Australian workshops, ateliers

Now that I am the proud producer of a blog I thought it might be interesting to see how I got on in my workshops in Australia.
I absolutely love going there and the response from students is everything a tutor could hope for. I have taught both week long workshops at various Forums and 2 day workshops for ATASDA, Guild and private groups. They're a very positive bunch of individuals the Australians and here are a few examples of their work. These are from my last forum 2008 in Geelong.
I also had fun of course visiting the South coast - beautiful turqoise sea - Brisbane which I liked very much, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra. I stayed with friends and family everywhere which was great so didn't feel at all like a tourist which I wasn't I suppose anyway.
I went on a 2 day cattle drove with my niece who breeds and trains stock horses. About 300 cattle had to be taken to Nabiac (about 3 hours N of Sydney)for a sort of rodeo (camp draft). That was a fabulous experience and I didn't feel at all (well not much) stiff in the joints.
I also went on a whale watch off the Gold Coast and although I had seen a humpback leaping for about 10 minutes from the shore about a kilometre out the day before I didn't see anything like that from the boat but saw lots of whales coasting about. Lovely creatures.
What lovely memories.

Voilà quelques images des élèves en Australie. Elles etaient formidables, très positives dans leur travail.
Bien évidement je m'amusais bien en visite à la mer - très turquoise - Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney. Je restais chez des amis et chez ma famille partout.
Avec ma niéce on a participer à un 'cattle drove' c'est dire on a guidé avec une douzaine d'autres
persons 300 vaches pendant 2 jours afin d'arriver à Nabiac (petite ville sur le littoral est) pour
un sort de rodeo.
Je suis allée en bateau chercher des baleines - humpback - qu'on a vu. Quels bels animals. Très impressionants
Ah quels beau souvenirs de 'down under'

Eva, new grandaughter, petite fille

Voilà 2 photos de ma nouvelle petite enfant Eva - adorable et très sage

Just had to show you Eva.

labels, etiquettes

Beginning the teabag label assembly. I've put them all on double sided tape and am in the process of attaching them to vliesofix. I think that's going to be the best way of getting them onto the background and I can decide once they're all secure on the vlieso how to position them. Not decided yet whether to work in blocks or chop them all up again and arrange individually. The thing is to get them into a state where I can place them to a background and fix in their definitive position without having to disturb the arrangement.

Je suis en train d'assembler mes etiquettes de sachets du thé. Elles sont toutes posées sur scotch double face et ensuite placées sur vliesofix. Comme ça je serai libre les poser où et comment je veux. Je suis pas encore décidée si je vais les placer en bloques ou autrement. On vera au fur et à mésure.

Liz at Musée Municipal Bourbonne les Bains

My expo is now up and I was absolutely astonished at how much work I actually have. When it's all up on walls (or not) everywhere in the house you don't realise just how much you've done over the years and of course during that time there have been sales so there has been even more than the present! I was very pleased seeing it all together and although the vernissage was fairly small I had lots of compliments. The French are not used to seeing this kind of art although my name is not unknown now here. Well it's up for 3 months, which is a long time out of circulation and I had to turn down some other opportunities which cropped up. I'm happy with it but not optimistic for sales - bad time of year and a quiet town.
So I'm now back home and have started trying to do something with all the teabag labels I've been collecting over the months. I belong to a group called 'Enfibre' and we have a theme to work to about recycling so mine is going to be from these labels. Hmm......we'll see how far I get, will keep you posted

Alors mon expo est en place et j'était étonné de voir un tel nombres d'oeuvres tout ensemble. Normalement ils sont dispersés sur les murs ici et la a la maison et je les voie pas comme ça. Beaucoup de compliments mais j'attends pas les grands ventes, trop calme la ville et pas vraiment un bon temps de l'année. Eh bien j'ai dû refuser deux occasions d'exposer ailleurs pendant les 3 mois de mon expo mais ca c'est la vie n'est-ce pas?
Je suis rentrée chez moi et je commence un nouvel oeuvre basé sur les étiquettes de sachets de thé. Avec le groupe 'Enfibre' on espère d'avoir un expo avec théme de 'recyclage' cet été. Je vous tiendra au courant.

nouvelles d'Australie

Depuis hier j'ai eu de contacte avec mes amis en Australie. Tess & Lloyd qui habitent St Andrew's Melbourne sont sauf mais pas mal de leurs amis sont touché profondement par les feux. Le fils de Glenys qui dirige quelques Forums (textile), et sa famille a tout perdu, tout. Il y a rien qui reste. Difficile d'imaginer un tel désastre si proche du coeur. Si vous lisez anglais regardez le blog de Glenys http://www.postcardsfromglenysmann.blogspot.com/ où vous trouverez a première main cette histoire térrible.

I've been in touch with some friends in Australia who have been profoundly affected by the fires which have raged there. Tess and Lloyd in St Andrew's Melbourne are fine but many friends are not and have lost everything. Glenys Mann's (Forum) eldest son and family have lost absolutely everything and all the family is traumatised. See Gleny's blog for her account of the events
http://www.postcardsfromglenysmann.blogspot.com/ I don't think I have ever been so close to people involved in a disaster on this scale.

Expo Bourbonne les Bains

Depuis hier je prepare et comme j'ai une cinquantaine de broderies il me faut tout le temps restant avant que je part ce jeudi . Chaque oeuvre doit porter sa titre au dos, tous doit être emballer et placer dans une boite convenable - c'est dire une valise, deux grandes boites, oeuvres non encadré enroulé, placer dans un sac en tissu, les trop grands seule dans d' autres sac - ou
la ma tête! Ma voiture sera bien chargée. Je vous promis beaucoup de photos du vernissage et j'espère qu'il y aura du monde.

It's the count-down for my expo and I'm exhausted already from all the necessary preparations - but let's hope it's all going to be worth it and that I'll have lots of lovely photos from the vernissage to post.

It's been awful news from Australia where I have lots of friends from all my teaching. No deaths among people I know but loss of houses and devastion of the areas; It's so horrible I can't even imagine what it's like to see that kind of destruction and agony.

My own computer is sick so in using Peter's old (beloved) iMac I have no access to any of my pictures so it's all text right now.

New embroidery

This is my latest landscape from my first visit to Australia in 2006. It's all hand embroidered on a very fine open weave silk which I bought in Australia when I was teaching at the Geelong Forum. I invariably have great problems deciding how to frame - or not - once a work is finished but this one 'The burnt tree' I worked directly onto the length of silk and am leaving it as a hanging. No decisions there then!
As usual it's mainly in straight stitch with the tree itself cut out of lutradur and the background trees torn, spray painted vliesofix.

I've been cleaning and remounting works for the exhibition and getting rid of card mounts to leave the embroideries mounted alone onto thick watercolour paper. But I've kept the glass on some of them and some not, it all depends how they look 'naked'

Voilà une nouvelle paysage Australien. Elle est travaillée sur une soie très fine et tissage 'ouverte'. D'habitude je trouve l'encadrement la plus difficile aspect de mon travail mais cette fois-ci je travaillais directe sur la soie et la laissée libre sans cadre. J'utilisé le point droit, point de noeud, l'arbre est coupé de lutradur et les arbres au fond de vliesofix peint et déchiré.

Pour mon expo à Bourbonne je suis en train de nettoyer et recadre quelques unes sans leurs passe-partouts que j'aime de moins en moins.