The Mordi Canteen is currently hosting a little collection of my artworks!
If you have not yet discovered this gem of a local cafe in Mordiallic now is the pefect time to go there. I am loving how my artwork looks on their walls.
Uncommon Threads Opening at Fortyfive Downstairs tomorrow!
Naarm Textile Collective exhibition opens tomorrow Tuesday 17th October at 5pm!
AND IT’S GOING TO BE HUGE!!
There was such a buzz when I popped in to Fortyfive Downstairs Gallery today to drop off my work. There are 80 textile artists from all over Victoria exhibiting and some spectacular looking fibre artworks were being placed, hung and attached to the walls.
Naarm Textile Collective artists delivering and hanging works ahead of the exhibition opening on Tuesday 17th October at 5pm
Uncommon Threads is a collaborative group exhibition of contemporary textile artists exploring the limitlessness of textile art. Read more about it here
I cannot wait to see “Common Threads” - the triptych I created with Jo Roszkowski a few years back - exhibited once again!
These 3 large artworks were created collaboratively over a period of months and they evolved like a conversation between us as we exchanged them back and forth and responded to each others input.
They speak volumes to our shared passion for the natural world, connection to places and its relationship to our creative practice.
I am also exhibiting “Emerging Pride”
Emerging: Pride, freehand machine embroidered thread. free hanging.
This artwork has recently returned from the ‘Women In Stitches’ exhibition at New England Regional Art Museum. She is part of my Emerging series and is created in free standing embroidered thread. This piece continues my exploration of identity including my queer identity and seeks to embrace and promoting female diversity, empowerment and body positivity.
The exhibition is part of Craft Contemporary Festival and runs until 28th October.
Exhibition coming up...
I am so excited to be exhibiting my work in the flesh again! It’s been a while, thanks to lockdown
I hope you are able join me and the other talented artists as we come together to share our creative explorations around the theme of THREAD.
‘Skater Girl’ embroidered thread drawing in progress 2021
I will be exhibiting many of my new original thread drawings completed over the past year.
‘Crochet Demon” thread drawing in progress 2021
Check out the awesome work by some of my fellow exhibiting artists
Meet the Artists Event
Thursday 8 July, 5-7pm
Don’t miss out - RSVP for a chance to win a $50 in.cube8r gift voucher
48 Hour Lockdown Sale now on!
Exciting news….
I am part of the 48 hour Lockdown Sale at in.cube8r featuring HEAPS of gorgeous handmade products from Victorian artists and makers who are currently living through yet another lockdown.
The sale runs from 6pm Tuesday 8 JUNE until to 6pm 10 JUNE (48 hours).
incube8r will be upgrading ALL PURCHASES to express shipping
and all orders over $150 get Free Postage!
All my work including original thread sketches, framed prints and greetings cards have 20% off
Art Exhibitions Around Melbourne
We are back in lockdown here in Melbourne and after returning to what almost felt like normality recently, this one feels tough.
I particularly feel for those involved in the arts - events organisers and artists who have put so much passion, time and commitment into sharing their work with us, to bring our city back to life and celebrate our unique and diverse cultures.
I had unfortunately missed out on attending the exciting inaugural Melbourne Arts Festival Rising as my event tickets were for dates that fell after the lockdown commenced.
“RISING is a surge of art, music, performance and ceremony in the heart of Melbourne... In other words, it’s a new festival in Victoria’s cultural calendar. RISING will begin on the evening of the total lunar eclipse 26 May and run until 6 June 2021.”
The current COVID-19 update on the website includes this determined and uplifting statement from the Artistic Directors Hannah Fox and Gideon Obarzanek:
FLESH AFTER FIFTY AT ABBOTSFORD CONVENT
7th March - 11th April
I did however manage to get to this one…
Mater, Sam Jinks
I was really inspired by this incredible exhibition in the unique space of the Magdalen Laundry in the Abbotsford Convent. I was drawn to it on both a personal level (as a woman over fifty) and in relation to its themes around portrayal of women and body positivity that are important to me in my own artwork.
Conceived by Professor Martha Hickey and Curated by Jane Scott, the exhibition included works by artists Penny Byrne, Maree Clarke, Megan Evans, Janina Green, Ponch Hawkes, Sam Jinks, Deborah Kelly, Niki Koutouziz, Hotham Street Ladies, Ruth Maddison, Patrick Pound, Cathy Staughton, Catherine Bell, Greg Taylor and Peter Wegner.
“We live in a society swamped with images, where high value is placed on physical appearance and an association between attractiveness and youth, particularly for women. This groundbreaking exhibition will explore and challenge negative stereotypes of aging while celebrating and promoting positive images of older women through art.”
Ponch Hawkes, 500 Strong
500 Strong (detail), Ponch Hawkes
500 Strong (detail), Ponch Hawkes
Artwork by Penny Byrne
The exhibition has now closed however you can still check it out online here: https://www.fleshafterfifty.com/
Red Gallery in Fitzroy North
Free Range,
Pamela Black
I feel so privileged to have been able to help artist Pamela Black set up her very inspiring exhibition “Free Range”
Pamela is a friend of one of my oldest friends in Australia, Fliss, and when I heard Fliss was driving down from the Blue Mountains, NSW with a trailer load of ceramic chickens on their way to a Melbourne art gallery to exhibit, my interest and curiosity was peaked!
I arrived at Red Gallery just as Fliss and Pamela were unwrapping each of the 350 chickens that make up this incredible installation that is inspired by the Terracotta Warriors.
I love this description of Pamela’s exhibition:
“Take one artist, some mud, some paint, and a sprinkle of alchemy. Isolate in an overgrown garden studio with a cat, 10 chooks, and a growing stack of art books. Simmer down until a quirky celebration of freedom, self expression, diversity and inclusion is unabashedly revealed. Serve hot with a splash of irreverence and a beak full of humour. Free range is a clucking good art experience!”
EXHIBITION DUE TO RUN UNTIL JUNE 13TH AT RED GALLERY
Meet the Artist
I am really excited to share with you a little interview I did recently.
Filmed onsite at Incube8r Fitzroy by Steph Comfort.
To subscribe or not to subscribe?
I have to confess that I have a love/hate relationship with email subscriptions. Actually it’s mainly hate, as my inbox gets filled on a daily basis with other people’s marketing campaigns! For that reason I have resisted setting up email subscriptions for a very long time - I couldn’t bear to do that to other people’s inboxes!
However, I have recently been convinced that having a regular newsletter that goes out to people who have chosen to receive your updates is a very good thing indeed. Like many artists I spend a lot more time than I would like using social media to try to make sure that the people who want to see my work, or might want to see my work (but don’t know it yet) get to see my work and know where they can see more of it and perhaps purchase it if they wish to.
Instagram and Facebook can be a bit of a lottery: those pesky algorithms don’t always get your posts in front of the right people. So people may be following me but that doesn’t mean they will see my updates about what I am working on, offers, events, new work, sales, or my general musings about the creative life!
So I have taken the plunge! You can now subscribe to Juliet D Collins!
Once you have subscribed you will receive a welcome email. After that you’ll get a monthly update on everything that’s going on in my art world including: works in progress; new collections; events; markets; exhibitions; sales and special offers.
City Lover or Nature Lover?
Are you a City Lover or Nature Lover?
I have come to realise that I am both! I love the bustle & energy of a city and the beauty & solitude of nature in equal measure. Both inspire me and feed into my artwork. I had fun putting together this little mosaic of images to express this!
I have always sketched wherever I go. It’s a habit I learned from my Grandpa Jack who always had a sketchbook to hand and a pencil in his top pocket.
As with any drawing activity it really grounds me in the moment and forces me to focus on my sensory & also my emotional experience. This tends to translate itself to my sketches which is why it’s so important to me to work directly from those sketches when I create other artworks from them - I really strive to express what I experienced in that moment.
You can check out artworks inspired by my time spent in nature here:
And my Melbourne City Sketches are here:
…and more onsite sketches from Melbourne, New York and the UK here:
All About the Thread Sketch Collection
The Thread Sketch Collection is an affordable range of little textile designs that explore and celebrate the experience of being a woman. Each piece measures 25 x 20 cm and comes either framed in a simple black frame or window mounted on quality mat board.
I first came up with the idea of producing thread sketches when I was designing the original “Princess and the Pea” embroidered thread drawing for an upcoming exhibition around 6 or so years ago. That piece was 2 metres high with the Princess reclining on the top of many many mattresses made from multiple fabrics of different colours. In order to work out my fabric combinations for all those stacked mattresses as well as other design elements such as the size of the figure relative to the mattresses, I decided to make a little thread sketch of the piece - like a prototype, or in sculpture we’d call it a maquette
Anyway whatever we call it it's a small version, sketchy and quicker to execute than the final piece and its purpose is to work out the design before launching into the big one and wasting all your fabrics by getting it all wrong. Once I'd done the small Princess and the Pea I started thinking it would be nice to make thread sketches of more of my larger designs and frame them so that they are nice little affordable art pieces.
So, I took around 12 of my designs, shrank them down to miniature and reproduced them multiple times in different fabrics & colours. I framed them up and took them off to Mornington Twilight Christmas Market where I pretty much sold out of them all immediately!
Since then, I’ve refined things a little - I have a popular range of designs that are always available to order. Each piece is individually handmade by me using freehand machine embroidery with (mainly) recycled fabrics. You can personalise the pieces choose your fabrics/colours and I can always make little design changes such as hair colour/style on request. Every so often I bring out some new designs and discontinue my older ones.
The Thread Sketch Collection is also now available on greetings cards and prints and also a wide range of other products via RedBubble
My Thread Sketches and greetings cards are also available through Incub8er Emporium Prahran
All Thread Sketches pictured above are currently available.
Sun-sneezers Blow Light Bubble by Ranjani Shettar
Artists that Inspire me: Ranjani Shettar
I just love this artwork, “Sun-sneezers Blow Light Bubbles” by Ranjani Shettar.
This piece is a large scale sculptural installation made in 2007-8 from stainless steel, Muslim cloth, tamarind paste & lacquer.
I’m so impressed by the way the artist masterfully uses such a diverse range of materials with incredible skill - combining traditional crafts, techniques & materials with more industrial ones - to explore natural phenomena and the relationship between humans and nature. I am always most drawn to constructed/ assembled sculptures and I really admire the sense of integrity Shettar achieves, between her materials, her forms and what she is exploring/communicating. To me, her works bring into focus the ethereal beauty and incredible qualities of the natural world and elicits a sense of wonder in us for things we might otherwise take for granted.
In this piece she explores the bizarre effect of sunlight causing some people to spontaneously sneeze (known as the photic sneeze reflex).
Are you a sun sneezer? I am! Not a popular affliction at the moment!
A Day in the Life of a Thread Sketch!
Check out my first ever time lapse freehand machine embroidery video
“Dancing Queen” thread sketch in progress
My Favourite Work
This piece is called “Fragile Strength 2”. It was one of 2 artworks both made around the same time - embroidered thread spines set in a vintage box - and it’s one of my favourite works I’ve ever made!
This piece won the ACMD acquisitive art prize and is now part of the St Vincent’s Hospital Art Collection but that’s not why it’s one of my favourites. Read on if you’d like to know why.
For as long as I can remember I have been obsessed with human anatomy and especially the spine. It is an extension of my curiosity for the human form as explored through my life drawing and also a metaphor I have been exploring visually for as long as I can remember - for looking beneath the surface of our human natures, peeling back layers to discover essential realities or truths.
When I studied Fine Art (sculpture) at Edinburgh Art College my entire degree show was made up of spines! And somehow years later the spine is still my muse. It is my ‘go to’ motif when I am experimenting with new ways of working which is really how the “Fragile Strength” pieces came about.
Once I had learned I could make freestanding embroideries of spines I felt a whole universe of exciting possibilities opening up to me! This work gave rise to a whole solo exhibition: “Veritas” and I am continuing to explore the working methods and concepts that evolved from making this piece. Something really important came together in the making of this artwork for me - I felt a real integration between my concepts and my communication of these through materials and form and that is why it is my favourite 😊
Stir Crazy (COVID -19)
I started working on this embroidered thread drawing as we heard the news in Melbourne that we were going into lockdown again.
“Stir Crazy” is embroidered on a vintage Belgian Linen napkin and the design is developed from a series of life drawings I made, working remotely with a life model, during the first lockdown.
She definitely captures the irritation I was feeling at the time!
The Belgian linen is just so beautiful to work on and I really enjoyed working the crisp black thread drawn lines on the white starchy fabric. I almost left her without any fabric detail and struggled a bit to overcome that urge and return to my original plan which was of course to make a feature of the fabric mask. I am glad I did although she has inspired me to create some simple designs of just thread on fabric.
You can purchase “Stir Crazy (COVID-19)” online at Incub8r Emporium, or as a print. She is also available on a greetings card.
Stir Crazy (COVID-19), thread & recycled fabric on Belgian linen napkin by Juliet D Collins
Limited Edition Prints!
My Melbourne City Sketches are now available as Limited Edition Prints!
They look really amazing printed on beautiful watercolour paper.
Available to purchase from my shop
FREE SHIPPING UNTIL THE END OF MAY!! Apply the code FREESHIPPING at the checkout
Melbourne City Sketches last remaining days...
My current collection of original embroidered mixed media Melbourne City Sketches are off on tour next week!
You will be able to view them over the coming months at various venues (some serving really great coffee!!) around Melbourne and Victoria - updates coming soon.
BUT until then for a few remaining days they are still available to view and purchase on Bluethumb.
Or directly from me at my studio in Mordialloc
Pop in to see me. I love having visitors. Don't forget to let me know you are coming though.
Open Studios!
So I moved into a fabulous new studio space at Le Studio! I love love love it and have been happily settling in and creating there for a few weeks now.
And this weekend Le Studio is having a party!!
The studios will be open Friday evening from 5pm and all day Saturday 10-3 so come along and meet the artists, view some fabulous artwork, eat, drink and be merry. Oh and theres going to be a market and free demonstrations.
Why wouldn't you come??!
Announcing my Solo Exhibition!
Mixed media thread drawn artworks depicting some of my favourite places around Melbourne.
Please join me if you can to celebrate the opening on Wed 8th Nov at 6.30pm
It's Winter...
And you'd be forgiven for assuming I was hibernating seeing as my posts have been few and far between. In fact the opposite has been true! It's been even more hectic than usual!
Along with my winter sale which will end on August 31st.....
....I have also been very hard at work preparing for my upcoming solo exhibition at Tacit Contemporary Art in Abbotsford.
I'll be exhibiting a collection of brand new Melbourne City Sketches. I've spent a fair amount of time out and about sketching and photographing some of my favourite places around Melbourne.
I love this view of The Atrium at Fed Square
And also lots of time in the studio challenging myself to push these works further. I've been experimenting with creating much larger works which has been really quite exciting!
Large City Sketch in progress
City folk, Detail of large city sketch in progress
My exhibition is November. More details soon!
In the meantime, you can check out some of my work in the "Their Unique Magic" exhibition currently running at Media House Gallery (in The Age building) on Collins Street. Its a beautiful exhibition in a wonderful space! I am proud to have my work shown alongside these 4 talented Melbourne women artists. Its on til September and definitely worth a visit. Open weekdays.
And of course I've also been busy on my market stall on many weekends.
Loving being at Rose St Market! It's a great market - definitely worth checking out! I'll be there again next Saturday 26th August and there's a few winter discounts on my stall...for one more week only!! Don't miss out!
Winter Sale!
The time has come! I need to clear some space to make way for all the new artworks that I am creating. I simply do not have enough space left to store my older work anymore!
Most of these pieces have been exhibited in multiple exhibitions over the past few years.
"Pop Tarts" exhibited in Veritas, solo exhibition at Brunswick Street Gallery
And they all have their own stories to tell....
The works in the sale were all created between 2011 and 2013.
They are developed from my life drawings and drawn in thread using freehand machine embroidery
A thread sketch in progress using freehand machine embroidery
"Dipping Girl" (shown above) was actually a reworking of the very first drawing I ever attempted in thread. Whilst the original pencil drawing was really no more than a quick pencil sketch, done during a 1 minute pose, I was attracted to using that particular drawing due to the dynamic spontaneous lines.
Reclining in Technicolor
I have always been attracted to using my dynamic life drawings, executed quickly usually in grey lead pencil, in my thread drawings. The challenge is often how to maintain the spontaneity of the lines, giving the impression of the figure in movement whilst not producing a figure that looks deformed! Thread has such an unrelenting permanance!
One Fine Day
Initially, my thread and fabric life drawings were simply an expression of my passion for life drawing and my love for the beauty of the human form - something that has informed my artwork since I first learned to draw the figure from the life model back in High school and was a major theme for me throughout my art studies and beyond.
I also started to become fascinated by the expressive potential of combining different fabrics, patterns, textures and materials.
And my thread women gradually began to tell their own stories
12 Minutes
It was these unique tales about what it meant to be a woman that captured my imagination and I also found resonated with women who came across my work which brought me great joy and led to me developing my Thread Sketch Collection
Thread Sketch Collection
So that's the story behind the works that are currently in my Winter Sale. I am looking forward to seeing these artworks which I have created with much love go off to their new homes.
The sale will run until the end of July and proceeds will greatly help me fund costs for my next two exhibitions scheduled for July and November this year.
Please do not hesitate to contact me directly with any queries or if you would prefer to arrange payment and delivery of the works privately.
Alternatively simply browse my shop, click on the artwork that takes your fancy and purchase at the checkout!
Invitation to our Artist Talk
COMMON THREADS
Show runs til July 1st
Artist talk - Saturday June 3rd 2pm. Refreshments. Raffle. Free event
Gallery open Wed-Fri 9-5, Saturday 12-5
“WHELKS” BY MARY OLIVER
Here are the perfect
fans of scallops,
quahogs, and weedy mussels
still holding their orange fruit -
and here are the whelks -
whirlwinds,
each the size of a fist,
but always cracked and broken -
clearly they have been travelling
under the sky-blue waves
for a long time.
All my life
I have been restless -
I have felt there is something
more wonderful than gloss -
than wholeness -
than staying at home.
I have not been sure what it is.
But every morning on the wide shore
I pass what is perfect and shining
to look for the whelks, whose edges
have rubbed so long against the world
they have snapped and crumbled -
they have almost vanished,
with the last relinquishing
of their unrepeatable energy,
back into everything else.
When I find one
I hold it in my hand,
I look out over that shaking fire,
I shut my eyes. Not often,
but now and again there’s a moment
when the heart cries aloud:
yes, I am willing to be
that wild darkness,
that long, blue body of light
Oliver, Mary, Wild Geese, Selected Poems, Bloodaxe Books Ltd, (2004)
Please join us this Saturday June 3rd at 2pm as we talk about about how our exhibition "Common Threads" came together and discuss our artwork: forms, techniques, and inspirations.
Jo Roszkowski and Juliet D Collins at the Opening of "Common Threads"
Jo Roszkowski and I worked together for several months from February to April this year
Jo at work in The Laundry Studio
We experimented together, sharing a wide variety of techniques ranging from freehand machine embroidery, to encaustics, printmaking and more
Juliet encaustic experiments in progress
Jo Printmaking
We explored the common threads in the things that inspire us both as artists....
Juliet - a collection of sketchbook pages and found objects
a shared love of special places...
Wilson's Promonotory, photo by Juliet
....different art forms and artists.
Detail of a sculpture by Bronwyn Oliver from recent exhibition The Sculpture of Bronwyn Oliver at Tarrawarra Museum of Art. Photo by Juliet
As we worked together, our own artwork evolved in new exciting directions
Juliet, work in progress (plaster, found wood, thread)
Jo Roszkowski, detail from one of her exquisite artist books
And we loved the challenge of creating our three large collaborative mixed media textile artworks together
Jo at work on one of our collaborative textile artworks
Juliet working on one of our large collaborative textile artworks
Bringing it all together in the beautiful gallery space at Kingston Arts G3 Artspace in Parkdale was amazing!
Jo and I would love you to join us this Saturday in the gallery as we chat about our artwork, share a glass of bubbles and answer your questions. And there's even going to be some free giveaways!