Beautiful handcrafted bags- "Nancybird"

I saw these beautiful bags today at the new Maiocchi shop on Ann St in Brisbane.
They are "Nancybird" bags and wallets created by Melbourne designer Emily Wright.
"Nancybird" is a beautiful business using leather by-products of the meat industry, tanned using analine or vegetable dyes. The fabrics are cotton or jute and chosen for the low environmental impact.
Emily's business doesn't just pay lip service to being sustainable as she has developed her shipping and packing using recycled materials and prefers to send her merchandise flat-packed by sea freight to reduce air miles. If that doesn't impress you then how about this....
"Nancybird" headquarters uses 100% windpower!
But to get to the heart of the matter, these objects are simply beautiful. They capture a ruggedness and practicality in their construction combined with soft femininity and a dash of retro in the use of printed fabric and drawings. The crafted finish is such a pleasure to see in an object such as a bag that is usually created as a disposable, consumer fashion item. You can imagine that these bags would just get better with age. Marks of wear and tear and living enhance such objects.

It is worth saving up to buy such items. My advice for starving artists and others of Very Little Assets is to buy sparingly and buy the best.

...the final countdown

The Swamp Cartography collaboration is entering a white hot, nerve-wracking, exciting phase as the travelling exhibition begins on the 26th of February at the Gympie Regional Gallery.Exhibition design has never been my strong point and mostly I just opt for white plinths deluding myself that they somehow appear "Classic". We had a very fruitful visit last weekend from Australian ceramicist and teacher Janet de Boos (this doesn't really describe her fabulousness as a supporter and encourager and inspirer of literally hundreds of students, artists and teachers over the past decades) who gently but insistently prodded us into the uncomfortable process of examining our assumptions. This is a process that is totally absent from the everyday studio practice. Compared to my own very gentle examining of my aesthetic motivations Janet's was positively brutal! It was worth enduring the discomfort as Janet's questions forced me to think carefully about every aspect of the exhibition space, how to make it dynamic and how to pare down the ideas until every aspect of the space is resolved so the exhibition becomes an experience drawing the audience into the beauty and isolation of the wallum. This process is so valuable it is worth enduring the discomfort and the exhibition will be a cracker with not a white plinth in sight!

The exhibition commences in Gympie and will trundle on it's way over the next two years encompassing a film launch in Brisbane at the Botanical Gardens in September, an exhibition at the Museum of Brisbane in October , Noosa and Canberra, and Melbourne in 2012....with more to come.

$18 000

The auction of ceramics for Flood Relief raised over $18 000!!!!!!! This is an incredible number when applied to contemporary ceramics. Thanks to Vipoo and all the artists who took part and thanks to all the generous supporters who bid for the pieces.

making tracks

When I did these I was thinking about walking through the wallum with my children.
Last time I did this Sweet P. got tired and I had to piggyback her. I lost my new sunglasses.
The wallum swallowed them up and in the glittering, sparkling, scratchy, wallum with the bright hot sun bearing down I looked and looked for my sunnies as the little girls sat under a banksia wilting and sucking their thumbs.

We didn't find the sunnies ...but the shy wallum did reveal her treasures as we saw many many of the elusive vanilla orchids with their pale,unphotographable mauve spots.

Funny and illuminating- the art and writing of David Neale

David Neale is a fantastic Australian jeweller and his blog "The Golden Smith" is simultaneously very funny and illuminating
......have a read

The brittle, translucent beauty of barnacles

I've been on holiday at Stradbroke Island.
Sea anemones are pretty much my favourite of all the rock pool delights.
The silvery leaves of the banksia.

Artist Jennie Truman has opened up a lovely gallery at Point Lookout. "Drift -handmade treasures from the Pacific Rim" is full of beachside things, handmade porcelain beakers by Jo Armytage, shell mirrors sustainably harvested by Pacific Islanders and figurative ceramics by Monte Lupo. Jennie has restored the old building to it's ramshackle 50's glory including the beautiful, sandblasted mermaid window.
The brittle, translucent beauty of barnacles.

Jewellery/ceramic collaboration- wallum jewels

Here are some images of new work from the Swamp Cartography collaboration I am doing with jeweller Rebecca Ward.
This brooch was made with Southern Ice porcelain impression from the wallum and set in oxidised sterling silver.
Rebecca made a pate de verre cast of one of our wallum impressions when we were down in Canberra working at Canberra Glassworks. She then set the plaque in sterling silver.

Quiet Beauty/Wild Beauty

I am a finalist in the Gold Coast Ceramic Art Awards. Judged by ceramicist Stephen Benwell. this years exhibition is amazing (if I do say so myself!) . Stephen talked about the two categories that he could describe in the exhibition of finalists as "Quiet Beauty" and "Wild Beauty". All this talk of beauty is inspiring in the the often cynical, bureaucratic world of artspeak. The entries all contained a certain lyricism, an emphasis on concept that is sometimes neglected in the ceramics world of materials and process. This made a really interesting show, the viewer was constantly confronted with the bizarre, or whimsical, or crazy but the thread running through this was the IDEA. This has been deeply unfashionable in ceramic circles and of course the idea of beauty is viewed with suspicion at best and derision at worst in "high" art circles, as a result this show was a refreshing change.

The winner was Peter Cooley's "Tree with Busted Guts and Galahs".

Cooley is a fascinating mid- career artist who oeuvre includes carpet design, paintings and ceramics. His work is definitely in the category of "Wild Beauty" This piece references kitsch and the "busted guts" form includes two "handles" however the sculpture transcends these associations on closer examination. There is a sense of companionship and community in the way the galahs interact, from every angle they are inclining towards one another. Concurrent with this is the sense of imminent ,creative explosion, the colours are vibrant and beautiful and the busted guts of the tree function as a metaphor for the roiling crazy creativity of the artist.

Peter Cooley is represented by Ray Hughes Gallery in Sydney.

Noosa Travelling Scholarship

Wallum Nests- finalist in Noosa Travelling Scholarship

I'm thrilled to be a finalist the Noosa Regional Gallery Travelling Scholarship. The winner gets a prize of $12 000 to travel to a destination of their choice and undertake research or study. The Scholarship has recently changed to a 3-d prize and the forty finalist include ceramicists, jewellers, sculptors, paper artists and textile artists.

Shona Wilson won the prize with her beautiful, delicate "Diatom 13", a sculpture made of twigs,seedpods,seeds,branchlets and plastic. Shona's work is absolutely stunning combining found natural materials with beach plastic. These works explore the cross-over between the natural world, the world of science and human impact on the environment. It is rare to see works using found natural objects with such beauty and delicacy supported by a rigorous, conceptual framework. The use of macroscopic images evokes contemporary scientific practice while the construction using seeds,twigs and natural objects evokes primitive talismans or magical,ritual objects.
These images are from Shona's website. You can see images and read artist's statements from the Noosa Travelling Scholarship here.

Prescription for handmade

My friend has to go into hospital for an operation. I suggested that she take her own teacup with her. As I was having my own cup of tea this morning I wondered why I thought having your own teacup might make you feel better and using a generic hospital cup might make you feel worse.

The only comfort thick, white slightly scratched hospital cups are offer is the fact of their bleached,impersonal, grey-scratched cleanliness. The fact that crockery is very clean is unlikely to offer a patient any comfort, or relief from the fear and pain.

The very feel of a familiar cup in your hand with it's associations of home and loved ones could go long way to quieting fears. This is where handmade cups are at their greatest. In their inherent texturality, the individuality of handmade pots creates connection both between the vessels and the user and between the artist and the user. These associations are driven far from the patient in the sterile, flourescent lighting of the hospital ward. I've often thought potters should band together and provide handmade cups and teapots for recovery rooms for chemotherapy. The chemical process being finished off with a simple ritual of tea or coffee (or even water) in handmade cups marking the transition between being a patient entering the world again as an individual.

Being in hospital is a scary time, alienated from your own body by the processes of modern medicine and by the necessarily sterile atmosphere, bringing your cup from home is a powerful reminder that you are an individual, you fit into the world and are connected to the human race through mysterious and comforting everyday rituals.

The intimate, familiar feeling of your cup at your lips can whisk you out of the hospital and back to your own kitchen. What other small object would have so a powerful and comforting effect?

All tableware made by Australian potter Sandy Lockwood including my own favourite cup pictured with Jane Sawyer teapot and little blue Susie McMeekin milk jug.

greg hatton- through the garden gate

DSCN0282, originally uploaded by twiggie's.

Here is an example of perfect design. Does Greg Hatton's gate just invite you to push it open and find out what is further down the road? A gate is an important symbol containing both concepts of privacy and invitation. What I love about Greg's gate is that it invites the wanderer in and by echoing the natural landscape evokes the wonders of the forest and fields you might find beyond it.

In the most perfect the design the object itself catapults you into a dizzying ,colourful world of ideas that spring from the original thing.

Greg Hatton is a handyman, designer and recycler extraordinaire. He moved from vegetable farming into stone masonry and his projects expanded from creating chairs out of salvaged crates through to designing inner city gardens and re-designing a backyard swimming pool. Greg's creativity is informed by the beauty of natural materials and found objects he says...

"As with my furniture my garden design and construction is very materials driven. Old wharf timbers, or those from sustainable plantations or local stone where possible. Soils form from the ecology beneath and the colours in the indigenous vegetation reflect the minerals in the soil. the use of local stone in the landscape is the most harmonious. this is how I like to approach my landscape design....I encourage indigenous planting or productive gardens...."

From Greg's Website

Read more about Greg's philosophy and approach to design at the Design Files.

Collaboration- Swamp Cartography

Written by Rebecca Ward...........


Shannon is correct in saying that art like Wallum takes a long time to grow. Of course there is some that obligingly pops up like mushrooms overnight, but this is definitely not of the fungi variety. Maybe I am using the wrong fertiliser. I won't go into what makes mushrooms grow so well under commercial conditions but I'm sure you are all familiar with the substance.

I guess if these were any kind of fungi, these would be the tiny wild ones that may or may not pop up under decaying leaves and branches by their own unfathomable whim. Which leads me to suspect I have been inadvertently clever in not tidying up the rich litter layer that is my bench as it has finally produced some results.

Shannon' hands scratching back the resist to reveal beautiful leptospermum flowers drawn from photos.

These delicate little leptospermum flowers scratched into ashphaltum coated silver plate by Shannon have been sitting on my bench mocking me for months, too precious to commit to. Visitors say 'what are you going to do with those?' I mutter expletives under my breath. But now I have a much more polite answer.
I think patience is a great virtue and one that is good to have when dealing with acid. Like gloves. They were etched very slowly over days in a very weak brew of nitric acid so the detail is superb even though the etch is shallow. I'm thinking of starting the slow etch movement. I'm sure it will make my practice even more lucrative and in this age of conservation it is probably time to start dissolving precious metals alot more slowly.

So after procrastinating for ages, I cut them out, soldered posts on the back, drilled some holes and made this necklace. It is very simple. Why I couldn't do that earlier I will never understand.


Written by Rebecca Ward from the Swamp Cartography blog