FIBERWORKS - A CELEBRATION OF SOUTH AFRICAN
FIBER AND TEXTILE ARTISTS

Title: Birds on a Platter

Description: I have become an avid gardener since we bought our own home and finally understand the attractions of bird watching. These marvelous little creatures flit from tree to tree, pecking at seeds and insects. They inspired me to create a picture to fill a beautiful old, skirting board frame that I'd bought in a second hand shop many months before. Sewing little snippets of fabric and scraps of wool into the work was as opportunistic a process as theirs is in finding food; the scraps were scattered over the floor of my workroom demanding to be "eaten".

Title: Using Life to Clothe Me in Death

Description: The idea was developed from some pictures I had seen of kimonos. This form of clothing has always inspired me; its shape and wonderful outline lends itself to myriad interpretations. I attended a weekend course with Rosalie Dace in East London a couple of years ago and she inspired me to incorporate other quilting techniques into my work.

Title: The Joys of Ritualistic Dancing

Description: I have always loved dancing. I am definitely not a dancer of any training or discernment but movement to music needs neither to be a joyous and healthy thing. Waking up stiff and sore the next day from boogying around on the grass is a great way to remember pleasure. I am sorry that we have forgotten the importance of weaving rhythmically around a bonfire to celebrate being alive.

Title: Seeking out Secrets in Nooks and Crannies

Description: After my divorce I had an affair and was blessed with finding one of my best friends; his wife. Her grace and amazing acceptance of my actions inspired this title; black lizards creeping on their bellies in and out of hidden places.

Title: My Family in Threads

Description: I was saving for a new sewing machine when my mom told me about a competition that she had seen advertised. First prize was a state of the art Bernina sewing machine! The theme was about creating memories and the concept of an album came to me whilst sitting on the beach. The first sketch was scratched into sea sand. It was further developed in a parking lot on the back of an envelope and finally, about a week later, was begun in my studio.

Title: The Shout Out Loud Self Portrait

Description: I have a digital camera and a computer program which enhances the photographs. Whilst playing around with a picture of myself, the colors separated into islands of saturated hue and I interpreted this into an appliquéd self portrait. My interest in tromp lieu ouil led to the fabric frame. The paper "mount board" was torn and rubbed at and interestingly shaped holes emerged. I laid the turquoise corduroy beneath the holes and scribble stitched them to give them greater depth.

Title: Just One Small Act of Kindness

Description: I have always wanted to paint a small mural onto my front door. It would be one of hands offering a drink of water to the visitor. I have not yet done the mural but I have made the wall hanging. I took some photographs of my sons' hands and let him offer the water to some birds instead. I had a small sample book of upholstery fabrics and used them to create the background around the embroidered piece. My love of hessian is ongoing so I used it to frame the work and painted it with watered down artist's acrylic paint.

Title: Mark in Time

Description: Our mark in time is related to the way which we use the planet's natural recourses. We are locked into a way of thinking that is keeping us caged. We cannot break free from our exploitative ways and we are "marked" for that.

Title: Marking in Time

Description: The Natural resources are marking our time here on earth with their very existence. They are dying because of us. Caged, they are diminished, as are we but they pay with their lives while we...we merely pay with our souls.

Title: Africa Skinned

Description: The guts of Africa would be its gold and diamonds; the bones of Africa are its mountains and gorges and the animals and birds would have to be its skin. I am eternally grateful for being born into a continent that still houses so many of its earliest and most exotic inhabitants.

My inspiration for this work was the unavoidable lifelessness of an animal skin spread-eagled across a floor or staring blankly down from a mounting on the wall.
The stuffed or skinned ammonal is so far from its living brother that it is hard to imagine the spirit of the wild creature that once inhabited it. I concentrated on the eyes and patterning of the different creature because I wanted not only to inform the viewer of the animal's appearance but also to remind him of its individual presence.

Kathy Harmer-Fox
P.O.Box 11011
Southernwood
East London
5213

Cell: 0823507024
Phone: 27(0)437374814

Email: kathryn.kathy@telkomsa.net