pennejefford.blogspot.com

Early morning on the island, the sun rising and as it does casting shadows amongst the buldings closest t o the waterr.

 Somewhere along the way I lost him.  He promised me he would go last but sadly that was not to be so I now sit here in the remnants of what was and wondering just where this will all end up.  I nearly did not make it either, two heart attacks in one day, died for twenty minutes in the second but here I am back again.  Recovery is slow however the first paintings began this week.  I had thought the blog gave up the ghost ages ago but have found its still here and still going so time for some daily writings.

 A pastel of a Eastern Yellow Robin.  Slightly odd angle for photograph, however it is already framed and was hard to take the shot with the glass and not get a reflection.  Painting taken from photographic image kindly supplied by Lesley Kiker from Victoia.  Lesley does wonderful bird photos.  This was my first ever bird pastel, done a few months back. I like my birds to be a painting not done like a photographic copy so soft pastels are perfect  for painterly effects.

 Pastel of this beautiful small bird that lives in the Australian bush.  From a photograph with the kind permission of Darryl Kirby.  These are the sweetest birds and when I lived in the mountains we had a family who lived in our garden, a small brood of females with one male.  The females are often referred to as Jenny Wrens.  I always love to paint them and imagine myself back in my old garden while I do.  image unframed is 10 x 10 inches.  All my works are available for sale. 

  A small male Blue Wren in pastels I gifted to my stepson's partner, Katie.  10 x 10 inches.  Image kindly supplied by Lesley Kiker from Victoria.  Lesley is a wonderful bird photographer and I am honoured she let me use her image to create this painting from it , her photos are superb. 

 I belong to a bird photo site on facebook and some time back asked if people would give me permission to paint from their photos.  I had lots of lovely photos offered to me and I am most grateful for that.  With covid around my going out and gathering material is severely limited as I have kidney disease.  I love pastelling and having developed a severe reaction to paint am going to be working in birds for some time to come.  This is a small Kingfisher I created in pastels from a photo by Manda Lee with thanks to her for her kindly allowing me to use her image for my painting.  10 x 10 inches. 

 Rust or Iron has always been a part of my life since my early days as a potter.  I no longer glaze pots and commit them to the fire for the iron oxides to coat them with colour.  Time passing has always been a theme of my work since the nineties and it still speaks to me but in cloth now.  We use and create with iron for its strength, dig it up raw from the earth and cast it into all manner of things.  Gradually as time goes on the iron breaks down and rusts and returns to the earth from where it came.  On cloth it leaves beautiful markings with additions of vinegar and salt.  The serendipity of this is the same as a kiln opening, you do not know really what you finally get till all is revealed.  Different weights of cloths give different markings, temperature and time of the year have an effect as well.  Nature has its say on the final imprints on your piece.  I created this quilt with circles of rust, time and nature moves in cycles ...

The border ranges and Lamington National Park are never far from my heart, having lived there over twenty years.  Huge mountain ranges stretching as far as the eye can see, rainforests lush with life and greenery, skies that go on forever.  When I die that is where I want my ashes to go, down where the wild eagles fly and the thunderstorms gather on hot afternoons to march their way north.  It is something I do think about as my life is shortening now, I have been given my exit date approximately and life is about looking back and reliving in one's mind as one looks at going.  I have been painting lately, loving it.  This is a 24 x 24 inch canvas titled of course, "Border Ranges" and am doing a whole series on them, seeing myself back there as I do, loving the memories and the journey. 

Memory from my life on Lamb Island, the bay was an integral part of our life and had many moods.  Acrylic on Canvas. 

I started my art journey as a potter, lots of mugs, jugs and casseroles, till I eventually made large gold art pieces.  I stopped several years ago, painted for some time then into quilting.  Lately I have been returning to painted work that echoes my time in the ceramics world.  I enjoy working with lustres and gold leaf and textures.  This piece is 24 inches x 36 inches, acrylic on canvas, yet to be titled.  I will probably be only featuring paintings on my blog into the future, quilting is fading for me as a form of expression.  Its an odd angle to photograph a work from however I wanted to show the light on the gilded areas. 

I lived in South Australia for a time and  used to love to drive along beside the mighty Murray River, the colours so Australian.  The high sandstone cliffs in places towering over the river and rich bird life made it a very special part of Australia.  The rusted and dyed fabrics in this piece are reminiscent of the Murray and that time in my life.  Picnics along  the river banks with my children and then the long drive back to the Adelaide Hills where we lived dot my memories.  Size about 5 ft eight inches long.  I still have to hand turn the bottom of the quilt but that is for another day. 

I lived on my grandfather's sheep property, "Wayford"  while very young.  He and my grandmother had twelve children and raised them near Armidale in New South Wales.  A beautiful home with a long driveway of pines, gardens, tennis court and down the rear was a shearing shed.  I used to visit it and was fascinated with the slats in the floor and how the light shone through them and the smell of the sheep wool.   Along the road it sat on were several properties all belonging to family members including my great grandfather's home named "Blink Bonney' .  As a child it gave one a sense of family and grounding and with a huge family came many cousins, around 24 of them by memory.  Quilts 29 x 27 rusted and commercial fabric, farm stencils.  Machine and hand quilted.  

I finishing quilts for my yearly showing in the local library.  I like to do this showing because it is where I live and create.  Somehow its important, to belong and have a sense of place and I hope my work reaches out to my local community who visit the library.  I live in a suburb by the bay, cohesiveness of community via knowing everyone is impossible, its not like the country towns I have inhabited in my life's journey.  It lacks the easy going friendliness of a small town  simply because of its size.  I made the top of this quilt using rusted nails and wire.  Was not happy with it so never completed it, something seemed to be missing and yesterday I decided to add the hand dyed fabric and extra wire circle rusted piece on the bottom, loved it the moment I laid the green fabric down.  Sometimes quilts take a very long time, we have an idea and create but we have to wait for the completion till something else presents and  ...

'GATHERINGS' An eco printed fern leaf, then rusted, some Banksia leaves and a background of quilted rusted fabric all formed in one way or another in my back yard.  I do my rusting on my back pergola looking over the garden full of large ferns so I like to gather what grows around me in my own suburban back yard and turn it into textile art.  12 x 12 inches and will be framed under glass.  Beauty of the everyday is becoming my mantra.

This is a small piece 12 x 12 inches and will be framed under glass.  A piece of my very cheap fabric I purchase locally but it rusts like no other fabric in its take up of the rusted object images I use on it.  I think I used an old BBQ plate on this initially, soaked the fabric in vinegar, salted then placed in a plastic wrap with the rusted plate.  I left it for twenty four hours.  The striped piece reminds me of old mattress ticking that was on all the mattresses when I was a child.  I eco printed watercolour paper with gum leaves, soaked them in vinegar, placed the paper and leaves between bathroom tiles and tied them and then steamed them in a steel pot with rusty bits in the water and left it on the stove cooking for about two hours.  Then treated the paper with matte gel medium and sewed it to the already quilted fabric piece.  A little of white gesso on a roller and rolled it over some of the stitching.  I am not a purist and am ha...

Saturday morning is always 'mine' in the house.  The golfer departs early and the morning stretches in front of me with time to quietly create, silence, time to think and dream.  Winter is here now and rain later today will see the fire lit tonight to curl fingers of warmth through the house.  We have short winters here and there are few fireplaces in my neighbourhood except perhaps the one next door.  There is something really lovely about the smell of woodsmoke permeating the air.  The cats of course adore the chance to curl up in front of the fire place. My mother has passed away now.  Little momentos from her house now in mine, the photos she kept on her sideboard, nic nacs, little statues of cats and some of her paintings.  I feel like she is living here now, its just that I cannot talk to her any more which is very sad.  I always rang her on a Saturday morning, she would be doing the washing and sometimes did not take too kindly to me ups...

My mother is leaving, she has terminal cancer.  The saddest part is you suddenly realise that your connection to your distant childhood past is going with her.  Who will you talk to about stories from so long ago.  The night she gathered up the autumn oak leaves from the road in the car headlights, the air bitter and cold.  They magically became a fancy dress piece titled "Autumn" for my school presentation evening.  She has forgotten it now, I tried to tell her the other day it is one of my favourite childhood memories.  I have been working with rusting fabrics and making wall quilts.  My childhood was spent in the country around Armidale and I used to spend hours in my grandfather's wool shed, I can still see the sunlight on the floor there.  The rusted quilts are all created with my memory of shed walls and rusting tractors and tin rooves.  So today I am putting this piece up in honour of my mum.  She may have forgotten a lot now...

Just when you think everything is in place life comes along and bowls you over again.  A back injury and a hip bursa injury lagged on for six months.  The pain drove me crazy and was depressing.  I finally went for back xrays and the picture was not pretty.  Twenty five years spent as a potter over a wheel had wrought a lot of damage on the base of my spine.  It confirmed for me that it was not going to go away and this is to be my new normal.  Getting older really sucks! That is me in the snow in the photo.  I was four years old, a bright future ahead.  I would grow, marry several times, have three children and a career in the arts.  All I felt in that photo back then was how cold it was standing in the snow outside Guyra that day, look at the feet!  And the hands, they are bare.  What was my mother thinking! I have bowed to the inevitable and sold several of my machines.  I cannot treadle them any more.  Some wonde...

I  only looked at the website for sewing lessons with my Janome 11000.  Seeing a Pfaff for sale I got to dreaming of how I had always wanted one, it was a downline machine and affordable once I put my birthday money and the proceeds of a sewing machine sale together.  However, and there is always a 'however' in the best laid plans, the saleswoman put this machine in front of me.  It was instant love, the 9 mm fancy stitches, the automatic foot that rose at the end of a row and the large free arm that would fit the largest quilt.  It was after this I realised this was a much better machine than I had seen online.  My husband came to the rescue and put the rest of the money to the purchase and I proudly brought her home. What a joy she is.  A bit of Christmas joy.  I find Christmas sad this year, the loss of my eldest son last year hangs heavy on my mind.  I keep seeing Christmases past, the children all gathered for Christmas Eve dinner, f...

It is the storm season in Brisbane at the moment.  Yesterday was awful, the storms gathered out west of Warwick and cut a swathe through the region over the next few hours arriving at our suburb  just on dark.  Our Manx cat was found cowering under a small table and later moved behind  the lounge for cover.  The dog was brought inside as she too hates the lightening and thunder.  Moggy Lucy rode out the storm on the inside of the window, watching the light show with great interest. Thankfully no hail for us last night.  We were awoken about 3.30 a.m. today with a storm and more lightening.  I chose to finish quilting this small basket quilt on my 1910 Singer with Lotus decoration today.  The colour somehow matches the moody air we have at this moment outside the house.  The storms have already risen to the West of us and we are promised by the storm chaser online that today will be a cracker and we are right in the firing line. ...