Fibre Arts Summer School

I am away in Ballarat at the Fibre Arts Summer School. The class that I am taking is called Threads of Meaning and is with Roxanne Lasky.   The class has a stitch focus, however, it is designed to be contemplative with a focus on making connections between the 'why and how' so that when the work has greater meaning and becomes a more personal statement and reflection of individual style. You can read about her here.

Words or text appear in much of her work and her practice has a strong emphasis on Journalling.

The front and back covers of one of Roxanne's recycled paper bag journals.

And some of the pages.

Another journal, this is the stitched cover. Turkey 'wishbones' arranged in a star or flower pattern are embedded into the appliqué layers. Stitch further emphasises the motif.

A page from the journal, the image says it all.

With so much inspiration it was time to get to work. I liked the idea of the journal and made the decision to restrict my palette to neutral colours. Each exercise would be worked to a scale that would fit in a large book. This is the cover of the book that I am making. The cover is made from a recycled placemat. The weaving was completed in response to the word woven appearing on my word list. The pages inside the book are coloured with an ink made by boiling plants and metals together, the ink applied with brushes made from assorted plants tied to the end of a stick.

This page was the result of the instruction to lay a few of our materials down on a page and then arranging them in a way test was meaningful to us.

This one a response to the quote 'Everything breaks, Things Fall apart. 

This is an old handkerchief that was ripped. I arranged the handkerchief pieces to form a heart shape and then stitched heavily around and in between the pieces. The underpinning idea for this is Mending a Broken Heart.

Another weaving, this one made to decorate the branch of a tree.