I finally finished the "Immerse" project I mentioned in the previous post. As some of you guessed it was wearable art. Despite living in the land of The World of Wearable Art for most of my life, I was never once, even for a second, tempted to enter. Basically it had always been on my Not To Do List.
But soon after I moved here I met a group of lovely and passionate people who were trying to get a new wearable art event off the ground for Mandurah's Stretch Arts Festival. I must have said "wearable art isn't my thing" about twenty times before I finally gave up, thought to myself "just be supportive" and so said "go on then" instead. I made a piece for their inaugural event in 2011 and at some stage I'll photograph it and show it to you. Given my usual dislike for making useless things I basically made a quilt and a dress.
Last year I was working like a madwoman and ran another little project at Stretch as part of my job so had no time to make anything other than dinners. This year, in a moment of weakness and much to my daughter's surprise, I again said Yes, albeit ten minutes before the entry cutoff time.
There are reasons why wearable art isn't my thing so to avoid these I set myself a few criteria. I was determined that my entry would a) not scare small children, b) not scare any of us more delicate adults, c) be a simple design, d) only use one material and e) not cost me more than a few gold coins to make. Then my partner brought home a huge pile of superseded advertising banners from his workplace because he doesn't like throwing things out and he thought I might be able to make something out of them. I looked at the lovely watery colours of the banners and the words on them which were Immerse and Splash. I thought about the theme for this year's Stretch Festival which is Identity. Lately I have been mucking around with smocking so I played with the banner fabric and made the huge smocked samples in the previous post. I finally finished my entry a few minutes before I was due to collect my gorgeous model (a former workmate) to go to the judging event.
Here is the longer version of what I wrote as the didactic for my entry. (Writing this stuff is so odd. It is a frock. With a mental hat!)
Immerse.
My piece is about two sorts of “immersion” and how these have changed my Identity since moving to Mandurah.
Firstly, I now spend a lot of time in and around water; I soon realised that to not do so here would be huge missed opportunity. I have discovered kayaking and am finally learning to swim. The colour and movement of Mandurah's beautiful waterways entrance me.
Secondly, in this piece I am playing with connection, expansion and changing direction as these are all things that immersion in the local arts scene has given me via a constant stream of wonderful opportunities.
So there above and below it is. Many thanks to my amazing model. (Sadly I don't look like that in it. I look certifiable.)
Seeing all the weird and wonderful directions the entrants went in was fascinating especially given that we all started from the same point: the word Identity. During the main Stretch Festival weekend there will be a public event where all the entries will be showcased. Details are as follows:
Common Threads of Identity Wearable Art Showcase
Sunday May 5th 2013 at 3.00pm
Boardwalk Theatre, Mandurah Performing Arts Centre
Come along to this free, ticketed show to see all the wearable art entries in all their glory.
Collect your free tickets from Mandurah Library, Falcon eLibrary and Community Centre or the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre.
The winners will be announced at that event but I must admit I'm not bothered as I have already had the ultimate positive feedback. In the car on the way home from the private judging event where these photographs were taken my daughter said in a somewhat surprised voice, "Mum, it looked really good!"
Now that I have ticked that off my Not To Do List (again) it is time for A cup of tea and a lie down, which incidentally was the name of my 2011 entry.
One of the great joys of not having most of my waking moments taken up with paid work is that when other interesting opportunities arise I can actually say "Yes!"
Now that I again have two children at the one school I have finally said Yes to joining the P&C (PTA). In my capacity as an opinionated bigmouth I was invited to participate in a series of scenario planning workshops for the Peel region run by Regional Development Australia, Peel. I am very pleased I said Yes as it was a great experience and I met some excellent people. I also said Yes to attending a series of professional development workshops presented by the local contemporary art gallery. Then I said Yes to being a voluntary gallery attendant at the same gallery on an ongoing basis and am loving my time there.
I have also said Yes to participating in various projects at Mandurah's annual community arts festival: Stretch. One of these is in a paid capacity but the others are just for fun.
Pictured above and below is a house I made for an exhibition at Stretch called My Place. All the participants were given a plain wooden house which we then decorated to turn it into My Place. I loved the house in its plain state as it looked like a Pixie House so I was tempted to simply paint it up like a Warren and Mahoney pixie but nobody here would get it. (If you don't get it either look at the lovely Pixie of the Day tumblr.)
I am not an artist and I still have an issue with making useless things (the issue is that I don't like doing it) so I turned my house into a card box house which, if it doesn't get trashed during the exhibition, I will eventually keep my crochet kit in.
The didactic that goes with it is:
A Room of One's Own
I am a maker and often have several projects on the go at a time: this can be messy! My favourite creations involve contemporary interpretations of traditional textile handcrafts. At the moment I don't have a space to work in so the next project on my "To make" list is a workroom.
Ironically all this making of pretend workrooms has of course slowed down the work on the real house and real workroom. Never mind, it was fun and soon Stretch will be over for another year and I won't have so many lovely things to distract me.
Here are some pictures of one of the other projects I am working on for Stretch. Firstly the inspiration (Pics stolen from all over interwebland. Oops.)
Then progress so far.
This one is called Immerse and as you can see it is still just a work in progress. This odd project will take a bit more explaining at some point; in the past if I had been asked to do this I would probably have said that I would rather stick pins in my eyes. But there we are. Things have changed. Saying Yes will do that.
Today I am waiting and waiting
and waiting
for some flooring action. Again.
Today, for once, I'm not bothered.
Usually I make stuff. Since we've been here I haven't made much apart from dinner and clean laundry piles, even though I have the best sewing room I've had for a decade and no lack of time. A couple of vital ingredients are still missing from the mix but I'm working on getting them sorted. In the meantime I've just realised have made something here that I rather like.
I like growing food and dearly miss having a vegetable garden. I also can't stand putting green waste in the rubbish, but there is no organic waste collection here and no compost bin at this house. The back garden at our rental house consists of a bit of skanky old lawn and a few grim conifers growing in pure sand. Much as I'd love to dig it up and plant something useful, my lease agreement forbids me and I am far too much of a goody-two-shoes to contravene it. (My lease agreement also says that I have to water the huckery garden to keep it green and if I don't then I won't get my bond back. Hmmm. In parched Western Australia, where our precious water is obtained at huge financial and environmental cost, this strikes me as completely bonkers, so I'll conveniently lose my goody-two-shoes over that clause.)
So anyway I mail-ordered a Bokashi bin then spent the equivalent of a fortnight's worth of bagged salad at a garden centre and built a tiny, portable garden. This surprisingly productive patch is small enough to be watered with the clean warm-up water we capture in buckets and jugs placed in showers and sinks. It has already produced enough food to have paid itself off several times over.
So what next on the making front? Well first I'm going to make that coffee, a chapter of my book and that piece of ginger crunch (made by my daughter for her Dad's birthday) disappear, then I'm going to make a posh dinner. And given that I've just received the most beautiful and inspiring care parcel in the post from two amazingly talented makers, I think I finally feel a bit more adventurous making coming on.
