The naughty pee

Come and sea the naughty pee

It may not be your cup of tee

but drink with me and you shall see

How much fun a pea can bee.

More pea poetry here.

Nibble story. *Nibble (by Shannon Garson and Rebecca Ward) @ ADORN, a group ceramic jewellery and glass exhibition of leading Australian makers opens
Friday 6pm -9pm the 23 January 2009, the show runs until Saturday 7 February.

Venue: Fusions Gallery, 483 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley. PH: + 61 7 3358 5122

Marianne Huhn button brooches

These are some brooches I made using 3 gorgeous Marianne Huhn porcelain buttons owned by Shannon . I spent ages looking for her online before I realised I'd missread her signature on the back of the button - Huhn not Kuhn!

Marianne says of her work "I wanted to build on the idea of containment in our lives. I used maps and borders in our landscape and houses and the roles they play in our lives, to speak about the pots function of containment." The buttons certainly fit well here then containing people as they do in swathes of cloth. I also love the translation into buttons of these map fragments- so you can glance down at your coat to get your bearings. It makes me think of the cloth labels we had to wear as children in the first week of school with our name and grade on it.

Anyway I get to keep one. I bags the one with 17 on it (my childhood street number). I know there is always a room for me at number 17 - or so mum threatens! They are made with rubber, st silver and stainless steel. I'd like to say that the rubber discs are a well thought out reference to the streetscape graphics on the porcelain but they were just some bits and bobs I'd collected from Reverse Garbage which happen to conceal the hinge of the pin.

Count Me the Stars

This sterling silver necklace made from my recycled silver scrap (a genuine Wrecker piece) is a commission for a dear friend, Kylie Johnson. Little did I know when I first met Kylie nearly 30 years ago that she would become a published poet and successful artist. Although I probably should have guessed from all her crazy drawings and letters.

We both grew up in the same street and did Junior Red Cross together with Kylie's talented and artistic mum who was such an inspiration to us. Reconnecting with Kylie in recent years through mutual friends and joining the Umbrella Collective has been wonderful.
Kylie's gorgeous book, Count Me the Stars, published by Murdoch Books is being launched tomorrow night at GoMA, Brisbane. The necklace that the glamorous author will be wearing is inspired by the book cover art. The book is printed on 100% recycled paper just as the necklace is made from my melted down silver scrap. I was so happy with the way it turned out as I was trying to capture the essence of Kylie's artwork and fuse it with my own approach. It makes me so happy and proud to be part of this celebration.

Congratulations Kylie! And great work on the new website and blog! We knew you'd join us in the 21st Century and it was well worth the wait.

What's on the beer fridge this week?

Lovely Liana and her knitwit bangles and knitwit friends Bibi Locke and yours truly in MX Magazine yesterday.
Circulation 500 000.
What can I say?- it is such a pleasure sharing the limelight with Liana especially when you have to make like Elton John with her wares. And you can really tell how much she loves having her photo taken. What a babe!

The Nibble Project

Here is a sneak peek of the project Shannon Garson and I have been working on, launching 17 Nov at Umbrella Collective. Porcelain, silver and gold are worked together in delicate designs to remind you of food, nurture and love.

The fox went out on a Chilly Night (because the fox has to feed his family too!) and Nest series:

The fox went out on a chilly night,
He prayed for the moon to give him light,

For he'd many a mile to go that night,

Before he reached the town-o, town-o, town-o,
He'd many a mile to go that night,
Before he reached the town-o.

Balanced Diet Baby Cakes and Cinderella rings and Eat Ya Peas Series:

Attach of the Vovos and 100s and 1000s brooches:

Saint Fran

Congratulations to Fran Crowe whose 1st solo exhibition is now underway.

Fran says "I am walking to collect 46000 pieces of litter from my local Suffolk beaches - 46000 because this is the average number of pieces of litter per square mile of ocean worldwide according to the UN. I have been walking since last September and so far I have collected over 41000 pieces, most of which I have just installed in the Babylon Gallery in Ely (where I am 2007 bursary artist). I think it makes a shocking but fascinating viewing which I really hope will engage people with some of the issues to do with marine litter and the state of our oceans. " I've been following Fran's work for some time on her website and love the way that she gets an environmental message out there with humour and a cheeky challenge to her audience. And I think she has come up with a perfect excuse for long walks on the beach and cannot help but feel a bit envious that did not think of it first!

The results of her project are not only backed up with scientific data detailed on her website but they are so very aesthetically seductive!

I know all the beach plastic is bad but I cannot help but love it at the same time for its worn edges, eroded textures and washed out colours that tell of all sorts of adventures at sea.

Here are some favourite beach plastic specimens from my personal collection:

Surface Paradise

A need to escape from Brisbania led me to beg fellow Umbrellaist and good friend Shannon Garson to accompany her on a weekend ceramic workshop at the Gold Coast Potters Association. She was more than happy to have me along as she was touching on jewellery making in the workshop and adorable little Pearl, her 4mth old baby was also coming and in need of occassional distraction and cuddles (not that I got much of a look in with 15 or so clucky women at the workshop).

Shannon demonstrates her leaf tattoo painting style in sepia watercolour.

Shannon generously demonstrated many of her surface decoration techniques (slip trailing, watercolour-like brush work, shellac resists and sgraffito) as well as expertly throwing some tricksy southern ice clay and demonstrating the turning of the drying pots. While I have no intention of getting into ceramics myself, I gained plenty of useful knowledge during the workshop and enjoyed meeting the lovely ladies from the Potters group who were so appreciative of Shannon's tuition.

Top: Throwing

Bottom: Shannon with Anne

We also publicly showed for the very first time our collaborative project: Nibble. Shannon has created some delightful tiny porcelain pieces which I have turned into rings (below), necklaces, earrings and brooches with st silver and gold. Shannon was initially inspired after making a gift of porcelain miniature food for a child's dolls house and we have always wanted to do a collaboration together. Giftmaking often inspires me too as I try to make something different from my usual to suit a specific person and this often leads to a whole new tangent! Much of the Nibble range is about food and nurturing: there are peas in pods, eggs in nests, iced vovos and pumpkins. More photos of it on this site in a review by participant Anne Mossman and we'll be publicising it more soon. Any suggestions on where and how to exhibit it are most welcome!

Above top: rings from the Nibble collection
Below: surface decoration equip, workshop participants

Wellington

The highlight of visiting Wellington is never going to be the weather unless you fancy gales and horizontal rain - that must be why they have such excellent galleries and museums. In fact, we did not defrost until we daytripped out to the Kapiti Coast with Uncle Ron (right) to visit Uncle Ken (left).
Top: Alan Preston, jewellery made from greywacke road base and paint
Middle: Blair Smith, Visible panty line
BottomLeft: Shelly Norton: jewellery made from plastic shopping bags
Bottom Right: Genevieve Packer, Craft Terrorist

My favorite museum was the Dowse in Lower Hutt which presented a beautifully displayed Alan Preston survey exhibition (love his road base pieces) and contemporary jewellery/craft from the collection on display upstairs.
Much of the jewellery had probably been collected from the 2 excellent jewellery galleries in town, Quoil (shame on them for not having a website going) and Avid. Quoil was my favourite because the staff were so friendly (I'm easily won over by nice happy people) - and they also have some wacky plastic work by Lisa Walker and Shelly Norton that Plastic Girl would have enjoyed.

Toast

I don't eat my crusts. Never have, never will.
You can't make me.
Not even when you tell me people are starving in africa.
That the world is running out of food, water, arable land.
So don't even try.
I'm saving them up to string together and enter in Contemporary Wearables Competitions.

Photos of Ayumi's delicious monkey-learning-to-count-crusts plate taken for her Pots in Action page.

Education is the Key

Now there is a right and a wrong way to wear a tape measure.

Looking through a particular magazine post Xmas, I was searching in vain/vainly for an article about MoBWorkspace we'd been hoping for. What I did find was plenty of articles about the businesses who'd taken out adverts, often on the same page and a bunch of ads using tape-measures in entirely the wrong way. It really disappointed me, I thought we might have moved on from this.

Doesn't everyone know by now the correct way to use a tape measure? In a Liana Kabel Measure Up brooch of course. It was on Boing Boing for heavens' sake! Get a ber-loody edumacation!! Plastic Girl, you have much work to do.

Umbrella Day

Before I became involved with the Umbrella Collective (we had our fabulously successful inaugural fair on Saturday - see photos above), I had no idea what bunting was. It was discussed rather intensively at one of our planning meetings and I was left scratching around in the dark trying to figure out what they were all talking about with such passion! Because I did not own up to ignorance in the beginning, I did not feel I could confess my lack of understanding later in the conversation so it was not until I got home and did a google search that I discovered what it was all about. Buntings are the gorgeous flags (see above) that Kylie J made to decorate the buildings with. Not quite the same as the plastic ones used to decorate a car yard. They looked great with the gorgeous signs she made as well.

It was a really great day- thanks to everyone for helping especially the volunteers - we love you! More Umbrella Events coming soon!!!

Delightful Things Preview

I've been going bananas trying to make sense of all my jewels for the Delightful Things Umbrella Collective craft fair on saturday. I don't know why I thought I would not have enough work! At the moment it is all on my bed waiting to be priced and put into some sort of order. Unfortunately I have been at a xmas party this arvo and am in no fit state to do it though it must be done in order for me to go to sleep so there was a strategy here at least! I am drinking coffee and psyching myself up for a long night ahead.
Here are some of the promo cards I've made for it:

Nautical Week 5: Sea Birds

Coastal Birds toys: Florence Forrest

Photos of Birds: Wayne Kington

Sandgate artists Florence Forrest and Rachel Arthur have collaborated to create a wonderful Coastal Birds series of soft toys. They are available (unless they are all sold out which I suspect is a strong possibility!) until 25 November in the Furry Friend's exhibition in Surry Hills, Sydney.

Florence has interpreted the evocative drawings and paintings of Rachel's so cleverly. It is of great releif that she promises to work on the series more in 2007. They capture so well the pelicans and segulls that Wayne Kington has photographed on a recent trip to Amity (shark) Point at Stradbroke Island (thanks Wayne). The mother of pearl sky is a strong feature of the landscape in Moreton Bay and the soft toys bring to mind the pearlescent watery light.

Heading Out After the Storm: Rachel Arthur

And thank Florence for showing me the work of Rachel Arthurs. I am particulary drawn to this painting (oil and graphite on printed cotton) above. I love fishing boats and tales of the high seas and am reminded of the little ditty Dad used to sing to us:

You shall have a fishy
In a little dishy
You shall have a fishy
When the boat comes in.

Dance for your mama
Sing for your papa
Dance for your mama
When the boat comes in.

Nautical Week 3: Ayumi Horie

I adore the work of this US potter, Ayumi Horie.
She also has a wonderful website where you can purchase her work and see her pots in action. Does anyone else from Brisbane want to be in on a shipment of her work to cut freight costs?!

The whale and bird cup is my favorite and reminds me of the Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan song from Alice:

Fish and Bird

They bought a round for the sailor
And they heard his tale
Of a world that was so far away
And a song that we'd never heard
A song of a little bird
That fell in love with a whale

He said: you cannot live in the ocean
And she said to him: you never can live in the sky
But the ocean is filled with tears
And the sea turns into a mirror
And there's a whale in the moon when it's clear
And the bird on the tide

Please don't cry
Let me dry your eyes
So tell me that you will wait for me
Hold me in your arms
I promise we will never part
I'll never sail back to the time
But I'll always pretend you're mine
Though I know that we both must part
You can live in my heart

Badge Ladies

It can be hard work sharing the limelight with a feisty Tupperware Lady. The high drama, the hot air, the plastic fumes. It can be very competitive at times. Not so much in the Jana Pitman/Tasmin Lewis sense as in the Jana Pitman/Tasmin Lewis sense.

So in the upcoming jewellery party at QUT Art Museum as a sideshow of La Femme Domestique,

Plastic Girl is going to come dressed as a real life Tupperware Lady - the badge, the hair the frock, the makeup, the shoes, the accessories. Which leaves me precisely where? I could come in drag as her boring husband (not that she has a boring real life husband!). Or should I come au-naturale (not nude) as Rebecca-the-Wrecker, with hammer badge, king gee overalls, tool belt and hammer dangling from hammer strap. Or would that be stupid?

Any costume suggestions?

We Organised it Ourselves!

Okay.
Sometimes you just have to organise it yourself. As Shannon Garson says, Guerilla Craft activites can be a refreshing antidote... So we have all banded together with the lovely Kylie Johnson to become the Umbrella Collective and our first craft fair is on this November 25. Hope you can come! Bring ya mates!

saturday 25 november 2o06
9am -3pm

delightful things direct from the makers

st francis theological college
233 milton road milton
brisbane
entrance via baroona rd

parking available
cash or cheque only
refreshments available

artists:
sarah bowe red felt flower
florence forrest flying star toys
shannon garson porcelain
kylie johnson paper boat press
liana kabel plastic girl jewellery
rebecca ward jewellery

Bird Week

Every morning I like to take tea in my beautiful Shannon Garson porcelain cup and sit on the back deck letting the warm morning sun ease me into the day.

While doing this, I often get to see lots of bird events in the bushy back yard. They are always upset or excited about something- cats, possums, other birds. The Mickeys in particular like to be in a constant state of moral outrage. One memorable bird event was the Bird Wars of 2002. Diplomatic talks completely broke down between the Mickeys and the Blue Faced Honeyeaters. The blue faces are are pictured left holding the strategic TV aerial position along one of their containment lines. I've never heard such a din! The cats generously offered to supply first aid to any casualties.
If you did not know already, it is Bird Week and time to appreciate our feathered friends. That's according to Shannon Garson's Strange Fragments blog showing a different bird related creation every day of this week.
Happy bird week (and lay off the KFC why don't you!?)

UFO: Unidentified Fluffy Object

Last week a friend in Canberra sent me this UFO (Unidentified Fluffy Object) in the mail. No note, no explanation, nothing. It would appear to have been knitted by someone's demented granny! I have spent the last week puzzling over what it could all mean. Maybe a winter hat with hair holes? But then it struck me that it was a solution for the possum plague on my paw paw crop. And it works a treat as you can see. Granny wisdom to the rescue.
There is such a resurgence in all the Nana crafts at the moment with knitting graffiti, embroidery, beanie festivals, scarfies. Which brings me to a plug for a show at Kick Arts, Cairns: Nana is the New Black opening 6pm fri 23 June. What use they could possibly have for knitted objects up there in their steamy climate, I'll never know but there will be plenty of gorgeous stuff like Tupperware jewellery by Liana Kabel and iced vo-vos as far as the eye can see...