Admiration

Here is my finished piece for January - Admiration.

It is based on a rangoli design from Mandana, Gujarat, India. From the book "Designs and Motifs from India" by Marty Noble.

A rangoli is a colourful design made on the floor near the entrance to a house to welcome guests. At Diwali, Hindus draw bright rangoli to encourage the goddess Lakshmi to enter their houses. Traditionally the floor painting is only done by women. Red sand and chalk powder are used to make the designs. They are also now found on block printed textiles.

This is my homage to the countless, nameless craftswomen in India who embroider our skirts, bags and cushion covers.

I am pleased that I kept to the colour scheme and have used a couple of TAST stitches from last year - pistil and arrowhead, with couching and beads. The background is fern green sheer over purple linen. It is 9x9 cms (3.5x3.5 inches)

I confess that this was to be the centrepiece in a larger piece - but life got in the way this month - and I have also signed up for Sharon B's Sumptuous Surfaces class (more in the next post) so this was as far as I got.

Still I am very pleased with the result and may use it as it is - or add it to the WISP pile - as part of my original design, when time permits!

I am looking forward to the February challenge.

Admiration: Take It Further Challenge

It is month 1 of Sharon B's new challenge: Take It Further. She has given us a choice of a colour pallet and a concept. It is a great combination - and one to make us all think!
The concept is: Who do you look up to and admire? Why? What is it that you admire about them? Interpret your design in fiber or paper.

When I saw the colour pallet I thought that I wouldn't have much. They aren't colours I normally use, but look what I found in my mixed media stash!!

I have interpreted the pallet loosely - purples, olive green, limey-yellow green, soft green and grey/silver.

As I do have all these lovely goodies I will try to use the pallet in my design. The colours to me are earthy and remind me of woodland shade - all mossy and cool, but also the shades in mother-of-pearl from seashell linings too. So I am going to call it woodland-pearl.

Now for the concept:

Who do I look up to and admire - lots of people - Nelson Mandela, Barbara Hepworth, Anita Roddick.... No-one person jumps out that I would like to do a piece of work about. So I am thinking generic - who do people look up to? Idols, gods/godesses. I went to a great art exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney last year about Indian godesses and have wanted to do a piece of work inspired by that for a while. My next leap of logic - is that I greatly admire the work of many nameless and very talented Indian textile artists and would enjoy doing a hommage to them. I admire their talent and skill, which is rarely recognised and often poorly rewarded.

So here is my theme... a mixed media piece using the woodland-pearl colour scheme to celebrate the work of Indian textile artists. Though I have no hope of achieving the quality of their work.

I want to use diverse stitches, varied materials and create patterns. I am not yet sure about size - a postcard doesn't feel big enough; A4 may be a little big. Perhaps a fabric book page, somewhere in between...

Here is a photo of some of my source inspirations:
This feels a huge challenge - but it will be a lot of fun.