gooseflesh

A Vibrant Palette

A vibrant palette in the colours of the rainbow. Glorious! A wonderful new commission has come to me. It will be big and bold.

 

  

I'm naming it the Linnaeus project. It will be big, approximately 60 x 60 cm and made entirely from preloved tapestry wool.

The hook is sizzling at the moment. I'm also trying to consolidate years of little experiments into whole larger pieces. Much of the challenge is working out how to mount and display them. I hope to include these pieces in an exhibition by the name of "Branching" at the Gaffa Gallery in Sydney in October.

So it's head down and tail up for the next few months!

Inspired, frog, boulder

I have been visiting all the local libraries and have found some interesting books. One especially.........

Inspired. How creative people think, work and find inspiration. 

Dorthe Nielsen and Kikki Hartmann. BIS Publishers. Amsterdam 2006.

ISBN 90-6369-110-6

36 creative people each talk about: 

Inspiration

Working environment

Working process

Motivation

Reading 

Most inspiring person

You can flick through it here  

Reading this makes me ponder why and how I make stuff. A little cluster coral came off the hook yesterday.

Cluster Coral, 2009

Preloved tapestry wool.

8 cm diameter, 2.5cm high

Lots of incomplete little experiments came out of boxes and I sorted them and played with them for a while. It would be good to try and tie them all together somehow. They are all part of the same frenzy. They belong together.

Revisiting old friends.

It's about collecting and sorting..... mmmhhh!!!!!

This little green guy is less than an inch. I spotted him whilst watering my newly planted rainforest trees (about 250 of them). From paddock to rainforest... yes, in my lifetime I hope.

Found time to stand on a volcanic boulder too.

Bleached Coral Garden

The preparation and packing for the big move to Northern NSW is taking up a lot of my time and energy. I have managed to do some work on my Bleached Coral Garden. It's made from paper yarn. The yarn is lovely to work with having very different properties to the plastic bag yarn. One interesting quality is that it can be shaped using a little pressure from the fingers. I like the ivory white too. Note to self..... pieces made from paper in the future, when the dust has settled.

 

                                                     Photo: Tigger Newling

Bleached Coral Garden, 2009

Helle Jorgensen

Paper

17 x 21 cm

Happening simultaneously:

An interview with Little Thing a Chinese magazine. To be published in July, in a special issue focusing on the ocean. Thank you Jie Zhou for your interest.

Trash Menagerie, an exhibition of 30 improbable works of art created from trash, including my plastic sea creatures. At the Peabody Essex Museum's interactive Art & Nature Center, Salem, Massachusetts, USA. June 20, 2009 through May 2010. 

Plastic Detritus III , has been included in the CPM National Print Award at the Tweed River Regional Gallery, Murwillumbah. May 15 to June 21, 2009.

Packing up my studio has been (sort of) fun. I flicked through some old sketchbooks and had a little giggle. My collections of driftwood, sponges, shells, bones, bird's nests and plastic detritus is massive and safely packed into boxes and boxes and more boxes. 

Back to packing.......... 

Work in Progress on Location

As usual many projects have been started and few have been finished. That's the way I like to work. Bouncing around from project to project, hoping somehow they are all connected because they originate from the same brain. It's difficult and overwhelming sometimes to keep track and meet deadlines. It feels as if the projects are swirling around and it requires a moment of focus to pull them together. There is a clear path in the chaos. The following images are pieces which will be part of a bigger piece which I'm entering into an art prize.... deadline looming!

 

Shot on location on my favourite magazine World of Interiors. I have been collecting this journal for more than 25 years and every issue continues to inspire.

Collecting, this compulsion for multiples has been on my mind lately. Another post......later

Woolly Work in Progress

When I visit Northern NSW, one of my favourite activities is to check out the op-shops. Last visit I found a bag of woolly goodness, a rejected tapestry kit, and paid $2.00 for it. The limited palette is a very enjoyable challenge. 

A coral garden, yet to be finished.

Some other strange organism incubating in my brain.

Life without deadlines

AAhhhh!! Life without deadlines. Finally time to nurture the exciting new ideas germinating in my brain.

Photos from the opening night of the Post Chrysalis Exhibition:

That's me with the silly grin on my face (above).

Some red dots!!!!!

Edward, Susan and Nina (+ unidentified man). Dad and I in the doorway.

 

Floral Necklace, 2008

Discarded Plastic Bags.

There are tadpoles in my little pond. It's likely they are Eastern Brown frogs. There's often a very robust and handsome Kookaburra sitting in the tree above the pond with his head cocked to one side and an eye staring down at the pond. A few weeks ago I found Hairy Harry (portrait) cautiously sniffing around an upturned plastic pot. I gently lifted the pot with a stick ...... a lizard, a snake? No....... a very large Kookaburra. He flew off in a great hurry, sitting on the pergola for a while with ruffled feathers and a confused look on his face. I don't know how he got there or how long he was there. Probably the same guy.

Harry walked into the studio and I snapped him.

A renewed enthusiasm

Returning home after a trip makes me see my home and environment in a new light. A few hours after off-loading the suitcases I was on the beach collecting bits of plastic. A big storm the previous night had brought a lot of detritus up onto the beach. It was a good harvest. At home I have finally started on the long list of things that need attention and I have happily been ticking some items off the list. The wood-burning stove has been pumping out cosy heat from early morning until well into the night and the crochet hook has been performing it's little finger dance.

These components will be turned into a fully grown coral garden (I think). There is a book on the table, Force Field, by Fiona Hall. She's a wonderful Australian artist and one of my favourites. I saw her exhibition at Museum of Contemporary Art here in Sydney in March...... it was inspiring, to say the least.

A close-up of the barnacles in the last of the afternoon sun.

A little infant barnacle garden trumpeting with joy.

Glasgow

Some more coral pieces for the IFF's Hyperbolic Coral Reef Exhibition, Hayward Gallery, London. Clandestine photographs on location at the Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow.

The Rubbish Vortex Debut, New York

The opening reception was held Sunday afternoon in the spectacular Winter Garden, World Financial Centre.

There was a good crowd, including my dear brother, Sam. He flew in from Austin, Texas, to spend the weekend with me.

The Rubbish Vortex was in good company, namely, The Chicago Reef from the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum and The New York Reef made by members of the New York Crochet Guild and the Harlem Knitting Circle. Also Inga Hamilton's spectacular "jellies" and coral mounds.

There are also four glass vitrines which I haven't taken photos of yet.........next post.

L to R: Inga Hamilton, me, Christine Wertheim and Margaret Wertheim. Looking very serious. The curatorial strain beginning to show. The Rubbish Vortex in the background.

A sister reef was exhibited at the Broadway Windows, NYU. Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.
The podia were made of stainless steel and the tops covered in black sand. My pieces are scattered in between the fluffy corals. Many women contributed to these reefs.

The Bleached Reef.

Say no more!!!!!!

The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef,
Winter Garden, World Financial Centre, New York City. April 7 - May 18.

The Sister Reef, NYU Broadway Windows
Located at Broadway and East 10th Street, April 6 - May 18.

The Coral Garden Hat

Some photos of the Coral Garden Hat which I wore to the opening reception at the Winter Garden, WFC on Sunday....... it was a hit. I sat sewing and crocheting in my hotel room that morning, trying to finish it in time.

More photos of the show coming.............

Miniature Coral Garden

Mini Coral Garden, approx. 10cm (H)x 15cm (W)

Made entirely from pre-loved materials.

Coral Garden Progress

The coral garden so far. I'm hoping to finish it in the next week or so. This one will be a hanging piece (I think).

Coral Garden Progress

These little shapes are very addictive.

For some reason I return to the same shapes again and again and have been for years. Perhaps it's a combination of staring down a microscope in a previous career and genetic hard-wiring. We have learnt the meaning of organic shapes, textures and colours occuring in Nature, for survival. Evolution?
Some years ago I was regenerating a swampy area surrounding a sewerage treatment plant in a neighbouring suburb. I was walking through a grassy area when I became conscious of a shape in the corner of my eye. As I turned to get a better look, my pulse instantaneously started racing. There was a glossy black and red coloured shape hovering above the grass about two metres away. It was a very, very large Red-belly black snake, wondering why I was encroaching on it's frog smorgasbord. I'm ashamed to say that I ran away. I had no control over my reaction. A classic flight or fight situation. Red and black............... DANGER!

Barnacles, crocheted tapestry wool. Photographed amongst eroded anchorage roots of Sea Tulips.

The coral shape experiments are developing coloured tips and are becoming more complex.

I'm discovering new colour combinations, shapes and textures. There's enough inspiration in Nature to keep me satisfied for life.

aaahhhh........no words!

Soooooo busy making............. I can't find the right words. I sit to write and can't find the words to describe what I'm doing and yet so keen to show and tell.

Last night I went to sleep thinking about the Rubbish Vortex........ I came up with some new refinements of the design and I can't wait to start. Feel like a goose getting so excited about making things and yet know if I didn't make things I'd go mad (madder). One day I will be found fused to and part of one of my objects. Blissfully lost in a cloud of creating, smelling the flowers and desparately trying to keep up with the real world.
I look around me and see inspiration everywhere........ life is good!

I see connections in branching patterns everywhere. My circulatory sytem too!

The making of these woolly gems is similar to sketching. I experiment with colour combinations and shapes. These discoveries can be used in the Crochet Sea Creatures series.

What can I say?

I found some words.

Coral Garden Progress

The Coral Garden is slowly expanding. Some pieces are finished and others are still in the experimental stage. They have been photographed sitting on a disc from a whale's spine. Unfortunately, the magnificent beast perished and landed on the reef. I tried to get some ribs too but they were too large and heavy to carry home.

Cunjevoi

Gorgonian Experiment

Coral Pieces. Fulled. Also pink plastic yarn experiment.

Brain Coral Experiment. Crocheted on a filet 9-square grid. Photographed on a cow's pelvic bone.

All the pieces have been made from my re-used tapestry wool stash.

Bullion stitch

I'm hooked on the bullion stitch (pardon the pun). It can be modified and manipulated to make interesting shapes.

Cunjevoi

Polyps

I'm using wool from my Op-shop tapestry wool collection to do these crochet doodles. There are many unfinished tapestry kits donated but they come predominantly in "Bambi in the Woods" colours.

Crochet finger dance

I love to make these shapes.

Crochet, crochet, crochet madly. It's a bit like doodling with tapestry wool and a hook. These polyps and tentacle shapes keep recurring. I hate to think what Freud would make of them.

Coral and bubble weed

The round shape was discovered in an old crochet book and is used to make buttons for garments. It probably has a name.............. similar to the bullion stitch used in embroidery.

Coral pieces

When a stitch becomes familiar, my hands move without conscious direction. I can see my fingers and hands moving very quickly and imagine making a short film about this little crochet dance. If the wool and hook could be removed digitally by computer and just the fingers moved....... Mmmmmmmm.

Coral Garden Progress

I've been rummaging around in my studio looking into all the piles of fabrics, wool and papers etc., to find little bits of experiments for the Coral Garden. My studio is a complete disaster area, so much crap......I wish I had an archivist gene in my genome.
Anyway I did find some little things I've been making during the last few months. They are made from tapestry wool found in my local Op-shops. The wool is from unfinished kits and usually comes in pretty colour combinations. It's cut into lengths but is fine for small projects...cheap as chips!

Diatom
Size variable (10cm long). Made from tapestry wool.

Barnacles
Size 2cm Diameter. Made from tapestry wool.

Porky Anemone
Size 5cm Diameter. Made from tapestry wool.

Starfish
Size 8cm Diameter

Brittle Star
Size 12cm Diameter. Made from tapestry wool.

Various tentacles.

The tapestry wool collection.

Sea Anemone

I have finished a work in progress. Hallelujah! One done, 100s to go.

This is a little knitted and crocheted anemone made from French tapestry wool. It will be one creature of many in the coral garden I'm making.