around sturt

Thought I would show you a little part of the world in which my studio lives...

Sturt Craft Centre is a collection of workshops (weaving, ceramics, jewellery, wood, photography) established in the 1940s. It was established with the ethos of adult education in practical crafts of high standard. Currently the weaving workshop is the only (I think) public access workshop of it's kind in Australia, with term classes and short courses throughout the year.

Anyways here are a few pics to give you a feel of the place...

pathways
gardens
weave room
my studio space and new loom (just after it was assembled) - AVL compudobby 24 shaft triple back beam

hope you enjoyed the tour - check out the link at the side for more on Sturt.

collage

Welcome to my latest obsession...

For some reason collage has always intimidated me... Then all of a sudden it just happened - it seemed perfectly natural for this concept.

Backtrack -

I mentioned in my last entry that I was working towards an exhibition in July. My work has always related to some sort of state of mind, even if that is just how I relate to objects. This work is about how your (or my) subconscious mind works in a dream state - so there are recurring themes, patterns, and everyday objects distorted and placed out of a normal reference point. I also love using stitching as a drawing tool, I think it harks back to a previous minimalism obsession. Can you spot the sprite bottle?

Anyway, it has been incredibly fun, and it's a great excuse to horde a bunch of rubbish. Which is a strange state of mind to be in when I'm also going through an organisational purge - I have lovely new storage shelves and am ratting through all the boxes I've carried with me from house to house. Out with old, in with the new... hordings. What do you do with all the random stuff you've made in workshops years ago? You can't use it because it's impractical, but it's too big to store easily... in a shiny new box I think.

Intro cont.

And this is some of Belinda's work. This collaborative installation is part of her Fybremotion work and partnership. Her work(on the left) is woven with transparent monofilament with hand embellishments in large panels that move when the viewer steps into an area of several motion detectors - a very surreal experience!

I think we both enjoy the spontaneity and characteristics of working with synthetics - they seem to have so much energy and buoyancy.

This is my favorite production scarf - 'Crinkle Scarf' in rayon and wool. It comes in whatever rayon colours I think of while I'm winding the warp, and I dye the wool after weaving so no two are ever the same. They make me happy and giggly - the rayon has so much light energy it just flutters around.

I am currently working on my first solo exhibition which is coming up in July -eep! My loom has been having a few issues of late so production of any sort has been slow, even non-existent, but the issues have just resolved themselves (thanks to lots of help from friends) so I should be powering on quite soon.

--mel