chiatanyadesigns.com.au

Hello all you readers out in blog-land….. Some of my friends have been working hard to convince me to write a blog. I do like to have a chat with friends, so a blog seems like a great idea. But my time on the internet is limited, so at first I didn’t think I could commit to maintaining a blog. I know for sure I won’t be adding to it every day (sorry!), but I hope that  if you’re interested in what I have to say and show you with my photos that you’ll come back and visit again soon. Some photos may appear cropped, but if you click on the image you should get the full photo.

Fiona Hammond

For now, let me introduce myself. My name is Fiona Hammond and I live in rural NSW (Australia). I am happily married, but have no kids. After many years of different careers, most of which I loved at the time, I now work as a designer and tutor in the field of textiles and jewellery.

One of my current passions is beading onto textiles - generally to create contemporary quilts or jewellery. My other life-long passion is teaching, so having the opportunity to share my techniques and designs with students in my workshops is a joyous experience for me.

In the last year or so I’ve also had some very exciting experiences with some of my entries into various exhibitions and competitions. As a member of several associations (quilting, beading and textile arts), I try to create items to put in the various annual exhibitions of these associations. It is a delight to see one’s work being displayed with many other wonderful items in these exhibitions, and the show-and-tell aspect of this certainly appeals to me.

I’ve never expected to actually win anything with my entries, but in recent times I have been most fortunate to receive some awards and prizes too. I have to admit to being a bit ‘girly’ and ‘giggly’ on such occasions - to have one’s works rewarded with a prize or certificate is just soooo exciting! It can take me days to ‘come down’ from a bout of excitement like this.

Turquoise Treasure

Here are two of my recent beaded neckpieces: “Turquoise Treasure” and “Nature’s Treasures”. Each piece took around 150 hours to create, and both involve stitching small seed beads (mainly size 11s in round and cylinder shapes) onto fabric.

I don’t like using the ‘normal’ backing for my pieces – the plain white stiff non-woven material that many beaders use - mainly because you’ll see small white glimpses between the beads in some places where your beads can’t cover the backing completely. Not my scene.

Nature's Treasures

Instead, I figured out that using heavy iron-on interfacing adhered to luscious fabrics like silks and satins really adds to the overall effect of the piece. My technique is more time-consuming, but I feel it is worth it because I like the final finish of my pieces. Instead of using Ultrasuede on the back – which is hard to get in Australia and fearfully expensive when you do find it – I use more fabric and interfacing.

Both pieces have cabochons surrounded by peyote stitch bezels, plus lots of beads stitched down with either beaded backstitch or bead couching. I seem to just be ‘in the zone’ when I create pieces like this – it is rather like meditation.

“Turquoise Treasure” was selected as the Grand Champion Craft Exhibit at this year’s Royal Canberra Show (February 2009), and it also won first prize in the threadwork category of the Beading section at the Sydney Royal Easter Show (April 2009). And I didn’t realise till I went to pick it up this week that it had also received an Award of Excellence – a rosette and a medal – crikey!

Last month, I entered “Nature’s Treasures” in the Goulburn Art Award (run by my local art gallery – Goulburn Regional Art Gallery). I was stunned (but also very excited) when it won joint first place in the 3D category. The two judges were Ben Quilty (who’s won various prizes for his paintings, including the 2009 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, and his portrait of singer Jimmy Barnes was a finalist in this year’s Archibald Prize) and Helen Maxwell, director of the Helen Maxwell Gallery in Canberra.

As if this win was not exciting enough, the prize is an exhibition at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery in December 2010. Of course I will share this exhibition with the other joint winner of the 3D category – Gayle Stockley, whose piece “Burnt Out” is a striking artwork created with burnt tree limbs forming the outline of a house – an eerie statement on the devastating fires in Victoria earlier this year, and Tina Milson who won the 2D category with her photograph “Untitled”. The combination of these three styles of artworks should make for a very exciting and diverse exhibition in 2010.

I am already planning the pieces I’d like to make for this exhibition, so I’ll keep you posted on my progress with these. I’d like to create one or two neckpieces along the lines of my winning piece, but I also plan to create some sculptural pieces using beads and textiles. My brain is already whirling with ideas….now if I can just get a good amount of sleep to refresh me enough to get started….