancing Rock, Girraween NP'

125cm x 90cm

I had a lovely family camping holiday in this area on the Granite Belt, SE Queensland, about 15 years ago. The rock formations are magnificent. These are what inspired me -

I have a fascination for monolithic rocks and explored some wonderful ancient Prehistoric sites when I was in Europe last year. Hope to use some of my pics for inspiration 'one day' - here I go with the procrastination again.

I'll pop in a couple of special rock photos from my travels.....[unlike the Girraween rock formations, these were man made]...

NE Portugal.

near Land's End, UK,

of course, the amazing Stonehenge.



'Flying South'

Well....not me, actually, just 3 new art works for the 30 x 30 [cm] exhibition at the Brunswick St Gallery in Melbourne - opening Friday 13th at 6pm if you're in the area.

I started with a delicious unresolved messy bit of white watercolour paper, went to town with my inks, rust paint and dyes, letting my brushes take a dance across the paper - no particular style or theme - just lovely mark making.

I chose 3 areas that seemed to work OK then cut them out and added a few details to suggest the theme that was evolving - boats.

...'Dry Dock'

'Moored'

'Low Tide'

...and some other favourite snippets that may or may not made it to a final image.

 

Catherine O'Leary - Nuno Felting Workshop RESULTS

Wow - what a great workshop - I made a vest/wrap, and learnt lots of what NOT to do!!

Of course I took too much - used a tiny fraction of my bits and the sari glitzy bits didn't work too well. The silver sari bits I used need to be hand stitched to anchor them properly [as do a few other bits as well] and I'd like to add some red and celadon or silver running stitches to some areas - can't go past a bit of hand stitching for added oomph, can we???

Here is the Process:

1. Drafted a 'pattern' from a simple wrap of Catherines,

laid it out on my needle felted length [25% extra allowed for shrinkage]

 and cut around.

2. Arranged 'nuno felted' bits, silk bits and sari bits onto the base.

3.Catherine showed me how to splice an extra bit of felt to the front to form a wrap.

4. Wetting down, and covering with thin plastic to stop bits shifting.

5. Rolled on bubble wrap around a pool 'noodle' for 15 mins each end.

6. Then rolled around a broom handle for 15 mins each end, and peeking and gently stretching to shape between each series of rolling.

7. A bit of selective rubbing and rolling to create pointy ends and strengthen the felting [and accidently thin some bits too much].

8. Dry and on the manekin, ready for fine tuning and shaping, a bit of stitching, maybe some buttons.

9. I like the back more than the front.

10. It is surprisingly light and should be nice to wear even in our warm Qld weather.

I have found a new passion!!! Great fun except for the tedious couple of hours of rolling - need to be watching a movie, methinks.

HINT - using the prefelted 'needle felted' length made it SOOOOO easy.