Saturday, August 26, 2023

I Love A Sunburnt Country
Annual Review

Marie-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)
Australian Rules (2023/2024)


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!'


Uluru
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.

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

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

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

Weather Map of 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...

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

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

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

Central Queensland
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.

Marie-Therese at Craft and Quilt Fair
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.

Coral Forest
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

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).

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

Henry Moore
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.

A Journey Ends
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.

Wearable Art
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).

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