Ispirato

I’ve been re-visiting The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. In fact, I’m working my way through it with an online discussion group. The author provides exercises for overcoming blocks to creativity and a key practice is the daily writing of ‘The Morning Pages’ - that’s three pages of long-hand writing first thing in the morning. The MP’s help you clear your head of junk.

In writing my MP’s this morning I was amused by a couple of discoveries. First of all, I’m not really creatively blocked at the moment. I’ve been making heaps of felt and doing hand and machine embroidery. I’ve attended two big art retreats in the past eight weeks. Wow.

So I found myself writing that my constant indulgence in art was actually distracting me from work. That’s real work - the business of putting together the Melbourne Paperific Expo AND the business of managing Go-Make-Art.com. Then I had to question myself: Is art a distraction? Is it an indulgence? Isn’t art entwined like a vine through the lattice of those activities I refer to as ‘work’?

Doesn’t art engage me at a spiritual level; feed my soul? That makes art a good distraction and a worthy indulgence.

The lines between work and play are very blurry in my life. Blurry is good.

I’m in Beechworth, Victoria for the Southern Hemisphere Feltmakers Convergence! Here is the Goddess of Felt in the felt yurt erected on site at the convention venue. You might recognize the blue wrap if you saw my previous post . . . in fact you might recognize the goddess herself if you look closely.

We are having a fantastic time. There are so many talented feltmakers here from across Australia and New Zealand - over 100 delegates.

At our first breakfast we were invited to wear a decorated bra on the outside of our clothing. It was the best ice breaker! I have photos of some very amazing bras. Our second day was “Wear a hat” day and we had a fab fashion parade that evening, so there have been many felted garments to drool over. There are demos and hands-on workshops daily but it sadly concludes this evening. Check out my felt convergence photographs at Flickr.

Here’s a garment in the layout stage. That’s blue and teal wool fleece on turquoise silk fabric. I was originally thinking “skirt” (or a piece to wear over a plain skirt) but it shrunk so much during the felting stage that it is now a wrap! A skinnier person than me could do the skirt-thing with it.

After it was felted I added some simple free-machine embroidery stitching which you can see in the next photo. (There is more where this came from … )

I have been making felt in anticipation of attending the Southern Hemisphere Feltmakers Convergence next week in Beechworth, Victoria.

Here’s a white scarf in the making. I wanted to create a lacy fabric.

I started with a needle-felted batt from Fibre Fusion and I poked holes into it after a little wet felting.

The metal table on our back porch was a perfect surface to poke into!

 Add more warm water and soap. Do some tossing and rubbing on pool cover - which is like heavy duty bubble wrap. During felting, the wool fibers shrink into one another to create a tighter, stronger fabric. This piece shrank so much! I love Fibre Fusion batts but this was the first time I’d worked with a single layer. (There is more where this came from … )

So do you like gadgets? I do. But come on, now.

At first I thought this was a joke. But it is real. A ribbon ironer. For the scrapbooker who has everything, I guess.

If you are itching to get your hands on one, they are made by Pebbles, Inc.

I was just eating my lunch out on the back porch, as I tend to do when the weather is nice. The sky is cloudless today and so BLUE. I know a photo wouldn’t do it justice. So I did a “digital doodle” above in Photoshop, a la Felicity Smart.

I began thinking about how “blue” is associated with depression. That doesn’t usually fit for me. I think of blue as calm and retrospective, perhaps, but “black” says more about dark sadness to me.

If you’ve followed my blog you know a friend of mine died of cancer just over a month ago.

In recent weeks I’ve been driving another friend to radiation appointments because he has lung cancer which has spread to his brain. His wife cannot drive him because she is in hospital. She had a breakdown when he was diagnosed. It has been an education to see this couple’s friends rally around their family in their moment of great need, particularly since they have no extended family members living locally. The family is coping, getting counseling, living day to day, finding joy in small things. The radiation treatments finished yesterday for this man and his wife comes home tomorrow. The children are eager for her return.

And as I looked at the sky today and thought about the turmoil of this family’s immediate past, their present and their future, I thought the colour of the sky said something about hope. Solemn and serious perhaps, but hopeful, too.

Whew! Issue #2 is out!

I love this job.

Here’s where you get it
if you don’t got it already:
www.go-make-art.com

Go-Make-Art.

It’s good for you.