CATCHING UP WITH SHARYN HALL

© Barbara Macey

Ozquilt Network Newsletter Issue #30 DECEMBER 1998

I was fortunate to be present at the combined opening of the AQIPP, Running Stitch Wool Quilts and Random Few exhibitions in late 1997 at the Meat Market Craft Centre in Melbourne (now closed). There was a wonderful party atmosphere at this happy event. Sharyn Hall reacted with amazement and delight when her quilt 'Salient Steel' was declared winner of the $2,000 prize in the AQIPP Competition. (AQIPP stands for Australian Quilts in Public Places. It is an initiative of the Melbourne group The Australian Quilters Association). Her excitement was infectious - everyone was delighted for her. I was eager to learn how Sharyn had fared since this important milestone in her quilting career.

Sharyn who lives at Brookfield, Brisbane, Queensland, had actually dreamed one night of hearing her name announced as winner of the AQIPP Competition, perhaps because she was so keen to win! Still, she didn't really expect it to happen and she's still bemused that her dream literally came true! While the work was in progress she had been quite discouraged by criticism. One person thought that her use of photographic images was 'old hat', another surprised her by saying the layout was 'very Japanese looking'. At this stage she was so certain that she was not in the race that she made the quilt in three parts each capable of being hung independently. "I considered myself a nobody in quilting" she says, "having not participated in any competitions or exhibitions nationally". After all this, no wonder she reacted so strongly to winning!

Sharyn is very grateful for the win. She regards it as the little 'pat on the back' that we all need now and again to boost our confidence. She recognises that chance plays a part in these matters and speculates that maybe different judges wouldn't have chosen her quilt at all!

She studied art at school and worked as a draftsperson for 25 years. Like most of us, Sharyn was sewing well before she turned her attention to quiltmaking. She didn't really get involved in artistic pursuits until she began making pottery, screenprinting and making soft toys for sale in the early 70's. She remembers that she was always sewing - she began quilting in the early 1980's, and began to teach in 1988.

Sharyn studied for the Associate Diploma of Visual Art in 1984 - 1987, majoring in Surface Design. Since 1984 she has been the organiser of the Annual Needlework/Quilt Competition, held at Brookfield Show but resigned in 1998 to get on with her own work. She was the founding president of the Schoolhouse Quilters (1990), a very active and exciting local quilt group with 80 plus members meeting twice a month. She has had two solo exhibitions of mixed media work, including quilts, in 1992 and 1996.

Although she'd visited the Houston (USA) Quilt Festival in 1989 and found it interesting and enjoyable, she hadn't paid much attention to where her quilting career was heading in the early days. Teaching patchwork and exhibiting her mixed media paper work locally had kept her very busy. This changed in 1996 when her quilt 'Australian Splendour' was selected by Juliet Webster of the National Patchwork Association (UK) for an exhibition of Australian quilts curated by Wendy Lugg. This exhibition toured to the National Patchwork Association's Autumn Quilt Fairs which go to several venues in the UK and Europe. She decided that she would travel to England to see the Fair. She wrote to Juliet Webster of her intention and was promptly invited to organise a booth to feature Australian fabrics and publications as well as her own quilts at the Trentham (Stoke-on-Trent) venue, a wonderful old mansion. This was not an exercise in selling, but an opportunity to talk to visitors about the Australian quilting scene and to demonstrate work in progress. She found that people were very impressed by the colours and fabrics used in Australian quilts.

Sharyn was impressed by the show which she found to be well organised, and the quilts well displayed. A special semi-trailer transported the quilts to each venue. She also travelled with the Fair (and her booth) to Veldhoven in The Netherlands where the interest in Australian quilts almost transcended the language barrier!

The experience in the UK made her realise that she wanted to make quilting more prominent in her life and she made a serious commitment to do so. Whilst there in 1996, Juliet Webster approached her about curating another group of quilts, this time for the National Patchwork Association's Springtime Quilt Fairs. The exhibition, Quilts from Queensland, travelled to venues in the UK and Belgium early in 1997, this time without Sharyn. In October 1998 she entered 'Stitched Rhythms' in the National Patchwork Association's European Quilt Championships and to her delight won an Award of Merit. (Australian Dijanne Cevaal was also successful with two awards for second place).

In 1997 Sharyn attended a workshop in Tamworth NSW by renowned US quilt artist Nancy Crow with a view to consolidating the direction her work was taking. Though the workshop didn't inspire any radical changes in the way she works, it made her realise the potential of fabrics and colours she wouldn't previously have considered suitable for her work. She's very glad she had that experience because it confirmed that she's going in a direction that really suits her. She's looking forward to attending a workshop this year with US expert Caryl Bryer Fallert to gain further insights into the use of colour.

1998 was a great year for Sharyn. In February she entered her quilt 'Face to Face' in the Stanthorpe, (Queensland) Regional Arts Festival. It was acquired for the Stanthorpe Regional Gallery for their permanent textile collection. In May she entered two works in the Queensland Embroiderers' Guild exhibition Thirty Years of Stitching and won the grand championship for 'Flowers of Amarant', a very colourful 3D sculptured work, free machine stitched. The prize was a wonderful Bernina Activa 1430 sewing machine.

As a frequent organiser of exhibitions, and wanting to gain more credibility as a curator, Sharyn applied to Arts Queensland for a grant and was accepted as a volunteer curator at the Canberra School of Art Gallery for five weeks in June-July. It was a very fruitful experience as she was there just prior to the Shift Textile Symposium and helped set up exhibitions of work by WA fibre artist Elsje King, SA tapestry weaver Kay Lawrence and works by aboriginal artists from the Ernabella Mission in Central Australia.

Later in the year she was offered a commission by Bernina's National Sales Manager to make a two metre square quilt and twelve individual small panels. Her brief was to make a contemporary quilt to her own design celebrating the new Bernina 150QE sewing machine; she believes that this demonstrates an increasing acceptance and awareness of contemporary quilts. Sharyn's quilts are now being used to publicise the new Bernina 150QE which features many remarkable features to delight all quilters including a 'hand' quilting stitch that really looks as good as hand quilting. Sharyn had lots of fun getting to know this machine. After three months working with it she found it "a lovely machine to use". Her quilt, 'Pattern Play' is featured in Bernina advertisements and will be seen at the Stitches and Craft Shows around the country.

This year she plans to enter as many quilt competitions as possible including participating in international exhibitions. Her quilt 'Desert Strata' has been selected by Judy Hooworth who is curating an exhibition of 24 quilts by notable quilters from across Australia. Titled 'Quilt Art Australia - From Bush to Sea' the quilts will tour to Gröbenzell in Germany in March 1999 and then be on show at the Sydney Quilt Festival in June 1999.She is hoping to begin writing a book to be published in 2001. It will feature sashiko designs based on Federation style houses in Queensland. She plans to include her own photographs to show the origins of her designs. (Her first book 'Sashiko Designs' was self published in 1993).

She is also hoping to conduct workshops in various parts of Australia. An experienced teacher well known in Brisbane, she would also like to travel further afield to share what she has discovered over the years and to inspire and enthuse people. Sharyn is very grateful for her AQIPP success and believes that she would never have had the confidence to do what she had done in the last two years without her win. Confidence is indispensable of course, but her humility, powerful enthusiasm, determination and talent must also have played a major part. Congratulations to Sharyn for her many successes and for being so enterprising. Her future looks very bright.

© Barbara Macey 1998