Dear ALL
Dates to diarise:
- 10 October - End February 2024 Exhibition at the Stellenbosch Craft and Art Gallery. More on this later.
- Friday 29 March 2024 Entry forms the Fibreworks biennual members' exhibition.
- Friday 10 May Photos and details of artworks to be sent to Helga to check. Once correct they will be forwarded to the gallery for advertising etc.
- Friday 17 May The physical work to be delivered to Jenny Hearn. More on this later
- 26 May 2024 Opening at the Tina Skukan Gallery 11.30 am.
- Sunday 26 May 2024 - Thursday 20 June 2024. Exhibition in Pretoria at the Tina Skukan Gallery.
- Collaborative Panel discussion. Zoom meeting on January 27th 2024
- Stellenbosch Craft and Art Gallery - Spring Exhibition. Cape
Kindest Regards Mari
- National Members' Exhibition 2024
Closing date for artworks 17 April
- Website: https://www.fiberworksart.com/
If there is a query, we put the buyer in touch with you the artist and you negotiate the postage and sale. There is then a commission of 10% that goes to Fibreworks.
Members news:
- Kathy Harmer Fox
What do you do with interminably long, impossibly cramped international flights? You treat them like childbirth: focus only on tomorrow.
My first tomorrow was in Doha. Huge, well run, and very polite with trees and trains growing up and whooshing by in the air conditioned sky. All the brightly lit, flashing name brands: Gucci, Hermes, Apple, perfumes for Johnny Dep, even hamburgers piled high by Gordon Ramsay. I ignored them one and all. I was looking for the sign of a white stick with a squiggly line emanating from its tip, without the dreaded red line smack through the middle; no name brands for me, just my last hit of nicotine.
My cigarette was lit, my ashtray was emptied, I crumpled the empty packet, it was removed along with any stray ash and I was smilingly waved out.
I climbed aboard a 3-story behemoth with wings that already stretched partly into another day and squeezed into my next wait for tomorrow.
The sun was already setting on that morrow when I landed in Perth. Michelle, organized, open, helpful and welcoming, met me and whisked the 4 of us away; my 3 suitcases would become my constant companions and had already established themselves as personalities. The watermelon pink giant is a serious fellow, not to be taken lightly. The turquoise blue is a rather practical chap, friendly, and accommodating. While the sunshine yellow midget is an absolute delight. She will happily accompany you anywhere, chatty and bright. My sketchbook, pens, pencils, laptop, toiletry bag, and passport were strapped firmly to my back and paced me, step for step, throughout my journey down under.
My first workshop was as well run as my hostess and the only trouble I experienced was in opening the bloody door of my upmarket apartment! Eventually, I managed to slide the correct thingy in the right direction, and I was off for my morning walk along the lake front, beneath the trees, the birds twittering with an accent.
When I saw the men and women in yellow jackets with hoovers that blew rather than sucked, I knew I was back in Australia, blowing the leaves off the perfectly laid walkways. I remembered my previous encounter with a Perthinian neighbour. He was vacuuming the grass on his street verge. I watched him, curiosity bubbling in my throat. Eventually the bubbles popped out and while they were still afloat, I was told that he had replaced the grass (which had to be mowed) with plastic stuff (that had to be vacuumed!) Spare a thought for the earthworms, the beetles, the ants, the moles you silly, thoughtless, replaceable man.
My next flight was to Adelaide where Peta collected us, she kept my 3 colourful companions' company while I bought some groceries and then she delivered me to my apartment. I had 3 free days before teaching again. She was not as well run and oiled as Michelle and the next day I once again encountered the "unopenable door" syndrome. I sat outside for 3 frustrating hours while helpful neighbours, random street people, and a technician or two tried to bypass the idiotic lock system. I also find the jealous territorialness of some of the quilting guilds tedious - it's difficult to remain diplomatic, my first instinct is to snap and bite hard. But I was a good girl, I smiled and nodded instead.
I patted myself on the back while enjoying the national art gallery, riding on trams, browsing through second-hand shops (Ozzies call them "Op Shops"), watching movies - bought in said Op Shops, and enjoying free WIFI in the library.
I lovingly stroking some glorious, brass pigs in the center of town while a little, brass girl with pigtails, sat watching me, immobile, from a wooden bench. Even the banana peel and apple core in the trash can that one of the pigs was standing on its hind legs snouting at, glowed in brassy decay.
And then I was amidst the clouds and on my way to Sydney. A small man with white hair recognized me (or perhaps it was my companions) and we chatted our way to my 3rd workshop, hosted by another Michelle, as delightful as the first.
I was to stay with (I cannot remember this wonderful woman's name) and her gloriously eccentric, kidney specialist of a husband (whose name is also a wisp in the willows). Large, darkly green, tanks of turtles, with tiny, swampy mangrove trees sending roots sliding down the glass sides bubbled quietly in the lounge. He talked 10 times to the dozen, animatedly flicking his plaited ponytail, gesturing wildly ... I don't think he even minded whether I was present or not ... I loved him at first sound. His wife and I luxuriated in her heated car seats on our 10-minute drive to and from the quilt shop, giggling about her very loved husband.
This was to be a 1-day workshop, "Grey Hare in Faux Frame" that I had created especially - an absolute impossibility to complete in only a day. I had also worked on another workshop, "Stitch a Bowl", another 'specialty' and equally tough. I laughed and danced my way through my own cautious trepidation, throwing out my philosophies, willy-nilly, to soothe and stroke and encourage my students out of their utter terror.
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And it worked!
- When in doubt, do.
- Play; unless you are being chased by a lion. Give fear no place.
- It is not the product which shifts you, it is the process.
- our mistakes are your best teachers.
- My goal is not to teach you what I do but what you do
- Take my techniques and make them your own.
- We all come from a place of suffering
- Be kind to yourself and be kind to others.
- Observation teaches understanding.
- You may not always get what you deserve, but you will always get what you earn.
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Elizabeth Dubbelde, my darling, generous, capable friend. The woman who first offered, then organized and refused payment for said tour. The same one who complained bitterly when I, in turn, refused payment for artworks that caught her eye, drove me from Sydney to her home in Berry and my 4th, 5th, 6th workshops.
We had to reprint kits repeatedly from Beechworth to Rockhampton to Byron Bay and Brisbane where we licked mango gelatos in sugar cones (I always opted for a double scoop). Each morning I was with her, Alan would quietly hand me the most delicious cup of coffee (he rightly travels with that fabulous coffee machine.
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New Zealand was cold, wet cold that got caught between the mountains and green hills, it bit and stayed. My hostess and her husband said "Come, put on your bathing costume, slip into my gown, and climb into the car". We parked and dashed across to a long building standing on the side of a mountain shrouded in white mist. Stepping into the wooden tub filled with hot bubbling water, caught from the natural geysers was utter bliss. I dropped my face and felt tiny champagne bubbles racing along my cheeks and disappearing into my hair - I was drunk with pleasure.
I had left my blue companion, stuffed to the hilt with thread and Opp shop finds and extra clothing. Gifts and shoes and pieces of fabric stayed with Elizabeth and Alan. Only the giant watermelon and the chatty yellow accompanied me from now on and until I was to fly home from Sydney. I did not miss the practical fellow, nor his contents, I had packed too many outfits and bought many others.
I could have packed 3 outfits (most workshops lasted only 3 days and I always wear something that I have made on each day of teaching). Whether it be a drawing on a skirt, red boots and matching body wrap scribble stitched together, or my Modigliani shoes and rude bag. They created interest, inspiration and many a giggle. Fibre art is to be hung, stood on a plinth, sat upon, walked in, worn, slept under. It must be played with, enjoyed, learnt, taught, felt - above all, it must be made.
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We slaughtered the All Blacks during my stay in New Zealand and it was good to be proud of my country, a land in sad, dire need of any pride, any encouragement. My brisk morning walk included a coffee from a portable stall and the relocated South African owner, and I gloated over that one glorious triumph.
Back in Australia, I counted the kilometers on coach rides (anything is always preferable to flying) by the bloated carcasses of kangaroos, wallabies, and tiny mashed echidnas. Nothing to be seen on train rides, the best, excepting I did see an abandoned mattrass bent over the branches high and dry in a tree on my way to Uranga. The last time I had seen a scarlet bra left empty of its bounteous bosom on the beach. This time, on the same walk, I looked down upon 3 coastal pythons, passionately entangled just below my feet. I watched them, fascinated and wondered at the sexual thread.
It was November, I had landed in Darwin for my 19th and final workshop, and I walked off the plane. I felt as if I should drop to my hands and knees and leopard crawl - I had waded into a bowl of hot soup! Joe and Nicky were there to meet me and whisked me up and off to their air-conditioned car and even cooler home. These two lovely women took me to see termites that build a blade-shaped home (the only site in the whole of the big, wide world where these industrious builders design their mounds in such a way so that one side is always cooler than the other). They took me to walk into a crevice and sit beneath waterfalls and swim in natural pools. I watched crocodiles sway towards our boat, swivel out of the water, and snap with the sound of gunshot for bait. I threw left-over food high into the air, for seagulls to catch mid-flight, while huge black and silver fish, skates and small sharks roiled the water off the side of a pier.
Darwin, the home of heat, shady trees, and long, beautiful beaches. Only the mangroves dare to dip their feet into the flat, cool ocean. Box jellyfish and see water crocodiles live here. The one can cause an agonizing 3-minute death and the other, saved from near extinction in the 60's, may re-arrange your limbs. More bombed than Pearl Harbour, fighter jets and helicopters lift off daily from the many military bases. Where train trucks trundle along the hi-ways, heaving their loads from one side to the other. Where all the homeless are either drunks, drug-addicts or Aboriginal. Nomadic people never do well in our Western world, but Darwin's many parks provide a temporary base for make-shift tents and a night beneath the stars for some of the wandering nation, some of the time.
My wonderful wanderings were also done and I bought a good book for my flight back into another tomorrow.
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- Jeanette Gilks
I was pleased to get this email after winning the national Dr. Charles Freysen Teaching Excellence Award 2023.
- From: Carla Enslin
Dear Veganites, join us in celebrating the Charles Freysen recipient 2023.
Jeanette Gaye Gilks is respected and loved for her tremendous passion and her dedication to Vega, and to her students. Her teaching portfolio reflects her philosophy of critical reflection and perspective taking as the basis for aptitudinal and creative development in learning. She has carefully unpacked and examined her teaching and learning strategies with a focus on igniting inspiration in her students. By detailing the journey of her evolving learning design using different teaching and learning methods, she demonstrates how she has consistently developed her toolkit of techniques over the years, thus deepening, and enriching students' experience in the Durban studios.
Jeanette, we celebrate your sense of humour and infectious inspiration: the playful artist, the inspiring navigator, and the curious philosopher.
Much respect, your fellow Veganites
Well that's all the news for this year!
Jeanette and the team
