your art is so beautiful and impressive to me! every piece from you looks magical, especially your fiber art stuff :3 im fascinated by how many crafts youre skilled in!
Thank you so much for the kind words & I’m so glad that you enjoy my art!
I have long since given up trying to define what kind of ‘art’ I do. I feel my skill set epitomises the saying “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one” (yes, that is the full saying, people often forget the second bit!) as all my skills have been built on all the others, frequently through necessity when trying to create my own ideas.
For anyone curious, here’s my maker story…
I started crafting when I was around 5 years old because I complained to my family they didn’t get me the toys I wanted so I needed to make my own. Thus my nan bought me some felt, taught me a blanket and straight stitch, lent me her button box & set me loose. Out of necessity I taught myself to hand draft patterns & created so many soft felt toys - they all still exist, safely stored in my mums attic. I also taught myself (with some help from nan) to sew clothes for the toys I made. Nan also taught me crochet, and mum taught me some knitting basics (which as an adult, I’ve now discovered some stitches I was taught as ‘standard’ are actually twisted so have to relearn those) - that equated to more toys and doll clothes. Mum also sent me to Saturday arvo art class until I hit year 1 or so.
As a kid I was taken to all the fabrics stores - the good old fashioned ones where fabric bolts were floor to ceiling, button shelves went to the roof behind the cutting desk, where the clerk cut fabric by the yard & measured shorter lengths using the chest-to-fingertip method. As a result I’m one of the few Australian millennials who can think in yards (but only for textiles) & metric (everything else) and those trips saw me pick up cross stitch, embroidery, and tapestry because the patterns on the swivel racks were too beautiful.
When older I started to be taken to all the annual craft fairs. Those saw me pick up several styles of beading thanks to kits from small gran&pop craft businesses, paper tole, quilling, different embroidery styles, and more advanced sewing techniques. I also discovered paper tole and quilling, and taught myself some advanced techniques in those crafts by experimenting with kit packs.
In high school, a friend taught me polymer clay work and traditional pottery in her grandmothers pottery studio. I took HSC art and HSC Design & Tech and used all the craft skills I’ve developed in those & added to them.
Throughout university, all those crafting skills just became more advanced as I started to want to make more complicated pictures - cue combination of feltwork, beading & embroidery to create highly complex 3D sculptural pictures. I also got into cosplay, so the sewing skills leveled up with me learning how to alter clothing on the fly from commercial patterns & draft small clothing items. Prop making also started up (because what costume is complete without a prop?) and I spent weekends with grandad puzzling out together how to achieve 2m long scythes/puppet boxes/mechanical doodads to work to spec using budget materials (ie plywood/metal tubing, dollar store junk, & scrounging out stuff from the shed).
During covid, I taught myself to make fursuit handpaws. Then I taught myself to make tails. Then I started experimenting with different tail builds. Then I decided to try to make a fursuit head using a resin base and discovered to do that to the level I wanted I needed to teach myself basic resin work, buff up my existing painting and sculptural skills, and dust off my workshop notes from all the cosplay prop builds I’d done with my grandad. Then I started experimenting with building eva foam heads. Then experimented sculpting forms with eva as a base and worbla for strength. Suddenly I started getting attention from the furry community as my stuff was HQ & looked like it came from a big maker. I still enjoy doing random commission pieces for fursuiting as it really does need all the skills.
About 3 years ago when visiting my US inlaws, I asked my SIL to show me how to spin as she had a wheel. She showed me how to spin using a drop spindle instead and suddenly I found myself building up a handspindle and fibre arts tool collection. I went from that drop spindle to teaching myself supported spinning, buying an e-spinner, and teaching myself to process raw fleeces. With all the beautiful yarn I was now making, I went full circle back to my roots and have picked up knitting and crochet again, characteristically deciding that my first knitting project in over 20 years would be a double knit cowl requiring me to learn new techniques. Then I bought a loom and taught myself tablet card weaving. Recently I’ve leveled up my crochet by making my first ever thread doilies.
Now I have way too many projects, several I definitely will have to teach myself new techniques, modify existing techniques, or combine skills from various disciplines to achieve the vision I see in my brain.
This blog started mainly as something for myself, to track how my projects progress. As I’ve matured I now like to think of it more as a resource, both for me & anyone else who wants to do any of the things I do but doesn’t know where to start or is stuck on something. Many of the skills I have are considered dying arts and I’d like what I’ve learnt to live on in someone somewhere.
I also hope that anyone who stumbles on this blog goes away inspired to try.
Try anything.
Get that idea out of your head.
Mash your skills together to create something awesome.
Keep on making, because doing builds skills & skills age well given time.
