About Me

I have been a Visual Artist for all of my adult life and now also enjoy filmmaking. I am passionate about creating visually to draw attention to environmental and social concerns- through artwork, food, film....or any other medium that leads me down the path of sustainability and social awareness. I am involved with Be Spirited by Nature Group who are trying to connect people with Nature. Also I am now consumed by the healing potential of colour, essence and dyeing which have been my latest passion...Celestial Wearable Art "Of the Essence" Healing Coats. I have been studying Celestial Plant Medicine for a number of years with David Crowe and Arjun Das. Correlating and putting together my two passions has been very rewarding and fulfilling with great healing results especially for PTSD. Work is not work when you love what you do, and the handing over a creation which takes about 1 month from start to finish, is such a joy.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Final Daze






Well it has been a blur, feathers floating around the house but finally all tied down now.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Festuri fun with Sister Cities and Art4Place





Saturday at Caloundra for Festuri was a little upside down. Storms in the morning caused a late start but it was beautiful set up by the ocean with the children and adults dropping in for fun and craftiness. Xiamen Sister Cities Dragon ended up being painted this time and so much fun was had taking it for a walk this time, the kids wanted to do it again. Drew the line on a third as my voice was disappearing. Great day with Art4Place gang keeping it real with art and getting the Sister Cities message across. Fab day!

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Wedley the Weed Monster finished!!!!!


Full viewing at the Art and Ecology Centre. Judy & Richard Wolski were the artists behind the making of the weed monster. I really enjoyed the collaborative where we made scales and attached the weed dyed fabric which was made by workshop attendees during the library jaunts all over the Sunshine Coast. It was a great way to bring attention to weeds during weedbuster week using painting drawing, dyeing, weaving and film making. It was exhausting but a great community project. What a great space the Art and Ecology Centre at the Botanical Gardensw

Friday, September 16, 2011

Pete's film on me for ABC Open

Christine by Peter from ABC Open Sunshine Coast on Vimeo.


Not too keen on the editing of this film Pete did. They did promise they would not put in the emotive bits

ABC OPEN film I made on Peter Carnavas finished product!


Peter by Christine from ABC Open Sunshine Coast on Vimeo.



Click on the above and hopefully you will get to see the finished film on Peter Carnavas. It is a great feeling to see the finished product. I have had a dream to make short films on artists to show off their talents to the public so Peter is my first! Madeira Code Red - the weed film is my first drama /comedy on WEEDS, so goodness know what I will attempt next. Photo of Pete and Nat(ABC Producer) who helped film and keep us on track.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Weed buster Week over






The weed monster looks fabulous and those who would like to keep adding to it can do so in the school holidays at the Art & Ecology centre. We had fab days weed dyeing and showing films at Caloundra/Kenilworth libraries and Coolum Civic Centre this week culminating with a big day at the Art& Ecology Centre Weed dyeing in the morning and adding textiles to the monster in the afternoon. Lots of donations of dyed fabric from participants during the week. Still a few textile scales to add yet. Great working with the Judy and Richard Wolski's on their fabulous weed monster creation. The art and ecology centre is amazing and hopefully it will be used to it's full potential in the future and it grows with the community.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Madeira Code Red - Weedbuster week


It has been a busy week or two leading up to Weed Buster wwek. "Madeira Code Red" was launched at the libraries this week alongside my other Maleny Film Co Op films. A mix of drama, arts, poetry, music, informative, animation to name a few to wet the appetite. Big learning curve but fun making it with friends. The library workshops this week with Weed dyeing mixed with films is full on and I am travelling from Caloundra, Cooum to Kenilworth in klms with the roadshow. Growing a weed monster as we go with weed dyed fabric and culminating with a full Weed dyeing workshop Saturday morning at the Art Ecology Centre and a family fun afternoon working on the monster with Judy Wolski. What a week! But it is what ElCOate ART is about.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

film shoot for Madeira Code Red


It is a big effort just to make a short doco on Madeira Vine...I am so lucky I have weed friends who will risk life and limb standing on the road at the Narrows, all in the name of filming. What trojans!!! Mind you that was the easy day, last Monday I had them crawling all over the Book Farm at Reesville frantically looking for the dreaded stuff. What a hoot we had but it was still hard work. Most of the film is shot now or should I say "in the bag", and we are in the editing phase. Only a month before viewing at the libraries as part of "Weedbuster week". It has been an experience to say the least.
Thank heavens for friends.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Japanese Sister Cities Cultural Exchange this past week at Noosa Long Weekend!


Yasuhiro and Yayoi, who make up the piano duet extraordinaire "L'ail Kreis".... were a huge sensation last Friday night at the Noosa Long Weekend. I picked them up from Brisbane airport the day before, and had a great day hitting the beaches along the coast to Noosa, before delivering them to their resort. Yasurhiro had a little english but it was fun conveying language thru wild artistic hand movements and broken japanese etiquette.....
Standing ovations from the crowd at the concert means they were a huge hit I am sure. We also raised funds for Fukushima during the night. We will continue to raise funds over the next few months.
Pizza/Pasta afterwards at Noosa Junction to finish off the evening where we presented them with thankyou mosaic tiles made by Mosaic Artist Jacqui Douglas. They were over the moon with their gifts.
We got by and had lots of laughs. We also did a short film stint at Cotton Tree with Nat from ABC Open but not sure if I got across to them what that was all about.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Culture 2 Culture workshop with Kevin Grealy


Saturday Kevin and I were down at the Chinese Midway Exhibition at Caloundra Regional Gallery doing a "drop in" workshop with the community. The small domino size tiles are for a Culture 2 Culture collaborative exhibition connecting the Sunshine Coast with our friendship/sister cities in China. An artist friend and myself are travelling to China in November to network with artists in Jingdehzen, Xiamen and Wu Shi. During the time we are there we will be taking a children's print exhibition and do collaborative pieces such as the "domino" piece during our travels. They will be then pieced together with a textile piece to be hung at Gary Myers Gallery in 2012.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

film shoot dyeing with weeds




Big day last week with a film shoot in the kitchen dyeing with weeds. Interesting process, not the dyeing so much as the shooting. My favourite weed is out at present all over the hills near my house and it makes a mean yellow and green...love it!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Photo of Peter drawing his characters


Here is Peter hard a work in his drawing room. I tried desperately to load this image for the previous post that is imageless but I had issues with the blog site at the time. I was extremely happy with the photo and sums Peter up perfectly.

New project with Open ABC - Artist to Artist


Introducing my Artists to Artist partner Peter Carnavas who is a fabulous children's author/illustrator living here on the coast. He is only young yet has had five books published in his short career so far. Making his short film doco will be a privilege so I hope I can do him justice. I will keep you posted over the next few weeks as it develops. It has been a big learning curve learning about putting together a script to fit the bill, and interviewing techniques, but enjoyable just the same. Docos seem to be happening in my life at the moment, with another happeniing simutaneously about weeds. Another children's book author Jill Morris is filming me dyeing weeds tomorrow..... It is like a new adventure in making art in a new form. I am up for the challenge!

Saturday, May 21, 2011

I have been fortunate to be involved with the ABC Artist to Artist project for the past couple of weeks. I think July is the deadline to finish doing a doco on each other. It has been a whirlwind time and a huge learning curve, but loving every minute. I was very happy with this shot I took of Peter in his drawing room He is a very talented book author/illustrator of "Jessica's Box" fame. In in very short time in his true vocation he has managed to have five books published. He is very inspiring.....he will be launching another book soon at the Caloundra Library at the end of June.
I have been fortunate to be involved with the ABC Artist to Artist project for the past couple of weeks. I think July is the deadline to finish doing a doco on each other. It has been a whirlwind time and a huge learning curve, but loving every minute. I was very happy with this shot I took of Peter in his drawing room He is a very talented book author/illustrator of "Jessica's Box" fame. In in very short time in his true vocation he has managed to have five books published. He is very inspiring.....he will be launching another book soon at the Caloundra Library at the end of June.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

DELICATE PURPLE PINK FROM THE MORNING GLORY FLOWERS


The morning glory flowers were done in iceblock form and wrapped in the fabric. The photos unfortunately don't do the pink justice. It is quite delicate. This week I tried the Davidson Plum and it is a similiar pretty pink.....

Friday, April 8, 2011

fungi found in the Michael Nunen rainforest



Only photos of delightful fungi but not enough to experiment with in the cauldron.
The morning glory flowers dyed a beautiful pink which I will keep you in suspense with till next time. The velcro vine came out a soft green grey but I think I will need to play with mordants to see what else I can get. Granddaughters arriving next week so the pot will have to be shelved for a while.

Monday, April 4, 2011

cauldron out again

Having more plays, singing over the pot, tossing the weeds in. Trying purple morning glory and another on which I have only just found out is a weed. Lots of people have it growning for hedges. We will soon find out if it is worthy to play with or not. Morning glory has a beautiful pink happening. Photos next time.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

DYEING WITH WEEDS

Have been having a play with weeds. Just the velco vine at present but will move into more types soon. Maleny Film Corp are doing so short videos on weeds so am experimenting. After I have a few more samples I will photograph. New grand babies have slowed me down this month. Great grey green though!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Recycling Mum's blouse with Nuno felting




Well it was not my favourite colour but it felt nice so it was worth spending some time with it. I actually kept the collar and cut it up into a vest shape for remodelling. I ended up shibori-ing the side tabs and using a textile collage artwork on some old raw silk for the reverse side of the tab. I just love the way nuno shrivels up the fabric.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Wallum 2 Waves 2 Textiles on now!!!! till17th Feb


The opening at the Pomona Railway Carriage Gallery went well with "Flood Buskers" entertaining us raising monies for the flood victims. A pleasant afternoon was had by all....the exhibition looks stunning and well worth the trip if anyone would like to have their imaginations challenged..... "Come on Down"...any day but Sunday. Saturdays 10am-2pm.