Tag Archives: art

Bird prints and other new merchandise available

25 Monday May 2020

Posted by in art & craft

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

We are pleased to announce that a new range of works inspired by Yarnauwi are now available from our Etsy shop.

Joel’s new lino print, “Common Birds of the Fleurieu Peninsula”, celebrates the diversity and beauty of species regularly seen around the Fleurieu and South Australia. Each bird is hand-carved and hand-printed. The 24 birds depicted are the Black-shouldered Kite, Stubble Quail, Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike, Australasian Pipit, Wedge-tailed Eagle, Nankeen Kestrel, Welcome Swallow, Little Raven, White-fronted Chat, Magpie-lark, Masked Lapwing, White-faced Heron, White-winged Triller, Australian Magpie, Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Australian Wood Duck, Grey Teal, Common Bronzewing, Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, Little Corella, Crimson Rosella, Pacific Black Duck, Galah, and Red-rumped Parrot.

Sophie’s new embroidery work “Welcome Swallow family” captures the joy and vibrancy of the swallow family which has taken up residence in the open bay of the Yarnauwi shed. They arrived in late winter, raised babies in mud nests, then took their babies for test flights around the shed before they fledged and left over the hotter months. By Autumn they were all back and even more full of joie de vivre. This work is hand embroidered on cotton fabric and includes a wooden hoop frame.

CB1FEE5F-B4C5-4259-AAF3-9607C580D3AB_1_201_a8F5AFF87-926D-4DB1-BD9A-AA50588FE642_1_201_a

Sophie’s other “Galah” embroidery celebrates the Eulophus roseicapillus which is such a fun and ever-present bird in Australian country areas. The flocks that visit Yarnauwi love to wander around our weediest paddock eating thistle seeds. Their vivid pinks and silver greys really lift the landscape at dry and dusty times of year. This piece is hand embroidered on cotton fabric and comes with a bamboo frame ready to hang.

Finally, Joel has made a range of new leather adventure pouches, for adults and children alike! There are three different designs all made from our Damara sheepskins, which were raised, grazed and tanned on the Fleurieu, and completed with recycled leather trim and buckles. They are ready to attach to a belt and are the perfect size for children to pack pocket knives, binoculars, notebook and pencil, a small drink bottle, snack, or whatever else they might need for explorations in the wild!

We had a lot of fun making these products. For more information, pricing, or purchasing, please visit https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/YarnauwiFarm

Uses for sheepskins: prototyping seats and bags

25 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by in art & craft, diy, livestock

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

IMG_0433

Prototype Yarnauwi sheepskin tripod campstool and belt pouch, demonstrating their commitment to the late-summer Fleurieu colour palette.

As part of running meat sheep on Yarnauwi, we’ve always been committed to using as much of each beast as possible, including tanning their hides at a local tannery when the animals go to slaughter. While our farm-raised sheepskins are available for purchase online and through our occasional stall at the Second Valley Market, we’ve also been exploring options for how we can better utilise this tough and supple material.

IMG_0442

The tripod stool

Our first attempt is a take on a classic tripod campstool: a luxuriant Dorper lambskin seat on an Australian Oak tripod base (Eucalyptus obliqua, fittingly this grows on the hills just a short distance inland from Yarnauwi). It took a few goes to get the hardware right, we’ve now settled on high tensile steel fittings to withstand the most vigorous campfire sing-along.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Next in the works was a Damara hide belt pouch for threading onto one’s belt for outdoor adventuring, an extra pocket for farmy stuff (cable ties, a bit of wire and a pair of pliers, for example; or perhaps a hoof-trimmer and a lump of ram crayon) or even just to garner some cred at the local branch of the Society for Creative Anachronism.

We’re continuing to refine concepts, and learning oodles about leather craft and design in the process. We’d welcome any suggestions or feedback you might have! We hope to be able to release some for purchase via our Etsy site and through markets in the coming months.

 

Yarnauwi: the First Five Years

07 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by in art & craft, diy, ecology, events, history, regeneration, trees, waterways

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

IMG_9876
Towards the end of 2012 we first came to Yarnauwi Farm. The property at that time was a single paddock, carved up with junk-filled erosion gullies and with two regal, remnant red gums smeared up the hillside by the wind. However, set within a grand landscape of rolling hills and a couple of kilometres from the coast, there was something about it that captured our attention and our aspirations.

Five years later, the property is beginning to change. The survivors of annual tree planting are now heading skywards, most of the junk is gone, paddocks have been fenced, some erosion gullies are stabilising, sheep graze, fruit trees peek from the tops of tree guards and rain thunders on a shed roof. The last five years have brought with them an almost vertical learning curve, challenge, plenty of failures and the indescribable satisfaction of seeing seedlings become trees become woodland.

We’ve tried documenting this process online here at yarnauwi.com, but to celebrate this milestone we’ve also produced a limited edition book curating photos, illustrations and writings from the last five years.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Yarnauwi: The First Five Years is divided into sections on the history of the property, trees and tree planting, creek restoration and erosion management, treasures extracted from the junk heaps, property planning, “obtaining a yield” and landscape change through the Fleurieu seasons. Each section is copiously illustrated with photographs and drawings and hopefully provides inspiration to others who are seeking to regenerate their own landscape or who have a connection with the spectacular landscape of the Fleurieu Coast. A number of sections contain “before-and-after” photographs of locations around the farm showing the impact of tree planting and low-tech erosion management strategies, predictably however, with a few decent summer downpours the changes were even more dramatic just a month or two after taking the final photographs!

It’s available for purchase now from our Etsy shop and we’ll also have a few copies available, together with sheepskins and farm- and Fleurieu-inspired artworks at the Second Valley Market from 10.00am-3.00pm on Saturday 27 January 2018.

Yarnauwi: The First Five Years
Softcover, 48 pages, full colour on premium satin paper.
Approximately 21.7cm x 28cm.

New artwork: Fishes of the Fleurieu Coast

30 Saturday Dec 2017

Posted by in art & craft, ecology, exploring

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

IMG_9852

One of the most spectacular elements of the Fleurieu Coast is the proximity of its rolling hills and forested highlands to beaches, reefs and towering rocky cliffs. A few kilometres down the road from Yarnauwi is Second Valley, and beyond that Rapid Bay, both renowned dive locations and in Second Valley’s case, periodically voted as one of the “best beaches” in South Australia and Australia. This new lino print is a tribute to some of the many fish that make their homes among the caves and kelp forests of this region.

Each fish was individually carved and is hand-printed in acid-free, fade-resistant dye ink on Canson cartridge paper. The finished print includes a list of all of the fish depicted hand-written in pencil. The prints are now available online at our Etsy shop.

IMG_9857

Print detail, showing an Old Wife and Southern Sea Garfish.

DSCN0970

Treading water off the Second Valley Jetty during ‘research’ for this print

New poster: Imagining Yarnauwi before colonisation

13 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by in art & craft, ecology, history, regeneration, trees, waterways

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Click to view a printable, A3 version of the poster.

Over the last few years, we’ve spent a great deal of time learning about the landscape of Yarnauwi, and the broader southwestern Fleurieu Peninsula. This has been essential for us in helping us to understand how the landscape works, and therefore how we can best work to ensure its health and function. We’re inspired by a statement from the 2015 Greenhorns New Farmer’s Almanac, where Connor Stedman writes, “Farms, forests, and grasslands can store and regenerate natural capital again, rebuilding the ecological fabric that is the ultimate source of our prosperity and survival. But to know how to undertake that stewardship, it’s not enough to know the land as it is now. We need to dig below the recent surface and go deeper – find the older ecological and cultural stories of a place. It’s the wildlands that hold these stories, and it’s these lands that will return them to us if we know where to look and how to listen. An agrarian economy needs to tend, restore and engage in a deep relationship with the wild as well as the planted field.”

In this spirit, in this poster we’ve tried to imagine and illustrate the landscape of Yarnauwi and the surrounding area as it may’ve appeared before colonisation. It summarises our reading and research, as well as our experiences exploring more intact local landscapes. It’s a work of imagination, it’s definitely not to scale, but we hope it helps communicate some of the complexity of a functioning landscape and the interactions of the Kaurna in maintaining its function and ecological health over millennia. Then, as now, the southwestern Fleurieu was a cultural landscape, maintained through intentional management practices. This poster is also an effort to acknowledge our own place in the long history of this landscape. Continue reading →

A tour, a shed-warming and four years of change on the farm

03 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by in building, events, planning

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Guests take a tour of one of the revegetation areas, inspecting the growth of four years of planting. Photo by Jeff Catchlove.

On a balmy autumn afternoon, we celebrated the new shed with sixty of Yarnauwi Farm’s friends and supporters. Following a tour of the farm, we settled into a shared dinner and drinks by the campfire.

To mark the occasion we also produced a self-guided tour map of important developments and points of interest on the property, hard copies of which were gifted to our guests to be stuck on fridges and toilet doors.

Yarnauwi Farm Self-Guided Map. (Click for a printable A3 version).

The changes that have occurred at Yarnauwi over the last four-and-a-half-years have only been possible through the encouragement, support and labour of our community of friends, neighbours and family. We hope that this celebration went some way towards expressing how grateful we are.

Continue reading →

Now launched: Etsy shop

28 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by in art & craft, history

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

We are pleased to announce the launch of our Etsy shop! Here we will be selling Joel’s limited edition lino prints of Fleurieu landscapes, and Sophie’s one-off embroidery designs, as well as future art and craft concepts. Hope you can stop by, and of course feel free to give us any feedback!

We also still have a few sheepskins for sale, these are not on our Etsy shop, but can be found on our blog site under the top tab ‘Sheepskins for sale’. We hope to have more for sale later in the year.

IMG_7531

“Black-fronted dotterel”: embroidery for sale

The Black-fronted dotterel is one of our favourite Fleurieu birds. It’s commonly seen on the edges of dams, mudflats, freshwater swamps, and lakes, a tiny bird that runs so fast on twinkly little legs. We love watching them run around our dam, foraging in the mud. The piece is stitched freehand using some new techniques.

IMG_7521

“Good Intent”: new embroidery for sale

This work depicts the ship Good Intent, a wooden ketch that plied the Fleurieu coast during the 1850s, passing the iconic Norfolk Island pines of Lady Bay. At one point during the glory days of South Australia’s ‘Mosquito Fleet’, the Good Intent sank at the Second Valley jetty while loading wheat, but was able to be raised. Lady Bay, between Normanville and Second Valley, is a spectacular piece of Fleurieu coastline featuring these trees that were planted in coastal areas all around Australia for the tall, straight timber they provided for masts.

IMG_7509

In other news, an early break in the summer season has greened up our pasture nicely and our flock are happy and content (we’ve never seen green grass here in February!)

New linocut print: Fear the deer!

26 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by in art & craft, diy, ecology, regeneration, trees

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

IMG_7182

“Fear the deer, rue the roo, but keep on planting!”, linocut inspired by efforts to revegetate the southwestern Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia, by Joel Catchlove

After months of chipping away at this latest linocut in spare moments sprinkled throughout family life, I’m pleased to announce it finished! “Fear the deer, etc.” was begun earlier this year in the lead-up to the 2015 tree planting season and depicts the view looking west from Yarnauwi, with a selection of local birds eagerly awaiting the maturation of our and our neighbours’ revegetation efforts! In the meantime, they perch in the antlers of a red deer skull, one of the many voracious herbivores in the neighbourhood that present challenges for raising seedlings.

IMG_7176

The carved block, ready for inking

The birds shown are, on the left, a tawny frogmouth, a family of which we’ve spotted 500 or so metres from our back boundary, but our property still lacks the habitat to tempt them closer, a black-faced cuckoo-shrike (aka. shufflewing, due to its habit of shuffling its wings upon landing), common in nearby woodland but still only a passing visitor to Yarnauwi, and the Australasian Pipit, an enthusiastic resident of the farm.

IMG_7179

Ready for inking.

Special thanks to Jess S, patron of the arts, for donating part of her stash of lino for the creation of this particular piece! Thanks again to our community of friends and neighbours who continue to contribute to the broader effort of restoring habitat on our property and beyond!

Plastic-Free July: Making a feed-bag picnic rug

20 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by in art & craft, diy, livestock

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

IMG_6556

Asher tests out the upcycled feed-bag picnic blanket

Over the last couple of years we’ve assembled an impressive collection of woven polypropylene sacks. Typically used as bags for stock feed or pasture seed, in the spirit of Plastic-Free July, I thought it was time to put these single-use plastics to use and upcycle them into a patchwork, water-proof picnic blanket.

IMG_6552

Asher demonstrates correct operating procedure, also showing the heavier backing.

Continue reading →

New artwork: Second Valley coastline

04 Monday May 2015

Posted by in art & craft

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

IMG_6157

Second Valley, 2015, a linocut by Joel Catchlove

With the early mornings that come with babies and toddlers, I’ve been keeping a couple of squares of lino and some carving tools handy, digging around between bowls of muesli and naps. Here’s the latest of the coastline in our neighbourhood, from a view I’ve toyed with before. I need to work on my clouds, especially.

IMG_6150

The printing set-up. I’m very proud of the advances made in registration of different coloured prints!