The Australian artist Charles Blackman is considered by some to be a national living treasure. His best known work includes the Schoolgirl and Alice In Wonderland series and he is one of the last surviving members of a group of Melbourne artists that were known as the Antipodeans.
I am not nor consider myself a connoisseur of fine art but I know what I like and I know when something strikes me. This week I was struck by a drawing of his which showed a female lying on a bed and fluidly drifting off to God knows where. When a hand like that touches a page it only needs a few strokes before the signature and essence emerges.
When I see art like this I think of my own ability to design fabrics and I can't help but feel that the wrong people are designing for men's clothes and accessories. If only the likes of Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd or Norman Lindsay had been given a chance to design fabrics what then might we have seen by way of bow ties and neckties or pocket squares?
This weekend I intend to sit on this image and dwell on what might come next for our silk designs; for in that beautiful and simplistic fluidity of sketch lies the heart of a great silk design which might one day be your neck tie or bow tie. Let us hope the Gods will it.
Have a great weekend.
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