hightlights

I am feeling all sentimental after downloading the last exhibition images (yesterday's bump out) and thought it might be nice to share a few highlights with you. The whole process of working toward my exhibition has been great fun, certainly one of my highlights was working and sharing with the community. It also provided me with an opportunity to get out from the isolation of my studio and form new friendships along the way - together we created a buzz leaving behind a trail of tea dust from collecting well over 10,000 tea bags!

It was a challenge narrowing it down to a dozen photographs because all the moments were special, nonetheless, here are some of my highlights from Expressions of Love II...

Embraced by the community...my first tea bag call out, February 2013, via social media, unprepared for the response I was inundated with tea bags coming in from all directions, I quickly established four collection points across the Hinterland.

 

Tea Bag Tea Parties ...  Rosebed St Gallery, Maya (& former partner Annie) kindly shared my tea bag call-out in their e-newsletters and before long Tea Bag Tea Partes were on the agenda (a big thank you to Rosebed for their generousity in providing the venue).

Team effort... all eager to lend a hand while having a cuppa adding to the collection!

 

D-day, installation day.... with all the hype working around the clock, installation day came around so quick - it was a day filled with many emotions, with a little time for reflection.  The title and name going up made it feel all very real.

 

Anticipation and excitement with placement... one of the biggest works (containing 3600 tea bags in total) layed out to calculate wall placement. 

 

...freshly painted walls, nails going in, work going up... I only ever viewed latched with Love layed on the floor, this was the most defining moment, finally veiwing on the wall and in place.  Internal dialogue..."Yay. Relief. Yes!!! Looks great! Validation - all the hard work, it was worth it, yay!!!"

 

Day one, doors open to the public... what better way than to share the day with a special friend who needs some TLC ♥

 

On another day... a special bus trip organised for a special group of tea bag collectors - Kureelpa Spinners & Weavers, and a dear friend, Petrus.

 

Opening night celebrations.... with special friends

 

mammoth crowd of people filled the gallery rooms...

 

Fun with Janet De Boer...

  

 

'Meet the Artist' Morning Tea... an awesome opportunity to meet gallery visitors and talk about my work.

 

Family Day, Artist Demo Day.... time for interaction and conversation.

 

My most loyal... sharing the whole experience, from the birth of the idea all the way along to bump-in.& bump-out with my best friend ever, Glen.

Artist Demo Day

Today was Family Day at Noosa Regional Gallery, a regular monthly event for the gallery (Gallery Public Program), Family day is where volunteer staff host interactive art activities; clay, paint etc., for the kids, while one of the current exhibiting artist contributes, usually in the form of a demonstration or similar for the visiting public.

A wet drizzly day weather wise today, however, it didn't stop folk from coming to the gallery. I was fortunate to have the gallery Foyer to spread out (pictured below), while the outside undercover area graced several long tressel tables full of happy little creatives and a sausage sizzle.

Just alongside me in the gallery were more tressel tables and more little creatives, this time being creative with tea stained watercolour paper, tea bag paper and tea leaves. Unfortunately, I was too busy to take photographs... the results were most intriguing!

My Foyer display.

 

Below, an Interactive display area I provided for the gallery and the duration of Expressions of Love II, latch hooking in progress for folk to have a try.

 

Additional interactive work, displayed just for today for further exploration. Foreground; Twinnings - Raspberry, Strawberry & Loganberry flavoured, yield pink coloured tea bags; knitting with spun tea bag yarn; prototypes, sewn patchwork panels, the making of Deconstructed Quilt; and crocheting with spun tea bags and a few sample crochet flowerettes.

 

After a quick run down on how to prepare the recycled tea bag yarn for spinning - everyone was most intrigued when the spinning begun.

 

Then it was time for others to have a try.

 

Thanks to all whom came today, 'twas a most enjoyable day!