Time Challenge "One Tiny Speck"

Late again, apologies, but yee should be used to me by now.

I was pondering this one for several weeks playing with ideas while doing all the other stuff that occupies my time.

I feel really small and humble when I think of the age of this large rock we call home.

And I'm beginning to feel time slipping away so fast.

I'm still waiting to grow up and become one of those adults and I was most upset last week to find out I was still at college when one of my students was born!!

I thought I cann't be that old, then did the math, and realised yes you are.

So here it is, been playing in Photoshop again.

Used the last piece of the A3 transfer paper I found and transfered onto white cotton.

Made my sandwich and started quilting.

Here's the original image:

The quilting didn't go very well as the transfer paper started disintregrating. I put it onto fine cotton this time, bad mistake !!

Here's a close up you can just about see some of the background layers peeping through.

Final closeup and time to move on to the next challenge.

It's about time!

Well, better late than never, I hope.  Oh my, but I struggled with time with this challenge.  The idea developed quite organically but the realisation of my idea presented me with a lot of technical challenges to solve, and it's quite a relief to have completed it, albeit tardily.

So, my time piece is - a time piece!

It is a quilt (or two) and it works!  For more about the inspiration, the process and the problems, please follow this link.  Now to get thinking about Felicity's challenge, Land/marks....  Hopefully my time prompt will help me with this.

next challenge - landmarks

the next challenge theme is landmarks or land/marks or land marks or land(marks) - however you want to characterise it.

due on 15 july...

my time piece

here is my piece for the latest international quilt challenge.

 i wanted to demonstrate a process rather than explore an idea or a feeling so it is about the effects of time and weathering cloth and stitch.

i machine stitched strips of vintage linen, silk and cotton; then hand stitched lines of running stitch in silk and cotton thread. there are also a few loose clusters of french knots as a vague reference to the pleiades - my favourite constellation.

 i then stitched a labyrinth of copper wire which i hoped would weather and verdigris and colour then colour but quite early in the weathering process it became clear that this wasn't going to happened so i intervened with a stout piece of rusty iron. once the piece was rinsed of potential nasties and left to dry in the sun for a day or two i outlined the rust marks with red thread and burnished the centre with some copper and pale gold paintstick.


this piece took much longer than i anticipated:  it needed much more macerating in the garden that i thought and we have had remarkably fine weather for most of the time it was out under the feijoa tree.... here it is before rinsing and gussying up....

Timelapse

Well, here is my piece, 2 weeks late, but better late than never!

As I said on my blog, I was thinking of the passing of time and the different seasons that I had been observing in some reedbeds each month throughout the year.  I related it to the timelapse video function on some cameras and on programmes like Springwatch, where the camera takes photos of a slowly moving or growing thing at regular intervals; the resulting photos are then made into a video.

I thought about the different colours of the reeds throughout the year; I first considered making it circular like a clock but decided that that wouldn't fit the subject... so I made it long and thin.  Mostly I used a base layer of cotton fabrics and then layered it with sheer fabrics, some of which were leftovers from my Reeds series.  It is bonded and stitched on to a foundation of lutradur and the raw edges left intact.

Here is a detail of the lower right hand corner:

Survival

How appropriate this theme has turned out to be for me, because time has been even more of an issue for me this past month than usual.  And that means I am late with this challenge, and it is not even finished yet!  But this afternoon I am leaving for Singapore for a few days work, and so no further quilting will be done, at least until my return, so I thought I should at least post a progress picture:

I have actually been having a wonderfully creative time since my last post, so I am really not complaining!  I attended the 4 days of the Australasian Quilt Convention here in Melbourne, and did a fabulous 4 day course with Kay Haerland on "Realistic Landscapes". http://kayhaerland.com/  Such a talented quilt artist and generous teacher!  AQC is without a doubt the highlight of my year!

The following week I was very fortunate to do a 3 day "Abstracting from Nature" workshop with Jane Sassaman www.janesassaman.com/ at Kraft Koulour kraftkolour.com.au/  So from realism to abstraction in the space of a week.  I reckon the creative part of my brain was glowing when I went to bed at night!  However, I am not sure that I really made the leap into abstraction....

For the IQC theme of Time, I had planned a long banner of the different life cycle stages of a dandelion (snap, Angela!), and have completed the design on paper, but have yet to do anything about transferring the idea into fabric.

But...as I was working on this quilt, "Survival", I realised that it is really about time, so I hope it is not cheating to adopt this as my challenge quilt.  Not just because of the lack of time I have had to make the dandelion quilt, but because this quilt is about the really difficult journey towards survival (of individuals, families and communities) after a disaster.  It is inspired by the devastating "Black Saturday" bushfires, here in Victoria, just over 3 years ago.  I don't really feel comfortable providing an "artist statement" about the different elements, and hope that it is sufficient that the quilt speaks for itself.

Surprisingly, this is actually the result of the Jane Sassaman workshop.  I know, hardly abstract, but this is actually a very meaningful quilt for me, and I am pleased with it so far.  I will post another photo when it is completed.

TIME FOR CHANGE

I have been thrown a bit by the new layout but I shall do my best.  The work is a diptych inspired by the need for change.  I have used a decontructed Union Jack for the background, reflecting the chaotic state of the nation.  The figures were made in fabric from my own sketches & then scanned onto the background.
The captions on the placards refers to the so-called 'pasty tax' & arose from an article in the paper when a lady from Helston stated that she was thinking of putting these words in her pasty shop window.  (For non-UK members the 'pasty tax' was the name given to our government's decision to put VAT on hot pasties which had been exempt previously.  This appears to have hit the renowned Cornish pasty particularly hard).

The 2 pieces together are A3, printed onto computer transfer paper & quilted.

My progress so far...

I have just written a blog post which includes my thinking so far on the Time challenge... basically I have just changed tack completely but hopefully I know where I'm going now....

It is at the end of a post about my latest artwork which is why it is on my own blog rather than here ... Watch this space!