Paying it forward – the kindness of strangers

Years ago when I was travelling overseas I got myself into trouble and had to rely on the kindness of a stranger – a friend of my father’s, who didn’t know me but took me into his home because of the strength of his friendship with my dad. When I went back to the same place, it was in his home that I stayed again. I’ll never forget, that when I was down, showing me what he was growing in his garden gave me such a lift. Perhaps he reminded me of my own dad who has such green thumbs and has always enjoyed giving life to plants in a garden. I was always welcomed like a daughter by my father's friend, and to this day I remember his whole family with fondness, though I never write or even call. Occasionally I may catch up with him or his wife when I happen to be at my father’s house and they call. I bring this up because I’ve been thinking about how I am now paying his kindness forward. Granted, in hosting Workawayers we are exchanging their labour for accommodation and meals. But not all working and living conditions or hosts are the same. We tend to show a spirit of generosity and hospitality towards these young travellers.

We had the privilege of welcoming and hosting a young couple from Montreal on a Workaway stint a couple of weeks ago – coinciding with the Easter weekend. At first I was hesitant when Philip read their email to me. We’d had such a great time with our older Workaway guest that I didn’t think younger travellers could measure up. I'm happy to say I was wrong. I feel travelling particularly when you’re young is character forming. You certainly find out who you are when not among your own kin.

Myriam and Olivier had been in New Zealand when they contacted us, hoping to spend some time in the Dandenongs. Philip was impressed because they’d actually taken the time to read our profile and directed their enquiry to specifics. We get so many general enquiries that have been sent to so many other hosts. We agreed to the stay – the timing was right as we had no paying guests booked in the BnB. They were to catch the Skybus from the airport and Philip would meet them at Southern Cross station. They arrived late one night and we made our introductions over a cuppa and a glass of milk.

Both employed on the bloody big hole

A cleaning task

Olivier proved a steady worker

Making sucre de la creme - a more crumbly fudge, which is a Quebecois specialty

Slowly, as we got to know them, we learned that their Workaway place in New Zealand hadn’t quite gone according to plan. There were working with a dozen others at a self-sufficient ‘rustic’ farm – self-sufficient they told us meant that there was no electricity, and the little internet data bought by the family was not shared with Workawayers. Disappointed, they had left their accommodation, and slept in a van with another friend. I was appalled that a young woman had slept in a van. Putting myself in Myriam’s shoes, I would not have liked the experience at all. Cold and cramped in a van, with no toilet. A long time ago, I did happen to spend one night sleeping (or trying to) in a World War II bunker on an uninhabited island, where there were no amenities; where in the morning sucking on a Fisherman’s Friend (a throat lozenge) sufficed for brushing my teeth. But that was one night cramped with a group of many strangers in a bunker…

I asked Myriam whether travelling together had put a strain on their relationship. On the contrary she replied, it had strengthened it because they were spending so much time together – something they didn’t experience back home. While Myriam had completed her course of study, Olivier had decided to change his field. They were going to be enjoying one long summer, for by the time they returned home for either study or work, the Northern hemisphere would be in Summer.

Enjoying some of that crumbly fudge - of course with a glass of milk

A surrogate family

As Myriam and Olivier settled in, they fell in with the rhythm of our ordinary days. They would usually help themselves to breakfast, while I prepared lunches and dinners. (I love feeding people but sometimes it takes up too much of my day.) They cleaned and tidied after themselves, contributing to household chores such as loading and unloading the dishwasher, even without being asked. I felt rather spoiled…In between their chores for Philip, they had time to visit the sights of the neighbourhood, and one evening we took them to see a French film (as the French Film Festival was in town) and treated them to dinner afterwards at a family restaurant. To our surprise they expressed enjoyment in spending time ‘en famille’. Philip also made time to take them to see the native animals at Healesville Sanctuary (every foreigner wants to see a kangaroo); and as well, Olivier accompanied him to watch his local football team play at AAMI stadium, while Myriam and I were happy to hang together, not-together, at home.

I’ve taken the attitude (and I know Philip shares it) that had they been my kids overseas I’d want them safe and happy, enjoying themselves among strangers. We’re not strange to each other now. But it is the differences, the ‘strange’ that help us to bond in the beginning, as we talk about how you live compared to what you are experiencing now. Or even as you try and master the nuances of language in translation. These bright young adults are bi-lingual in French and English, and so down to earth. It may sound trite but they are such good upstanding young adults. Any parent would be proud. I feel so full of optimism and enthusiasm having had the pleasure of their company for those few days.

Myriam and Olivier have moved on and at the moment we’re hosting two young men who were born in Germany and live in a little village outside Frankfurt. Sharif’s ancestors are from Palestine, while Tariq’s originate from Turkey. They have been close friends since the fifth grade and tell me there’s another friend whose parents are from Afghanistan, who will join them later during the year on their big adventure around Australia.

Doesn’t the world contract to hear about these three friends? You don’t need Facebook – migration brings different communities together and they are held by a language and customs foreign to their ancestors. The boys consider themselves as in-between cultures (neither German nor Middle Eastern). Much like me - I'm also in the liminal. Over meals we become better acquainted. I had an interesting first hand account of Ramadan over lunch one day. It makes you think deeply about the person growing his spirituality, rather than being confronted by a foreign incomprehensible religion.

Sharif and Tariq will travel north, working when they can, and by next New Year’s eve plan to be in Sydney – because after all that is where it all happens New Year’s Eve. They have only been in Melbourne for a few days – are at the very beginning of their journey, which they are documenting on video, so family members can enjoy vicariously, but also as a kind of memoir to look back on when they’re older.

The boys ended up spending 9 days and 10 nights with us and probably worked for about three full days and a couple of half days. On their 'off' days they were left to their own distractions. Tariq tells me that he applied to come to Ferny Creek because of the lush verdure of our garden, and for someone who lives in a flat it's been a welcome change. The work has been tough on both. They had never used garden tools, or dug a hole. They have also marveled at Philip's ingenuity. According to Sharif he has a solution for all the problems that come along, whereas kids of his generation rely on Google.(Older people too rely on Google these days, I piped in.) I'm uncertain what they will take away, destined as they are for white collar work. They may decide on account of their stay with us that garden work, particularly digging holes, is not something they want to make a habit - even while on holiday. 

The hole keeps getting bigger

Sharif and Tariq enjoying some of the familiar tastes of home, such as hummus and a favourite, olive oil

Sharif recording on his Go-Pro

Ingenuity to get the digger on a higher ground - and congratulating themselves that the two planks worked

Papa bear on his lonesome contemplating the work ahead without his Workawayers

On the Brink, the Tensity of Change Exhibition Label

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

My piece for the exhibition derives from a conversation among several local women & one bloke, regarding living in the Dandenongs, and the changes experienced sometimes over a thirty year period.  I lived in Kalorama myself over twenty years ago but then left to re-establish myself overseas.  I realized that I spent my whole time here (almost 7 years) living in fear.  I found the forest dark and foreboding but really there was no rational explanation for my fear. You can’t live with ‘tensity’ in an environment because you don’t feel at home. Eventually for peace of mind, you need to move away. To live in the Dandenongs you need to mitigate your love for the environment with fears against trees falling on your house and you, the place being razed by fire, the wind roaring like a steam engine buffeting and causing falling debris to bash your house.  And if you chop down or ring bark the trees, you’ll have land slippage with which to deal and find that may cause an entire tree to fall on your house.  I saw it happen up the road and the tree fell uphill. People have been living with these concerns since the time the Dandenongs was settled.  I also needed to fit the theme within the overall objectives of my work, and I’ve wanted to do a wearable piece based on Fred Williams’ paintings for some time now.  Williams lived in Upwey during 1968 when the Dandenongs were ablaze.  The Dandenongs show a pattern of going up in flames every ten years or so.  Fortuitously, Williams’ experience has also informed the conversation.

Allusion to a Fred Williams' painting of Upwey ablaze (fibres soft)

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.

Donated materials which included a tea cosy and natting

Pre-felt was made with the donated materials

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. 

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.

Postscript. Only 100 words are permitted for the exhibition label at Burrinja to provide a context for viewing.  Some of the artists find it too much, whereas I find it difficult to say in under 100 words what my piece is about - because there are so many layers. Feel free to inform me what you think this garment is about.  Special thanks to Lyn Forrest who donated the tea cosy, that became the seed pods, and who also suggested the title 'turncoat'.