Stitching Stories

Stitching Stories 

Early in my quilting days I saw, like every quilter in the world, the film "How to Make and American Quilt".  At the time I thought it fanciful but  experience has shown me that it is exactly what happens as quilters lives entwine within their groups. Their stories are shared round the table as they stitch for themselves, for gifts and often for charity. 

 Their feelings are expressed through their choices of pattern, colours, threads and techniques. Some are for the sheer pleasure of creating something beautiful, the excitement of a competition, or simply  the joy of sewing or making a special gift.  Many others are a healing experience. For artists quilting is the medium they choose for self expression - the threaded needle, hand or machine,  becomes a brush, the fabric is their canvas.

How often you see a quilt in a show and ask yourself  "Why?, what motivated that quilter? Who is this person"

So now we have Stitching Stories an exhibition about quilters as much as it is about the quilt.

two days before the opening......

Please use this blog as a catalogue of the exhibition.  Trawl down and dont forget to check the  "older posts"at the bottom.  This was put up over the end of July beginning of August so blogspot has spread the entries.

two days before the opening.........

Above all, enjoy this diverse exhibition and the stories that go with it.

Robina Summers
co-curator 

p.s. two weeks into the exhibition and we're already hearing wonderful stories of people coming from the Collins Street exit from Southern Cross station going  "oohh aahh" even before they cross the road.  Also heard of people seeing it from the Collins Street tram (which stops right outside) and jumping off mid journey to have a look! 

Dijanne Cevaal

Over the last 14 years I have travelled to many places in  the quest to promote quilting as art and in promoting Australian quilt making as art. Travel does not only take you places, but often it also makes you look at the place where you find yourself living.For me it raised many questions as to what i could lay claim to  culturally and spiritually given that I was a migrant to Australian shores ( and yes I arrived by a boat) with a memory of my childhood in another land and in another language.I also found myself drawn to cathedrals devoted to madonnas not as a belief imperative but simply because  they  seemed to throw out a challenge. I found madonnas in Syria at Saidnaya which fostered the thought that what kind of image moves other peoples spiritually? Many cultures have an image adorned by a kind of halo and so I chose this form to express my thoughts and concerns. I made her the same size as myself, and of course she is feminine- she looks out into the world offering a challenge. She is called a sentinelle because she is not truly a guardian but a watcher who sees the many wrongs in the world and who challenges you to think how you might be able to do better and to be more proactive.I am touched that the sentinelles and their form have touched so many women here and overseas.

 Sentinelles- Artist Statement

I made the sentinelles as a fusion of landscape inspired by Fred Williams and Judy Watson, a look at the Australian landscape so different to the European landscape, and a tip of my hat to my European heritage.The land has a pervading spirituality and mystique which invites using my personal language of lace patterning and the tenuous connecting threads of lace and texture created by stitch. I feel a connectedness with the land that derives from having lived on farms all my growing life, albeit farms in two totally different countries, and I have struggled  to make sense of any connections; it is as if there have been two loves, but neither has been "the" love. One I was taken away from too soon and the other I came to too late. So I have to forge a new connection, by looking at how other artists have created their connections with the land and looking at their visual language to express their connection and then finding my own language. 

I am using the hominid form to suggest a sentinelle, but I use the word sentinelle rather than guardian as the word guardian implies looking after but also taking care of. Sentinelles are merely guards, there is nothing proactive about their watch- they can only watch and alert others, to what they are watching, the eternal watching bystander. It is for the viewer or others to act on what they see or don't see, it is for us to act and  be proactive.

I am weaving together imagery of things and myths I love, that make up my own personal language but yet also try to express my connectedness with the land.I have chosen a simple form that suggests human beings, but also other spirit keepers from different societies and a connection to my  Zeeuwse past, the lace caps worn by my great grandmother and aunts. The idea of caps became intertwined with images of Byzantine Madonnas, and the head wear of ancient Romans.  I have made the Sentinelles the same height as myself though some grew with the stitching process, to acknowledge I am also responsible. The image came to encapsulate a lot of things I wanted to say  about the place I find myself in in Australia, but also my migrant past and indeed the European past of my family.My interaction with this, for me new land, yet ancient land is predetermined by what I bring to this land and how I connect with it. The interaction brings with it concerns for other parts of the world because that is where I have come from.

I would like to see my sentinelles in all corners of the world, big and small. I like the idea that they will  be in many places watching, reminding that we must take care, that the earth is not and endless resource and that we must think of the future not for ourselves but for every living thing that will come after us

EARTH SENTINELLE

Hand dyed & printed cotton, hand and machine stitched

165 cm h x 65 cm w

2011

The Australian landscape is often depicted as red:

 simply red with the ribbing of dunes or the cracking of earth. Yet closer inspection reveals a whole other world of existence; flora and fauna that are strange and beautiful. The kangaroo paw plant is a great survivor in fringe land, it's strangely shaped flower petals tall amongst the spindly undergrowth.

It is popular with florists and they make good cut flowers.

Next time you find yourself looking at a kangaroo paw flower in a bouquet, think of the lands where it might grow- try to imagine the songs of this land, the tracks you might  make and the stories you might create.

This sentinelle arrived without warning and without intention and yet she is the most Australian of them all.

THE AUBERGINE TRACKING PATHS SENTINELLE

Hand dyed & printed cotton, hand and machine stitched


165 cm h x 65 cm 201 w

  Many people inhabit our land but the first people, indigenous Australians have a deep affinity with the land.  They walk and sing the land, it fills their spirit and they  take care of the land- they are the custodians. We, the aftercomers should learn that lesson; in loving our land and learning it's tracks and songs  we too can walk paths on this land and as a people take care of the land.  My history is one of farms and growing things and this is also informed by an understanding of the land though a different understanding. We might do well to understand the spirit of each of the lands we inhabit, know it's nuances  shapes and needs.        

OCHRE EARTH  SENTINELLE

hand dyed and printed cotton, hand and machine stitched

165cm h x 65cm w

2012

She watches all things Australian- our dry landscape despite small patches of forest, an eastern seaboard with tropical rainforest, dwindling water resources, a drought stricken and sunburnt land. Her body is encrusted with bilbies as it is thought that bilbies are responsible for the vegetative health of desert fringes and that without bilbies the desert fringe will disappear. Water is the heart of our land, slow rivers flow through the land giving sustenance. They dry up in summer's shimmering heat to become rocky paths across the land. We have to take care with water, it is not a never ending resource, it must be used frugally, but we seem to waste more water than ever. There are parts of the world where water is as precious as gold, the only thing that can sustain life. Bilby populations have declined since European incursion and their survival has been forced into the desert. They are an endangered species, a clear sign that we are not taking care. THE BLUE SENTINELLE Hand dyed & printed cotton, hand and machine stitched 165 cm h x 65 cm w 2011           The Blue Sentinelle is one of reflection and empathy,cool  and thoughtful- what is she watching? At present the world  is in a bad state- when was it last like this? It is the sentinelle that was there in the beginning, in the waters and the sea watching life as it emerged, watching it evolve, watching as  humans squander the earth's resources, watching as we must draw deep within ourselves to have human empathy for the disasters we have created, watching as we must find solutions  for the disasters of our own making. She stands cool shimmering, her body encrusted with corals and urchin shapes. She reminds us that there is a beginning just as there is a          beginning to taking care and doing. THE RED SENTINELLE Hand dyed & printed cotton, hand and machine stitched 165 cm h x 65 cm w 2011

   She reminds me of Demeter- the earth mother- but also the watcher of her daughter- she could not prevent  Persephone's seduction by the seed of pomegranate and the other world, the underworld. It was Persephone's own

action that meant she had to spend time in the underworld. It is a reminder to be close to the earth, to take care of the  earth, if tilled with  care and love it delivers great fruit. But if the tilling fails then the earth will be waste just as Demeter laid the known classical Greek world to waste whilst she searched for her daughter.  We are laying to  waste our earth in searching for resources and wealth and are squandering our connection with the earth.

Felicity Griffin Clark

detail Desert Tryptich

Felicity Griffin Clark is a textile artist based in Melbourne, Australia. Felicity uses silk, wool, alpaca and linen, mulberry bark, synthetics, paper, metals and found objects to convey colours, textures and meanings in unconventional ways. She has exhibited her work in Australia and overseas and won the inaugural Buda Textile Award in 2008.

Felicity was featured in the July 2013 edition of Down Under Textiles and has work featured in New York artist Seth Apter’s latest book “The Mixed-Media Artist: Art Tips, Tricks, Secrets and Dreams From Over 40 Amazing Artists”.

Felicity worked for more than 20 years as a social policy analyst and researcher, specialising in Aboriginal policy.  She is a currently graduate student at the University of Melbourne:  her research interests include mediaeval and early modern funerary rituals and textiles for babies and children, and maps as cultural artefacts.

DESERT TRIPTYCH

  A burnt quilt made of eucalyptus dyed blanket, 

  cotton, satin, synthetics

89 cm w  x 127 cm h

 2010

I have been haunted by the landscape of central Australia since my first visit there in 2007. There is a compelling mystique about the country around Alice Springs and into the desert - I feel drawn, mesmerised by the rocks and red dust - I want to sink into it and lose myself in its red antiquity.

I long to take off into the desert and feel annihilated by the space, clear air and luminosity. I begin to understand the desert fathers. I think you could spend your life wandering, yearning, searching for the spirit of this place.

Although I am a whitefella, I can feel that there is another way of reading this landscape but it is out of my reach. Whitefella maps and language and way of understanding the world are pitifully insufficient to grasp the spirituality of this landscape that quivers massively, just out of our reach.

Like an unlettered animal we can intuit a skeleton of meaning and realise that there is a body of symbolism and that the earth is alive in a completely different way, but it is not ours. And I think this leaves the whitefella with a profound grief - so profound that he cannot grasp this either and is left bemused and pained by something he can't understand.

The red earth, the convulsed rocks reach out, yearning for connection. The whitefella can dimly feel and reflect the yearning but cannot work out how to connect, how to be with the earth and is condemned to bereftness.

The desire for connection with the landscape has followed me back to the city. I am haunted by its low vibration – not a sound but something like a frequency just out of range. I'm sure that this is because it is not my country. And yet it affects me like a deep continuous yearning – I want to go back and just sit and listen

detail Desert Tryptich

 

XYLEM PHLOEM: THE INTERIOR LANDSCAPE OF TREES

Wool, synthetics, silk, cotton, tulle, oilsticks, ink, layered, stitched & burnt

30 cm w x 140 cm h

 2014

 Xylem Phloem: the interior landscape of trees reflects inner structures and colours of trees as seen through microscope. Greens, blues, reds, bronzes: an intricate balanced system of tubes, pores and valves transport sugars, water and oxygen - the tree's life blooda living landscape.

  Techniques and materials

  Wool, hand-dyed cotton, silk and synthetic fabrics; silk and rayon               thread; sequins, plastic. Oil paintsticks. Chopped up synthetic fabrics, sequins and bits of plastic placemat were layered over a base of wool and then cotton wholecloth, covered in tulle and stitched, then burnt back with a heat gun. Colours and lines  were enhanced with oil paintsticks. 

JEALOUSY

Damaged hand-dyed wholecloth, layered with synthetics, silks, cotton & tulle - stiched slashed and burnt

120 cm h  x 95 cm w

2010

       

Inspired by betrayal and deceit – this piece was painful and cathartic to make.  

The sour greens and yellows of jealousy are slashed by bitter puce and the crimson passion of uncontrolled emotion.  Lines from William Blake’s poem A Poison Tree are written/hidden throughout the work. 

Linda Bear

detail Best of Friends

The foundations for where I stand today go back further than High school sewing classes and a tertiary education aimed squarely at the Textiles industry. The skill to stitch, coupled with a love for the versatility of fabrics has been handed from mother to daughter for 4 generations.

I suppose that I’ve come into the quilting industry later than most, having gone along to my first patchworking class when our son started Kindergarten just over 12 years ago. I reveled in an environment where women stitched together, shared their triumphs, joys and woes. Patchwork
opened up a whole new world of freedom where colours and prints didn’t have to go together to “go together”. The concept that “old and ugly” could add something special to a quilt and that the adage of “less is more” was a rule to be acknowledged and bent a little was liberating.
I learnt that a handmade quilt has the power to tell a story about the maker or events; it can hold precious memories and stir emotions. Each one made is unique and has a personality of its very own.

These days my Patchworking is centred around commission work specializing in memory quilts and teaching. My classes have a strong emphasis on traditional methods and the history behind them. My aim is to infuse a love for “Tactile Textiles” and educate others so that these valuable skills will be passed on for generations to come.

BEST OF FRIENDS

Cotton, poly/wool.  Blocks: reverse applique by hand, machine pieced.
Beautifully machine quilted by Karen Terrens

200 cm square

2012

         This is one of a very few quilts where I have purchased fabric with a specific purpose in mind. I had been caught up in researching Signature and Album Quilts of the Mennonite communities in America and my German ancestry. The idea of paper cut patterns and Fraktur appealed to my creative side and I had collated a stack of doodlings on the backs of bills, envelopes and the like. Never one to back away from a challenge, I put to and devised a method for putting my sketches together.

Each block was to have a space for an individual’s signature in the centre as in the 1800s; members of a community would come together and each would contribute a single block for a quilt. 
The top would be pieced and quilted by all participants and then gifted. It may have been to celebrate coming of age, a marriage or relocating to another county. 
The design for the large, central block has elements from each of the smaller blocks. Two stems entwine to represent how a community is bound together although being separate parts of the whole.

detail Best of Friends

Thistle Dew Daisy

Top: wool and wool blend fabric; wool and alpaca yarn. Wool top is machine pieced from repurposed family garments dating from 1940’s to 1985

The tufted daisies and embroidered stems used to be jumpers from my childhood, stitched over templates that are then removed.
Quilting : Tied with wool yarn through all three layers

Size : w 112cm x h 130 cm

Year : 2009

Price/NFS : NFS

Some of my earliest memories are of a toddler playing in her mother’s scraps box in the linen press. Small bundles of off cuts from garments made, repaired and altered were always saved ready for the next job. When the scraps were too small to make and repair clothing the pieces were stitched together to make blankets or cut into confetti to become stuffing for cushions and toys.
All that remains of a pale blue pinafore from the 1940s, black and white flecked trousers from the 50s and the mid blue striped skirt form the 70s are included in this quilt top. The yarn from Jumpers that we grew out of were always unraveled and re knitted so nothing went to waste. The short, endy bits of yarn were used for poms poms and decorative stitching. 

detail Thistle Dew Daisy

Significant Ties

Materials :
Top: Ties - silk and some synthetic. Silk Dupion
Backing : 100% cotton, Manufacturer’s labels from Ties used for the top
Batting :60% poly/ 40% wool

Techniques :
This quilt is machine pieced and consists of elongated blocks made from silk ties, giving it a beautiful weight and luxurious feel. It is tied with silk ribbon in the centre of each block

Size : W 185 cm x H 195 cm

Year : 2010

From time to time I'm presented with fabric in one form or another which is just too precious to throw away. Usually there is a sentimental attachment that gives us joy; memories of happy times. It might be scraps from the sewing box, garments and ties no longer worn or fabric that speaks to your inner sense for the need to create. 

A while after my Dad died Mum presented me with all of his ties with the hope that perhaps the boys might be able to wear some of them. Open neck shirts are now the order of the day for a Sales Rep and the only tie the Lad will wear is a school tie so this wish wasn't going to be fulfilled any time soon. What was I to do with a life time of ties? I couldn't part with them, silks or polyester. A tie from Dad's first day as Paymaster of Campbell Soups Australia, the tie he wore on his wedding day and the tie he wore to ours; so many precious memories hidden away in the cupboard. I decided to re-purpose them (and a few others added in) and make them into a quilt for the lad; one that he could take through all stages of his life. He's always been a tactile sort of chap and would enjoy the touch of silk. So, after sorting the good from the bad, adding to the collection from other significant males in our circle and choosing a style, I set to work. 

detail Significant Ties

There is a great deal of fabric in a tie when you deconstruct it. They're generally cut on the bias and are at least twice as wide as what can be seen. After stripping close to 100 ties templates were cut and pieces interfaced with Weaveline to give the silk body but not stiffness and to reduce fraying. Corners were added in contrasting colours of silk dupion to complete the blocks and then the sewing began in earnest.

To get the correct size for the backing I needed to add a strip through the middle so I used up the left over tie blocks(I always cut extras for "just in case" moments) and stitched labels from the ties across the back.
Once the top, batting and backing were sandwiched, I tied the quilt through the block centres with silk ribbon. So there are approximately 90 ties chopped up here from Pa, Dad, 4 Uncles, Mr Santamaria (awesome school teacher), Mr Agnew (awesome school Principal) Rodney Shire Council, and the Royal Australian Flying Doctor Service. The finished product is queen size, and consists of 1300 pieces. The binding is made up of left over pieces from other quilts that I've made and fitted the bill 

detail from back of Significant Ties

Susan Mathews

detail Nightshift

In 2011 while I was still living in Yarrawonga in NE Victoria, I was engaged as one of two textile artists to take part in the Wangaratta Textile Project, an Arts Victoria undertaking. The other artist was Andrea Komninos from Melbourne. We made site visits to the Bruck factory and Australian Country Spinners in Wangaratta and were given access to research that had been done re these industries and also to the textile collection of the Wangaratta Art Gallery, which is doing a great job of building on the textile history of their rural city. Our brief was that we could choose any aspect of textiles as they relate to Wangaratta that inspired us and that we were to make one piece of work, the progress of which we were to blog about on the Culture Victoria website. It was exciting seeing Andrea's work unfold and interesting to see her take on it all next to mine.( www.cv.vic.gov.au)

              I found the factory visits fascinating, the massive machinery with its constant motion and everything on such a grand scale. What also drew me in was learning about the vital role that the textile industry played in the development of Wangaratta with the associated influx of migrant workers and the consequent construction of housing and electricity infrastructure. Stories of life at the factories, which in bygone days operated 24 hours a day and which had actually housed workers and families on site, were intriguing. The factories were a place of work but also a social hub with various sporting clubs and activities and of course, the annual picnic complete with games and races. This was the soul of the industry and I found it fascinating.

              My own research revealed a number of friends who had family or other connections to the factories and also turned up a couple of very interesting connections to members of my own family, which, given the fact that I grew up in Melbourne, I found compelling. I was intrigued by a man called Stan Arms who had managed Bruck for about 20 years. While he was in charge, a house for visiting dignitaries and a few cottages designed by Robin Boyd were built, another gem I had not previously known of in Wangaratta.. Another discovery about Wangaratta was that it has a seriously good piano which is one of only two in the world and which is kept in its own climate controlled room. Apparently, Stan who was also a founding member of the Wangaratta Arts Council, was sent to Hamburg to order the piano. The other one is said to be suffering from altitude sickness in South America somewhere!.

              Australian Country Spinners started life as the Wangaratta Woollen Mills in the 1920s and to get it off the ground the public was invited to subscribe. To publicise this the daughters of the founder went flying in a bi-plane throwing out publicity leaflets over the area.

              All these things and more really resonated with me and when I had finished my piece for the Wangaratta Textile Project, I felt compelled to keep making more work around this topic. I completed a further five pieces of work and these were exhibited along with my piece for the Wamgaratta Textile Project as an exhibition titled "Fabrications" in the foyer of the Wangaratta Performing Art Centre, a space curated by the Wangaratta Art Gallery, from December 2011 until February 2012. Two of these pieces are now in the Wangaratta Art Gallery's textile collection and two more you see here.

NIGHT SHIFT

Procion dyeing; linocut printing; machine pieced; fused applique; free motion stitching using a domestic sewing machine.  Cotton fabric; procion dyes; water soluble block printing ink; polyester threads; wool.polyester batting

99 cm h x 145 cm w

2011

I was overawed by the massed wires of the jacquard looms in the Bruck factory which soared high into the air and had a grandness about them. I have tried to illustrate this in the largest section of this quilt with very close stitching which gives the sheer effect which was evident in the real thing. This theme is repeated on a smaller scale in a linocut print repeated in strips. On the far right side the herringbone pattern references the floor in part of the Bruck factory which was parquetry and therefore allowed for movement without cracking because of the heavy machinery. It was actually quite beautiful with the patina it had acquired through the years. A further linocut print echoes the constant circular motions seen in the factories, especially Australian Country Spinners. and also references the balls of wool which are the end product.there. Giant metal rollers hold warps in the Bruck factory and these inspired the applique shapes at the bottom of the piece which are linocut prints.

SHIFT 1

Procion dyeing; collagraph printing; breakdown silk screen printing; linocut printing; reverse applique; raw edge applique; free motion machine stitching using a domestic sewing machine. Cotton fabric; sheer polyester fabric; water soluble fabric printing ink; oil paint; polyester threads; wool/polyester batting.

93 cm h x 92 cm w

2011

I found the huge metal rollers that held the warps in the Bruck factory very interesting and in this piece of work I have tried to convey the continuum of the work and the relentless motion it creates through the repetition of the a design taken from the ends of the rollers. Reference to the woven fabric that is the end product is made in the yellow lines which represent the warps under tension which part to create a “shed” through which the weft passes at great speed.

The two narrow strips are linocut printed with a design which evolved from a photo I took at one of the factories of the time card holders and this references the contribution of all the many workers who make these processes happen.

detail shift 1

Sarah Louise Ricketts

Detail scraper

I am a fringe dweller, like most Australians. We hug the coast, living for the summer and the glow of the beach, the glint of sun on the surf's glass. I live on the urban fringe of the City of Melbourne, pulled by the excitement of people, the bright lights and energy of the crowd. Four million of us, seemingly huddling together against the vast red emptiness at our backs.

Like many Australians, I seldom see the real bones of the landscape of my country. Sometimes, perhaps, from the window of a car or a plane or on the screen of movie. Only very rarely do I look at it with my own eyes. And yet, like most Australians, I am filled with great love for this place. It is a love carried within, a part of us.

When I returned to live in the land of my birth, I understood that attachment to place – my profound love for the curving creek bed, the tree branch angled in welcome, the insolence of mountains – was part of me, no matter where I lived. I carried the hard-won love of the southern land within me to the Middle East and thence to the northern land of my birth. It informs all my work.

Statements about the Work for “Telling Stories”

For “Telling Stories,” I have selected work inspired by a crazy mountain-top race against time and nature through Jordan in the snow with my partner, Geoff Hicks, in 2007; one of my favourite memories of our life together. Geoff lived fast and died young - in 2009. We were building in Carlton at that time. I completed the works, incorporating a roof terrace from which the lights and skyscrapers (to use a now-antiquated but still marvellous term) of Melbourne can be touched. The second piece tells the story of this other life, lived in the realized architecture of a shared dream.

HOLY LAND: SNOW IN PETRA

Hand - stitched painted & felted fabric, deconstructed, reconstructed; coton, wool, silks
156 cm h  x 108 cm w

2007




Sketches, memories and photographs of a too brief but nonetheless compelling tour of Jordan provided the impetus for this work. 

Geoff and I drove to Petra along the mountain spine of the country, in January 2007, with snow dashing about the car and drifts pushed up into formidable banks, where snow had not been in recent memory. The road to Petra was closed behind us as night fell. We made a carefully mad dash toward the town.  The urge to celebrate this experience and to capture something of the haunting spiritual nature of the landscape proved irresistible. 

It is painted cotton wholecloth, felted, dissected and reassembled, stitched, refelted, repainted and assembled onto silk organza ground and frame.

This piece toured the US in 2010, as part of the World of Quilts competition and exhibition series.

detail Holy Land :Snow in Petra

SCRAPER

Nunofelted Fabrics; Hand-Stitching, Machine-Stitched, Silk Organza, Silk Tops, Fleece, Wool Yarns
140 cm h  x 105 cm w

2014

             THE STORY

When the boys and I first moved to Carlton, just on the edge of the city, there was nothing to the immediate south of us.  It did not take very long for a new apartment block to begin its rapid climb to soaring heights, changing our view from flat open blue to the many facets of golden windows.  

At first, I was quite resentful of this looming presence, whose appearance was unwelcome.  However, since it has been inhabited, the building has become some of a friend, a curious companion in the middle of the night when I look up and wonder whose windows are those, and why are they still up?

Surprisingly beautiful arrangements of light and colour are brought about by the random activity of human beings, giving the building life and filling me with a surreptitious delight.  The unwelcome intruder is an unexpected gift.

Detail Scraper