Turncoat: Conversation Piece: Nature’s gift of regeneration, 2015, wedded sari silk
Materials, merino and silk fibres, silk rods, mulberry bark,
wool yarn, recycled silk saris, and other donated recycled miscellany, donated polyurethane
cast fox bones, silk and rayon embroidery threads
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| Allusion to a Fred Williams' painting of Upwey ablaze (fibres soft) |
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| Fibres felted, with fox bones cast in polyurethane by Elaine Pullum |
As a way into the conversation I asked invitees to bring
along a piece of fabric or garment with associations to change and also
something or remnant of, they’d be willing to part with to be incorporated into
the felt. Because most of the
participants were women I was shown and given items such as a tea cosy,
doilies, fabric used in women’s rituals, and to make baby slings. I felt that they were very feminine items and
most ordinary – the very special ones brought to show and tell by Sue were too
special to part with. To be given things
associated with women’s work, handiwork, with how women pass the time (or did
so in the past) or collected for their hope chests were both technically and conceptually challenging. However, working with these as my raw materials I
not only came to a renewed appreciation of the handiwork, but it also illuminated
the reasons that I’m drawn to fibre and wearables. For the very reasons that it is in general
woman’s domain, women’s work (well unless you consider that some men are also
fashion divas and my father made clothes), because my hand or touch, even my
body, is intrinsically part of its making. Not to be overlooked is that these sorts of textiles, including my own work, are generally located outside the mainstream.
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| Donated materials which included a tea cosy and natting |
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| Pre-felt was made with the donated materials |
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| Seedlings cut from pre-felt |
Observations, experiences, memories that came out of the
conversation are written in the work. I do like to incorporate stories and words
into my textiles and find this quite a challenge to do with felt, as it’s so
resistant to most ink and paint. So I’ve
taught myself to write with my sewing machine and with each piece my skill
increases, though it remains imperfect – as imperfect as my handwriting. Since
I have difficulty marking the felt fabric, I usually write freestyle using the
machine needle. In my laziness (and to
experiment with effect), I have also had words printed onto fabric that I have
felted in. But the ruching that occurs
in the felting tends to ruin the ‘neatness’ of the text. It in fact distorts the text, which I don’t
mind, as even memory can distort how something was actually experienced. In
this instance too, because the fabric upon which the text was printed is
polyester, it’s tended not to ruche as usual, though felted in. Stitching as Rozsita Parker shows us in her
brilliant anthropological study The
Subversive Stitch, has since the 17th century, often been used by women in
their samplers to subvert, express dissent, and their individuality. Stitching/embroidery are feminine but also
feminist. Like those earlier samplers
you may need your magnifying glass to read and decipher some of the words I’ve written
on the Turncoat.
It’s interesting to notice what draws you to a particular
medium. What makes me work with textiles and in particular fibre? What makes me
single out wearables? I suppose here the
answer is that it feels so good (there’s a feeling of well-being) to wrap yourself
in a felted garment and it’s also more intimate. How unique to also be able to wear your story
and memoir, like second skin. I could
just have easily done a piece to stretch over canvas and viewed as a picture
but you’d be less likely to want to touch it and it would confine it to the
gallery wall, or any other sort of wall.
Felt usually begs to want to be touched, tried on and that’s part of its
aesthetic.
Conceptually, because of the narratives shared during the
conversation my piece subverts the theme of the exhibition. It is not about tension, tensity, or of
living on the brink. But about accepting
the gift that can come about through change. It is about women building
community, how community was built around a conversation about change – but it
could have been any topic. The garment has three sections – innocence (hood); experience
(the arms or shawl); revaluation (back). Innocence, encapsulates the reasons
for moving to the Dandenongs, my favourite being ‘I swapped the system’s slave
for art’, or ‘I moved for the trees and forest’, 'to find community'… Experience
is about discovering your beautiful sanctuary can also be menacing; and
revaluation/regeneration, considers that there are positives to extract from
the ashes. For me living in the Dandenongs the second time around, it is about feeling at home, releasing the tension.
The sole man who attended the conversation (I did invite a
couple) had been raised by his mother and was comfortable among women. He added a different dimension, not only in
the X-Rays shared digitally, which I had printed onto fabric but as well, in
the moral of his story regarding change (X-Rays of his broken hip.). He spoke about the gift of a broken hip,
not derived from motorbikes or his other daredevilry activities, but
ironically, through falling off a stool - a gift that began a journey of
spiritual awakening. Having survived bush fire, Fred Williams was taken by the
regeneration after the fire. In his
paintings he showed the visible scars but also new life rising from the
ashes.
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What about those bones you may ask? – I’m fascinated with bones excavated on TV shows like Time Team and History Cold Case and the
harking back regardless of the centuries of change and because of change in
technology we can have such brilliant insight into the past. There are there in Williams' evocation of a devastated landscape. The dead and bare anatomy of trees that at most times regenerate with dazzling and eerily colourful foliage. The dead have a way of coming back to life to touch us, to inform us.
Bones tell of our mortality and they are a
great leveler. Also these could be the
bones of contention. I’m not denying
climate change, but I/we who participated in the conversation also point out
earth’s resilience. We may kill
ourselves off, or we may through our intelligence, and coming together for
conversation discover ways to save ourselves.
The planet will recover – in different form and perhaps with different
life forms.
