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Studio Art
For Sale
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AMANDA SEDGEWICK: WORKS OF ART FROM DISCARDED SCRAPS.
INDOMITABLE COURAGE
However, not so long ago
Amanda had very little to smile about. She was stuck down by a painful
disease of the nervous system, one of the symptoms being the gradual loss
of the use of her left arm. She spent two years in a wheelchair. To fight
depression she started recycling things around her house and turning them
into greeting cards. People were so taken by her creations that it was not
long before they were asking her to show them how to do it. Amanda’s
indomitable spirit soon had her back on her feet and her small business,
Mandy K Designs was born.
OPPORTUNITY SHOPS, CANDELABRAS AND SHABBY CHIC
Amanda is always on the lookout for things that can be recycled. She frequents opportunity shops and never knows what will attract her attention, and often doesn’t know what she will eventually do with the article when she gets it home. All she knows is that it has ‘potential’. One of her latest achievements is to transform old candelabras. “I rescue them from junk shops,” she says, “They are often black and pitted so I paint and ‘shabby chic’ them, and add tassels, often taken off an old bedspread, and lots of old jewellery. I love making something beautiful from discarded junk and you don’t have to have a lot of money to make something special.”
She also transforms discarded wooden cutlery boxes into fine works of art. Amanda says, “I found several beautiful boxes, ripped out the inside and lined them with old velvet curtains. The local picture framer gives me the cast off cardboard cards from out of old frames and I secure the velvet to that. I sand the cutlery box lids until they are perfectly smooth and decorate them with painted hibiscus flowers, bright butterflies and gumnuts. Everyone loves them.”
HOW TO WIN DECORATIVE FOLK ART PRIZES
This year Amanda won four
prizes for Folk Art in the Dandenong Show. She is especially fond of two
of these entries. In a second hand shop she found a one hundred year old
dresser that was full of woodworm and had to be destroyed but typically
she managed to salvage the two front doors. She loved the mellow cherry
colour of the beautifully grained wood. One day she had the idea to turn
them into clocks. She left the doors exactly as they were, complete with
handle and keyhole. After giving them a light sanding she decorated around
the edges of one with a trail of gum leaves and gum nuts and inserted in
the middle an old fashioned clock. The other door was left plain with just
two pewter clock hands on the front. The result was a fascinating
combination of something modern and something a hundred years old. No
wonder she did so well at the show. This timepiece now adorns the wall of
the local doctor’s surgery and creates a lot of interest.
FOLK ART CLASSES
Amanda is not only teaching others, but is continually honing her own skills. “When I am well, I go to weekly classes at the Victorian College of Folk Art. I love studying the history,” she says. “Recently we learnt the painting techniques used on old English Canal Boats. In those days, the women always decorated their barges with fascinating designs. And there is Rose Maling. That’s of Danish origin and goes back many hundreds of years. The skills I learn in class I try and pass on to others.”
In 2004 Amanda joined KAN (Kingston Arts Network) and has held many successful and entertaining workshops on how to make beautiful original low cost greeting cards out of all sorts of recycled material. Amanda is an inspiration, not only by promoting creativity and doing her part to save wastage and the environment by recycling, but also for her indomitable courage. She has managed to salvage her own life by turning her pain and disability into something beautiful; a full, productive, happy life. In spite of her difficulties, Amanda is achieving her dreams.
About the Author: Australian
writer Glenice Whitting currently writes on Inspiring Women on Suite101
and has completed an ebook on 14 inspiring Australian women http://www.suite101.com/topic_page.cfm/4651/4661.
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Amanda
has a very special talent. She can take some left over ribbon, plain
pieces of cardboard, odd scraps of paper, pens and paint and before you
know it she has recycled these bits and pieces into beautiful handmade
cards and boxes. Red hearts for Valentine’s Day, beads and baubles
decorate silver boxes tied with ribbon for that special birthday, or a
gorgeous card with a cut out teddy with big googly eyes and a cheery
get-well wish to make a sick child smile.
OLD CLOCKS AND CUTLERY BOX
KINGSTON ART NETWORK