Little Fish Creations

Back to our regularly scheduled program

Posted on April 27, 2006 by

The Dredger was juried into Fabricate. YAY!

Even though I was in two minds about submitting my art for public exhibition, I am pleased that the jury selected my work, and not only because my $35 will not be wasted.

I am interested to see how the quilt will look hanging in a gallery and I am excited that others who have an interest and a passion for contemporary textile art will get to see my art and I’ll get to see other textile art as well.

So, I’m not going to bore you with excessive detail about my holidays (very, very good: see above photo), the sickness (Me:cold, Riscy:gastro, big time!), the renovations (our house resembles a weird half hovel, half bomb site – we have no kitchen), or how annoying it is to be back at work… Instead I will launch straight back into art, which seems more sane than anything else at the moment.

I’m interested in layers. The Dredger was devoid of any layering of imagery. I had all sorts of visions of the quilting providing richness of detail to foil against the harshness and to provide depth. But I could not
achive that, the quilting lines were just too insignificant against the monumental dredger

I am looking for something more, a way of really incorporating layers and detail into my work, AND I have some ideas to work with too… what more could you ask LOL

You may be wondering about The Impeller, a design I showed here a while ago. I am oscillating between making it and hating it so I’ve decided to leave it for a while. I have some smaller projects to keep me occupied while I contemplate LAYERS. For starters I need a new hand bag… and I promised one to a friend over a year ago so perhaps two handbags are in the works.

Posted in Misc | 7 Comments

A Short Return

Posted on April 20, 2006 by

Ice Tray, Away Away Away

Posted on April 6, 2006 by

Posted in Misc | 3 Comments

On Creativity and Art

Posted on April 5, 2006 by

I used to have this idea that artists should be able to create with ease, remember Mr Squiggle who could draw with his pencil nose a few seconds, a few lines and ‘upside down Miss Jane’ and wow a picture was revealed.

Pro Hart, smearing spagetti and mustard all over the carpet, sloshing, smattering food and in the space of a TV advertisement he had created ‘art’.

And the quilt artists, all that fusing and splattering dye around, slashing at quilts… Tyvek, angelina fibre, beads, embellishers, fancy machine stitches, dyed silk cocoons… it should be easy.

So I tried improvisation, I’d just start sewing, cutting, painting… no plan of couse the ideas are meant to just ‘come out’ spontaneously, right?

I rarely finished anything though, never sure where I was headed, never in love with my work.

But one day I was playing around with some of my photos and I happened upon a fragment of an image that took my breath away. I printed it out and took it to a workshop I was doing, I showed all the printouts to another participant and she said ‘this one is great!’ and out of my mouth popped… "I’m going to make this into a quilt"

And I did. And it was worthwhile.

Melody Johnson wrote a post the other day titled Design and Improvisation. It got my brain churning.

I am now thinking that whilst improvisation and experimentation is very valuable for skill development, for developing new ‘effects’, for developing ideas…. I should not see the product of this experimentation as art, unless I really develop a piece fully past that stage.

My experience with The Dredger has exposed a wonderful, fulfilling way of working. Get the idea first, think on it, develop it out then start working on the piece. Six months ago this would have been unthinkable for me, but now, it is the only way forward.

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Temporarily Back to Regular Programming

Posted on April 3, 2006 by

Posted in Spinning | 2 Comments

Dredger – Finished

Posted on April 2, 2006 by

Posted in Knitting | 6 Comments

Some Techincal Difficulties and a Breakthrough

Posted on March 30, 2006 by

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Colour Craving

Posted on March 28, 2006 by

Posted in Misc | 8 Comments

The Church

Posted on March 27, 2006 by

Posted in Misc | 2 Comments

And a quilting we shall go

Posted on March 26, 2006 by

It is hard to say how much more quilting I have to do on the Dredger Quilt, perhaps 1/4 maybe less. It depends how much quilting I do in the trusses.

This is where I was at last night. I wanted to incorporate text and I went with the obvious… but perhaps
in a years time, not so obvious.

Last night Riscy and I went to a perfomance which took place on the dredger. It was staged as part of the Commonwealth Games celebrations. The dredger was a very dramatic setting as you can imagine, especially with images projected onto such a huge machine and aerial performers leaping about the place.

It was an impressive community event, however Riscy summed up my feelings very well when he said it was designed to appeal to the very young and the elderly. It felt a little bit like an oversized school production where all the grades have to perform and the production lacked a little bit of cohesiveness and perhaps even quality control… however as a participation event, wonderful.

I have revisited the quilting motif I tediously unpicked the other
day… This time with a blending thread and a bit less dense. I’ve
covered about a quarter of the background with this, so there is no
going back!

This weekend I also joined ARC Yinnar. I am interested to see how this works out. As well as providing good workshop facilities so I can continue to dye after the kitchen renovation, I hope that face to face contact with other creative people will be fun and motivating.

One interesting aspect that I think I’ll have to deal with is showing my work in public, ARC has a gallery and lots of group shows. I know that sounds funny, considering I show photos here on my blog all the time, but I still feel a bit intimidated.

I have also been spinning, picking through a fleece and washing wool today whilst watching the final events of the Commonwealth Games, this was the only day of the Games that I watched though, so I didn’t feel too bad about being sucked into watching the cycling and netball.