Thursday 20 February 2014

blooms

back in 2002 the Helpmann Academy invited me to act as mentor to one of their flock of fresh graduates : Julia Robinson and I spent a few months sharing interesting conversations, creating small installations in the Wild Wood here on the farm and having the odd cup of tea

i'm still plugging away teaching, making frocks, calling cattle and writing but Julia has risen to far dizzier heights...creating installations for the Adelaide Festival of Arts

on the other hand
i have an exhibition in New Orleans soon
fieldnotes opens on March 11th

if you're in the Marigny around then, do swing by!



15 comments:

  1. I wish ...
    beautiful dress, I love the deep rust and the blue notes ... elegant and vibrant :)

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  2. good to see the whole endless horizons dress, is it also for fieldnotes or your daughter , goof luck with the exhibition

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  3. A most bewitching frock, my favorite so far. The colors, the drape, the glow, so magnificent.

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  4. Love the frock. Maybe in my 20's I could have pulled that one off. It's lovely on the model...who I suspect is Violette? Lucky her. Enjoy!

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    1. tis indeed my Violette...and today the Wild Rose will be modelling for the Adelaide Hills Magazine. SO lucky to have gorgeous house models!

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  5. wonderful frock. when your students excel, it's huge, indeed. well done!

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    1. it is indeed truly wonderful to see students excelling and i will say that the students i am most proud of are the ones who have remained true to themselves.

      there's a wonderful local farrier [of international renown] who teaches but who says that "one workshop doth not a farrier make" and that his teaching is so that people can trim their own horses feet BUT that if he catches them teaching...there WILL be litigation.

      unlike him i don't put conditions on my teaching. it isn't rocket science or medicine after all and not likely to lame a horse if it goes wrong and besides the ecoprint technique has been practiced by Latvians for thousands of years, it's just that i happened to translate it to cloth and paper by thinking about Shibori-zome and eggs together.

      but i will admit to being astonished at just how many students attend one class [or buy a book] and then feel empowered to launch an etsy shop, or start a fashion label, or offer simply workshops in my techniques.

      in the past four years i have myself attended a wide range of classes with people i respect hugely including Julian Robertson, Helen Carnac, Chris Orchard, Sandra Brownlee, Dorothy Caldwell and Naomi Shihab Nye - but i'm not planning to set up as competition to any of them nor do i think that one workshop would give me the ability to do so. [maybe i'm just a slow learner]

      as i said at the beginning, i'm so proud [and pleased for] those who have learned from me but then translated the techniques via their own hand...people like Brece Honeycutt, Lotta Helleborg, Isobel McGarry, Roz Hawker, Judy Keylock and Imbi Davidson [to name but a very few] whose work fills me with awe and wonder

      and Nancy Zeller, about to embark on an amazing adventure investigating local plants in Rwanda for their dye potential using the ecoprint technique as a quick means of assessing available colour to help the women develop means of making a living. it's going to mean lots of learning about local plant varieties, their abundance, their traditional meanings and uses - but may be the means of developing a sound cottage industry using sustainable practices. that would be a very good thing.

      but to do/learn anything really well takes time.

      and oh how i wish i had more of it!

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  6. I'm completely gaga over that dress ... the combo of line, color [oooh, the bodice!] and form is so utterly fab. You'd better take lots of pikies at fieldnotes so that I can continue to live vicariously and see more of these recent treasures.

    And those words above, in reply to Velma ... lots of important food for thought and reminding...

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    1. must admit i've developed a bit of a fondness for that frock...it's a shape that's a delight to repeat-sew as though the bodice remains more or less constant, the skirt is never quite the same shape, though similar. the sort of thing that keeps a Sagittarian happy!

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  7. Keeping us Sags happy is a life's work!
    Great stuff, as always.

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  8. i am with one who said, maybe when I was 20.....however, that thought in no way diminishes the beauty of the gown or the model. perfect fit. one teaches one, the one teaches another, forever.

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    1. and i'm with you on the chain of teaching, how else would we learn?

      ...it's just that when i get a student in class who says "i have 15 people attending a workshop with me next week to learn this technique, do you have any printed sheets i can take?" i do wonder a bit.

      i'd be wanting to do a bit of practice first!

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  9. The dress is just absolutely gorgeous! I wish I was going to be in New Orleans to see your exhibit.

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