Silkies

About three months ago a friend gave me a margarine container with some tiny silk worms in it, little did I know what was in store for me. We have a mulberry tree in our back yard and that was fine for the first couple of weeks. After a while it was getting difficult to find enough leaves to keep the hoards satisfied. I started with them in a shoe box but it wasn't long before I had to split them up and in the end I had four boxes and was having to visit a local park where there was a giant mulberry tree hanging over the fence. I will continue the story in the photo captions.

Early days

Getting bigger

I tried some in our mulberry tree and they chewed their way through
lots of leaves and fed the local bird population.

Getting bigger and eating lots more.
I could hear them munching every time I went near the boxes.

The first cocoon being formed.

More cocoons.

Putting the silk worms to work. I received an email from a friend
who had seen that I had silk worms and reported that
Donna Koretsky had demonstrated silk worms spinning flat
instead of cocoons at the last Friends of Dard Hunter meeting.
I just had to try it!

A bit further progressed with the spinning.

This one is on some handmade paper made from bluebell flower stems,
the Yabbers got these for their Christmas cards.

Because I was collecting lots of mulberry I decided to make
some paper from the inner bark.
This shows me scraping the outer bark off the steamed stems.

The inner bark slips off easily then gets cooked in alkali, washed and hand beaten.

The stems left behind are beautiful!

I tied several stems together to make a boatish shape then
lined it with mulberry paper and had the
silk worms make their magic on it.

Collected cocoons

I made some thread from a bundle of cocoons,
it took me about four hours to get 20 metres of thread.
 I used instructions found on the web here.
It came out all uneven but I do love the colour.

The first moth emerges from a cocoon.

The moths lay their eggs, they make wonderful patterns with the eggs and
with the liquid that they spurt out.

As the eggs mature they turn grey if they have been fertilised.
There are two sheets of paper here the top one has eggs that are older
than in the bottom one, most of them will turn grey too.

Now for the projects.

My books for the Papermakers of Victoria Christmas book swap.
The internal pages are mulberry and they are sewn
with the silk thread that I made.

The text was corny - 'Have a very mulberry Christmas and a silky New Year.'

My boatish piece, it could almost be an insect lying on it's back.
The solid piece of silk was formed on some plastic mesh.

The insect uprighted!

A close up of the silk, it is rather lovely.

A Christmas tree, I dyed some of the cocoons using my paper dyes,
the chain is made from cross sections of cocoons
and the tree is stripped mulberry spray painted white.

A close look at the baubles and chain.

Closer.

I made some flowers from the dyed cocoons.

The flowers could have been better made.

Our Christmas tree, this years theme is gold so the cocoons fit in well and they
stick quite well to the plastic tree.

Alcove Christmas Sale

 The Alcove Art Shop is holding it's annual Christmas Affair at the Box Hill Community Centre for the next couple of weeks. it opened on Monday, I haven't seen it yet but am on duty this Friday evening and again on Wednesday next week so hopefully there will still be some bargains left for my Christmas shopping. I finally got around to putting some books together using Gelatine prints, cyanotypes and some batik papers.

cyanotypes on hanji for the covers and random cyanotype on the outer pages of each section, paper inside is zercal

Gelatine print on handmade paper for covers and on outer pages of each section, paper inside is zercal

Batik on handmade paper covers zercal pages with hanji surrounding every second section

I was invited to be part of 'Camberwell on Canvas' an exhibition that is held in shop windows around the Bourke road hill. I entered one other time when the theme was 'What you like about Camberwell'. This year the theme was tied in with the shop where the work is displayed. The organisers supply a blank canvas for each participant. My shop is a Malaysian restaurant called Masak Ku (my food), I visited one night to try the food and come up with an idea for the work. Just inside the restaurant is a fish tank with some beautiful tropical fish, I took some photos with my phone and made negatives and positives of a couple of them. I wanted to connect the fish with the restaurant and felt that the Malaysian kite Wau represented Malaysia. I made the kite shape from some non slip plastic sheet with little blobs all over then drew on it with permanent marker and tied some thread to the ends and left space for the negatives. I used hanji coated with traditional cyanotype chemicals for the image then glued it to the canvas. I called it Wau ku, my kite. It is currently in the window of Masak Ku, 732 Burke Rd, Camberwell VIC 3124.

Wau ku Cyanotype on hanji

Belated Blog - Finding Content workshop with Marama Warren

Where has the month gone, here it is nearly November and I am writing about a workshop I participated in back on the 12th and 13th of September. A small group of us gathered at the Stables for a workshop titled Finding Content that was facilitated by Marama Warren and put on by Papermakers of Victoria. Marama introduced herself to us and talked a bit about her life in the fast lane as a writer and publicist then she set us off on some creative writing challenges, we had to sit and write without thinking for 10 minutes, no taking the pen off the paper. She called them 10 minute dashes, we then did one use our non preferred hand (much slower). She then helped us individually to put together something from what we'd brought with us. I had lots of my jelly prints plus a handmade pulp painted concertina that I felt needed something more.
I didn't complete anything during the workshop but was inspired to come home and put a few pieces together, I had a bit of time the next day but then it was nearly a month before I completed these works in the series Connections all featuring gelatine prints in some way.

Connect Concertina Handmade recycled and plant fibre

Connect Concertina Handmade recycled and plant fibre with gelatine prints

Connect Concertina Text a quote from John Muir

Covers digital prints on book cloth

Connect woven concertina 

Connect slip case

Connect flag book

Connect flag book

Connect Waterfall Book

A few weeks after the class I had a small group of people come to me to learn paper making and then some simple books so I made another waterfall book and a concertina woven structure. For this lot I used some of my paste papers.

waterfall

woven concertina

As If: 40 Years and Beyond Celebrating Womens Art Register

I have been the convenor of Women's Art Register for the last fifteen years, we are very excited to be celebrating our 40th anniversary this year with a fabulous festival that includes several exhibitions throughout Melbourne along with some workshops and artist walks. We will be hanging the member show on Monday and will really brighten up the space at the Queen Victoria Women's Centre in Lonsdale Street, Melbourne. The image we are using for all of our publicity is this piece by one of our founders Erica Mc Gilchrist.

Image: Erica McGilchrist, Trio, 1970, from the series Enigmas,
synthetic polymer paint on canvas,152.5 x 122 cm © Estate of Erica McGilchrist.

AS IF: 40 Years and Beyond

Celebrating the Women's Art Register

11 August to 7 November 2015

An arts festival with 13 free events across Melbourne

In 2015, the Women’s Art Register celebrates 40 years of persisting and insisting that women’s art matters. To honour this remarkable achievement, we are hosting a curated mini-festival of women’s artmaking, showcasing a dazzling array of women’s artistic contributions to the cultural landscape. This one-off program is bold, diverse and exciting. Enmeshing the old and new, here and there, now and then, the project responds to the notion of AS IF (as if we’d still be here, I will continue to make art as if it is vital).              The series of events, zig-zagging across the City of Melbourne and the City of Yarra, will include up to 100 emerging, mid-career and established artists across all art forms. The program engages artist and audience, actively presenting a re-envisaging of Melbourne’s cultural life by women artists.  Please join us to Celebrate! For further event information and bookings visit www.womensartregister40years.info

Contemporary Art Society and Jelly Prints

I started writing this about two weeks ago but life and commitments got in the way. I have two works in the Contemporary Art Society annual members show that is on at the moment at Gallery 341 that is at 341 Church Street Richmond. I will be there on Thursday 24 September after 11 am until 2-3 pm. Here is one of the pieces I entered.

Untitled Collage 42 x 30 cm

I have been having a lot of fun lately with gelatine prints. A few weeks ago we had a weekend away in Anglesea for the Surf Coast Arts Trail and saw a demonstration of gelatine printing in the Anglesea Art Shed. I had to try it out on the spot and I was hooked. I came home and made myself a couple of gelatine plates and have made lots of beautiful pages. It works particularly well on smooth handmade paper. Here are just a few of the pieces I made. 

I have had so much fun with this that I have offered to run a workshop for Papermakers of Victoria next year.

Shadow print of leaves and string

Double print of leaves and string

several over prints with plastic shapes and orange bag

Plastic shapes again

Indian wood block

Printed directly onto card, leaves and string

Collage using the pieces I made in Anglesea along with some silk and handmade papers