GALLERY 2: Beadwork on Textiles, non-wearables
“Eye Pod #1” 2010
“Eye Pod #1” was created for the Art Award Winners Exhibition at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery in December 2010. It is a small beaded sculptural piece, and features dolls’ eyes and Japanese seed beads stitched onto silk.
“Drift” is a small wall hanging featuring bead embellishment, raw-edge applique and textural hand stitching. This piece was included in the Art Award Winners Exhibition at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery in December 2010.
“Dragonfly’s Secret Garden”, 2009
“Dragonfly’s Secret Garden” is a small beaded encrustation which features a ceramic dragonfly brooch made by Sugden/Hamilton of Braidwood, NSW. Private collection, Canberra.
“Zippity Do-dad” 2010
“ZippityDo-dad” is a beaded sculptural piece that was made for the Art Award Winners Exhibition at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery in December 2010.
“Botanical Oddity” 2008
“Botanical Oddity” is a small wall hanging featuring bead embellishment, needle felting and textural hand stitching using variegated silk thread. It won the Down Under Quilts Best Use of Colour Award at the Canberra Quilters Annual Exhibition in 2008.
“Cosmic Catherine Wheel” 2005
“Cosmic Catherine Wheel” was my first attempt at combining bead embellishment with quilting techniques to create a small wall hanging (30 cm x 30 cm).
“Ocularis beadii” – sculptural beadwork piece made for the Fantasy exhibition at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery in 2011. It took approximately 6 months to make, and is mostly brick stitch worked over a fabric-and-foam-covered wire armature. The doll eyes have been ‘captured’ with peyote stitch bezels prior to being attached to the ‘stalks’.
A selection of my Encrustations – small beaded textiles in frames. I love how the choice of background fabric always influences the final result, either just through bead colour choices, or sometimes bead placement. They collectively show a fairly wide variety of bead embellishment techniques.
“Oceanic” evening bag. The dense section of bead embellishment was done first, prior to the construction of the bag. Hand stitching using silk threads radiates out from the beadwork panel.
Beaded journal cover – for A5 size journal. I love using coloured blister pearls and other freshwater pearls to enhance the beadwork, and often they are a starting point, like in this journal cover. The large green blister pearl seen about 3/4 down the beadwork was stitched down first, then rows of seed beads were couched around it, then radiating out from it, and gradually the beadwork grew to fill the oblong panel.
These are 4 examples of my Luscious Layers series, incorporating fabric manipulation and bead embellishment.