getting my mojo working!

Beth Brennan of Still Life Pond sent me these vintage gloves back in 2019, when I started deconstructing them I thought they could become a crow somehow, one day. Beth gave me a gentle nudge in that direction last week with a link to Ann Wood’s ‘Crow Sew-Along‘, inspired I bought her crow pattern

& started gathering all the black leathers, velvets, satins. silk & lace around the place and laid them out on the studio floor

Beth’s mother’s gloves will make the wings for my crow!

have cut out the pattern and underlay for the body & am ready to start stitching it all together when I finish this post! My good friend, the amazing sculptor Bronwyn Berman has been staying 5 minutes walk up the road, looking after the equally amazing sculptor Margarita Sampson’s trio of Siamese cats while she’s seeing Paris, the Venice Biennale and more!
Bronwyn and I have been hanging out, making things at the kitchen table whilst drinking copious cups of tea and catching up on life, the universe and everything. She sparked me along to finish this Blue Moon from Glennis Shibori Girl that I started stitching on the March Equinox!

Filigree of Memory I was stitched and unstitched, then stitched and unstitched repeatedly, over and over from the March Equinox to the September Equinox 2022, this is such a long strange trip … with so many memories of Old Man Crow held in each of those tiny stitches and knots, finishing it with Bronwyn’s encouragement and great sense of humour has got my mojo working again at last! Just finished reading “Earth Grief: The Journey into and Through Ecological Loss” by Stephen Harrod Buhner, a book that everyone who has a heart should read. I am hanging this next body of work which will take me the rest of my life on this quote:
“The process is difficult, time-consuming, and painful. It seems that emotional acceptance can be achieved only as a consequence of fine-grained, almost filigree work with memory.”
and talking of memory look at this filigree work in the Wind Eroded Caves !

Bronwyn and I climbed up to sit for a bit with the ancient stone

true friends are rare treasures, Bronwyn both encourages & challenges my work as well as making me laugh a lot with her great sense of humour!
This month she became officially Dr Bronwyn Berman or Doctor Bee to me, love this photo !

photo courtesy of Dr Bronwyn Berman

Thanks for everything my friend!

River of Moons (go with the flow) is finished

River of Moons (go with the flow) Mo 2020-2021
H22 cm W107cm
linen, silk & cotton cloths indigo dyed by Glennis Dolce (Shibori Girl Studios), Jude Hill (Spirit Cloth),
Ulrike Bogdan (Nemo Ignorat) and Jacinta Leishman (Spiral Dyed)
linen, silk and cotton threads, boar bristles, bangalow palm inflorescence, milk paint, white glass beads,
antique parchment stars
every knot and stitch is filled with memories of my best friend Julie RIP August 7th, 2020

Moonfire by Glennis Dolce

Moonfire made by the Queen of the Moon Glennis Dolce of Shibori Girl Studios arrived on the doorstep yesterday to celebrate the first day of winter here in the Land Down Under, I look forward to seeing where they take me!

‘Rising Moon, Fading Memory’ a collaboration with Glennis Dolce

‘Rising Moon, Fading Memory’ a collaborative work by Glennis Dolce & Mo Orkiszewski 2021
H 16cm W 19cm
Glennis wrote in her e-mail from the Full Moon in February
“I used very old handspun and hand woven silk cloth I just got from my “picker” friend in Japan. So special and itself full of memories-if only it could talk!”
to preserve the integrity of the fragile cloth I backed it with silk, bound with silk and linen threads and cord,
the edge of the moon is defined with a single boar bristle stitched in place with indigo dyed silk thread from Glennis

Glennis’s beautiful moon cloth was so perfect when it arrived

very carefully I circled the beautiful moon cloth with stitch and backed it with silk

love how the boar bristle makes a subtle edge for the moon
you can see more of Glennis’s beautiful work at her Shibori Girl blog
and Shibori Girl Studios shop

River of Moons Dark Moon in Pisces

River of Moons (go with the flow) Mo 20-21 in process
scanned this month for clarity
the next 4 moons will be on this one patch by Ulrike Bogdan
so I started a new moon cycle through the seasons
with gratitude to the indigo queens, Glennis Shibori Girl, Ulrike Bogdan and Jude Hill
Autumn Moon (Honesty) in process Mo 21
indigo dyed silk moon and cloth from Jude Hill
whisper silk organza from Beautiful Silks
boar bristles , rotted silk, Silkworm vintage cotton from Margaret Johnson & indigo dyed silk thread from Glennis Dolce

go with the flow

River of Moons is moving along, after finishing the second moon this morning I cut into the river of cloth to weave the next two moons through
inspired by Jude Hill this morning when she cut into the edge of her moon to weave through a cloud over on Spirit Cloth
it’s a one step forward two steps back work flow as each new moon changes how the last one fits in,
the two moons on this new cloth are for the next blue moon in November for us here in Australia
finished the knotted thread rays on the second moon this morningthe first moon was a little too puffy so I stitched it through and it feels a lot more solid
there will be 13 moons in this meditation on time, flow and the effect of the moon on one woman’s mind
front cover of the Lunar Almanac by Rosemary Ellen Guiley 1991
with gratitude to Glennis Shibori Girl, Ulrike Bogdan and Jude Hill
for the materials and inspiration!

Dark Moon in Virgo and moving on into Libra’s balancing act!

the Virgo Moon is finished for now for the River of Moons
the other side
now onto the Libra Moon’s balancing act
it needs boar bristles and beads to make a compass for this journey
stitched in, the boar bristles define the rays & they feel like bone stays in a foundation garment…
PS just added a bit more stitching in that wonky lower centre ray now I can move onto the Libra moon!
PPS added a ring of raw cotton bound with blue silk thread to finish the Virgo Moon for the River of Moons
the 13 moons for this year long project are shibori indigo dyed by the queen of Moon Makers Glennis Dolce
the river cloth is indigo dyed by Ulrike Bogdan

a river of moons

I am stitching a river of blue moons by Glennis Dolce combined with a long piece of indigo dyed linen cloth from Ulrike Bogdan, this project will take 13 moons to make both physically and time wise
considering the nature of fluidity…

a bag full of memories

this bag full of memories for my friend Julie is almost finished, every knot holds a story
the indigo dyed hand woven linen & moons are by Ulrike Bogdan
I started working on this bag on April 24th and have worked on it for a few hours every day, it has gone through several ugly stages where I had to reconsider what I was trying to do
Jude Hill’s good words after the first ugly phase have helped so much
“ha, the ugly phase is just an in-between we can’t quite understand yet.”
you may have noticed in the first photo I am rereading “The Education of a Gardener” by Russell Page first published in 1962
one of the most beautiful and inspiring books about gardening ever written
talking of gardens and well thought out design
Owl Rock went for a walk with us to the wetlands to observe the way the water moves around it
my friend Peter Webb plant guru extraordinaire is writing a book and has asked if I would like to do a few illustrations! When I first met Pete in the 70’s he was the seed collector for the Melbourne Botanic Gardens. I asked him to write a book way back then so I could illustrate it and now I can, it’s a dream come true!
Sydney Park Wetlands has matured beautifully in the time we have lived here in Newtown
love how these old piers add mystery and a sense of spirit to the space
a friendly blue tongue lizard
13 moons arrived in the mail by Glennis Dolce Shibori Girl
these will keep me happily stitching for a good long while
the gardening work is keeping us busy, the walks to the wetlands are helping us stay a bit grounded and the social isolation measures are lifting a bit, still I put some x’s on the floor in the dining room when our friend Richard visited on Saturday for the first time since March, he noticed that they weren’t exactly 1.5 metres so I will measure them up properly for next weekend!

Raggedy Blue Moon Heart

a raggedy blue moon heart getting ready to be filled with rose petals, rosemary, lavender and lemon verbena
Raggedy Blue Moon Heart Mo20
H 15cm x W 13cm
indigo dyed Blue Moon from Glennis Shibori Girl stitched with indigo dyed linen thread to indigo dyed linen from Ulrike Bogdan, antique parchment stars, grape vine tendrils painted white
made with love and hope for my friend Julie who is in hospital with complications from the chemotherapy
PS Yay! next day, Julie’s home from hospital recovering well from the respiratory tract infection. The radiotherapy has helped a lot with the bone pain and she has had her first round of chemo.
Thanks for all the good vibes
Fingers crossed.