My SAQA Oceania Square

Desert Finds

I started my square by stretching fabric lightly between two frames in my backyard on a sunny day and painting it. I wanted a warm colour - like the silky sand that our feet slipped into as we walked, sometimes up to our ankles on the dunes. At the end of our fifteen day trip across the Sahara our feet were polished and smooth - I do not think they will ever look like that again.

The paint is HiLo and I really love it. I do not try to paint specific things with hard edges - but for colour backgrounds it is perfect. I blend as I go, I work with the fabric damp, I tinge pure colour with a few drops of black to make it feel more natural, and occasionally flick other colours into it while it is still wet. I also painted greys and blacks so I had fabric I could cut and piece.

Then I started having fun. I cut a piece to use as a background. As we travelled we had found wonderful tools - in most of the areas where we stopped. We had a rule - 'one thing a day could be picked up' as we wanted to leave the desert as close as possible to the way we found it.

I used Tsukineko inks and their stick applicators to draw out my small tools. I used several techniques for this - I sketched first in pencil and filled in completely in colour and I also left some as line drawings. I worked briefly with archaeologists when living in Jordan so I had drawn up some images with them and knew the conventions that many use to imply shadows - though my drawing process was quick and dirty in comparison.

 I drew four small tools. I am really fascinated with these - rocks that have been in the region since the earth formed, altered and shaped by people from long ago. I feel that when I reach down to pick up a small piece I am the first person to touch it since that hand - probably more than 9,000 years ago, dropped it and lost it, or discarded it as not quite good enough.

 I wanted another darker reference as a lot of the driving we did was over black rock, sometimes sharp edged, sometimes wind shaped and rounded, and the sand slid down in the cracks.

I found some pinwhale corduroy which bleaches gold and put pebbles on it, then lightly sprayed it with bleach. I let that sit in the sun until the colour looked interesting.

At around that point I completely forgot that I was supposed to be photographing my process and sewed it together and quilted it - so I am treating each section separately here.

I quilted around my rocks and put curves like contours in the backgrounds.

I pieced my favourite strip-pieced crosses to stand for the grids an archaeologist puts on the earth before and during the cutting process, and I quilted those in the ditch.

  The sharp change between the pale gold of the sand and the darkness of the corduroy worried me. I knew that I was going to fix that and soften the edge - so I found my few remaining sticks of D'Uva Lithocoal. If anyone has this in a back room - I will buy it! Please. It is wonderful. It is a heat-fixable charcoal that acts like a willow charcoal. It is light and powdery when applied and will just fall off if you tip it so I work on an ironing board and draw, then cover with baking paper or parchment and iron it - and it is permanent.

 That is definitely better. The charcoal picks up the high points of the quilting, and leaves light colour in the ditch, just as sand fell between the rocks.

 I quilted my greys from the handpainted fabric in contours, to reference mapping.

 

 I did not like the fact that one cross that looked prominent was cut off - so I quilted it in and painted it gold, then added more gold crosses.

I face my work instead of binding it - I like the way a facing is quick and easy, but I also feel that it is more contemporary for art quilts - it gives a sleek edge and work goes right to the edge to inply that continuation beyond.

 A sneak peek at the back - also painted fabric.

 And it is finished. Desert Finds, by Jenny Bowker

100 - Celebrating Canberra

I am part of a group of artists who use quilting as our medium. We are called tACTile - because we all live in the Australian Capital Territory - the ACT.

This year is our capital city's birthday. To celebrate Canberra's centenary we decided - two years ago when we seemed to have masses of time - to make twenty pieces each. that is a total of 100 pieces. We applied for a beautiful Canberra gallery - The Belconnen Arts Centre - and got the booking to coincide with Canberra Quilters' annual show.

There are six people in tACTile. Dianne Firth, Helen Gray, Beth Miller, Beth and Trevor Reid who work together as a single artist, and me.

The show has been open since the 9th August - and I have been so busy that I have only just managed to get around to writing something about it.

I think the easiest way to show you our work is to allow the Artist's statements to do the talking. First - some general gallery images, then some individual work with that artist's statement. I apologise for the fact that I did not bring the catalogue home and so do not have the titles of the work. I also took the images on an iPad - which is not ideal - in less than perfect light. Excuses!

The artists are in alphabetical order - which puts me first!

Jenny BOWKER: CANBERRA SKETCHES

My work is about the relationship between the city of Canberra and the people who live here.

I wanted to show that Canberra is a busy, lively, happy city, full of ordinary people working and living and bringing up their families. The myths of this city - that it is cold and unfriendly, and blamed for decisions made by Parliament - are not the realities of this special place.

I wanted my work to feel as if the viewer was flicking through my sketchbook, with occasional colour and text. I hoped Canberrans would feel connected to the work as they recognised the locations, and for people beyond Canberra to recognise the familiar in the things we do.

As I stitched the lines that created my people I was aware that one unbroken thread connected the buildings to the landscape – and the people to the buildings – as one continuous, flowing, living, active city. 

     

Dianne FIRTH:          THE CANBERRA SITE 

Walter Burley Griffin wrote a report to accompany his design for the new Federal Capital. He noted that the peculiar advantages of Canberra lay principally in five site characteristics: the mountain ranges for background; local mounts for aspect and prospect; hills and spurs as the termini of avenues and for the most important structures; valleys for habitation and industry; and the Molonglo River and flood basin for architectural effect, recreation and for the improvement of the climate.

My artwork focuses on these five site characteristics. I have referenced the contribution of surveyor, architect and landscape architect through the use of their three main methods of graphic representation: the perspective, the section and the plan. Each site characteristic has been explored in terms of these three modes of representation. The horizontal arrangement of the five sections to create a panorama has been informed by the way Marion Mahoney Griffin used sections to illustrate the city plan.

The selection of materials is also symbolic. Felt was chosen to symbolise solidness of earth and the opaqueness of cloud, while net was chosen to symbolise the transparency of air and water. The colours of orange, grey and black reference earth, air and water.

Finally, in five framed works, the Molonglo River system has been dissected into five key parts; river, tributary, lake, basin, and wetland.

 

I apologise for the quality of the photographs of Helen Gray's work. The work is huge and the wall has a window on either side and one narrow one below - so it is backlit. Please look again at the gallery view above for a better distance view of part of it showing the wonderful Sparkling Lake.

Helen GRAY: LAKE BURLEY GRIFFIN: Then and Now

Architect Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin planned the ideal city with a lake as its heart.

A photo of a family home, a dairy, on the banks of the Molonglo River where Lake Burley Griffin is now situated, hangs on the wall of a friend’s home.  ‘Riverview’, one of a dozen dairies along the river described as ‘not much more than a creek’.

Conversations produced a wealth of stories about the making of Canberra, the city planned from vast open plains.  Stories of a time before the damning of the river, of distant hills and big skies, of a golf course and a race track, of sports fields and more. And then of carting the silt ‘like there was no tomorrow’ to make the nature strips of our suburbs.

March 2013 and the centenary of the city is celebrated around the lake. Robyn Archer got it right. The lake sparkled with activity, became a stage surrounded by fun and festivity, as an eclectic fleet of water craft entertained with music and colour. Canberrans came to hear the music, see the acts, watch the light displays, enjoy the food and each others company; no fuss, picnic basket and rug, dogs on leash, bicycles and strollers, all around the central basin of the lake in the heart of this spacious, elegant city.

It would have made Walter and Marions’ hearts sing.

 

BETH MILLER

Cyclone Tracey, which devastated Darwin in 1974, was the catalyst for many Territorian families to relocate to the southern states. Our young family was no exception and we moved to Canberra in August 1975.

For this exhibition I decided to have a combination of pieces that represented the work of the Griffin legacy but also have a more modern approach to how Canberra has grown since my arrival in 1975.  I found that most of my work has been done in sections to showcase this theme.

The Bush Capital section represents the Indigenous trees that are local to the area and also the introduced trees that have been planted in abundance to create a natural harmony.  The trees that I have chosen are the Blakely’s Red Gum and the Crab Apple.  For each tree I have chosen to represent the bark, the leaf, the flower and also the fruit in the case of the Crab Apple.

The floral and faunal emblems, the Royal Bluebell, and the Gang-gang Cockatoo represent the A.C.T. government, whereas, the festivals are part of the many that are celebrated throughout the year and are enjoyed by the locals and tourist alike.

The choice of the location had to be represented as Canberra is surrounded by the beautiful Brindabella Mountains, the wide open plains and easy access to the snow, sea and Sydney. The landmark, Telstra Tower has become a symbol for most travelling Canberrians where upon sighting the tower we know we are almost home.

I am hoping that as the public view my work they will realize that not only is Canberra the Capital of Australia, the political seat, but a rich and vibrant city to live in.

     

Beth and Trevor REID

There are many reasons to love Canberra, two that come to mind immediately are the design of the city and its suburbs, the avenues, boulevards and roundabouts that make the city unique.  The proximity of the bush, the fact that the city is married to the natural environment, hence the reference ‘Bush Capital’. 

It is this marriage of bush and city, the design for four seasons, the heat of summer, the colour of autumn, the chill of winter (prompting an extra quilt on the bed) and the joy of spring that make this city our home.  Coming to Canberra in the early 80’s we were struck by the way the suburbs disappeared into the bush, the corridors of green that came right into the city centre and the feeling that Canberra was one big country town.

One of the first exhibitions we saw in coming to Canberra was an exhibition of Walter Burley Griffins plans and the striking elevations drawn  and painted by his wife, Marion Mahony Griffin, these were displayed, along with Coulter’s panorama, at Regatta  Point and made a lasting impression. Although the city is much changed from these first images, it remains a unique and elegant place to live.

It is a beautiful exhibition. I have missed one major element - maybe I will put that in tomorrow.