The colour of Giorgio Morandi

I'm in love with Giorgio Morandi's still life work. Inspired by artists Cezanne and Rousseau, his still life compositions are beautiful studies in subtle tone, colour and composition. My favourite one is the painting above, Still Life 1955. I'm rather partial to the peach object in the foreground and its perfectly balanced partner, the charcoal jug in the background, oh and the little white object in front - perfect.

Still Life 1949

Still Life 1960 with Blue Jug

Still Life 1960 with Grey Jug

Still Life 1963

A few things I've been doing lately

After starting this work over a month ago, I finally cut the last of it off the loom on Friday. Sometimes it takes a lot of patience to get through weaving something when you run into problems from the very beginning, including having to re-thread sixteen shafts. It will eventually be made into a pillow. I can't wait to get started on weaving new things.

Some new ink drawings I'm working on for jacquard designs but I think they are a little too complicated and might work better as digital prints on silk or perhaps even embroidered. I only wish I had the patience for that sort of complex hand work on fabric and the time to learn a new skill. Then again, there is always next year. I can only draw a few of these before my hand cramps up and refuses to draw the semi straight lines.

Samples

I'm in the process of putting together photographs of my work for a graduate show catalogue. There is something to be said for getting a friend to take the photographs, especially when they have great digital camera and don't mind cake as payment. Thanks Gus!

Luna jacquard. Cotton and viscose.

Handwoven scarf in paper. Silk and cotton.

Small brooch samples in twill and rya knot techniques. Silk and cotton.

Old travel photographs

There is nothing more beautiful than a silver gelatin print with deep glossy blacks. With never enough time in the darkroom, these were photographs from my first trip to Europe that remained little prints on my contact sheet. I carried my medium format twin lens mamiya and heavy tripod all over, taking mostly portraits of my family. After talking about traveling with a friend I couldn't resist the urge to get these out and scan some negatives.

San Gimignano Towers, Siena

Istanbul

Ancient graffiti in the Hagia Sofia, Istanbul

My father was born under a tree in this little town outside Pula, Croatia.

Lanišće sits in a huge valley surrounded by tall ominious mountains. I travelled here in middle of winter with a large group of friends to take some photographs. Afterwards we ended up at a local restaurant for a dinner I will never forget. We drank rakija (the Istrian version of grappa) with honey to ward away the cold.

Gunta Stölzl

Gunta Stölzl's work has always inspired me. First a student of the Bauhaus, then teacher when the school moved to Dessau, she was quite instrumental in setting the work ethic in the weave room. I love they way she uses so much colour. Letters written by her at the time mention how inspired she was by Itten, who taught colour theory at the Bauhaus. My favourite of her work is the jacquard below. Simply stunning. Even though it is possible to do almost anything in jacquard weaving, this is still a really complex work which has probably been woven in three panels then sewn together. I wish I could weave like this.

Five Harnesses 1928

Wall Hanging no. 324, 1926

Wall Hanging Black and White, 1923

Slit Tapesty Red/Green 1927-28

Thought I would end on this much copied tapestry. It contains everything you would want to see in a work of art, rhythm, balance, beauty and of course colour!

Cake for Livvy

With the tree in my backyard laden with ripe beautiful lemons and an occasion for a special sort of cake, I thought it was the perfect time to try Tartine's Lemon Meringue Cake. Its always exciting buying new kitchen accessories and this week my new addition is a blow torch. With the chiffon cake soaked in lemon syrup, layered with lemon cream and caramel then finally topped with meringue, I'm hoping that it tastes as good as it looks. Oh and that the birthday girl likes it!

Stratocumulus

I've been an admirer of Cathy Tipping's work for some time and was excited to hear about a new longstitch she was working on during her university holidays. Being a cloud watcher from my childhood days, I could sit and admire this work for hours, I love it so much.

This work was commissioned by the owners of Milkwood.

Luna

I was fortunate enough to be part of a design competition that gave me the opportunity to have my fabric woven at a mill in Brisbane and then upholstered onto a chair. There will be more to come in the next few months. I hope you like it.

Upholstery by Paris Decor

Chair by LUKE

Wired Commission

I was lucky enough to be invited by Suzy Tuxen at AFOM to collaborate on a commission for Wired magazine. I've been talking about making a carpet for a long time so here was the opportunity. There were many moments where I felt like I was never going to get there! But I did in the end thanks to those with quick nimble fingers who helped weave rows and cut down the yarn to size.

Boxes of carpet presents - cut pile.

Carpets (and weaving in general) is all about graphs. At its most simple a design can be drawn on graph paper and then translated into a carpet, with a few constraints in mind. It took me a while to work out the type proportion and knot ratio, but after sampling and figuring out the right sett (weave speak for how many ends per inch) it all seemed to fall into place.

I felt such a sense of relief when I cut it off the loom before tying up some loose ends and rushing off to work bleary eyed. Not only because it was finished but also because the proportion worked and the carpet was straight. I spent a day tying it onto the loom to make sure the tension was as even as possible.

Although carpet techniques can be simple, they are among the most time consuming. Up there with tapestry weaving. Each row took about fifteen minutes to weave, with no mistakes in it. That makes it 81 knots per square inch. Sounds like a lot but just to put it into perspective, the Ardabil Carpet at the V&A has more than four times as many, totaling 340 knots per square inch. About 26 million knots in total. The Persian carpet is an immensely beautiful piece of craftsmanship dated to 1539/40 AD, most probably a royal commission and one of a pair to have come from a group of mosques in Ardabil in North West Persia. The other rug is housed in a gallery in Los Angeles and is even more densely woven. Over 10 x 5m in size, it would have taken a group of talented weavers with very nimble fingers about four years to weave! I only wish I could have seen it up close and turned a corner over.

Back view of the rug, probably my favourite bit.

It was photographed by the talented Shane Loorham and sent off to Wired to be published in the May issue. Hopefully there are more carpets to come. Thanks Suzy!

Journey to the Moon

I loved the beauty of Emmet Gowins black and white aerial photographs. Images of crop circles and bomb testing sites in the middle of vast nothingness. It planted the seed for these samples and final jacquard fabric.

Beautiful inky navy spec-dyed cotton from Avril paired with coral mercerised cotton.

Two colour jacquard in white/black and yellow.

Doubleweave using Habu black/white and white/black viscose. A little something I'm going to keep working on.

I was lucky enough to be flown up to Brisbane to work on a design to be woven into upholstery fabic at a mill. It's so different to any experience I've had with handweaving. So much faster but none of the romance of crafting something by hand. But then again, I could never produce upholstery grade fabric by hand. Here I was trying out different yarn colours but this one ended up on the cutting room floor.