Reason for blogging slackness #2 - My Solo Exhibition

Two blog posts within a week! Are you proud of me?!?  My second reason for being a very slack little blogger is that I had a solo exhibition at the Abbotsford Convent through December to early Jan this year. Lentils As Anything, a lovely community 'pay as you feel' cultural café were nice enough to offer me the residency spot for the month and I had 26 pieces on show.

Out of the 26 six have now gone to new owners. Not bad really given the café environs aren't generally over conducive to close up viewing and selling. There was also the unexpected bonus in that my husband - after seeing the works framed - now considers them to be art and not "really decorative placemats" (sheesh!). I don't know what it is with textiles - you can do the most thought provoking, graphically amazing design with amazing technical execution -  but if you dare construct it with fabric and it measures less than 50x50cm non quilty types tend to see placemats, cushion fronts and table runners… unless they are in frames.

Here's a pick of some of the pieces framed, we went for simple white frames across the entire exhibition which gave everything a really lovely clean and modern look. Box frames were used for the square pieces which also worked well. It marked my very first solo exhibition incorporating only textile art works. Not a conventional painting in site!

From now on I think framing will be my go to finishing technique for all small works.

Speak to you next week!
Neroli x

'Art Quilts Around The World' blog group

Hi everyone, 

I'm so sorry I've been incredibly slack when it comes to posting. I promise to make a concerted effort to fix that here and now. I've been a bit busy over the last few months and in the next few blog posts I'm planning on showing you just why that is. Reason #1 for being sidetracked is that I joined the 'Art Quilts Around the World' blog group - a group of almost 30 textile artists from all over the world who make an A3 sized art quilt to a theme chosen by a group member every 2 months. Our next reveal is on March 31st and the theme is 'Song Title' - but as an extra challenge we have to complete it in another group member's artistic style.

Since joining I've made 4 quilts - the first of these is was for the theme 'Carnival'. Any of you who know me know that I not only get bored easily but I like to be a little different, so I decided to interpret the theme as 'Carni-Val' and take a bit of an anti meat eating stance at the same time. Not that I'm vegetarian but I do quiver at the notion many have of every single meal needing to have some animal as part of the plate… and I wanted to show a bit of support for a newly vegan friend.

Read more about 'Carni-Val' on the Art Quilts Around the World blog here

The next quilt theme on this group was 'Out of Asia' and I decided to recreate Hokusai's beautiful woodcut 'The Great Wave' an artwork I've always wanted to incorporate somehow into my own work. I also got to utilise some of the decorative stitches on my now not-so-new machine and incorporate my hatred for 'Hello Kitty' :) "Wave Goodbye Kitty" was born!

To read more about "Wave Goodbye Kitty' go here

The following theme was a quite introspective one for myself - 'The Road Less Travelled' required a lot of thinking and I decided to try free-motion thread painting with up to a 9mm stitch on hardened felt, the figure is in the style I used to use for a series of nude oil paintings I did many years ago.

'Confinement' is one of my most introspective works. Read more about it here

Last but not least the December challenge (I had to miss February's due to exhibition deadline clashes) was for a theme that I got to choose for the group. I've always loved extreme close ups so I picked 'Macro'. Here's my macro quilt:

'Fly on the Wall' (what you expected a normal name?). To read more about it - you guessed it - click here

If you're in the mood for some extra eye candy - and believe me the others in this group have delivered some very impressive eye candy - please take a look at the blog "Art Quilts Around the World". It was formerly called 'Around the World in 20 quilts' but grew to more than 20 members though we are letting it get back to that number now. I've just given the blog a bit of a facelift so let me know how you feel about the look and feel of it. This one may be next :)

Speak to you soon,

Neroli x

'Ronnie's Red' - A5 textile art quilt as thank you present

Here's what I've been working on over the last week. It's only A5 in size (148 x 210mm ...approx 6x8") and has a whole lot of free-motion stitching in silk, rayon and ultra-fine polyester. The edging is layers of satin stitching using wool thread. It's one of the first things I've produced on my new Bernina 750, and apart from some thread breaks while I was getting used to how tensions needed to sit it did a great job.

It's a thank you present for Ronnie Di Stasio, the owner of Bar Di Stasio here in St Kilda, he has the most amazing food you can imagine and has been more than generous with feeding me on quite a few occasions. My husband Colin does Ronnie's security systems for him and when he's gone above and beyond Ronnie has done the same and fed us in return. If you've ever eaten at Di Stasio you'd know a thank you present is well deserved!

Ronnie has a winery in the Yarra Valley and produces a world class Pinot Noir, which is why I thought it should be the focus of this mini-quilt. He is also an avid art collector, of names far, far more well known than my own so I do hope he likes this.

I figure at worst, it's small enough to hide in his cupboard :)

"Ronnie's Red" 148x210mm, cotton batting, backing fabric and face, printed from one of my own photos of ink jet ready cotton, thread painted and quilted. Bound in wool thread.

"Ronnie's Red" The back.

Hand Drawn Portraits - Just in time for Christmas!

Want something unique and handmade for a perfect Christmas present this year? I made this one of a kind portrait for my husband for a previous Christmas from a photo we both liked but was a little too blurry to blow up. The 'shades' are created by patterning - denser patterns create the darker areas and more open patterns read as a lighter grey from further away. Up close it's a little abstract with the tiny patterns clearly seen where as from far away it reads as a normal portrait.

The entire piece is hand drawn with black ink. As a special I'm offering a few commissions between now and Christmas for $180 for an A4 and $300 for an A3. (Unframed, ex GST postage extra). Paper will be top quality, acid free art paper.

Please email me to order, I will also need a photo with good contrast between areas as a guide.

Email for more information or to order here.

Now.... to work out what on earth I'm going to get for my hubby this year. Any suggestions?

Framing really does make a difference! This was a $50 frame from IKEA.