Nature's inspiration

These beautiful leaves were collected from my friend Margaret's property. My current work is about her and her sense of place, figure and landscape. I am stitching the leaves together as the base under the feet of the sculpture. Nature provides us with so much inspiration.

Next stage

Friday /Saturday was spent working under the guidance of Dion Channer at his studio and paper mill.
Not only is he a master papermaker with 30yrs experience but a wonderful man. He kindly shared his time, experience, knowledge and paper making equipment allowing me to produce the paper I needed for my current project. I took the fibre cooked, then gave it a hand beat and then into Dion's Hollander beater. Then onto the vacuum table. I cannot thank Dion enough and his assistant Angelina for all their help and support. It was truly appreciated.

Hollander beater

Measuring the sizes of my pieces

Applying the beaten fibre

Putting the fibre directly into the prepared mould. This is a totally new experience for me as I normally  place it dry.

Vacuum table

Looking weary, job completed

Paper making

 Cutting up the Bulrush fibre

 Soaking the fibre in water

 Glamorous pic of cooking the fibre

 Rinsing the fibre

Hand beating the fibre

Preparation

                            Sewing some velcro onto mesh bags for plant fibres to be cooked in.                                                                             

                                                               Gathering Bulrush

                                                                 Hanging to dry

                                                           Finishing touches to casts

Preparation of casts

At the moment, I am preparing the casts for the paper. I really enjoy the process and the journey. There is always plenty of problem solving to do. I love that it slows me down and is quite meditative.

Hat fun

After making up my materials it takes a few days before they set and are ready to use so I thought I would cast a hat. I used lots of vaseline on the hat itself and the mould came out fantastic.

New work journey

After many months of thinking, my new work has begun. I travelled to Glen Innes in NSW to work with a dear friend of over 30 years. We spent many hours chatting and casting. The new work has been inspired by a poem that was written by her. This will be revealed later on. My work will hopefully highlight and give voice to rural women and their connection to the land.

I am making paper from bulrush and plant fibres from the property. I love working with natural materials gathered from the landscape. I am doing lots of exploration with different techniques and will keep you updated with successes and failures.