Circles of Life

Annette Brereton

 
Circles of Life - Detail
Annette Brereton
25 x 18 cm
Silk, beads, crystals, free form machining, pleating  My inspiration comes from looking at fungi coming from wood, trees and soils of the earth. It is part of the ecosystem. Fungi helps break down and recycle dead plants and all types of organic waste, absorbing nutrients which are put back into the earth. That is why I called my work Circles of Life. They are often called four rings.

The fungi slowing breaking through the earth surface surrounded by the circles of time.

Raw Ingredients 1 & 11

Barbara Schey

 
Raw Ingredients 1 & 11 - Detail
Barbara Schey
2.5m x .4 m approx. each
Woven hemp, rust, mud, gold leaf, dyeing
 

These hangings are of hand-woven hemp from a Hmong Hill Tribe on the mountain of Doi Suthep adjacent to Chaing Mai, Thailand. The villagers grow, process and weave the hemp in their village.

I have treated the fabric with rust and then shibori dyed it with iron rich mud from the Hawkesbury River. The gold leaf is part of the Buddhist Ceremony of 'Making Merit' practised in Thailand, but of course the gold, the mud, the iron rust and indeed the hemp, is all 'from the earth'.

Cicada Nymph

Foster De Waal

 
Cicada Nymph - Detail
Foster De Waal
90 x 60 cm
Hand-dyed merino, polyester, soy, threads: rayon, metallic, cotton, felting: orbital sander, hand stitching, burning, digital image transfer
  A cicada nymph comes up from the earth - a necessary part of its life cycle. Nymphs emerge from their tunnel four weeks after rain in summer but only if conditions are right otherwise they die.

The soy and merino in my work represent roots and obstacles the nymph must pass through on its way to the surface. I experienced a few obstacles as I was stitching but I enjoyed choosing colours and the type of stitch to illustrate my image. As I usually draw using graphite pencils, the challenge to create patterns and texture using stitches was interesting. I'll use fibre and stitches in my work again.

Collaborata Mollusca

Inga Hunter

 
Collaborata Mollusca - Detail
Inga Hunter
46 x 20 x 21 cm
Assorted papers
  This book is my record of a year's collaboration with the non-human, ie snails. My friends and I have always been interested in what we call "snail art" - those extensively eaten brochures which have escaped from the letterbox. So one April we decided to find out just what snails would eat - good quality papers for instance. We put out papers of various kinds to see what happened. The snails totally ignored the good paper and simply went for the junk. It was then that I decided that a collaboration would be interesting. I thought that manila folders might be a good compromise, so I prepared my pages and put a couple out onto plant pots frequented by the snails who ate my herbs. Nothing. Of course the snails had gone into aestivation for the winter, and those pages sat there getting mouldier and mouldier - for the whole winter. So it all started from there, and lasted through the dry summer and on till the next winter.

I've put this book into the exhibition because snails come from the earth, their eggs are laid there and they live their live so close to it. Every page in this book has lain on the earth and been affected by it. And I have spent a year scraping earth off my pages and looking for snails hidden in the earth. There is still some of it in the pages.

Dust to Dust

Kirry Toose

 
Dust to Dust
Kirry Toose
Assorted fabrics, embedded fibres and machine felted.
Asymmetrical bodice, bloomers
  Secret stories buried within the earth's strata. What lessons can be unearthed as we delve deeper through the layers? There are great discoveries and knowledge still to be unearthed from the millions of years of earths being. Humans have traditionally had the need to bury and even revere their dead; some other species have been miraculously preserved by nature. This mystery of earth's storage holds a strange fascination for me.

Translating this concept onto a wearable art piece was spontaneous; layers of textures, thread and stitch are symbolic. Machine digitised images assist in pictorially representing these lost species and cultures.

Bushfire Oz

Maureen Locke-Maclean

 
Bushfire Oz - Detail
Maureen Locke-Maclean
74 x 84 cm
  Hand dyed and painted on Silk Twill using Steam set dyes and then creating movement with the applicaiton of 'Arashi Shibori' which involves binding and compressing resulting in a three dimensional effect which enhances the movement of smoke drifting between smoldering tree trunk embers.

Bushfires although devasting in many ways also give regeneration and birth to new life "from the Earth".

Fire...Regrowth

Maz Beeston

 
Fire...Regrowth - Detail
Maz Beeston
49 x 35.5 cm
Hand dyed muslin (purchased), threads, silk pods
Framed Hanging
  'Fire...Regrowth developed once I had attached dyed muslin, silk pods and sticks on fabric, I knew I had the results of a fire and that this piece could be developed for from the earth. I then built up textures and imagery with a limited number of embroidery stitches, running stitch, seed stitch and french knots.

I added dyed green muslin to the side of the main piece for regrowth and continued to build an embroidered canvas - once again with a limited number of stitches, using reds, yellows and orange over dyed muslin to show the bright regrowth after fire.

In April 2007 I attended a workshop at ATAFTA Orange Forum called "Mark Making" and my piece Fire...Regrowth was developed from this workshop and, in particular, from an exercise in "attaching".

Snow Gums

Sylvia Riley

 
Snow Gums - Detail
Sylvia Riley
Silk twill, fibre reactive dyes, wax
  I have always loved snow gums and their colourful bark. I love the variations and subtleties as well as the sharp contrast in colour all within a small space. When presented with the opportunity of creating something "from the earth" I thought snow gums would represent some of the beauty that can come from the earth.

The snow gums were drawn free hand on the silk, the original design was adapted from a photograph. Each colour was painted from lightest to darkest paying careful attention to shading and the various colours which makes the snow gum bark unique. Each colour was reserved using hot wax and the picture was slowly built, layer upon layer, dye then wax then dye, etc. When the picture was finished, the hot wax was removed by ironing and the dye set by further ironing.