Visiting artist Christina Henri and 'Roses from the Heart'.

We don't very often have visiting speakers to our group but just like a bus - you wait for ages and then two come along at once. Last week we had visiting artist Anushiya and today Christina Henri came to talk to us about her 'Roses from the Heart' project.
Christina is the Honorary Artist-in-Residence at the Cascades Female Factory, Hobart - now a World Heritage site.

Christina, whose concept of symbolising the lives of the 25, 566 women, sentenced to transportation as convicts to Australia (1788-1853), in a memorial that remembers them through a cloth bonnet tribute, was our visitor yesterday.

Christina Henri

Christina brought along some of the bonnets people have made for her and some photos of her art installations.

Way back in 2009 one of our members, Laura,  made bonnets for Christina's project. When Laura told us all about it our group also became involved in making bonnets. It was lovely to see Christina in person today and listen to her story of how 'Roses from the Heart' came about and how the project has evolved.
Christina has written a well deserved thank you to Laura here for all her work.

The story of the convict women and the 'Roses from The Heart' project is all on Christina's website and you can read up-to-date posts and comments on her Facebook page.









I liked this bonnet  that has been made from a shirt and I'm guessing it came from the 'Bonnet Emigration Trail' workshop held in the Guildhall in Derry/ Londonderry last weekend.                                                        

We ended the morning with an outstanding Pot Luck Lunch. I think our visitors were impressed!

A very colourful salad!

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There's a great exhibition of quilts on in the Island Arts Centre at the moment, closing Sat 19th October.
The Irish Patchwork Society and the Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild combine to hold an exhibition 'Hands Across The Border'  every two years. The exhibition explores the theme of 'Flora, Fabric and Fibre' this time and features over sixty quilts. It's definitely worth seeing.

A visiting artist at HHCG.

This Thursday we had a visiting artist to our group, her name is Anushiya Sundaralingham and we are lucky to have her working with us for 5 weeks.
Anushiya has just held an exhibition at the Belfast PrintWorkshop and was able to show us her photos on the big screen. This photo below shows her at work on one of the pieces for her exhibition, 'Root'.
 It was inspiring to see all her art work.

Anushiya was looking for ideas on how she could best help us with our work

 - either on an individual basis, or working with us as a group.

 What can we achieve in only 2 hours each week? 

It was decided Anushiya could best help us with our group project for the annual exhibition, 

'Under the Sea'.

 Anushiya won't be with us next Thursday but the following week we've been asked to bring in bits and pieces relating to the sea. 

Photos, magazine cuttings, papers, shells, pebbles, threads, fabrics, lace, netting etc.
Hopefully it will give us some inspiration for our project.

Last October I went to a Halloween night in Wallace Park.
 Our group had been involved in a yarnbombing project, we were knitting strips to wrap around the tree trunks and I went to see how they looked.
This exhibit of little lacy dresses  above  was also in the park and I stopped and chatted to the artist, it was Anushiya.
 They did look lovely, all lit up.

We are having a Pot Luck Lunch next Thursday.