5 CONTEMPORARY QUILTMAKERS

A REVIEW BY ANY OTHER NAME

© Sarah E Tucker 2000

Ozquilt Network Newsletter Issue #37 SEPTEMBER 2000

22 July - 13 August 2000, Fairfield Museum and Gallery, Smithfield NSW

Quiltmakers: Marjorie Coleman, Pamela Fitzsimons, Judy Hooworth, Judy McDermott, Clare Plug.

This exhibition of contemporary quilts is one of a series of textile/fibre shows that form the major focus of the current program for this gallery. The force behind this planning comes from the new gallery director, Susan Hutchinson. Pamela Fitzsimons had been asked to curate this exhibition as a result of her involvement with 'The New Quilt' show at Manly. Fitzsimons selected four other quiltmakers whose work she admired, with the only restriction being that each quiltmaker's work should be internally related. All five quiltmakers are established exhibitors and teachers in their medium.

These are quilts for the wall rather than for domestic utilitarian use - a move from the horizontal to the vertical, from the privacy of the home to the public viewing of the gallery. Each quiltmaker displayed five quilts, although two of Hooworth's were diptychs. The colours ranged from earthy monotones to the intense and varied colours of McDermott and Hooworth. As such the exhibition did not 'gel' in a visual sense, yet, why should it? These are 'innovative' rather than 'traditional' quilts in their conception. As such, they are intended to be different, to be individual and to take risks as they shift and move at the boundaries of the medium and challenge presumed notions of what makes a quilt a 'quilt'.

The intensely stitched surfaces of Pamela Fitzsimons' quilts bring to mind the 'Ledra' or sacred life quilts of North India. Patterns appear and disappear as you examine the surface - their seemingly objective titles ('Edge of Ridge', 'Creek Bed Tessellation', 'Permian Fossils', 'Fault Line Cascade #1', 'Imposing of Grid') - speak of the earth and the passing of time, imperceptible change when measured against a human lifetime. Fitzsimons treats cloth, usually silk, herself with naturally occurring dyes. The resulting colours are soft and muted. From afar these quilts are deceptively simple yet on closer examination, the emotional intensity of the hand stitching speaks of a more complex and layered history.

Clare Plug is from New Zealand. A collector of Pacific Islander artefacts, this interest is reflected in her quilts, as is her science background. The quilts have the appearance of woven mats as their names suggest ('Pacific Weave', 'Beach Mat'). This is created by machine quilting of the surface and the use of oil stick on cotton that results in an iridescent sheen characteristic of reeds used in weaving. Plug's quilts also reflect the beach ('Scallops', 'Flora Pacifica' #6 and #7). As such these pieces do not apparently reference their heritage to quilts, but rather the environment in which the quiltmaker lives and, her interests.

Marjorie Coleman is a quiltmaker who now lives in Queensland. All five of Coleman's quilts come from her 'Tree of Life' series. 'Tree of Life Biography' is made up of six panels, one for each decade of her life (Coleman is in her seventies). These she identifies as 'Youth - Breakout - Beauty - Crisis - Discovery - Balance'. Characteristics of each are fixed in time, transformation without transition. The other four quilts are smaller than the first and feature single trees, each as reflection of a different personality. As Coleman herself points out, some (#4 in the series) of these characteristics are not necessarily likeable.

Four of McDermott's quilts come from her time spent as 'artist-in-residence' at Hill End NSW in the winter of 1999. During this time she explored the use of natural dyes and the techniques of previous artists who had spent time at Hill End, thus her reference is not only to 'quilt' but also the working processes of other artists who had occupied that same space before her. 'Rose Fence' is a print of a rose intersected by vertical orange bars - apparently simple in construction but effective in result, this small quilt evokes memories of a briar rose glimpsed through an old picket fence. A second, 'Red Fence', is a work which illustrates McDermott's rejection of a quilt's requirement to lie flat and straight - this piece bows and bends out from the wall, and is almost sculptural in form; the unevenness of the stitching both hand and machine causes the fabric to bunch and curve. The fifth of McDermott's quilts, 'Fruit Blocks (Mildura)' was made prior to Hill End and refers to blocks of land given to returning World War 2 servicemen around Mildura, Victoria. The silk remnants, which form the 'blocks', include labels making them readily identifiable as old and discarded neckties. Heavily stitched, threads left hanging, unfinished. The brightly coloured silks contrast with the outer border - as the irrigated fruit-growing land contrasts with the desert surrounding it. I find McDermott's pieces are even more complex and multi-layered in meaning than they are in material construction.

Judy Hooworth's quilts in this exhibition include two diptychs, 'Mothers and Daughters #1' and 'Souvenir' and the single quilt 'Songs of the Women'. Hooworth uses torn strips of cloth that she then stitches to a backing. A supreme colourist, the strips vary across the spectrum to create intense plays of colour. One of the diptychs shown in this exhibition is formed from two quilts from the 'Mothers and Daughters' series and the swirling colours evoke symbolic and mythic expression of gender, as do the many colours and patterns of 'Songs of the Women'. 'Souvenir', also a diptych is Hooworth's memoir of an outback journey made with her sister; inter-connections of another kind.

All in all I found this a varied and thought provoking exhibition. The quiltmakers spoke with distinct and different voices. It is wonderful to see quilts displayed within the context of an art gallery and I intend to make the trip to Smithfield to view other exhibitions in the series.

© Sarah E Tucker 2000