Do your

little bit of good

where you are; it’s those

little bits of good put together

that

overwhelm the world.

The Art

The Artist

The Medium

Latest Artworks

SOLD – Retreat

$595.00

SOLD – Storm Before the Calm

$695.00

SOLD – Sunday… 3pm

$695.00

Strata

$125.00

Left Behind

$285.00

Dawn

$149.00

Days Like These

$75.00

Transition

$795.00

SOLD – Unearthed

$250.00

Washed Up

$149.00

textured.life

Flastic? Plabric? Whatever you want to call it,

Flastic? Plabric?

Whatever you want to call it, I'm enjoying putting waste to good use.

It's the sense of experiment and play that floats my boat the most though. Sometimes art can get all too heavy and serious.

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#assemblage #softsculpture #contemporaryembroidery #contemporaryart #embroidery #emergingmaker #fiberartistsofinstagram #arttextiles #textilecollage #textileart #textilestudio #emergingartist #fabricmanipulation #texturalart #contemporarycraft #botanicalprinting #melbourneartist #melbournelife #wanderlust #melbourneartists #melbourneiloveyou #originalart #mavacollective #thriftedfinds #reusereducerecycle

Hey there, textile lovers! 👋🏼 Today I'm thri

Ok! I'll reuse you! Playing with more substrates

Ok! I'll reuse you!

Playing with more substrates from waste today.It surprises me - every time - how perfect this is for sculpting and stitch.

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#assemblage #softsculpture #contemporaryembroidery #contemporaryart #embroidery #reducereuserecycle #fiberartistsofinstagram #arttextiles #textilecollage #textileart #textilestudio #emergingartist #fabricmanipulation #texturalart #contemporarycraft #botanicalprinting #melbourneartist #melbournelife #wanderlust #melbourneartists #melbourneiloveyou #originalart #mavacollective #rustdyeing #thriftedfinds #reusereducerecycle #foundobjectsculpture #urbanforaging

With the things my brain and heart and hands colla

With the things my brain and heart and hands collaborate to create, it's like I’m living in a constant blue cheese dream. This one started out looking like a mangled rotisserie chicken and is now flying in to a completely different world!

Delicious… Is it just me, or do visually lovely

Delicious…

Is it just me, or do visually lovely things invoke a sense of fulfilled hunger for you too?

Quite pleased with how this repurposed silk dress turned out 😀

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#ecoprint #ecoprinting #recycledsilk #opshopfinds #australiantextileartist #textileartist #mixedmediaartist #whatoncewasold #melbourneiloveyou #melbourneartistoninstagram #melbourneartist #wearableartwork #artisfood #mavacollective #happyexperiments

Spinning a yarn… 🧶 If you’ve ever thought

Spinning a yarn…

🧶 If you’ve ever thought about trying your hand at spinning yarn, I highly recommend it. It’s a great way to relax and unwind, and you never know what beautiful creations you might come up with.

🕸️Inspired by the net-like delicacy of the woven paper yarns created by Miriam Penrose in her piece that I saw recently at the @naarmtextilecollective UnCommon Threads exhibition, I thought I’d pull out good ol’ Roberta and give spinning paper yarn a go. I’ve twined by hand before, but haven’t tried using a wheel.

🪡 I’ve carried this wad of mismatched sewing patterns around for 9 years, knowing eventually it would work its way into something.

😮 Let’s just say, by the end of the session, I have an increased appreciation for the delicacy of Miriam’s yarn. It’s amazing how something as simple as a piece of paper can turn into something so intricate and delicate. Hats off to you Miriam, I’m taking my lumpy yarn & putting Roberta back in her box!

Finding the upside… 🍃 I often go and seek in

Finding the upside…

🍃 I often go and seek inspiration and comfort by sitting amongst a particular stand of Eucalyptus in my local nature reserve. It was a bit distressing last week when I arrived to find that the wicked winds we’d been having had taken the side out of my favourite one.

🦜 I used to love sitting near it, listening to the birds feeding on its flowers. It was a place of solace for me, and I highly doubt the remainder of it will be allowed to keep standing in the public space. 😔

🕷️ On the upside though, I’ve spent hours upon hours in the last week carefully harvesting leaves from the fallen section of the trunk before it gets removed. I say carefully as the last thing I want to do is bring any little creatures back home. It’s been a very mindful process.

👩🏼‍🎨 Given I only collect windfall, I’ve always used the leaves from this tree sparingly and with reverence. I’m looking forward to incorporating some overall colour from it into my artwork.

But I’ll still miss this tree!
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#assemblage #softsculpture #contemporaryembroidery #contemporaryart #embroidery #emergingmaker #fiberartistsofinstagram #arttextiles #textilecollage #textileart #textilestudio #emergingartist #fabricmanipulation #texturalart #contemporarycraft #botanicalprinting #melbourneartist #melbournelife #wanderlust #melbourneartists #melbourneiloveyou #originalart #mavacollective #rustdyeing #thriftedfinds #reusereducerecycle #foundobjectsculpture #urbanforaging #treesareimportant

Morning prayers… Please work… please work…

Morning prayers…

Please work… please work… please work!

It’s pretty rare for me that things work out exactly how I envision them, but they always work out how they should!

Wings and things…. Deep diving into wings today

Wings and things….

Deep diving into wings today. I’ve been obsessed with them for a while. There’s something both cathartic and discombobulating about the discovery phase. It’s all fun and games until the perfectionist arrives! I’ve discovered that it’s best to down tools and move away when that happens!

Beginnings… I often have a loose idea of where

Beginnings…

I often have a loose idea of where I want to go and what I want to say, but it’s rare for me to know exactly how I’m going to get there. This is a prefect example.

What an honour! I’m humbled (and excited and a h

What an honour! I’m humbled (and excited and a hole bunch of other emotions) to have received the President’s Award in the @mava_collective 2023 Art Prize. Thanks to Peta, the ever-hardworking President. I feel this award in particular is really quite special.

There ha been quite a leap between my older framed pieces and where I’m at now, one that wasn’t really gradual. It was a very conscious conclusion that I’d come to about why I create art.. Continuing along the path of making my art commercially palatable was just eroding me day after day. I found myself reacting to it more as making - a creative thing in itself, but it doesn’t use the same muscles. I’d lost my voice in trying to homogenise my artistic voice.

So, beyond all the other bits and pieces that come with winning an art prize, the most valuable thing to me is the sense of being seen, being heard and the reminder that my pieces need me first and foremost to advocate for them . My opening line when describing my art since the jump has been “It’ a little bit weird”. I can probably be a bit kinder to it - and myself - I think!

Anyway, thanks for coming along for the ride. I may even start posting more of the weird - no wait! - wonderfully textural pieces growing in my studio again.

I'm absolutely over the moon to be in some stellar

I'm absolutely over the moon to be in some stellar company as one of 20 finalists in the @mava_collective 2023 Art Prize.

H(a)unted is a piece that has at times literally haunted me. It brings up a lot of emotion!

Shaped like a whale, H(a)unted in its form represents how times have changed before and can change again.

The man made is inarguably consuming the natural, but there is a sense of the tide turning. H(a)unted represents the tangled nature of the emotions many feel about our environmental decline, while existing in the system that causes it. Though it speaks to the doom-like overwhelm humans have caused the environment through the detritus of modern life, it also expresses hope that we can shift away from constant consumption, and learn to see the beauty in the broken, the unwanted and the discarded.

Materials: Rust + botanically dyed deconstructed clothing + sheets; e-waste; urban beach detritus (man-made + natural); soft plastics collected from the community;; rusted meat hook; thread, paint + oil pastel; hanging on a lamp stand found on the side of the road. At just the right moment

Winners are announced on the 18th (tomorrow). Wish me luck?!

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Kate Karaula

Mixed Media Artist

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