nine years later

back in 2005 i had the absolute joy of undertaking my first [formal ie paid for] costume commission.
the production was 'petroglyphs - signs of life' and the company Leigh Warren + Dancers

i designed and made the costumes, twined a large ball of string that became a key prop and devised the poster image.

it was a wonderful experience.

working on 'petroglyphs' led [in 2007] to creating costumes for the West Australian Ballet production 'debris'...dancer Frances Rings [who had joined LW+D for 'petroglyphs'] had been commissioned to choreograph the show and requested to have me as costume designer

now nine years later i have the delight of working with Gala Moody and Michael Carter who were also members of LW+D back in 2005

both now live in Spain but have been in Adelaide this month working with Leigh Warren and State Opera on the Philip Glass Opera trilogy, Leigh's last production before he hands the dance company that he founded some twenty-five years ago to a new artistic director and heads for fresh fields

the morsels on their bodies were part of the blue series i began in New Orleans and continued in Portland [last year]

kicking myself that i skipped taking a photo of Michael in one of these shirt collar pieces

but am hoping that [sooner or later] a moving image will appear on Michael's website

&

my favourite production so far for  Leigh Warren + Dancers

two bodies dancing

about Frances Rings

lastly, clicking on the photo below will take you to a link with more images from Debris

photo above by Jenni Large, borrowed from the Artful management website for purposes of tempting readers toward the link

loose ends

the Wild Rose came home for the weekend

and was persuaded to try on this dress

commissioned by

Company Miji

[i designed and made the cozzies for their production 

Reliquary a couple of years ago]

her well-meaning but not wildly bright friend Molly

helped.

Molly is more Staffy than Border Collie

but has Very Good Intentions

i too had good intentions today

and spent my daylight hours

alternately hand-stitching on the dress

and 

virtually stitching on my website

which had been a little neglected

i also put together a small book

with images and the text

from 

muddy waters

back to work

hand sewing costumes for

Company Miji

gibbering happily

i was so excited after the performance last night

which i have to say was utterly magical

that i forgot to wash the conditioner out of my hair this morning

and went down to breakfast wearing

a new and startling version of the 

"surprised parrot" hairstyle i seem to have been perfecting this year.

sigh.

luckily it was yummy Aesop and so

the fragrance [when it dawned on me]

didn't overpower my bucket of coffee

it was a pretty exciting day yesterday on all counts

including catching up with a friend i hadn't seen or heard from for 8 years

[who now lives mostly in Spain]

doing a trade with a stallholder at the Fringe Craft Market -

i swapped a silk scarf for the big white bead in the image below

...it is "vegetable ivory"

and i like it very much indeed

it goes very well with the rest of the collection

which features treasures including work by Roz Hawker

and Hanne Eriksen

the copper pennies in conjunction with

berberis and local water

produced an unexpected colour

but quite suited to Scotland

Lady Macbeth would love it

but i poured it onto the work anyway

waste not, want not

and after all

it IS a travel journal of sorts

and last but not least [and much less surprising]

the one bunny

had morphed

into two

and the icing on the cupcake

is that i'll be back in Scotland next year

details coming soon

fingers crossed

fingers crossed i'll see you on the other side

off to see 'breathe' performed at Edinburgh

then teach two classes

and

hop the Atlantic

to take part in the New Work

Session at Haystack.

shall drive up the coast from Boston

maybe make a detour into Vermont

for another adventure

or

three

we shall see

New York, New York

if you're in New York next August...you'll have the chance to see my favourite dance company

Leigh Warren & Dancers

and with good luck and good management, i'll be in the audience too
reminding myself to breathe

and while we're reminiscing and handing out bouquets

just thinking about the happy connections that have spread
a bit like mycelium
over the past quarter century
i'd like to acknowledge Kay Lawrence
who, while sitting dam-side by a campfire on my folks' farm one day
said
"why don't you do a Masters?"
when i was [as usual] rabbitting on about plants and dyes
so i did
and then on my last day at the post-grad studio
i picked up the telephone
and [very boldly]
rang the Leigh Warren Dance company
fully expecting to be fielded by an administrator.
the great man himself answered the phone
and when i stammered that i would like to show him some textiles
said
"why don't you pop in now, seeing you're just around the corner"
which led to me doing the costumes for
'petroglyphs', 'wanderlust', 'seven' and now 'breathe'
[and because Frances Rings was dancing in 'petroglyphs'...and quite liked her frock, i think, she asked me to do the cozzies for 'debris', the production she choreographed for the West Australian Ballet]

and where do i turn to source the materials for this work?
Beautiful Silks.
and where did i first meet Marion [the Supreme Bird who manages that magical resource]?
you guessed it
at a Fibre Forum
organised by the lovely Janet de Boer

while i scour thrift stores and op shops, vintage suppliers of Japanese textiles
and the tip shops of the whirled to make all sorts of things
when it comes to making costumes that dancers will wear night after night
it's kindest to put them in new cloth
silk is gorgeous to dance in
and dyes beautifully

for 'breathe' i've used silk [satin and gauze and organza] from Beautiful Silks [this link takes you to their blog]
and of course also Milkymerino TM
which [while i sourced it directly from the producers] will be stocked by BS
and so available to all who have lusted after it in the past

the big dress in the pix is based on Julian Roberts' subtraction cutting principles
[except that because i built it before i went to his class so it's put together a little differently than he would have done]
plus
it's a double dress
two bodices
cut from a rectangle [Julian worked with tubes in the class]
of silk organza that measured 12.5metres x 5.2metres*
try and fit THAT on a sewing table

 a composite lapshot pasted
together using the panorama app -
that blurry thing in the foreground
is my studio assistant Martha...

*the rectangle was stitched together using my overlocker and favourite thread 65%silk+35%cotton
my students will know i have a passion for it...but how to fit the thick stuff through a machine? easy. i talk to my friend Marion and make bleating noises about "wouldn't it be lovely if my favourite thread were available thinner"
a few weeks elapse
and a parcel arrives
the perfect response to my request. oddly the mixed thread dyes better than the pure silk, i think because the surface isn't so smooth and there's something for the colour to grip on to....

drawing for dancing

it's good to be back in the dance studio
working on 'breathe' for Leigh Warren & Dancers
with Frances Rings as choreographer

the costumes will be made from silk and wool and Milkymerino TM

if you're in Adelaide for Womad on the second weekend of March
you can see the production at 9 pm on the Saturday
8.30 on the Sunday

petroglyphs

this evening i had the pleasure of watching my favourite dance company "Leigh Warren & Dancers" perform in a return season of petroglyphs, which premiered in 2005 (and was the first of my costume collections for the company)

costumes hang in the space, some to set the scene, others for on-set changes

it's fantastic to see one's work come to life on the dancers' bodies. this work is particularly moving as it is performed in promenade with the audience milling about between the dancers - somehow it feels as though one is assisting at a ceremony (and the music, by Australian composer Brett Dean, is fantastic)

here's a bit of the 2005 version

stepping into the light

and here they are, dancing in their beautiful hand-sewn costumes (for elucidation read previous post) made entirely from salvaged materials...

and thank you Llawenyth for sending me the images...

hey honey, how was your day?

When the fictitious life-partner comes home this evening (see somewhere over the rainbow) and says ‘hi Honey, how was your day?’ I’ll be able to give a good account of myself.
I chopped wood, fed the poddy, screwed the door handle back on again, sharpened the gardening tools, played relatively harmonious noises on the saxophone and cut grass for the chooks and bunnies…and, oh yes, I spent an hour carefully cutting leaf shapes from Spanish onion skins.
Yup, it’s true. And why?

Blame Adelaide’s reticulated water supply, folks. One of the costumes I’d made for Leigh Warren & Dancers’ recent production “Seven” had changed colour suddenly after a recent laundering. It had been ecoprinted with purple prunus leaves and was holding up very nicely until now. My suspicion is that the reservoirs may just have received their annual dose of copper sulphate (about 40 tonnes per pond) and that this, along with increased levels of salt in the water (concentrated due to evaporative activity) may have tipped the little apron over the brink. The leaf prints had, for whatever reason, turned a deep tan.

August is not a good month for finding purple prunus leaves in the southern hemisphere, so what’s a girl to do? Yep, sit down and trim a bag of saved purple Spanish onion skins to the right shape. A true labour of love happily undertaken for my favourite dance company; all in all quite a productive day, I thought.

Pity I forgot to wash up, vacuum my bedroom and hang out the sheets...good thing the dream-boat partner remains just that…a figment of fiction and dreams!

but if you're looking for the picture of true love, look at the photo below. Rodin, eat your heart out!