Ispirato

I’m doing a creative hand stitching course at the Embroiderers Guild. Here is a detail from my third sampler for the course. Creative means you don’t have to keep your stitches of a uniform size running in neat parallel rows. Whoopee - this is much more fun than the Beginners hand stitch class I did ten years ago.

 This is an Intermediate Level course, and runs longer than most of their classes. I decided to get serious about stitching this year and have already done two fantastic weekend workshops at the Guild since the new year. There’s an Intermediate Level machine embroidery class coming up in May. And there’s Horsham Forum at Easter where I’ll have a week with Kate Green from the UK doing “Expressions in Paint and Stitch”. Won’t that be fun?Š

I had a great weekend, kicked off by a Girl’s Day out with Coralee. We had a late breakfast in St Kilda then wandered through the Postcard Exhibition at Linden Gallery. I love the Postcard Exhibition. All the work - and there are over 3000 individual pieces - is small. No piece can exceed 30 x 30 cm. It is called the Postcard Exhibition because the gallery selects a few pieces to turn into postcards which they sell. I can’t say I agree with all the judges’ choices, but then I’ve never understood how judges think. Even a few years ago when a piece I made won a major prize. It won in a 2-D category and was obviously 3-D. It was deemed 2-D because it hung on the wall. Go figure.

Anyway, back to Linden, there is a great range of art and it is so interesting. I really liked the work of one miniaturist pen and ink artist. Her pieces were framed so perfectly - it made all the difference. But alas, they were also priced beyond my budget. Speaking of budget, none of my very inexpensive  pieces in the postcard exhibition had red dots on Saturday, but there are two weeks left so I’ll send positive thoughts that someone will fall in love with them.

After our gallery visit Coralee and I had coffee then popped into a couple of girly shops. It was a very satisfying time. Do you go to exhibitions? I think many people who craft don’t bother with art exhibitions, but you learn so much from looking at art. A general art exhibition used to mean “paintings”, but there is so much more variety these days. Find an arty friend and gallop off for a day at the galleries. You’ll love it.

Sandra is back in Australia teaching! She started in Melbourne with the Embroiderers Guild of Victoria, where I’m a member. Friday night she gave a great Power Point presentation and showed us her work. Check out her quilts on the wall behind Sandra in this photo I took today.

Sandra started as a graphic designer and has done City and Guilds courses in photography, patchwork and quilting and embroidery. Now she teaches for City and Guilds. Her wall quilts incorporate photo and painted paper transfers and are machine embellished. Her work is stunning and very artistic. She bemoaned the fact that textiles - and embroidery in particular - are undervalued in comparison to other forms of art. Sandra was told by a couple of gallery owners to refer to herself as a “mixed media artist” for this reason. Sad but true!

I was fortunate to get into her two-day class at the Embroiderers Guild - Saturday and Sunday, and I’m just home from it. There were twice as many applicants as they had places for. We did a lot of hands on mixed media techniques and were treated to talks and exercises on color and design theory - this was a real bonus. Most tutors I’ve studied with just focus on techniques. This afternoon we got to do some hand and machine stitching of samples. (There is more where this came from … )

You wanna make an origami heart? My mate Darren takes you through the steps with his four-minute movie: http://www.thepeaceofpaper.com Grab a square of paper and follow along! Very cool.

I sold five items at the recent Kingston Art Gallery Exhibition, “Out in the South” (see posts from 9th, 10th and 19th January). I sold a mix of bracelets and brooches. Didn’t sell the wallhanging or any of the framed pieces. But my sales exceeded those of any of the other artists that were part of this group exhibition. The curator said all galleries are reporting a sluggish market right now.

Post-Christmas. The economy. Insufficient marketing. What else can be blamed?

It was actually a great little exhibition with quality stuff and a good mix of styles. Most was reasonably priced. My bracelets, at $25 each, were actually underpriced, given the time I put into making the beads and then assembling them on memory wire. Yet I still only sold two.

I wouldn’t want to be trying to earn a living from making stuff. But if I were, I’d need to put a lot more effort into researching the market - what’s hot and what’s not. I’d need to put more effort into promoting myself as an artist. More effort into getting my stuff in front of the public - into galleries and shops and up on Internet sites. And of course, I’d have to make more art to sell.

It would be an interesting adventure, being a full-time artist. I’ve heard artists referred to as ‘accidental entrepreneurs ‘. They get into art because they love the creation-side of things. Then they discover they must become business-oriented to earn an income from their art. Not all artists have an innate business sense. Some have to work at developing business skills. Some give up too easily.

(There is more where this came from … )

If you’ve been following my blog since it started, you may recall this post about my pole dancing lesson.

That lesson was an imaginative birthday gift from my friend Robyn S-S. So in 2007, how was she gonna top (or even come close to equaling) a birthday present like that?

This year, she took me to a BURLESQUE SHOW. Friday night at the Spanish Club in Fitzroy. It is safe to say I have never been to anything else quite like it. What fun! My only complaint is that the audience was expected to stand through the whole show. And it was hot in the room.

But the show itself was fun - absurd, sometimes silly, often titillating . . . Yes, it was bawdy but not offensive by my standards. I suppose if you were a prude you wouldn’t show up to a burlesque show by choice, would you?

(There is more where this came from … )