Petite

I have just sent off my entry for the annual 'Petite' miniature textiles exhibition at the Wangaratta Art Gallery. The exhibition opens on Saturday June 14 from 2-4pm, by Antonia Syme, the Director of the Australian Tapestry Workshop. There will also be an Art Lovers Talk in the Gallery on Wednesday July 16th from 10-11am.  If you are down that way in Victoria, put this on your agenda!

Winter has arrived!

After a week of glorious Autumn weather, Winter arrived this morning in Canberra and we woke to heavy grey skies, intermittent rain and a definite drop in the temperature.  I have spent most of today sitting in front of a crackling fire and stitching some textiles for exhibition later in the year. So cosy listening to some classical music and watching the flickering flames warm up our home.
I am also getting stock together for the Belconnen Art Centre Mid-Winter Market which will take place in the BAC foyer on Saturday 28th June from 12 noon to 5pm. I will be launching a new series of silk/cotton scarves as well as the ever-popular tea towels, merino socks and hankies.....hope to see you there!

Come and visit me at the BAC Mid-Winter Market

Ni Hao from China!

I have just returned home after three weeks in Dalian, China, situated at the tip of the Liaodong peninsula in Liaoning province. Dalian is a major seaport and is easily accessible by boat from Yantai in Shandong across the Bohai Sea, as well as North Korea, just across the Yellow Sea. Dalian is a relatively young city of 100 years,  had been under British, Russian and Japanese occupations, and was formerly known as Port Arthur, Dalny and Ryojun in the past.

I was in Dalian to visit my sister and to install an artwork in her restaurant, The Riviera, which specialises in Italian, Spanish and French cuisine.

'Biota' installed at The Riviera

I ate many delicious meals at the restaurant during my stay, and was also there for The Riviera Annual Italian Wine Dinner, cooked by an Italian master chef and accompanied by Marchesi di Barolo wines from Piemonte.

I do have to say that The Riviera makes the best Tiramisu I have tasted in a long time (and gazpacho, cannelloni, portobello mushrooms stuffed with shrimp, etc etc.......). Consequently, walking around Dalian was high on my agenda every day, and I got to see most of the nearby sights. 

Unlike my usual trips abroad I was hard-pressed to find any local textiles though- I searched high and low, believe me, but perhaps  this is because Dalian is such a young city. I did manage to take this photo of what the local menswear trends were.....

Not sure what occasion would call for this attire .......

Dalian is going through a huge building boom at the moment, with massive developments popping up everywhere. Down near the new conference centre on the water is an amazing development in progress called 'Montage', complete with European inspired buildings and its own Arc de Triomph.  The mind boggles as to who will be living and working in this mini-city built on recently reclaimed sea.

Montage Development goes on for miles along the seafront.

And from the whimsical to the sublime, at the other end of the Montage fantasy you have the new Dalian International Conference Centre, by Austrian architecture practice Coop Himmelb(l)au which features a 1600 seat theatre, a primary conference room for 2,500 delegates, an exhibition gallery and 6 additional smaller conference rooms for 300-600 people each.

The Dalian International Conference Centre

Located directly across the road from the Conrad Hilton, this inspiring building was planned according to sustainable principles, such as using the nearby sea water for cooling.

The downside of China was that I could not access my blog or any other social media sites and also found it difficult to surf the internet or even access some website that we commonly take for granted.  Some residents get around this restriction by having a VPN and going through another country for connection, but that was not possible for me in such a short visit, so hence I could not post anything on my blog the whole time I was there.

Anyhow, I'm now back in the glorious Canberra autumn, checking out what plants have grown since I left and getting used to cooking meals again after the luxury of eating out every night!

Experiments in Printing with Mordants

Just a heads-up on the workshop I will be running at this year's TAFTA Geelong Forum from September 28 - October 4th. My class will definitely be going ahead, and is almost full, so if you are interested now is the time to register.

Combination of resist, dye and mordant printing on cotton.

Discover the magic of printing with mordants in conjunction with natural dyes. Mordant printing is a centuries old process whereby different colours can be obtained on your cloth from just one natural dyebath. This class will focus on several mordants and dyes as well as different printing and stamping processes. It is suitable for those wishing to extend beyond immersion dyeing to printing. It can also be understood as suitable for relative beginners to the very experienced as participants can determine how to incorporate the Mordant Printing methods in their own practice.

Naturally dyed silk wool and cotton with mordant printing

Hope to see you there!http://tafta.org.au/geelong-forum-tutor-julie-ryder/

Colour+Print!

At the Sturt Summer School this year I taught a "Colour+Print" workshop that focused on the basics of mixing colour for printing onto textiles. 

One happy class!

Most of the participants were beginners although some had related experience in the areas of weaving, sewing, dyeing, graphic design and teaching art. Student learnt to mix their own colours from scratch, learning about colour theory and the technical aspects of the chemicals involved, including exploring the many different binders that could be used onto textiles to create different effects.  Once we got a hang of that, we had fun playing with carving blocks and using traditional blocks for block-printing as well as cutting stencils for screen-printing.

Kate's green hydrangea block-print

Elizabeth's vibrant block-printed cotton

Exploring both traditional and hand carved blocks

This was a fabulous collaboration with a professional outcome!

The cushions seen above are an example of how much work and effort the students put into a 5-day workshop.  The Japanese Maple block was carved by Jen, the design and construction was executed by Lee, and Marylou acted as colourist and stylist. Lee and Marylou also made matching aprons from their colour swatch experiments (seen in the background), tote bags, napkins, tea-towels and much, much more.  It was awesome to come into class each day and see what they had achieved.  In fact, the whole class was so enthusiastic that we received many many comments about the work produced during the public Saturday Open Studio.  Well done ladies! 

Oh....they also presented me with this fab tote bag, screen-printed and signed by each one of them, then sewn up in the dead of night by Lee...and filled with bottles of wine of course! One of the most enjoyable workshops I have taught.

My next workshop will be at the TAFTA Geelong Fibre Forum in late September - Experiments in Printing with Mordants. Great for those of you who have an interest in natural dyeing and want to expand into printing with mordants and natural dyes. 

Natural Wonders Exhibition

My latest exhibition, Natural Wonders, closed earlier this month, so I thought I would post a few photos for those readers who could not make it to the gallery.  I had terrific response from the hundreds of visitors who attended, with wonderful comments such as "Magical exhibition in a magical place", "A very inspiring exhibition - the quality of work is outstanding" and "Well worth the drive, wonderful "  "what vision and patience". Many thanks to all visitors from Canberra, interstate and especially the visitors from New Zealand, Holland, Edinburgh, Germany and South Africa (to name a few!) who did manage to make it down to Tanja.

Narek Galleries at Tanja

View of 'No Man's Land' on plinth, 'Seasonal Variations' large hanging textiles
in the centre and works on paper on the left wall.

A closer view of 'Seasonal Variations' with 'Domestic Blueprint' in the
apse at the rear of the gallery, and 'Molonglo' photo to the right.

View of framed textiles at the opening.

The textiles in this exhibition used a mordant printing process, which I will be teaching at a Textile Fibre Forum Workshop in Geelong in September this year. For more information see 

http://tafta.org.au/vic-news-events/

Upcoming events

Just updating you on two events that are rapidly looming on my horizon (and maybe yours too!)

My solo exhibition, Natural Wonders, will open at the Narek Galleries in Tanja, NSW in just three short weeks.  The exhibition will be open from Friday 29th November, with the opening night on Saturday 30th.

For those of you interested in learning how to print on textiles, I will be teaching a workshop at the Sturt Summer School in Mittagong, NSW, from January 6 - 11, entitled Colour+Print on Fabric. This course is suitable for beginners to intermediate and will teach the fundamentals of mixing colours and creative methods of fabric printing. Click here to find out more information. Update - class is full.

Further updates and photos from the exhibition will be posted in 3 weeks time.

Until then,

julie