still dancing

it's been nearly ten years since Leigh Warren kindly commissioned me to 

make costumes for the seminal work Petroglyphs 

but it feels like a lifetime ago

there's been so much water down the river since then
(including a journey to Japan for Wanderlust
and a Scottish adventure when we took breathe to the
Edinburgh Festival)

on Tuesday I pootled into Adelaide with a bagful of dresses
so Leigh could choose one for a fringe production he is involved in

Leigh playing with a frock and being gorgeous as ever

oh, and if you're looking for somewhere fabulous to stay in the inner burbs 

of the capital of South Australia (and only a brisk walk from the restaurants of North Adelaide) do investigate AirBnB...Leigh's house (draped here and there with bits of ecoprint cloth by yours truly) is listed there and it's just lovely. Leigh and his lovely burmese cats will make you most welcome!

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

Midsummer murmurs

i had made seven dresses

for the seven daughters-seven sisters exhibition

due to open in Portugal next weekend

but in a bit of a Sagittarian moment

i had an attack of claustrophobia

caused in part

by someone telling me they'd seen clothes

looking very much like mine

in a store in LA

that wasn't Church Boutique

i suddenly decided those seven sisters

needed to be a completely different shape

and so 'slow cloth' went out the window

and speedy sewing came in the door

assisted by Yoda-san

he found it exhausting

so did i.

but it was worth it in the end

and now they are in the cauldron

and that, my friends, is as much as you will see of them

until they have had a chance to dance at Evoramonte

because i want this exhibition to be fresh and lovely

not

a dim shadow

that has already been replicated

and offered for sale by someone else

before the sisters have had time to settle in their castle

+

now please

don't bother making comments that shout down the replicant

or are intended to bolster my ego

this is not about that

because

by happy coincidence

the Dogs Above smiled

and showed me a new way of putting together cloth

to form three dimensions from two

literally sculpting dresses from silk

although

almost impossible to draft on paper

it took me into the Gehry zone

where the model has to be made first 

in order to understand

how the engineering works

and while i don't think i can explain the process

i'm pretty sure i can do it again

like wearing a watercolour

i was so excited to be at home
and unpacking a pot just for me
that i completely forgot to take pix of the cooked bundles
they were rather luscious, if i say it myself

i love dyeing SilkyMerino. it takes colour so very well
and it feels so delicious and buttery soft when worn
[i really need to do a dance commission again, just to show the whirled what a versatile fabric it is]

anyway the three presents have been packed up and will go to the Post Office tomorrow
[for some reason i cannot face driving into the village today and there are too many flies for walking to be fun]
which leaves a limited edition of SilkyMerino loop scarves available for purchase.
i'll make it lucky dip as the colours are "of consistent variety" throughout.

there are a couple on which i only used Eucalyptus cineria
that look like this

but mostly they are variations on this theme

i'm notorious for dropping scarves and from a small child was always concerned NOT to emulate Isadora Duncan so i like my scarves not to fall off.

these are 50cm x 70cm [which would be 140cm if opened out].

wear them slung once as a neck ornament
wrapped twice for a lovely loose twisted scarf
or three times around to keep out a good ice storm

you can even flip a loop over your ears in a pinch
and it's like wearing a watercolour painting

anyway if you think you might like one, simply email me here
[making sure your return email address is correctly typed please]
and we shall discuss how you might cross the gypsy's palm with silver...

to see Sidnee Snell wearing a slightly wider version [70cm x 70cm] please pop over here to my website

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

signs and doings

being away for a week

and just sorting out work emails on the batfone

leads to a big pile that needs excision.

the delete button is useful

especially

when you get things like this

yeah. right.

delete.

and then there was the one from 'Qantas Telephone Sales'

[i don't buy ANYTHING over the phone]

that wanted me to open a .zip file

i must look like a cabbage to some people

so much so that FaceBook

told me i was logged out

wanted me to log in again

and then

wanted to "check my computer for viruses"

er, no, thank you.

rather than take the risk and click the 'confirm' button

i'm outa there.

instead

you'll find me in the workroom

beavering away on muddy waters

 also

designing costumes for Company Miji

writing 

and

doodling

if there is a spare moment

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

sending a quick pigeon from Edinburgh

it's been 29 years since me feet last wandered these cobbles
some things have changed
others not so much

i tramped down the west coast of Scotland
when i wore the clothes of a much younger woman
[it seems i've always liked the lefthand edges of places]
i told the wee man on immigration about it
when he asked if i had been here before

his response..."whatever for?"
clearly not the wandering type

my kitbag [the one containing threads and scissors and stuff]
was momentarily mislaid by British Airways
so
i had to resort to dyeing thread with coffee
for some costume repairs yesterday
[luckily there is always #5 silk+cotton thread in my pockets]

Europremiere tomorrow evening

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

remembering to breathe

bother

the class in the Forest of Dean had filled nicely and i foolishly thought all was well
and then my friend and organiser
Sally Stafford kindly inspected the Festival website with a view to attending the performance of
Breathe
[which was my reason for coming to the UK in the first place]
and found
the dates had changed from those i had been told

so there's been an enormous muck up
and a number of people have been inconvenienced
and i am very sorry

but there may be someone out there who would have preferred to attend on August 27,28,29

i hope so.
trying to remember to breathe.

intangibly treasured

at about 3.30 this morning

Morpheus kicked aside the covers

and went somewhere else

leaving me sleepless

so i dangled a hand over the edge of the bed

 and fished up the nearest piece of reading material

which happened to be

an excellent text sent to me by

Janet de Boer

organiser of the Geelong Textile Forum

where Miyoko Kawahito will be teaching later this year

pootling through the pages i learned something new [several, really]

that in Japan, certain processes may be denoted Intangible Treasures. and then there are also Tangible Treasures.

and 

that there is actually a proper Japanese descriptor for the process of beating leaves into cloth. Miyoko Kawahito calls it tataki-zome, whereas i gave it the label hapa-zome [back in 2006 when i sat in the green room of the Yamaguchi Performing Arts Centre, beating leaves from roadside weeds and cemetery prunings into a 6 metre x 6 metre floorcloth for a scene in "Wanderlust"]

the funny thing is that hapa-zome has become part of the dye vocabulary and i've even seen it referred to [in print] as "the ancient art of hapa-zome". the art may indeed be ancient but the appellation certainly isn't.

anyway, for the record

tataki means "beaten"

whereas hapa means "leaf"

Martha was busy digesting a mouse

and couldn't care less

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

in the shadow of the wall

10 hours of Very Fast Train later
and we're in Berlin
after having to think carefully every time i open my mouth
in the Francophile regions
it's good to be in a country where the words come easily

tomorrow i have a special errand
taking photos for a Berliner back home
whose travelling days are behind her

some deep breaths

Rosie Grace kindly let me have these lovely images she shot
of the double dress in 'breathe'

if you wander over to An Archive 
you can see what Helen Lyon
is doing with a similar dress...

meanwhile the ecoprint technique continues to wander the whirled
my lovely East Coast correspondent sent me this link 

to do list

1. dye the travel blanket that is going to Alison [thank you Alison and everybody else for your generous donations to the Canterbury Earthquake appeal - nearly AUD$2000 was gathered through your kindness]
2. make up little parcels for the other donors too
3. work out exactly what is going to go into the exhibition at Orange Regional Gallery next month
4. post some of the pictures of 'breathe' taken by Joshua Penley
5. try and stop feeling so utterly baffled by the whirled

number 4 can be sorted immediately, then i'll close the time vampire and go and attempt to deal with the rest
[and some other pix can be found here]