Pink Period

This week I've been playing with pink!

In Thailand at the moment there is a pink shirt craze. Recently the Thai King suffered a stroke and when he was released from hospital he was wearing a smart pink blazer. Apparently an astrologer has advised him to wear pink to aid recovery and as a result, there have been floods of pink shirts at local markets as people around the country have been wearing pink shirts as a tribute to the Thai king and to help him regain his health.

Thai King sparks pink shirt craze

Inspired by all this pink, I began some new work using bamboo, dyed raffia, copper wire, hemp, plastic and waxed linen.

Flying Arts Regional Art Award

This is a work that I've recently completed for the Flying Arts Regional Art Awards . I worked on this piece in July while staying on the north coast of NSW. Having just come from the sticky monsoon of Northern Thailand, we were absolutely freezing and while Noo spent most of his days fishing on the Tweed River and Fingal beach, I fossicked around for materials and found an exciting array of both natural fibres and discarded fishing materials. Fresh out of waxed linen, I used fishing line to stitch this coiled work. It's called Tum Ma Ha Gin (Thai translated as 'work for food') and is a response to the challenges that coastal fishing communities face. Noo comes from a small fishing community in Krabi in Southern Thailand that over the past 15 years, I've watched be literally swallowed whole by tourism under the TAT's 'Amazing Thailand' campaign. 12 million per year! Hmmm amazing alright....