Yikes

We boycottinggggg 🫡

With yet another snowstorm yesterday, I worked on the front of the cape.

I was very concerned about sewing the shoulder seams on my aging Singer - they are quite thick even though I removed the linings from the ends of the ties that were near the seams. I could not get a size 18 needle into my machine, so I used size 16 and sewed over each seam twice. Now that I steamed the seams open I am going to have to tack down the edges to keep them flat. I have fabric to sew over the canvas to hide all the stitching lines (Hey! I put things in exhibitions, and Judges can be merciless!). My alternative was to contact the awning company that put grommets in my wizard costume to sew the shoulder seams if I couldn't.

I may have to lower the front neckline slightly. I have a huge parachute buckle to hold this thing together, and that will also have to be hidden under a tie. There is a space at the end of one of the shoulder seams, so before I cover the stitching I may add another tie there to fill the gap.

I have used @ 94 ties so far.

Very heavy! This is comparable to wearing a bearskin rug! Sweating in my apartment, much less out in the sun in the summertime!

You have to believe in yourself when no one else will.

Yeah, I think a lot of people tend to look down on Aboriginal art because they think it's a form of abstract art that is just lines and shapes but almost all of them tell a story. Sometimes it's a very obvious story, such as the emu dreaming where the waterhole flooded, and sometimes it's more symbolic.

the circle in the middle is a waterhole/dam or billabong. The squiggly lines coming out of it are small rivers. the dots represent the earth but because they are in neat lines, it almost feels as if they have been flattened by the flooded water, especially as the vector lines draw out from the waterhole in the middle. the emu tracks are heading toward the waterhole, and the three lines in the middle are marks left by their tail, implying that they are wading through the mud to get there.

It's a birdseye view of a moment just after the waterhole floods and afterwards the emus go looking for food.

It's Interesting, because the original artist D. J. Ross was from Yuendumu which is in central australia, so this would have been a rare time that there was enough rain to flood the waterhole.

Dreaming stories, kinship links, sacred rites, keeping track of biodiversity and songlines are some other topics covered by Aboriginal art.

In the same way monet painted the middle class and the local landscape in the late 1800's/early 1900's Aboriginal people also paint the average lifestyle of our people. It just looks different.

For example, this picture shows a LOT of activity. The men at the top left of the picture are doing a cultural burn near and around a sacred site, the women at the bottom left are digging for food. across the river, on the right the people are preparing food and in the center, two people (presumably elders) are preparing for a ceremony.

I wouldn't say these all happened at the same time, more that this was a common undertaking over a set of time.

it takes time to understand and not all symbols are the same in all areas, but once you do understand them it becomes easier to see the story being told.