New Role

This week I started a new lecturer position at the University of the Sunshine Coast.

I am delighted to be able to join this institution on Gubbi Gubbi land. The team’s research centers on people and place, so I’m very keen to collaborate on future projects.

I am incredibly grateful for my ten years with Torrens University Australia where I have been given so many wonderful opportunities to grow my practice. I have had the pleasure to work alongside some incredible academic and non-academic staff. In particular the design team, lead by Russell Ponting, Mark O'Dwyer & Scott Thompson-Whiteside .

Mostly I am thankful for the chance to work with the thousands of students I have taught at Torrens, many of which I’m still in contact with. It has been a joy to bring design, history anid research to your lives.

I’m looking forward to building new connections with the UniSC family.

Surface/Place Artist Residency

We have spent the month of November at the Surface/place Artist takeover at The Old Ambulance Station, Nambour alongside Nikita Fitzpatrick (New Dreaming Art) and Dr Sue Davis.

This initiative has been supported through the Creative Industries Investment Program and is jointly funded by ArtsCoast through Sunshine Coast Council’s Art and Heritage Levy and the Regional Arts Development Fund in partnership with Queensland Government.

Sea and Seeing exhibition 2023

I am delighted to share these images with you from the 'Sea and Seeing' exhibition held as part of 'Wild Hope' at RMIT Design Hub last weekend. The immersive event refashioned single-use plastics into fashion garments. My work, 'Another Unsuitable Replacement’, depicted a repeat pattern of dune flowers applied to plastic produce bags that were sewn into fabric.

Thank you to Dr Denise Sprynskyj and Dr Peter Boyd of S!X for including my work. Model photography by Tiahne Frederic.

Coming soon to Gardening Australia

Last year I was delighted to be invited to join in the filming of a Gardening Australia segment celebrating Dr Sue Davis OAM and her work honoring the legacy of Kathleen McArthur.

It was pure joy spending the day in the Kathleen McArthur reserve watching the Gardening Australia team at work, shooting and producing the segment.

The segment goes to air this Friday on the ABC, replayed on Saturday and will also be available through iView.  I think if you watch closely I may appear in the scenery.

Two new titles

2023 has started strong with the news that I have achieved two of my 2022 career goals.

Much of last year was spent writing two documents about my teaching practice. The first was an application to advance to Senior Learning Facilitator at Torrens University, and the second was to become accredited as a Fellow for the Advance Higher Education fellowship.

I am ecstatic to announce that I am now a Senior Learning Facilitator (Senior Lecturer) and AHE Fellow. Now I must tuck my head in and return to work on my PhD.

Torrens University INTRO graduate exhibition

Last night I had the privilege of attending the Torrens University Australia INTRO graduate exhibition at our Brisbane Bowen Terrace campus.

It was incredible to see the amazing designs and photography created by our hard working students during their studies.

Thank you to all of the industry representatives who came along to see the incredible work.

Well done to the staff and students who went above and beyond to put the exhibition together. The image shown here is a surface pattern design created by our student Felixia Agatha for the Torrens University x Miss Shop ‘Introduces’ project.

Photo of a hanging rack, on it hangs a posted and top both featuring a checked fabric with palm trees

Welcome Pattern Pulse 2

Pattern Pulse 2 by Rachael King is launching soon. The publication promotes the work of 100 talented Australian surface designers; it is the follow up to Pattern Pulse 1, that I was proud to be featured in.

This time around I was honoured with the task of writing the foreword; It tells the story of first meeting Rachael as a newly graduated designer who was ready to take on the word of surface pattern design.

Torrens University Presentation

On Monday 5 September I presented the workshop “Enhancing online delivery of studio-based subjects” at the Torrens University Learning and Teaching Symposium.

The workshop shared my approaches to engage the senses when writing the surface patterning subject Digital Print Design and how this can be used to enhance learning outcomes through online delivery. Including this great video we made touring through Applik Digital Printing with the fabulous Rameez! (Thanks Rameez)

Sharing my teaching practice with my fellow teaching staff was an absolute privilege, that I look forward to doing more of in the future.

RMIT PhD Milestone 2 (half way)

Over the weekend I flew to Melbourne to deliver my second milestone for my PhD research through RMIT university.

This milestone marks the halfway point of my research. For this I submitted a summary of the work I’ve completed so far and delivered a presentation to a panel with a question and answer session.

After three years (part time) of work, it is wonderful to know that I passed the milestone. And I’m really excited to see where the research heads to from here.

Photograph by Thom Stuart. Kathleen McArthur Reserve, Post-fire

Walking-with: A study of the use of walking, noticing, observing, and drawing as method, in the creation of botanical as place in design and the unearthing of the notion of walking-with, through the lenses of phenomenology and ecofeminism.

ABSTRACT

This practice-based research explores the act of walking, noticing, observing, and drawing as method in the creation of botanicals in design through the lenses of phenomenology and ecofeminism.

Through this research a series of bushwalks alone or accompanied by artists, makers and researchers tred the path of inquiry through the habitat of the Wallum coastal heathland in Southern Queensland and Northern New South Wales. These walks have informed depictions of botanicals endemic to this habitat for a surface patterning practice.

In doing so this research asks the question; how has observation and walking as method been explored in my surface patterning practice to contribute to the notion of walking-with, a method of walking alongside others in real or imagined spaces, as a means of informing, examining, and sharing experience.

Digital Print Design at Torrens University

At the end of 2021 I was honoured with the task of rewriting the subject Digital Print Design for Torrens University Australia where I lecture. This subject was the first one I wrote for Torrens, way back in 2014 and it has been a sheer delight to teach over the years.

I’ve written five subjects since then, with my sixth currently in progress, so I was keen to bring that knowledge into this rewrite. My goal was to give the subject the depth and context in a way that explores kinaesthetic and reflective leaning practices. I aimed to give my students the feeling of being inside an artists’ studio whether they’re online or on campus.

Golden Shells, National Gallery of Victoria

It was a delight to write fo the National Gallery of Victoria publication Golden Shells and Elegant Games of Japan.

This publication documents the exhibition Golden Shells and the Gentle Mastery of Japanese Lacquer, held at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2021. The exhibition features two large lacquer Kai-oke (shell boxes) containing the only known complete kai-awase set of 720 decorated shells, separated into 360 pairs. Each pair is depicted an Australian or Japanese flower using lacquer painting. The artwork was commissioned by Pauline Gandel AC. (National Gallery of Victoria, 2021)

 Seeds for survival; how botanical art nurtures nature explores the relationship between art and ecological conservation through the lens of the Golden Shells and the Gentle Mastery of Japanese Lacquer exhibition. The chapter details a collection of Australian wildflowers depicted within the collection including boronias, hibiscus and wattles, exploring the symbolism of flowers depicted on a collection of the shells, as displayed in both Japanese and Australian culture.  This act works to diminish the dualist divide between nature and culture to counter plant blindness (Wandersee and Schussler, 1999); said to be our inability to see plants that we don’t already know.

Translating Nature-Based Art into Design Workshop

I presented a workshop in the Unversity of Central Queensland, Bundaberg Campus as part of the Wild/flower Women IV exhibition that will be held at Bundaberg Regional Gallery later this year, organized by Dr Sue Davis. The workshop was attended by some fabulous local artists, and explored botanical inspiration for repeat patterning, so we got to play with lots of beautiful materials for fun. Goreng Goreng Fashion Designer, Julie Appo shared with us her design processes, and alongside Butchulla artist Karen Hall we learnt about how to best interact with country.

See and Seaing Exhibition

This exhibition is held as part of Melbourne Design Week 2021, within which, Fashion brand S!X have curate a series of works by artists and designers from Melbourne and Brazil working together to transform our attitudes towards the use of Plastic. Unsuitable replacement: Spinifex, Pigface, and Snake Vine. The plastic bag dances in the wind on the sand dune. It is patterned with plants endemic to these sand dunes spinifex, pigweed, and snake vine. The plastic bag takes space where once wildflowers flourished. It’s form imitates what once was, but it’s not the same. It’s distracting us from our reckless destruction in the name of progress. We once fought to protect these sand dunes. We now fight to protect our convenience.