All being well....

....at the time of posting this blog I will be in the Chatham Islands for a week. These islands are 800km east of Christchurch and have the privilege of being the first land in the world which receives daybreak. This is because the international date line slides down on its east coast. Although part of New Zealand it does have some special plants, birds and coastal life. It also has a varied history of inhabitants, its early past being somewhat grizzly. I shall report on my return.

I am able to continue publishing my blogs because I can pre-set them to publish on a certain date, and time. I discovered this sometime ago when I was adjusting the date and time which I have to alter every time I publish as they are not NZ related. By going into Post Options I am able to 'correct' these to our time before publishing. On one occasion I got the hour wrong and was told my blog would be published an hour ahead of what I intended. It was a happy accident! So... my next three blogs should automatically pop up on line, that is if I have got the dates and times correct. As they say, time will tell!

This is going to be somewhat of a wordy post, something I usually try to avoid. However, I thought I would give a brief statement on my latest body of work. I have now completed four pieces and although I started this series with an intention of what I wanted to achieve, it still takes time to consolidate these intentions. I now feel ready to start preparing a statement about the works. Such statements are extremely important, take some serious writing, and seem to get tweaked over and over again until it all seems right. How much to tell, how much to give away, who are the audience? Where is this statement to be published/viewed? Lots and lots to consider. I have now written a synopsis for this body of work as follows, it is to be expanded further at a later date:

A Sense of Place
These works blur the line between textiles and painting. They are made up of multiple layered surfaces of painting and printing applied with dye, exposure of previous applications with discharge techniques, and selectively applying textile paint.

I have always had a keen interest in people. World-wide travel has expanded my views on people, communities and universal experiences. Whereas I am in awe of the natural environments viewed around the world, it is the people and their cycle of life, that hold the greatest interest for me. The basic needs of people and communities to conduct their day-to-day living, and co-exist, is common to us all, whether we live in an elegant apartment or a mud hut.

In this body of work the simple house shape is a metaphor for the shelter and comfort we all need to survive. People and communities are portrayed in stylized shapes, groupings or recognisable human renderings.

Now, relating this to the piece I have just finished ie Co-Existing shown again below. Here the house motif is repeated and stacked neatly inside each other; and the stylized people figures are (hopefully) mingling and grouped as a friendly crowd. Both these elements portray communities living and co-existing in a positive spirit. I am now wondering whether I should work a piece where the communities are not co-existing peacefully! Food for thought....

Now you see it, now you don't...

Something a bit different this week. Sometime ago I made a simple top out of a ribbed silk which I had dyed an amethyst colour. I decided it was too strong a colour for me so did some stitched resist (mokume shibori) before putting it through a vat dye bath. This system removes the original colour and replaces it with a new colour (green), all in one action - magic! Except I had not pulled up my stitch resists tight enough and very little contrasts happened, grrr..... It should have been green with amethyst resist patterns!

Not defeated, I then repeated the resists with very tight rubber bands, and over-dyed the top again in a deep purple. This turned the green an aubergine colour and what with the green resists, I am now happy with the outcome (actually it is better than what I had first anticipated!).

Finished...

© Diana Parkes, Co-Existing 2010. 127cm x 186xm / 50" x 73". Silk/Linen cloth mounted on painted canvas backing. Procion MX dye, textile paint; painting, printing, discharge.

Final stages...

I have started on the mounting of the latest piece, which involves going through a series of procedures. I have blogged on this before but shall do so again as I have been asked how I finished of these pieces. I use a firm canvas duck for the mounting. This is always heavily dressed so needs to be washed, and shrunk. If anyone has ever put duck through the washing machine, you will know that it is impossible to iron afterwards! My method is to wash while it is spread out on the driveway.


Duck is scrubbed with hot soapy water, both sides, then rinsed with the garden hose. On a good day it doesn't take too long for it to dry in situ. This method avoids any creasing. Note my scrubbing brush clamped to a long independent handle. I don't know where we got this long handle many years ago but it has been a great investment!

Once the duck is dry, I machine stitch a 4cm/1.5" hem along the top and bottom edges. The sides are left with a raw edge and just a row of stitching to hold the threads in place.

Painting on the border using a flat interior paint (Resene). Top side seems to need two coats. I also do the back side so that if it the piece lifts away from the wall it looks better, but just one coat for this side. If I had not washed the duck, the borders would shrink with the wet paint, making the centre area buckle - not a good look!

Almost there....

More tweaking on my piece this week. I have it hanging in my studio and it is looking good. I find I am contemplating the finishing/mounting etc which means I must be almost there. Have been considering a colour to paint the surrounding mount and am favouring a navy blue which seems to suit colours in the piece. I have been placing the painted test corner on each corner at different times to see how it works.

Another detail....

Bottom right corner with painted test corner.

Top left with painted test corner.

Expressions Gallery in Upper Hutt is well worth a visit at the moment. Pinestream Quilters have their biennial exhibition, and world-renown Yoshiko Wada, textile and shibori expert, has kimonos from her own collection on display. Accompanying these is an exhibition of Metsuke, Buttons and Collars. Yoshiko gave a very interesting gallery talk yesterday to a well attended audience. She is currently tutoring a workshop at Whitireia Community Polytechnic, Porirua. Great to see such events happening in our area.

Detailing...

More progress this week and I feel I am now reaching that almost-finished stage. As these pieces are not pre-planned, I regularly sit back and contemplate the where-to-next. During my contemplations I will list the ideas and progresses that I feel will take the piece further, probably three or four each time. Sometimes I find that only two or maybe three are used; some ideas just don't seem to be appropriate after the others have been done. I like being totally involved and challenged until the end by working this way. I am incapable of following a pre-determined plan, recipe or pattern. Am I alone in this!

I wanted to add some detail to the lower portion so masked off the area. Looks a bit rough but it worked! I brushed and scrapped textile paint/pigment on to plastic, then turned it over and printed (mono-printing) over the masked area.

Here it is with the masking removed.

Small detail. Above is the left side.

The top bit...

While working on the main body of this piece I have been avoiding the top white area, knowing that at some point an idea would surface. This is the case this week. I masked off the edges and worked the following:

Almost finished. Three tones of blue Procion MX dye in Manutex (sodium alginate) 'spot' painted.

I returned later and added a darker blue towards the top. This gives it a better range of contrast.

Still more to do, but here it is hanging from my metal rod for photographing and further contemplation. Normally I crop the edges before publishing on the blog.

We are now into the World of Wearable Arts (WOW) season here and Wellington is buzzing with related displays and advertising. Wednesday night I went to the dress rehearsal show which is the first with an audience. The venue was packed with an enthusiastic crowd and yes, it may not have run quite as smoothly as further into the season but it was great value. Having viewed the show for at least eight years (and having an entry accepted in three of these shows) one can see developments in this event. This year I think the standard of entries has gone up a notch with some spectacular examples of creativity. The accompanying entertainment I don't think had, but it was still all pretty amazing. And no, I didn't get my entry accepted this year. It happens....!