The meaning of art and craft

Out for a walk by the river at 6am today (already 25 degrees Celsius, forecast 40, which is over 100 Farenheit) found this piece of bark below a gum tree.  I loved it because it shows that "creased" effect they get around where branches form, where the bark looks like a stocking falling down.  Gums lose bark every year.  It's a great surface for kids to paint on.

Before the day became too hot and I retired to my book to read, I worked on some pages for a book called Layers of Meaning.  I stopped myself from writing what it all meant when I remembered this post by Aloquin, where she reminds us that art doesn't have to have a meaning, it can just be art (or craft).  Aloquin has some interesting posts - I've only just discovered her blog - it's worth going to the link and then catching up on other posts.

Do you, the blog reader, also feel you have to justify what you make with a specific meaning, or a reason for creating it at all?

Hen Party

Couldn't resist it .....

Time to waste online

Now that I have finished at college, I am enjoying having Mondays at home, where I can spend time doing what I want.  In practice, what I want usually turns out to be spending time surfing the net, before looking at my weekly plan (yes, I do one most weeks) and picking out the task I want to do most - usually artwork of some kind.  Other tasks don't always get done or not for some time.  This week I'm making another book, in which I retell fairy stories with my own twist - I don't always agree with the endings of the traditional fairy tales, so when I tell them to children I make the endings fair.  That's what I'm doing in this book.  All the characters in the book are played by my own chooky sketches - I'm getting better at drawing them in different situations so I thought I'd extend that into a book.  This is a paper book but I recently put my chookys into a scroll made of tea-dyed leftover calico; after some reverse applique (recycled blouse fabric)  and colouring with crayons, topped by cretan stitch embroidery, and using dowel found along Linear Park, I decided it was interesting enough to post on my website.  You can see it, with details, here at this link.

Chooky Scroll, detail of the beginning

Being a chook fan, you can imagine how pleased I was in my net-surfing to find this watercolour (scroll through the images at the bottom to find the chicken) of a chicken on the website of Heather Holland, a local artist I met recently through Port Community Art Centre.

Suburban birds in Adelaide

Yesterday I heard a bird chick calling from above - and up on the power lines, an Eastern Rosella was feeding it's chick - you know, the movement they make shifting food from the crop into the beak that looks like they are heaving, then they transfer it into the beak of the chick.  Never seen this species do it before, so I reached for my phone to take a photo - left at home!!!   Blast!!!  Birds are such a constant part of life in the suburbs, wonderful to see so many about.  A fairly new magazine here in Australia is Australian Wildlife Secrets, and their blog has some fascinating information about dealing with bird emergencies, such as birds in chimneys, entangled in string and wire, fledglings falling into crevices, broken legs even.  Scroll down from the paragraphs at the beginning to reach this info.

http://blog.wildlifesecrets.com.au/animal-guide/birds/living-with-birds/

I love chickens and often sketch them, in a naive style, in different situations - anthropomorphic, not realistic.  As I'm keen to recycle rather than keep buying, I rescued a discarded Chux cloth from the washing up and stitched this Chooky running on to it.  I used cotton embroidery floss, 3 and 6 strands; I always used colours for my Chookys.

I drew this one straight onto the Chux cloth though I usually use a sketchbook - does this mean I am becoming more confident in my sketching?

Slowing down

Jude Hill's blog always inspires me to sit and stitch, just quietly, making a point to calm the mind.  Have a look at it here and see what I mean. It is somehow restful.  I think it's essential to sometimes just sit quietly and let our brain have a rest; it takes conscious thought to do that, whereas it is all too easy to let our brains run on and on so that we get fed up with the constant stream of slush going through our head.
Now here is a peaceful scene, on a blog from Grace Forrest.


Time to get back to some stitching.

Feathers

One of my loves and inspirations is feathers.  I spend as much time looking at the ground for feathers as I walk as I do looking up in the trees for birds.  Last year when I was making a bag I embellished it with three types of feathers - beaded, real feathers, and a kantha feather.  Another feather I made a few weeks ago was from a piece of silk.  I drew a line down the centre of an imaginary feather with a gel pen, then cut it out and frayed all the edges with a pin.  It looks really lovely.

Silk feather

This is the "feather made of feathers" ...

Feathered Feather

It is rested on a piece of recycled flanellette sheeting that I dyed for the project - wonderful random warm colours.

Care of Feathers for Collectors:

In search of info on this topic, I found this page on EBay about caring for feathers, and I am linking to it for your interest.  Another thing I was told by someone is to always freeze feathers overnight (in a plastic bag, not on the shelf!) and this will kill any bugs on them - remember that one of the reasons birds shed feathers is because the wildlife on them is getting too itchy.

Another face

After looking through my Dye Unit Folder for more inspiration, I found this mop-up cloth - originally a piece of calico dyed with leftover orangey dye, then I used it to mop up all the little bits of dye left around inside my containers.  I didn't see the face until I heat-set it with the iron.  By the way, if you have an old iron it is better to use that for heat-setting dyed or painted cloth, otherwise you are forever cleaning your iron before using it on your best white blouse - and there's always a dot of red left behind on the iron from the dye or paint anyway, no matter how much you clean it!

Squinting Face

After looking through my "Faces" posts, I looked to see what else I could find online about faces - here is a post about an artist "Terry Grant"  painting faces on art quilts.  It is from 2005 but still rather interesting.  The second link shows some more of this artist's work.

Nature Photography and Encaustic

Yesterday I went to see the ANZANG Nature Photography Exhibition at the SA Museum - stunning photography, and I encourage you to have a look at the Museum page with the entries, link below - the picture at the top changes to show some of the photos in the exhibition.  Seeing the whole exhibition is even better.  http://www.anzang.samuseum.sa.gov.au/ 
My own nature photography is very amateur though I have taken a few good ones - this is one I took of a gecko trying to escape from the house while my husband hosts it.

Another thing I did yesterday while I was in Adelaide was to buy myself an encaustic wax set - has the wax, the special iron, the stylus, the paper - we had a fascinating demo at college recently and I spent a couple of hours using the college set, learning this new skill.  As I used the results in a journal cover for the Pepper Street exhibition next year I can't show you them but on accessing the website listed in the encaustic booklet I found a YouTube video showing cool techniques with a hotplate - oh no, something more to save up for, looks so wonderful to work with ...... here is the link for the video - 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDQaOuWjOLM

New look blog

I've been discovering how to customise my blog - adding pages, altering the sidebar and so on.  I have just this minute redone the two new pages so you might like to browse.

Another chooky

Fascinating - shells upon shells upon shells ...

On Saturday I had the opportunity to visit my eldest son's new home which is close to an Adelaide beach.  After a tasty lunch we went for a beach walk and one of the shells I found is called a razor shell.  It is a sort of triangle with rounded edges.  I have put in a link so you can read about it.  The fascinating thing about it was that it had a clam shell adhered to it, and small other types of shells adhered to that, and so on for several layers.  Then when you turn it to face you, there is a monster face!

Razor fish shell

Look closely to see the sea monster - once you pick out the eyes you can see the face