ABOUT ALISON

Currently living in Uruguay because of her husband’s work, Alison was born in Australia in 1946. She has lived in many parts of Australia’s Outback and several cities, and spent 6 years in United States of America. Contact in 1988 with makers of traditional quilts in the USA prompted her to commence using fabric and stitch in original, non-traditional quilted textiles. Since 1990 her work has been shown in many countries through curated and solo exhibitions, and is held in several private and public collections.

In addition to exhibiting, she writes magazine articles on contemporary quilting, lectures and teaches workshops, and undertakes commissioned works.

INSPIRATIONS AND INFLUENCES

Alison’s current textile works are non-traditional forms of the traditional English and north American crafts of patchwork and quilting, neither of them well known in Uruguay.

Living in the USA in the late 1980’s Alison came into contact with quilt making and learned the traditional piecing and construction skills. Known as ‘quilts’, in many of parts of the world such quilted textiles traditionally function as bed coverings. From her contact with this traditional craft form comes the presence of grids and repeated design units in most of Alison’s quilts, which are intended for hanging on walls as do the more familiar woven ‘tapices.

Textures and shapes of landscape have always inspired her work, but she is now more interested in the shaping forces of nature operating on landscape, the process and results appearing as a metaphor for Life.

Recently, leather has become important as a symbolic link between Alison’s Australian background and her current life in Uruguay. Most leather she uses is scrap, an element that sits comfortably with the frugal and thrifty origins of the crafts of patchwork and quilt making.

EXHIBITION INFORMATION