Preamble
For your convenience I have listed below the annual reviews that span the life of this blogspot.
It's Been An Exciting Year (2010/2011)
Another Cheer - Another Year (2011/2012)
Where Did The Year Go? (2012/2013)
The Year of the Horse (2013/2014)
Cold and Windy - But on the Dawn of Renewal (2014/2015)
A Time To Reflect - A Time To Select (2015/2016)
A Time to Remember (2016/2017)
To Be or Not to Be (2017/2018)
The Night Too Quickly Passes (2018/2019)
The Year of Living Dangerously (2019/2020)
Attempt The Impossible Since Failure Will Still Be Your Success (2020/2021)
A Year of Climate Extremes (2021/2022)
I Love A Sunburnt Country (2022/2023)
COVID-19
Let me say at the outset: my condolences to those of us who have lost a loved one, a relative or a friend due to the pandemic caused by COVID-19. This has been the year of living dangerously.
COVID-19 - a textile version of it! Make anything in a textile and what is feared becomes a force to be reckoned with.
Forget all those conspiracy theories! Covid-19 was most likely caused in the wet markets of Whuhan, China and due to the lack of rigorous oversight of health regulations of the wet markets, a virus was born. This is not the first time Western China has spawned a virus that has swept the world. What makes this virus so difficult to contain is that it occurred approximately near the Chinese New Year, where millions of Chinese ex-patriots went to China to celebrate the year of the Metal Rat and when they returned they unknowingly brought the virus to the rest of the world. Furthermore, what gives this virus an added dimension is because it is very infectious.
Year of the Metal Rat.
Note: There is no reason to blame your local Chinese community or overseas tourists. They are NOT to blame for the spread of the virus. Rather your government is to blame for its lack of biosecurity at its borders.
The world has known about the outbreak of viruses before. It has been with us even before the emergence of the black plague. However, we the public and authorities have learnt very little in order to contain a pandemic before a vaccine is available. We spend billions of our currency to prevent terrorist attacks and yet more people have died from this plague than from any terrorist event in the western world. We should divert some of this allocated money to ensure biosecurity at the borders. This is especially so in Australia, where our hygiene regulations are adhered to and as we are an island we import viruses from overseas and yet spend nothing on biosecurity. A virus is only a health threat after it reaches our shores, but prior to that it's a biosecurity threat.
I realize we all want a vaccine to be produced as quickly as possible to prevent us from catching the virus. However, let me be cynical. Every day I hear of a new promise of a vaccine and yet every day none is forth coming. I wish scientists would just shut-up! When I went to University my Professor would advise us: "You can only brag after I have marked you!"
A 3D print of a spike protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
University of Iowa and University of Georgia are developing vaccine candidates based on the PIV5 virus expressing coronavirus spike proteins.
Credit: NIH
Our language has also grown because of the pandemic. We now use phrases such as: social distancing, self isolation, lock down, community spread, contact tracing, personal protective equipment (PPE), viral load, work-life balance, working from home and home school - just to mention a few!
Australian borders were closed to all non-residents on the 20th March 2020. Social distancing rules were imposed on 21 March and state governments started to close 'non-essential' services. 'Non-essential services' included social gathering venues such as pubs and clubs, but unlike many other countries did not include most business operations such as construction, manufacturing and many retail categories e.g. grocery stores.
In Australia, the number of new cases initially grew sharply, then levelled out at about 350 per day around 22 March, and started falling at the beginning of April to under 20 cases per day by the end of the month. Now we are undergoing a second spike, because people who have flu like symptoms still go to work, fearing a loss of employment as unemployment figures reach staggering highs.
As of 2 July 2020, 8,001 cases and 104 deaths had been reported in Australia, with the highest number of cases being in New South Wales.
The rest of this post is not so depressing and is in line with my previous Annual Reviews and so I know for many of you who have suffered, the following text may appear trivial. However, while we are currently living in abnormal times, normality will return to us since our grandchildren who will be born after this pandemic will ask those of us who have memories of it - What was all that about?
The Year of Living Dangerously
The number of categories on this blogspot keeps growing. They are as follows: (i) ArtCloth Textiles; (ii) Art Essays; (iii) Art Exhibitions/Installations/Talks; (iv) Artist Profiles; (v) Art Resources; (vi) Art Reviews; (vii) Book Reviews/Interviews; (viii) Craft and Quilt Fairs; (ix) Fabric Lengths; (x) Glossaries; (xi) Guest Artists/Authors; (xii) Guest Editors; (xiii) Opinion Pieces; (xiv) Resource Reviews; (xv) Prints On Paper; (xvi) Technical Articles; (xvii) Wearable Art; (xviii) Workshops and Master Classes (i.e. my students outputs).
Not all of these categories are present in any given year (e.g. Artist Profiles, Fabric Lengths, Workshops, Craft and Quilt Fairs, and Master Classes etc did not make an appearance this year). Also, judging a post by the one criterion - most amount of viewers - is not necessarily the smartest approach, since the length of stay might mitigate the former statistic. How often have you heard yourself say - oops I really didn't mean to google this hunk of a man when I searched for "loincloth!" Nevertheless, this one statistic makes matters so much easier for me and so it will be used as the final arbitrator, except when two posts differ by less than two viewers - I will then decree that both are winners!
ArtCloth Textiles
There are four posts dealing with ArtCloth in the 2019/2020 season and all of them are concerned with African textiles. I vividly remember when I went to South Africa, the clothes the Africans wore were stunning in color and big design motifs. If you go to the USA, some African Americans wear dark clothes reflecting their skin color and therefore defining that - Black Lives Do Matter. In subterranean Africa it's all about color - look at me - they are proudly proclaiming - look at me! It is not surprising that the number of visitors who viewed these ArtCloth posts were directly proportional to their length of stay on this site. Hence the two contenders are: Diversity of African Textiles and African Textiles: West Africa. With the former having twice as many viewers as the latter.
Northern Togo (a country in West Africa).
Art Essays
This was a very active category with seven posts in the 2019/2020 season alone. These essays were very diverse in nature from the artwork of individual artists to Japanese embroidery. The two vying for the top post were: The Art of Arthur Pambegan Jr and Paisley Patterns - Part III. It didn't surprise me that the latter nearly doubled the number of visitors who viewed this post compared to the former. There is something about Paisley Patterns that just enthuses so many visitors.
Comment: Sometimes the outline of the Paisley motif was made, not so much by its filling, as by the absence of the pattern immediately around it. This design gives a particularly good example of the 'voided' technique.
Paisley Patterns - Part III
Art Exhibitions/Installations/Talks
There was only one post in this category and that was "My Contribution to: The Lake Macquarie's Water Exhibition" The piece was titled, "Lake Macquarie: Timeless Creator of Life.".
Lake Macquarie Museum of Art and Culture is only a fifteen minute drive from my home. Lake Macquarie is the largest salt water lake in Australia.
My Artist Statement: The artwork highlights that Lake Macquarie has sustained life from the beginning of human occupation - from the initial Aboriginal occupation to its present day. Hence, the presence of trilobites and deconstructed fish shapes depicting an on-going living activity within the Lake that refracts from a conscious out-of-the-Lake observance. The lack of human form or activity on or in the Lake was consciously imposed within the artwork in order to emphasise the fragility of the Lake being inhabited, centres not on what exists within it, but rather on what exists outside of it.
Art Practice
There was only one post in the 2019/2020 season in this category namely: The Art of Jenny Kee - Part II. Whenever a post on Jenny Kee is on this blogspot the visitors come in droves. It is the color palette of her fabrics and the designs she creates that always excites the viewer.
Embroidered Cloth: Barramundi.
Art Resources
In the first week of every month (except January) an Art Resource is published on this blogspot. The Art Resources that are published just after the Annual Review are always the favourites to win, because they have a full year to gain an audience, whereas an Art Resource published in the month of the review only has a fortnight and so normally gains a much smaller audience.
The two contenders for this category were: Progressive Shrinkage and Methods of Control and Knit-Sew or Stitch Through Fabrics. They were published within a week of each other, with the former being the winner by just an additional 15 viewers compared to the latter.
See - Thermoplastic Fibers - for more information about this post.
Art Review
There were three published posts in this category in the 2019/2020 season and the two most viewed were: Hawaiian Quilts - Part IV and Traditional Indian Textiles - Part II and the most viewed in this category was the latter by an additional 8 viewers.
Sindhi 'bandana' (tie-and-dyed) odhni, worn by the women of the Meghwal leather-workers caste of That Parkar, and made by the Hindu Khatri dyers of Khipro Sangar, Sind.
Book Reviews/Interviews
There was only one post in the 2019/2020 season in this category and it was my interview of Kalle Gayn about his novel - Reign of the Mother. Why wouldn't I interview him! After all he dedicated his novel to me, because I designed the front cover of his book and did the layout for him. Bias you say, and I answer, 'Of course!'
Guest Artists
There were two posts in this category and both posts had a common feature namely Robyn Werkhoven. As the second post appeared on the 22 August 2020, naturally the first post that appeared seven months ago had far more visitors and that post featured Eric & Robyn and the Mythical Beasts. Eric and Robyn Werkhoven celebrated a forty year artistic relationship. What I really love about their art is that it is totally original, kinky, quirky and so absolutely unique and therefore insightful.
Artists and Year: Eric and Robyn Werkhoven, 2017.
Title: Monkey Boys.
Technique and Media: Graphite pencil & oil pastel on paper.
Size: 42h x 30w cm.
Opinion Piece
There was only one post in this category in the 2019/2020 season and that was Art - Human Being's Greatest Invention.
Perhaps my last paragraph of this post sums it up.
Art is our greatest invention since it caters for our existential needs and is totally aesthetic in terms of our act of engagement when seeing it. It was so at the beginning of our existence, and it will be so when our existence in the universe comes to an end. Art is our greatest invention, since it is not attached to any psychological need for survival, but rather art is attached to a unique human desire!
They are said to be dated 47,000 years old, which puts them in the time span of the Neanderthal man, predating Homo-sapiens. These Australian rock paintings seem to suggest early encounters with spiritual beings in Dreamtime.
Prints on Paper
While most of the posts published on this blogspot are about textiles, some focus on my other passion namely, prints on paper. There were a half dozen posts in this category published in the 2019/2020 season. The two most popular posts in this category were only published a month apart and they were: The Creation of Hurricane Katrina – The Disruptor and European Illumination - Gothic Style, with the former having 50 more visitors. The winning post gave a stage by stage account of how the final fine-art print was constructed, layer-by-layer.
The final image of the final fine-art print of: Hurricane Katrina – The Disruptor. The print was created for the '40/40' exhibition which celebrated 40 years of the existence of the Newcastle Printmakers Workshop.
Resource Review
There was only one published post in the 2019/2020 season and that was Egyptian Museum Cairo - Part I. It is truly one of the great museums in the world. We were there when you could scale the pyramids and take in a breath taking view of the surrounds. There will be life after Covid-19 just as there was life after the Spanish flu and so it should be on your bucket list!
Prince Rahotep with his wife, Princess Nefert (Dynasty Medum).
Wearable Art
There were a number of posts on Wearable Art in the 2019/2020 season. The two outstanding posts in this category were: The History of the Obi, which was published on August 31, 2019, just one week after the last review and The Effects of Color on Your Appearance, which was published four months later. Naturally the winner was the former, nearly doubling the number of visitors compared to the latter.
The History of the Obi.
For your convenience I have listed below the annual reviews that span the life of this blogspot.
It's Been An Exciting Year (2010/2011)
Another Cheer - Another Year (2011/2012)
Where Did The Year Go? (2012/2013)
The Year of the Horse (2013/2014)
Cold and Windy - But on the Dawn of Renewal (2014/2015)
A Time To Reflect - A Time To Select (2015/2016)
A Time to Remember (2016/2017)
To Be or Not to Be (2017/2018)
The Night Too Quickly Passes (2018/2019)
The Year of Living Dangerously (2019/2020)
Attempt The Impossible Since Failure Will Still Be Your Success (2020/2021)
A Year of Climate Extremes (2021/2022)
I Love A Sunburnt Country (2022/2023)
COVID-19
Let me say at the outset: my condolences to those of us who have lost a loved one, a relative or a friend due to the pandemic caused by COVID-19. This has been the year of living dangerously.
Forget all those conspiracy theories! Covid-19 was most likely caused in the wet markets of Whuhan, China and due to the lack of rigorous oversight of health regulations of the wet markets, a virus was born. This is not the first time Western China has spawned a virus that has swept the world. What makes this virus so difficult to contain is that it occurred approximately near the Chinese New Year, where millions of Chinese ex-patriots went to China to celebrate the year of the Metal Rat and when they returned they unknowingly brought the virus to the rest of the world. Furthermore, what gives this virus an added dimension is because it is very infectious.
Note: There is no reason to blame your local Chinese community or overseas tourists. They are NOT to blame for the spread of the virus. Rather your government is to blame for its lack of biosecurity at its borders.
The world has known about the outbreak of viruses before. It has been with us even before the emergence of the black plague. However, we the public and authorities have learnt very little in order to contain a pandemic before a vaccine is available. We spend billions of our currency to prevent terrorist attacks and yet more people have died from this plague than from any terrorist event in the western world. We should divert some of this allocated money to ensure biosecurity at the borders. This is especially so in Australia, where our hygiene regulations are adhered to and as we are an island we import viruses from overseas and yet spend nothing on biosecurity. A virus is only a health threat after it reaches our shores, but prior to that it's a biosecurity threat.
I realize we all want a vaccine to be produced as quickly as possible to prevent us from catching the virus. However, let me be cynical. Every day I hear of a new promise of a vaccine and yet every day none is forth coming. I wish scientists would just shut-up! When I went to University my Professor would advise us: "You can only brag after I have marked you!"
University of Iowa and University of Georgia are developing vaccine candidates based on the PIV5 virus expressing coronavirus spike proteins.
Credit: NIH
Our language has also grown because of the pandemic. We now use phrases such as: social distancing, self isolation, lock down, community spread, contact tracing, personal protective equipment (PPE), viral load, work-life balance, working from home and home school - just to mention a few!
Australian borders were closed to all non-residents on the 20th March 2020. Social distancing rules were imposed on 21 March and state governments started to close 'non-essential' services. 'Non-essential services' included social gathering venues such as pubs and clubs, but unlike many other countries did not include most business operations such as construction, manufacturing and many retail categories e.g. grocery stores.
In Australia, the number of new cases initially grew sharply, then levelled out at about 350 per day around 22 March, and started falling at the beginning of April to under 20 cases per day by the end of the month. Now we are undergoing a second spike, because people who have flu like symptoms still go to work, fearing a loss of employment as unemployment figures reach staggering highs.
As of 2 July 2020, 8,001 cases and 104 deaths had been reported in Australia, with the highest number of cases being in New South Wales.
The rest of this post is not so depressing and is in line with my previous Annual Reviews and so I know for many of you who have suffered, the following text may appear trivial. However, while we are currently living in abnormal times, normality will return to us since our grandchildren who will be born after this pandemic will ask those of us who have memories of it - What was all that about?
The Year of Living Dangerously
The number of categories on this blogspot keeps growing. They are as follows: (i) ArtCloth Textiles; (ii) Art Essays; (iii) Art Exhibitions/Installations/Talks; (iv) Artist Profiles; (v) Art Resources; (vi) Art Reviews; (vii) Book Reviews/Interviews; (viii) Craft and Quilt Fairs; (ix) Fabric Lengths; (x) Glossaries; (xi) Guest Artists/Authors; (xii) Guest Editors; (xiii) Opinion Pieces; (xiv) Resource Reviews; (xv) Prints On Paper; (xvi) Technical Articles; (xvii) Wearable Art; (xviii) Workshops and Master Classes (i.e. my students outputs).
Not all of these categories are present in any given year (e.g. Artist Profiles, Fabric Lengths, Workshops, Craft and Quilt Fairs, and Master Classes etc did not make an appearance this year). Also, judging a post by the one criterion - most amount of viewers - is not necessarily the smartest approach, since the length of stay might mitigate the former statistic. How often have you heard yourself say - oops I really didn't mean to google this hunk of a man when I searched for "loincloth!" Nevertheless, this one statistic makes matters so much easier for me and so it will be used as the final arbitrator, except when two posts differ by less than two viewers - I will then decree that both are winners!
ArtCloth Textiles
There are four posts dealing with ArtCloth in the 2019/2020 season and all of them are concerned with African textiles. I vividly remember when I went to South Africa, the clothes the Africans wore were stunning in color and big design motifs. If you go to the USA, some African Americans wear dark clothes reflecting their skin color and therefore defining that - Black Lives Do Matter. In subterranean Africa it's all about color - look at me - they are proudly proclaiming - look at me! It is not surprising that the number of visitors who viewed these ArtCloth posts were directly proportional to their length of stay on this site. Hence the two contenders are: Diversity of African Textiles and African Textiles: West Africa. With the former having twice as many viewers as the latter.
Art Essays
This was a very active category with seven posts in the 2019/2020 season alone. These essays were very diverse in nature from the artwork of individual artists to Japanese embroidery. The two vying for the top post were: The Art of Arthur Pambegan Jr and Paisley Patterns - Part III. It didn't surprise me that the latter nearly doubled the number of visitors who viewed this post compared to the former. There is something about Paisley Patterns that just enthuses so many visitors.
Paisley Patterns - Part III
Art Exhibitions/Installations/Talks
There was only one post in this category and that was "My Contribution to: The Lake Macquarie's Water Exhibition" The piece was titled, "Lake Macquarie: Timeless Creator of Life.".
Lake Macquarie Museum of Art and Culture is only a fifteen minute drive from my home. Lake Macquarie is the largest salt water lake in Australia.
Art Practice
There was only one post in the 2019/2020 season in this category namely: The Art of Jenny Kee - Part II. Whenever a post on Jenny Kee is on this blogspot the visitors come in droves. It is the color palette of her fabrics and the designs she creates that always excites the viewer.
Art Resources
In the first week of every month (except January) an Art Resource is published on this blogspot. The Art Resources that are published just after the Annual Review are always the favourites to win, because they have a full year to gain an audience, whereas an Art Resource published in the month of the review only has a fortnight and so normally gains a much smaller audience.
The two contenders for this category were: Progressive Shrinkage and Methods of Control and Knit-Sew or Stitch Through Fabrics. They were published within a week of each other, with the former being the winner by just an additional 15 viewers compared to the latter.
Art Review
There were three published posts in this category in the 2019/2020 season and the two most viewed were: Hawaiian Quilts - Part IV and Traditional Indian Textiles - Part II and the most viewed in this category was the latter by an additional 8 viewers.
Book Reviews/Interviews
There was only one post in the 2019/2020 season in this category and it was my interview of Kalle Gayn about his novel - Reign of the Mother. Why wouldn't I interview him! After all he dedicated his novel to me, because I designed the front cover of his book and did the layout for him. Bias you say, and I answer, 'Of course!'
Guest Artists
There were two posts in this category and both posts had a common feature namely Robyn Werkhoven. As the second post appeared on the 22 August 2020, naturally the first post that appeared seven months ago had far more visitors and that post featured Eric & Robyn and the Mythical Beasts. Eric and Robyn Werkhoven celebrated a forty year artistic relationship. What I really love about their art is that it is totally original, kinky, quirky and so absolutely unique and therefore insightful.
Title: Monkey Boys.
Technique and Media: Graphite pencil & oil pastel on paper.
Size: 42h x 30w cm.
Opinion Piece
There was only one post in this category in the 2019/2020 season and that was Art - Human Being's Greatest Invention.
Perhaps my last paragraph of this post sums it up.
Art is our greatest invention since it caters for our existential needs and is totally aesthetic in terms of our act of engagement when seeing it. It was so at the beginning of our existence, and it will be so when our existence in the universe comes to an end. Art is our greatest invention, since it is not attached to any psychological need for survival, but rather art is attached to a unique human desire!
Prints on Paper
While most of the posts published on this blogspot are about textiles, some focus on my other passion namely, prints on paper. There were a half dozen posts in this category published in the 2019/2020 season. The two most popular posts in this category were only published a month apart and they were: The Creation of Hurricane Katrina – The Disruptor and European Illumination - Gothic Style, with the former having 50 more visitors. The winning post gave a stage by stage account of how the final fine-art print was constructed, layer-by-layer.
Resource Review
There was only one published post in the 2019/2020 season and that was Egyptian Museum Cairo - Part I. It is truly one of the great museums in the world. We were there when you could scale the pyramids and take in a breath taking view of the surrounds. There will be life after Covid-19 just as there was life after the Spanish flu and so it should be on your bucket list!
Wearable Art
There were a number of posts on Wearable Art in the 2019/2020 season. The two outstanding posts in this category were: The History of the Obi, which was published on August 31, 2019, just one week after the last review and The Effects of Color on Your Appearance, which was published four months later. Naturally the winner was the former, nearly doubling the number of visitors compared to the latter.
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