Brett Piva @ Pocket Design

This afternoon we wandered over to check out Brett Piva's workshop at Pocket Design - immediately jealous at the open and airy workspace it was great to catch up with him as he busily works on the programme of MAKEit MADEit a conference celebrating "precision and excellence in the unique practices of Artists and Makers".

We are delighted that Brett will be contributing to Deeper Voice of Textiles and look forward to visiting him again in a couple of weeks time when the seeds of his ideas have fully germinated! In the meantime I'm curious how Tasmanian lichens come head to head with retro seafood advertising, excellence in gold leaf lettering and the meeting of ideas, materials and techniques both familiar and slightly outside of the comfort zone.

Site visit to the Australian Wire Rope Works Pty Ltd

Today the first of our site visits to gain an understanding of the occupations of the participants of 'Deeper Voice of Textiles' - the Australian Wire Rope Works Pty Ltd in Newcastle, NSW, today operated by Bridon-Bekaert. Huge and impressive machines spin steel wires to make cables for industry - beautiful! 
Thank you so much to Andrew and John for giving us the tour and sharing your expert knowledge - we can't wait to see what you will make!

Above: Cable scuff marks on the giant cable reels in the truck loading yard
Below: Cable offcuts of all sizes and ply specifications ready for recycling.

 

 

Above: Giant cable reels

Below: Loading up steel cables to be spun into heavy duty cables for the mining industry. 

Talks about tension, twill patterns, steam bending......

Last night participants gathered at Timeless Textiles to share ideas, look at materials and explore some of the cultural and historical references of what has become today's textile and fibre art. Talks about tension, twill patterns, steam bending and native hardwoods - it's great to get started!

Welcome to Deeper Voice of Textiles!

Thankyou to everyone who joined us last night at The Creator Incubator in Hamilton North, Newcastle, NSW, at the welcome BBQ for participants of the Deeper Voice of Textiles project in association with Timeless Textiles. What a great start!

International Women's Day

It was an honour today to be able to contribute in a small way helping with the volunteers that have worked with Timeless Textiles's contribution towards 'The One Million Stars to end Violence Project'. Celebrating International Women's Day, 8th March every year, we displayed a small selection from the thousands of plaited stars that have made by the Newcastle contributors.

boiling seas....

It's great to land in Newcastle, NSW this week and take a look over the Southern Pacific Ocean - quite a contrast to the calmer almost tideless waters of the Mediterranean of my home town Vilanova i La Geltru just south of Barcelona, Spain.

shed talk

Great article yesterday in the Newcastle Herald introducing the project 'Deeper Voice of Textiles' starting today in Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Artist and basketmaker Tim Johnson will join Anne Kempton of Timeless Textiles and Newcastle based artist Graham Wilson to work with men from twenty local businesses. Lots more to follow.....

You can read the complete online article here: It's time for men to get out of their sheds 

Back to the land of the bowerbird....

By Monday night I'll be back in the land of the bowerbird! Exciting times as I embark on a 2 month trip working on a sculpture project 'Deeper Voice of Textiles' in Newcastle, NSW, Australia in collaboration with Timeless Textiles - the foremost contemporary textile gallery in Australia. More of this project to come - but first back to the bowers - in this case photographs of the bower or dancing ground of the male Satin Bowerbird that I photographed on my last trip in 2015. Since childhood I've been fascinated by these birds and their constructions built not for nesting - but display and attracting a mate. Interwoven twigs are combined with a variety blue trinkets gathered from the locality - in this case the family home of Harriet Goodall (thankyou for hosting me Harriet!).

In 2000 I took up an artist's residency with the New England Regional Arts Museum in Armidale, NSW, after the residency I then travelled on to Alice Springs and the Olgas in the central desert region of Australia, here I was lucky enough to catch up with the Western Bowerbird noisily feeding around the dry river beds. Onwards and up to Caiman Creek in the Garig Gunak Barlu National Park in Arnhem Land, NT and the Great Bowerbird with it's spectacular bower decorated with shells, bones, mangrove nuts and a bouquet of greenery - below you can see a scan of one of my 35mm slides from my trusty old Olympus OM1.

Above - Great Bowerbird's bower, Caiman Creek, NT
Below - Satin Bowerbird's bower, Robertson, NSW.

Award winning already!

Deeper Voice of Textiles is winning awards before it has begun! Yesterday evening Anne Kempton of Timeless Textiles received the cash prize from Awesome Newcastle to facilitate the publishing of the projects sculpture trail map on the projects completion in April 2017. Read the full story here at Awesome Newcastle.