Newsletter August 2019

This last week has been aflutter with two exquisite exhibitions opening around the passion for birds

Cecily Grace had her first very successful solo exhibition opening on Thursday night.

The Waiting Bird and other Rooftop Visitors  shows the ordinary birdlife that exists on an inner-city rooftop garden. It also showcases the coming together of three life-long loves: birdlife, printing and photography, with the world of textiles. This happy convergence has opened up an exciting new direction after a lifetime of playing with fibre arts.

Lester, Cecily's husband, opened this show with the following words:

"This is perhaps an unusual, even a unique exhibition. Every image is a scene from within 50m of this room. Some are on this rooftop and many on the trees outside. There are three elements in Cecily's life that have come together in this exhibition.

She was born on a small farm on the Central Coast (Green Point). Cecily and her mother Florence would climb the mountain, covered in rainforest behind the farm before the sun rose to experience the dawn chorus. They would hear cat birds, dollar birds, the golden regent bower birds and the lyre birds which would mimic Cecily and Florence's conversation."

"I recently read that standing among trees for 17 minutes is enough to relax and calm a human mind. I have the luxury of doing this all day and all night if I want.

Along one side of my property is the slender thread of the Rocky River, punctuated by deep waterholes. The massive trees and the delicate river are home for insects, birds, furry creatures and swaying rustling reed beds alive with frogs.

As a creative, being immersed in this abundance of life, it would be impossible for me to not express the energy and beauty I see. "

"My approach to recording the passing seasons has been to observe the colours first. The greens change dramatically with the rise and fall of seasonal temperatures. Not just the leaves of the deciduous willows or the reeds, but also the deep waters. As the pools warm up in summer the water turns an olive green, and in winter the freezing water is a blue green, the dark shapes of the schools of fish barely moving.

In winter the banks rustle and rattle with the withered stalks of the bulrushes and reeds, bleached toa pale cream, in stark contrast to the black of the willow trunks and leafless branches.

I describe myself as a textile artist but I’m also a scientific illustrator, having completed an Honours degree in Natural History Illustration at Newcastle University. My pendulum is a wide swing between realistic detail and large painterly textiles.Currently coloured pencil is my favoured drawing medium. I was quite pleased to discover that I liked the combination of both coloured pencil and sewing in the bird portraits."

"Collage and free-motion sewing are my methods of construction, giving me the freedom to build layers of texture and colour in a spontaneous way. I like to use fabrics that are out of their context, such as the fragments of glitz that populate all of my work. I’m especially fond of the birds, dressed up to party and inviting the viewer to join them. Even the river in wild flood gets sequins and beads.

I also use fabrics I have dyed, painted and printed myself. These fabrics are often loose and painterly and I like the contrast between them and the synthetic glitters. Obviously, I revel in details and minimalism is not my middle name.

Thank you all for coming and I would especially like to thank Anne for inviting me to exhibit in this wonderful venue. Thank you to the Newcastle Wetlands also. My birds and my river feel quite at home here." concluded Jan