I Love A Sunburnt CountryAnnual ReviewMarie-Therese Wisniowski

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)

Introduction
Australian poet, Henry Lawson penned in his poem, 'My Country,' the following stanza:
'I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!'

Our big red centre, Uluru (alias Ayres Rock), is a famous icon of our sunburnt country.
What is not generally known about Uluru is that if you cut out a paper map of mainland Australia and put a pin where Uluru is located then the map of Australia is perfectly balanced.

Now for the poem and comments, line-by-line.

Poem: 'I love a sunburnt country...'
Comment: Cracked dirt plains, because of a blazing sun.

Poem: '...a land of sweeping plains...'
Comment: Plains around Terowie, Mid-North, South Australia.

Poem: '...of rugged mountain ranges...'
Comment: Cradle Mountain,Tasmania, Australia.

Poem: '...of drought...'
Comment: The climate of Australia can vary a great deal from place to place, although in summer it’s basically hot everywhere in varying degrees (little weather joke there). Australia is an essentially arid continent, with 80% of the land having a rainfall less than 600 millimetres per year and 50% having even less than 300 millimetres per year...

Poem: '...and flooding rains...'
Comment: Thousands fled as record rains swamped New South Wales (Australia) earlier this year.

Poem: '...I love her far horizons...'
Comment: Canberra, Australia.

Poem: '...I love her jewel-sea...'
Comment: The Great Barrier Reef.

Poem: '...Her beauty and her terror...'
'...The wide brown land for me!'
Comment: Central Queensland, Australia.

I Love a Sunburnt Country
The number of categories on this blogspot keeps growing. They are as follows: (i) ArtCloth and Art Quilt Textiles; (ii) Art Essays; (iii) Art Exhibitions/Installations/Talks; (iv) Artist's 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) Works 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 season. For example, there were no Art Exhibitions/Installations/Talks this season. After all, it been a time of limited opportunities due to weather and economic/cost of living pressures.

Judging a post by the one criterion, namely the most number of viewers, is not necessarily the smartest approach, since the length of stay of a viewer might negate 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 innocently searched for "drawers!" Nevertheless, this one statistic makes it so much easier for me to make a judgement between posts, and so it will be used as the final arbitrator, except in the case when two posts differ by less than two viewers in total. Then I will decree that both are joint winners! Note: We are only talking about differences and not absolute numbers.

ArtCloth and Art Quilt Textiles
There were eight posts in this category in the 2022/2023 season. Not surprisingly the two that got the largest number of page views were on the blogspot for the longest time, namely, African Tie and Dye and My New Hand Printed Fabric Design 'Morocco' ArtCloth, with the latter the winner with twenty-two more views than the former.

Artist: Marie-Therese Wisniowski.
Title: Morocco (Full View).
Technique and Medium: Stamped, stencilled and deconstructed/improvisational silk screen prints employing transparent and opaque pigments on cotton.
Size: 50 cm (width) x 100 cm (length).

Art Essays
There were six posts in this category in the 2022/2023 season. The two posts that received the largest numbers of page views were published three weeks apart, namely, Earning a Living in the Visual Arts and Crafts and Modern Australian Tapestries. The winner by only three page views was the former.

An avenue of revenue: Marie-Therese at the Craft and Quilt Fair.

Artist(s) Profile
There were eight posts in this category, with the two highest viewed only being one page view apart and they were, The Paintings of Patrick Tjungurrayi and Helen Lancaster's - The Great Barrier Reef. The latter post was the winner by just over two page views.
I am so glad my dearly departed friend won this category. Her soft sculptures are art that is personified.

Artist: Helen Lancaster.
Title: 'Coral Forest', 2000 (Soft Sculpture).
Technique and Materials: Machine embroidery and fabric manipulation.
Size: Columns range in height, 107 x 310 cm.

Book Reviews
There was only one book review in the 2022/2023 season and that was World Textiles: A Concise History by Mary Schoeser

The book is organized as follows:
Chapter One: 'Prehistoric Materials and Techniques' (pp 11-34);
Chapter Two: 'The Dye and Loom Age, c. 3200 - 600 BC' (pp 35-59);
Chapter Three: 'Trade and Trends, 750 BC to AD 600’ (pp 60-86);
Chapter Four: 'Church and State, 600 - 1500' (pp 87-109);
Chapter Five: 'Western Ideas and Styles Dispersed, 1300 - 1900' (pp 110-133);
Chapter Six: 'Oriental Influences, 1450 - 1900' (pp 134-156);
Chapter Seven: 'Surface Patterning from Indigo to Ikat, 600 - 1900' (pp 157-180);
Chapter Eight: 'The Importance of Cotton and Linen, 1500 - 1950' (pp 181-203);
Chapter Nine: 'New Technology and Fibres, 1600 to Today' (pp 204-229);
Chapter Ten: 'The Art of Textiles, 1850 to Today' (pp 230-255).

It's a must buy for those who are interested in textiles!

Fabric Lengths
There was only one post on Fabric Lengths in the 2022/2023 season and that was: “Bush Banksia” Collection: My New Hand Printed Tea Towel Design (Fabric Lengths).

Artist: Marie-Therese Wisniowski.
Title and Description: 'Bush Banksia' Tea Towel Collection in red color way (Full View).
Technique and Material: Screen printed employing glazes, transparent, opaque, and metallic pigments on pure linen.
Size: 50 cm wide x 70 cm high.

Resource Reviews
There was only one post in this category in the 2022/2023 season and that was: Masterpieces of the Israel Museum

Title: Vertebrae: Sculpture in Three Elements, Henry Moore (1898-1986).

Works on Paper
There were six entries in this category with ‘A Journey Ends . . . Another Nightmare Begins’ the winner by a wide margin from two other posts that had the same number of page views.

Title: A Journey Ends . . . Another Nightmare Begins... (Full view).
Artist: Marie-Therese Wisniowski.
Technique and Media: Digital print employing archival inkjet pigments on archival matt digital paper stock.
Comment: The print was created using hand printed silk-screened imagery, original photographs, mixed print media, hand drawn illustrations and artwork. The various techniques/images were then digitally collaged to create the final print.
Size: 297 mm wide x 420 mm high.
Impression: 6/30.

Wearable Art
There were six posts in this category published in the 2022/2023 season with two significantly higher in page views than the rest and they were: Chinese Clothing: Shenyi and Broad Sleeves - Part I and Releasing My New - ‘Unique State’ ArtCloth Scarves, with the latter the winner by more than fifteen page views.

Artist: Marie-Therese Wisniowski (Full View).
Technique and Media: Dyed, shibori overdyed, mono printed, and silk screened, employing dyes, opaque and metallic pigments, and gold foil on rayon.
Size: 50 cm (wide) x 177 cm (length).

Tie and Dye of the Dida, Ivory CoastArtClothMarie-Therese Wisniowski

Preamble
For your convenience I have listed below other posts in this series:
Diversity of African Textiles
African Textiles: West Africa
Stripweaves (West Africa) - Part I
Stripweaves (West Africa) - Part II
Stripweaves (West Africa) - Part III
Stripweaves (West Africa) - Part IV
Djerma Weaving of Niger and Burkina-Faso
Woolen Stripweaves of the Niger Bend
Nigerian Horizontal - Loom Weaving
Yoruba Lace Weave
Nigerian Women's Vertical Looms
The Supplementary Weft Cloths of Ijebu-Ode and Akwete
Tie and Dye of the Dida, Ivory Coast
African Stitch Resist
Yoruba Stitch Resist

Tie and Dye of the Dida, Ivory Coast
The Dida live on the Ivory Coast, where they traditionally make their living by fishing. For ceremonial occasions, they plait strands of of raphia into loincloths or skirts, cloaks and kerchiefs, giving them patterns by means of tied resist and dyeing them with natural dyes in a color palette of forest colors. Red and black on yellowish ground is preferred.

Ceremonial kerchief made of plaited and then tie-dyed raphia worn by a member of the Dida tribe of the Ivory Coast.

Dida ceremonial tie-dyed skirt made of paited raphia.

A cloak, turbular skirt or loincloth will typically be decorated with circles, ovals and rectangles, often combined with distinct areas of dots. All motifs are formed solely by variations in the tie and dye technique.

Ceremonial plaited raphia skirt decorated with bold tie-dyed motifs worn by a woman of the Dida tribe of the Ivory Coast.

Adams and Holdcraft state (1992) that the yellow dye is obtained from the roots of a shrub and the red from the hardened root of a tree, while the black is said to come from a combination of managanese and leaves. As with all tie dyed work, the garments are dyed from the lightest color to the darkest - in this case, first yellow, then red, then black. Where the black shades into red, a reddish-brown color results, but it remains pure black on the fringes of the garment.

Ceremonial plaited raphia skirt decorated with bold tie-dyed motifs worn by a woman of the Dida tribe of the Ivory Coast.
Note: The black fringes.

According to textile expert Noémi Speiser, the technique used for the turbular obli que interlacing is unique. The set of rafa filaments - the total number can reach as much as 1500 elements - is tied into a bunch and then attached to a fixerd point. It is then split into groups of roughly 5- elements.

Dida Ceremonial Raffia Tie-dye Ivory Coast.

Half of these groups will move on the S-course, half on the Z-course, this behaving like warp and weft in weaving. Those on thr Z-course are fixed with leashes of a contrasting color, hanging downward and roughly knotted together. They are attached to their group throughout.

Dance skirt from the Dida people of Ivory Coast.

The worker starts handling two groups, one leashed and one bare, while holding several adjacent heddles grouped between the toes of her outstretched legs.

Astonishingly she forms sheds and introduces 'wefts' without any fixed tension on the 'warp'. In turn, the near ends of each group are made taut by either hand when not engaged in spreading, brushing, smooting or selecting wefts.

Pulling the leashes downwards makes one shed. The countershed is created by drawing the leashed group upwards, which make the tips of the leashes lie above the non-leashed layer. Each two groups produce a diamond area of loose and irregular lacing, which must be smoothed by rubbing with a small, smooth pebble. When the diamonds have been replicated all the way around the tube, they are interconnected by the next traverse row of diamonds. Then, row after row, the tube grows along the natural length of the raphia filaments and ends in roughly knotted fringes. This ingeneous application of simple weaving technology to braiding/plaiting makes it possible to produce these usually large pieces of oblique interlacing.

Reference:
[1] J. Gillow, African Textiles, Thames & Hudson Ltd, London (2003).

The Power of OneArt ClothMarie-Therese Wisniowski

Preamble
On this blog spot there are posts that center on my “Wearable Art” (e.g. scarves, digital or analogue created fabric lengths etc.) For your convenience I have listed these posts below.
A Selection of My Scarves
Leaves Transformed: A New Collection of My Digitally Designed Fabrics
My New Silk Rayon Velvet Scarves@Purple Noon Art And Sculpture Gallery
My Fabric Lengths@QSDS
My Fabric Collection:"Oh, Oh Marilyn and Mona!"@Spoonflower
2013 Australian Craft Awards – Finalist
My Scarves@2014 Scarf Festival: "Urban Artscape" Pashminas
My New Scarves and Fabric Lengths
New Range of Silk Neckties - Karma and Akash
AIVA: My New Hand Dyed and Hand Printed Fabric Design
New Colorways For My 'Cultural Graffiti' Fabrics
Byzantine Glow: A New Collection of My Digitally Designed Fabrics
Wall Flower: A New Collection of My Digitally Designed Fabrics
Ink Fern - A New Collection of My Digitally Designed Fabrics
Celebratory Fireworks
My New Silk ArtCloth Scarves
New ‘Unique State’ Silk ArtCloth Scarves
UBIRR - My New Hand Dyed & Printed Fabric Design
Renaissance Man - My New Hand Dyed & Printed Fabric Design
Banksia - My New Hand Dyed and Hand Printed Fabric Design
Ginkgo Love - My New Hand Dyed and Hand Printed Fabric Design
Garden Delights I & II - My New Hand Dyed and Hand Printed Fabric Design
Wallflower III - My New Hand Dyed and Hand Printed Fabric Design
Rainforest Beauty - Collection My New Hand Dyed and Hand Printed Fabric Design
Spring & Autumn Flurry Collection - My New Hand Dyed and Hand Printed Fabric Design
La Volute Collection - My New Hand Dyed and Hand Printed Fabric Design
Urban Butterfly - My New Hand Printed Fabric Design
Acanthus Dream - My New Hand Printed Fabric Design
“Cascading Acanthus” - My New Hand Dyed and Hand Printed Fabric Design
My New Hand Dyed and Hand Printed 'Rainforest Beauty' Pashmina Wraps Collection
My ArtCloth Tea Towels: A New Collection of Digitally Designed Products
Through the Land it Roared . . . ArtCloth Shawl
My New Hand Dyed and Hand Printed ‘Urban Codes - Series 1’ Collection
Urban Moonlight - My Post Graffiti Doily
My New Hand Printed Fabric Design - "Morocco" ArtCloth
‘Vine Glow’
“Bush Banksia’s” Collection"
Releasing My New - ‘Unique State’ ArtCloth Scarves

If you like any of my artworks in the above links, please email me at - Marie-Therese - for pricing and for any other enquiries.

Introduction
In the history of the world, there have been numerous examples where one person has changed the world’s religious, political, socio-economic, and humanistic direction. From Buddha (563 to 480 BC – ca. 483 BC) to Jesus (ca. 6 BC – 33 AD) to Joan of Arc (1412 AD – 1431 AD) to Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 AD – 1821 AD) to Nelson Mandela (1918 AD - 2013 AD) to Martin Luther King Jr. (1918 AD – 2013 AD) and to Vincent Lingiari (1908 AD – 1983 AD) – just to name few!

Their determination to create a singularity in the present that separates the past from the future, epitomizes the full force of the ‘Power of One.’ Whether their quest was ethical, moral, or noble are for historians to judge. However, their impact is unarguable.

My Art Cloth Print – The Power of One

Concept
The background and mid-ground fields of my ArtCloth print represent deconstructed imagery and scripts from past eras showing the diverse thinking among the masses, thereby creating a chaos of diverse thought and opinions. Blocks of text have been embedded within the print to represent a subconscious view of brick walls, purposely built to hold back thought and imagination.

However, amongst all this chaos, in the mid-right of the work stands a silhouette of a lone person printed in a walnut color, sex not identified, standing fearless with arms spread out and the left leg pushed back with the right leg holding firm, thereby representing the ‘Power of One’ person’s determination to create a singularity in the present that separates the past from the future. The surface layer of the print highlights text printed in walnut reflecting the voice of the ‘Power of One’ – embracing a new humanistic direction above the chaos behind the silhouette.

Technique
Hand painted, drawings, silk screened, interfacing screens, stencilled and color washed employing pencils, inks, glazes, transparent, opaque, and metallic pigments on calico cotton drop cloth.

Size
58 cm high x 33 cm wide.

The Power of One

The Power of One (Full View).

The Power of One (Detail View 1).

The Power of One (Detail View 2).

The Power of One (Detail View 3).

The Power of One (Detail View 4).

Pigments [1]Art ResourceMarie-Therese Wisiowski

Preamble
This is the twenty-fourth post in a new Art Resource series that specifically focuses on techniques used in creating artworks. For your convenience I have listed all the posts in this new series below:
Drawing Art
Painting Art - Part I
Painting Art - Part II
Painting Art - Part III
Painting Art - Part IV
Painting Art - Part V
Painting Art - Part VI
Home-Made Painting Art Materials
Quality in Ready-Made Artists' Supplies - Part I
Quality in Ready-Made Artists' Supplies - Part II
Quality in Ready-Made Artists' Supplies - Part III
Historical Notes on Art - Part I
Historical Notes on Art - Part II
Historical Notes on Art - Part III
Historical Notes on Art - Part IV
Historical Notes on Art - Part V
Tempera Painting
Oil Painting - Part I
Oil Painting - Part II
Oil Painting - Part III
Oil Painting - Part IV
Oil Painting - Part V
Oil Painting - Part VI
Pigments
Classification of Pigments - Part I
Classification of Pigments - Part II
Classification of Pigments - Part III
Pigments for Oil Painting
Pigments for Water Color
Pigments for Tempera Painting
Pigments for Pastel
Japanese Pigments

There have been another one hundred and thirteen posts in a previous Art Resource series that have focused on the following topics:
(i) Units used in dyeing and printing of fabrics;
(ii) Occupational, health & safety issues in an art studio;
(iii) Color theories and color schemes;
(iv) Optical properties of fiber materials;
(v) General properties of fiber polymers and fibers - Part I to Part V;
(vi) Protein fibers;
(vii) Natural and man-made cellulosic fibers;
(viii) Fiber blends and melt spun fibers;
(ix) Fabric construction;
(x) Techniques and woven fibers;
(xi) Basic and figured weaves;
(xii) Pile, woven and knot pile fabrics;
(xiii) Durable press and wash-and-wear finishes;
(xvi) Classification of dyes and dye blends;
(xv) The general theory of printing.

To access any of the above resources, please click on the following link - Units Used in Dyeing and Printing of Fabrics. This link will highlight all of the one hundred and thirteen posts in the previous a are eight data bases on this blogspot, namely, the Glossary of Cultural and Architectural Terms, Timelines of Fabrics, Dyes and Other Stuff, A Fashion Data Base, the Glossary of Colors, Dyes, Inks, Pigments and Resins, the Glossary of Fabrics, Fibers, Finishes, Garments and Yarns, Glossary of Art, Artists, Art Motifs and Art Movements, Glossary of Paper, Photography, Printing, Prints and Publication Terms and the Glossary of Scientific Terms. All data bases in the future will be updated from time-to-time.

If you find any post on this blog site useful, you can save it or copy and paste it into your own "Word" document for your future reference. For example, Safari allows you to save a post (e.g. click on "File", click on "Print" and release, click on "PDF" and then click on "Save As" and release - and a PDF should appear where you have stored it). Safari also allows you to mail a post to a friend (click on "File", and then point cursor to "Mail Contents On This Page" and release). Either way, this or other posts on this site may be a useful Art Resource for you.

The new Art Resource series will be the first post in each calendar month. Remember - these Art Resource posts span information that will be useful for a home hobbyist to that required by a final year University Fine-Art student and so undoubtedly, some parts of any Art Resource post may appear far too technical for your needs (skip those mind boggling parts) and in other parts, it may be too simplistic with respect to your level of knowledge (ditto the skip). The trade-off between these two extremes will mean that Art Resource posts will be hopefully useful in parts to most, but unfortunately may not be satisfying to all!

Introduction
This blogspot contains a number of glossaries and the most pertinent with respect to posts on pigments is the following Glossary: click on this link to see - Glossary of Colors, Dyes Inks and Pigments. Hence the following posts on pigments will not define such pigments as 'Academy Blue,' which is defined in this glossary.

Pigments [1]
A pigment is a finely divided, colored substance which imparts its color effect to another material either when mixed intimately with it or when applied over its surface in a thin layer. When a pigment is mixed or ground in a liquid vehicle to form a paint, it does not dissolve but remains suspended or dispersed in the liquid. Colored substances which dissolve in liquids and impart their color effects to materials by staining or being absorbed are classified as dyes.

Materials used as artist's pigments have requirements other than color; the term 'pigment properties' is used on this blogspot to refer to structural and other physical properties apart from color. Powdered materials which become colorless or virtualy colorless in paints are called 'inert pigments' - a technical term or classification which has no reference to chemical inertness or stability.

Titanium White is an inert pigment.
Note: Inert pigment refers to a pigment, extender or adultrant that does not change the shade or hue of a paint, but extends or otherwise imparts various physical properties other than color, such as opacity or texture. An inert pigment does not chemically react with the materials with which it is being mixed. Inert pigments are mainly fillers; when used in excess, they can be regarded as adulterants. Inert pigments should be used in the lowest possible concentration required to get the maximum color concentration in paints. Inert pigments are also known as inerts, fillers and extenders.

The various methods of painting - oils, watercolor, etc. - differ from one another in the material with which color is applied and attached to the ground; the pigments used are the same in all, except that a pigment which is suitable for one purpose does not always meet the requirements for another.

Body Color and Glaze
Two systems of coloring may be distinguished in our painting methods. One employs comparatively heavy layers of opaque paint or pigment, and obtains its white and pale shades by the admixture of white pigments. This is generally called body color. The other employs transparent colors, and for whites and pale shades utilizes the white of the ground as in water colors or glazes for some effects, as in oils.

No strict line can be drawn between the two, for materials and methods in general use are not entirely one or the other. Transparent painting usually shows some of the body color effect, and opaque painting often contains some of the other. The two systems may be used together in the same painting whenever the physical nature of the technique permits, but they cannot be mixed indiscriminately, and it must be borne in mind that they are two distinct methods of producing color effects. There are few technical procedures other than in the use of artists' paints where opaque and transparent color effects are manipulated or where their differences are so significant.

Requirements for a Paint Pigment
1. It should be smooth, finely divided powder.
2. It should be insoluble in the medium in which it is used.
3. It should withstand the action of sunlight without changing color, under conditions to which the painting might normally be exposed.
4. It should not exert a harmful chemical action upon the medium or upon other pigments with which it is to be mixed.
5. It should be chemically inert and uneffected by materials with which it is to be mixed or by the atmosphere.
6. It should have a proper degree of opacity or transparency to suit the purpose for which it is intended.
7. It should be of full strength and contain no added inert or loading ingredients.
8. It should conform to accepted standards of color and color quality and exhibit all the desirable characteristics of its type.
9. It should be purchased from a reliable house, which understands and tests its colors, selects them from world-wide sources, and can furnish information as to origin, details of quality etc.

Reference:
[1] The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques, R. Mayer (ed. E. Smith) 4th Edition, Faber and Faber, London (1981).