VICTORIAN QUILTERS'

'ONE STEP FURTHER' CONTEMPORARY EXHIBITION

and miniature quilt exhibition 'Bowers of Flowers'
at the Old Treasury Building, Melbourne, 26 June 1998

Those who attended the opening of the third 'One Step Further' exhibition enjoyed the following address given by their Patron, welI known embroiderer and quiltmaker Morna Sturrock. Thanks to Morna and Victorian Quilters Inc. for granting permission to print the address and include it in this archive. Editor.

© Morna Sturrock

Ozquilt Network Newsletter Issue #29 September 1998

Whoever said that needlework in all its forms is a dying art? Once again, this fabulous national collection of quilts before us, in this elegant setting, belies that nonsensical myth. Patchwork and quilting are perhaps the leaders in this late twentieth century phenomenon. That the embellishment of textiles is here to stay is the strongest statement possible that our own handiwork will not be denied, no matter how smart the technology nor how sophisticated our materialist society has become.

This is not to say that the handiwork here and elsewhere is not sophisticated. There is no end to the ingenuity, imagination and creativity of these exhibitors, all boldly taking 'One Step Further'. However, I think it might have been better titled 'A Giant Leap Forward'. It is heartwarming to see this ancient art form flourishing so brilliantly in Australia, and particularly of course among our own members of Victoria Quilters who have brought together this collection, representing artists from NSW, Queensland, and Canberra as well as their own state. Let me say at the outset that Australian quilters have every reason to hold their heads high - they are as good as any in the world, in fact it is high time we started exporting our inspirational tutors, to the northern hemisphere in particular. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity as your Patron to speak on this occasion.

Looking back over my 38 years in the Embroiderers Guild of Victoria, I've been amazed to note for how many years I myself was the sole patchwork and quilting tutor, and how many hopeful members joined the classes! I'm thankful none of you are old enough to see me do a series of TV programmes on the newly established Channel 2, when I somehow got through small versions of Martha Washington's Rose Garden, Tumbling Blocks, Double Irish Chain, and Star of Bethlehem as well as the lid of a sewing box, a stuffed choir boy, and some Christmas decorations!

One of the interesting twists of fate at the beginning of the Guild's existence in the 1960's in Victoria was that the REAL patchworkers were schooled in the American tradition, while I had had my training at the Royal School of Needlework in London. This state, still excited about its new automobile industry, had imported many American industrialists, engineers and designers for the manufacture of the Holden car, and we found among their American wives some absolutely superb workers who brought trunks of quilts to adorn their Melbourne homes. We learned from these women that until one had made a baker's dozen quilts for the family chest, one could hardly be deemed to be experienced at all!! There are plenty of Australians I know who have passed the baker's dozen mark!

In those far off sixties, the Americans would point out, ever so politely their method of patchwork without the English paper templates. But this English technique prevailed for long enough for us to stage several magnificent exhibitions, one of which was described as 'a blaze of glory in a veritable fairyland'. Then there was the Guild's first community project - the patchwork quilt commissioned by The National Trust for Governor LaTrobe's cottage. I recall the early launching of the part-finished quilt at the National Trust mansion Como, at a cocktail party where I, the guest speaker described patchwork as 'romantic'. It's interesting to dwell, for a moment, on the way this art form is perceived from generation to generation, and how its rationale follows current fashion. Certainly, I would say 30 years ago it was perceived as romantic - it was not unusual for quilts to be made up of fragments from family wedding dresses, and other bridal wear with even old love letters to be cut up for paper templates. I did this myself! It was part of the tradition where formerly used fabrics were all lovingly collected in the scrap bag that was an institutionalised part of every quilter's sewing room.

We all knew about the quilt that brought $25,000 at a Colorado show in the 1950's, made entirely from the dresses of American Presidents' wives. Then there was the quilt of 4,000 pieces, all from the royal dressmaker's salon in London, AND the quilt made with leftovers from Queen Victoria's gowns, hopefully before she went into that long period of mourning!

But no, the romance of patchwork goes much further back. It is no accident that so many American designs, made by pioneer Puritan women hungry for some beauty in their spartan existence, should so often have gone to their Bible for inspiration. I still warm to the fact that the Rose of Sharon is STILL, in its multiple variations, said to be the most popular traditional patchwork design - and the Rose of Sharon is that exotically beautiful, enigmatic figure in the world's most exquisite love poem - the Song of Songs.

But here we are near the end of the twentieth century and so a new rationale is ascribed to those countless women who have take up patchwork and quilting. Second wave feminism has given us a new vocabulary - these days we take it up for neither romantic nor practical reasons. We no longer even make quilts to make us warm; we have electric blankets and doonas to do that.

The contemporary worker has moved her quilt out of the bedroom, off the bed and onto the walls - walls not only around the house, but onto spaces both sacred and secular of every kind. All this means, in today's parlance, that they're into feminist consciousness raising. They are making statements about themselves. They are part of the backlash against the materialism of modern life. They are mastering something that is unique to them, something they can claim as their own. Not only are they solving geometric and mathematical problems - they are facing the challenge of bold original design, as all the quilts before us tonight testify'. There is a direct relationship between what commenced as a fleeting idea and what appears before us - to dazzle us - tonight. Every woman here knows something of the wonderful achievement of beginning and ending something for herself. Whether it be the largest, most daring contemporary quilt or any of the adorable miniatures on display tonight, the maker should be extraordinarily proud.

Yet am I mistaken in suggesting there is a continuum between the ethos of today's quiltmaker and her sister of yesteryear? The tools of the craft are the same: still the time-honoured needle and thread, pencil and ruler, compass, protractor and scissors, sewing machine and of course the glorious array of yarn and fabric, fabric, fabric. Today's quiltmakers, like their forebears, experience the stable sense of community brought about by working together, while also treasuring the blissful solitude we all need from time to time. They know, as their mothers or perhaps their grandmothers did, about the tedium, tiredness, frustration and interruptions that are also part of it all. Again and again however, the work is completed, as we see so vividly tonight. This is a confident, contemporary display of individual taste, skill and self-expression. The works serve as witnesses to the heart and spirit of the exhibitors - they are making their mark in a mode that I maintain is romantic, feminist and of today.

What a range of memory, emotion and inventiveness is represented here! On the one hand a night-time thunderstorm in the Simpson Desert, the densely tangled green-ness of a North Queensland rain forest, the loss and separation of a mother and daughter, the dramatic barren-ness of a potter who teaches in a NSW gaol, and then the sense of fun and movement in a quilt titled 'Smiley Happy People'. And what could be more romantic than Exhibit No 4, that ethereal quilt named 'Heartrace'?

I admire the reflection of another exhibitor, Annabelle Solomon, who dwells on our ancestral heritage. It is 'seeded in the past, germinating in the present, to give birth to the future'. So while all these artists should be proud that they belong to a line of stitchers who preceded even the un-named woman who made that coat of many colours, obviously crazy patchwork, for her man Jacob, they are alive, as Annabelle states, to the continuum I have mentioned earlier.

Before I finally close, let me have the pleasure of opening this fine display, and let us all salute the tradition, the exhibitors, and, most importantly, the work of their skilful fingers - the contemporary quilt.

© Morna Sturrock 1998