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The May 1999 exhibition at the Braemar Gallery of Springwood in the Blue Mountains was dedicated to showing the works of local textile artists. Entitled 're-fabricating our memories', the exhibition was curated by Annabelle Solomon, and artists were invited to explore through their textile work the layers of memory, both personal and cultural which accordingly form perceptions, ranging from world views to personal insights. The resulting artworks offered visitors a broad spectrum of applications in the textile medium, and produced an exciting exhibition which included art quilts, wearables, and three dimensional sculptures.
Metaphoric reference is often made to the fabric of life and society, including the fabric of which memories and dreams are made. Women's creative works in fabric are often embedded with memories, of loving, birthing, nurturing, separating, and then re-creating for the next cycle in life. As textile artists, we constantly work through the layers of memory, of collected and loved fabrics on the workroom bench (not to mention the boxes, cupboards, and suitcases!) Rummaging through the storehouse of fabric is often the starting point for the out-flowing of stored up memories, memories which, by the process of re-fabricating the bits and pieces into new form, are re-visited, and often re-shaped and re-storied. This process can lead to all sorts of unexpected transformations, both visible and invisible!
In her address to open the exhibition Dr Noeleen O'Bierne, who holds a PhD in Women's Studies from the University of Western Sydney, spoke of the essence of 're-fabricating our memories' as a re-collection and re-materialisation of our personal histories through visualising a different way of being, just as the fabrics, threads, materials, wool cotton, silk, mohair had been re-fashioned into a different form. Dr O'Bierne affirmed that it is "important that each woman tell her own story with her perception of what happened, how it happened and its effect upon her. It is the effect of the memory that is involved in a re-fabrication of identity, just as the reworking of fragmented fabric pieces creates a new artwork which is, whether consciously or not, a subversive act for the production of meaning."
At a public soiree held at Braemar during the exhibition, the artists talked candidly about their visual responses to the theme of memory. They spoke of how their work reflects the more recent and personal, as well as in images which offer the possibility of taking us back into perhaps more ancient ways of viewing the world, through which we might experience a sense of collective memory. The unique response to the theme of each artist's work showed the way memory forms layers, each layer building upon the other, remaining mysteriously constant whilst at the same time having the potential to transform the perception of both the creator and the viewer as the layers become more transparent. Each artist spoke of an awakening to earlier memories within the psyche, her creation giving tangible evidence of layers which uplift and celebrate the resilience and creativity of the human spirit by providing visible access to truths, apparent and real, beyond time and space.
Working with exotic fabrics, so loved by contemporary quilt artist Denise Trent, recalled for her (and for the viewer, no doubt) life's rich experiences of joy and fulfilment. Dianne Jones' work invited the viewer to smile in recognition of those other life experiences which often involve a quirky twist which you just have to laugh at. And Heather Bloor's skill in painting photographic images using layers of thread evoked early memories of childhood, the meanings of which have revealed themselves to her more fully over time, as much by the revelations gained during the time of their creation, as by evoking feelings of a displacement of the chronology of time. The wagga (utility quilt) format of Deb Leake's 'Past Lives' quilt took us firmly back to the seventies, with her combination of samples reminding us that even the skills of dressmaking are in a state of constant flux; whoever heard of handmade buttonholes these days?!
Another well-known contemporary textile artist and tutor adding colour, texture and story to this visually satisfying and exciting exhibition was Yvonne Chapman whose story of her 'Vessel of Dreams and Memories' was featured in Textile Fibre Forum Issue 3, No. 56 1999. The unlimited creative possibilities of faux-felting were described by Gillian Hand as the current fruit of a long life of fabric and textile/fibre play and work. Wendy Holland's reminiscence of collecting Japanese kimono fabrics in art school days found expression in work that captured the time when Japanese textiles guided her imagination. Penny Seta's use of the fabric of Tiwi designs handed down through countless generations of aboriginal Australians, by which to render the age-old simplicity of the kimono form, showed both the constancy and variability in form which is what she calls the 'canvas of the kimono'.
Annabelle Solomon's triptych of quilted triangles and veils, remembering the three phases of women's lives as virgin, mother and crone, addressed an archetypal way of perceiving the power of women's creative energies. Helen Toner spoke of how the cross-stitches in her framed offerings 'keep her connected', and how the continuous repetition of stitches in her creations 'acts like a mantra'. Like many of us, Jo Steele remembered her earlier beginnings in the textile medium making traditional quilts. She realised a point of creative divergence in her work which has now found expression in stitching into wire, recalling for her both childhood memories and an emerging spiritual journey which, like the wire base is both invisible and tangible, seemingly contradictory, yet somehow harmonious.' Sue Wademan's work 'Unravelled' remembered how both the process of making art and life's experiences require a discipline, often to be experienced with an element of pain - like pole wrapping for shibori dyeing, for example - yet miraculously it gives way to something unexpected and beautiful.
In 2001, Annabelle Solomon curated another exhibition at Braemar, featuring Australian and New Zealand textile works, predominantly by local Blue Mountains artists. Continuing the theme of the previous exhibition she invited artists to consider 're-fabricating the future'. Editor
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