Our Goals!
We have set ourselves some challenging goals as you will discover in the Information Summary. They include a genuinely beautiful book about a World Class subject, a first edition print run of at least 3,000 copies, a sponsored copy delivered free to every single High School in Western Australia to inspire future generations, a launch at one of Perth’s top galleries which would coincide with an extensive exhibition of Trudi’s art, and a marketing campaign to promote this Western Australian success story internationally.
To make it happen, we have assembled a team of dedicated professionals to ensure that Trudi’s Colour Garden is of exceptional quality in every respect. We invite your support and look forward to discussing ways in which we can work together to turn the Trudi’s Colour Garden dream into reality.
With our Best Wishes, Trudi Pollard and the Editorial Team
Our Creative Team
We expect this to be a 14 month project from initial concept discussions in December 2018 to
the projected formal launch in early 2020 We have assembled an experienced, professional and
dedicated team to cover all bases and drive Trudi’s Colour Garden steadily to completion.
The team members are:
Trudi Pollard, international textile artist and natural dye innovator. See www.pollarddesigns.com
Helena Pollard, Trudi’s daughter, textile artist, marketing manager and fellow innovator. See www.
pollarddesigns.com
Roger Andrew, commercial writer and overall project manager for Trudi’s Colour Garden. For
details of previous projects, see under Crafting Words at verdantcreative.com.au
Barbara Andrew, researcher and proof-reader.
Elizabeth Reed, Editor and Project Secretary.
Adam Robinson, graphic designer and production/print project manager.
We are currently in the process of appointing two talented Western Australian photographers
(Bewley Shaylor and Zyg Woltersdorf) to ensure that Trudi’s Colour Garden has a strong visual
impact and presentation.
Book introduction.
(An Excerpt)
Trudi Pollard is one of the world’s greatest living textile artists, visionary creatives and natural colour innovators with her work admired, studied and displayed in galleries, business buildings and homes internationally. Urged on by her students, fellow artists and admirers across the world, it’s time her story was told – and it’s high time her voice was heard, loud and clear, by an even broader audience than the one that knows her now. Although she would no doubt deny the claim herself, Trudi is a national treasure of whom Australia should be justifiably proud.
It’s often said that photography and art is all about the light. For example, there is something very special about the quality of the light in the South of France in the coastal area around Nice and Menton. It has a soft, translucent, shimmering and magical quality that’s quite different to anywhere else in the world. It’s no wonder that great artists, especially Impressionists and outstanding landscape photographers, have been warmed and dazzled by such light to produce their finest, most inspiring work.
With textile art and design, it’s all about the quality of the colour – the natural colours that are skilfully evolved and produced with a profound knowledge of organic chemistry by artists such as Trudi Pollard and her daughter Helena, from a vast range of leaves and plants. Just as great artists rely on their own palette of oil paints to reflect their subjects, the work of outstanding textile artists is premised, or should be premised, on creating their own colour gardens and knowing how to ‘speak’ to the plants, ‘listen’ carefully to the replies and, as a result, manufacture their own special, unique textile colours.
We live in an increasingly synthetic, artificial world driven by digital technologies and dominated by high resolution screens. Instead of exploring the hedgerows and the microcosmic burrowings of little creatures at ground level from an early age, and learning how to look at Nature and see natural wonders for themselves, our children are tempted and led on artificial electronic adventures that are created and manufactured for them – rather than exploring Nature themselves and learning how to look into the heart of the matter. In the words of the poet William Wordsworth, ‘Come forth into the light of things, let Nature be your teacher.’
Our children are distracted away from what’s real and what really matters. We are forgetting how to look, and as a result, we are forgetting how to see in detail the miracle that is the natural world. You could say that we are witnessing the dying of artistic expression … or, at the very least, that Art is under threat of dying out as a result of ‘progress’ if that’s the right word for it.
For example, in Western Australia, Art is for the most part, not taught any more in High Schools and Primary schools across the State. Art departments are becoming a thing of the past, and with the demise of drawing, painting and artistic communication, the souls of the young are seriously
Subscribe to receive updates & opportunities to pre-order
Trudi's Colour Garden Book
Thank you for your interest in Trudi's book. Your support is greatly appreciated to bring this wonderful resource to publication for the benefit of all Textile and art lovers world wide.
If you would like to keep up to date with progress or pledge a pre-order for the book please complete the form below and we will add you to our data base to be sent information as this project is developed.