Exhibition

It's a relief to get to the finish of a piece of work and it is at last out of the house and in a gallery where I can no longer feel the need to tinker with it.
 "Blue Guitar" has gone into Bilston Art and Craft Gallery in the exhibition "On Yer Mettle". The hanging was yesterday and it opens on Saturday 26th August.

The theme is based around metal, although the phrase means be "ready to take action". All around this area there are currently exhibitions celebrating the birth of Heavy Metal Music which happened in this area with bands like Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath - all Black Country boys, many of whom had worked in metal factories and foundries locally.
Some of the exhibitions celebrate the music, whilst others are about the industry of this area mostly up until the 1980s.

My guitar has some metal in it... you can see the washers and metal fabric above and there are Indian Shisha mirrors for the volume, treble and bass controllers. Mostly it is made from recycled jeans - denim was the prominent fabric of the fashion associated with the music of course.
The quilt upon which it is appliquéd is made from recycled fabrics again - lace, silk and cottons, some of which is dyed with rust.

Oh yes - to get an idea of the size of it here is 9 year old Isabel "playing" it before the appliqué began!

Here she is with her brother, overseen by Granny, at the hanging where they were emulsioning a peg board for an interactive family sewing installation for the gallery!
The exhibition runs 27th August - 24th September 2011 - heres a link
Other news is that Linda and Laura Kemshall's online creative sketchbook course has now opened and I am looking forward to some peace when they go back to school, in between work, to get down to that.
Here are some wonderful seed heads (it's an addiction) from the Love In A Mist flowers I grew in the garden. Love those shapes...ripe for drawing!

Oh yes - ALSO I am pleased that my magic feather has flown across the ocean to Jude Hill to her project. Click this link to see.

Where it all begins

Today is the beginning of the rest of my life...well, OK, isn't it always? This blog is really a personal diary of discoveries, ideas and general loveliness.

You could say I am mercurial, chameleon like or just a damn slippery fish, but I like to keep evolving. I have moved from musician and teacher, to homeopath and am now on a new journey into art, textiles, sewing and quilting.

This will be the story. I don't know yet where it will take me...