Updated November 2024.

While we were visiting Peru (October 2008) I bought this arpillera at the markets in Aguas Calientes, en route to Machu Picchu:

These delightful needlework pieces come in a range of sizes and complexity, and therefore, cost, but to a keen fabric artist like myself, this addition to my collection to walk past and admire every day was worth every peso, whatever it was. I often collect a locally crafted item on my travels, and bought a hand stitched wool table runner in Cuzco that lives on our dining table.

I have seen similar works from Cambodia and Vietnam, and just like this one, the subjects are depictions of aspects of daily life, or flora and fauna of the region.  At the time, I had no idea that arpilleras are social and political statements or expressions of concern, often embroidered by women who had been left in a financially precarious position by modern political movements.  Searching round on Wikepedia I found most information about arpilleras in Chile, but I’m assuming that as there have been many similarities in the history of Peru and Chile, these fabric art pieces have arisen for the same reasons, and under the same kind of social organisation to market them.

Every kind was available, but I thought this one was wonderful. It has not only flat stitchery but many little 3D forms which I’d call stumpwork  Up near the RH cloud in the top picture is sewn the word ‘mercado’ meaning market. Against a backdrop of the clear skies and bold clouds we experienced, a typical building from that part of the Andes, some of the plants, people dancing in indigenous dress, and the llamas you see everywhere is a crowded market scene. 3D fruit and veggies, meats, fabrics, shoes, clothes, sewing notions, flowers, baskets, jewellery, brooms, musical instruments and more, are all crowded onto the market area, just as in real life.

I love the dancing ficures. We went to a musical evening in Cuzco and enjoyed quite a number of folk dances, most of which were along set formation movements, and this is exactly what the figures are doing, accompanied by a pipe player, see upper left edge of this detail shot.

One of the most delightful experiences in this museum in Lima, the Museo Larco, was to be able to go through the museum’s storage area and see the thousands of pieces of precolumbian ceramics that were not currently on display, but just crowded together behind glass, on floor to ceiling shelves, and decorated with every imaginable pattern and texture. Being a lover of pattern and texture this was a visual feast.

UL gives a general impression, masses of embayments like this, with crowded floor to ceiling shelves, daylight coming in from above, and the freedom to wander and enjoy, with not a guard or official in sight anywhere through the museum.
UR Parrots, parrots, parrots.
LL some serious probably important figures or officials
LR showing the wonderful variety of decoration on a selection of bottles or vases – how modern does the black with beige dots look on the upper row of this group?

This was one of several places on our trip that the immensity of Human History suddenly hit me, just as it did up in Macchu Pichu, but I also experienced this take-a-deep-breath-moment standing in front of Bayeux Tapestry, enterering the V&A’s medieval tapestry room, and standing in front of the iconic death mask from Tutenkhamen’s tomb in the Cairo museum.

From the Museo Larco in Lima, a couple of snaps of some of the pieces on display in their room of erotic Inca art.

These might go just as well in some gynaecological exhibit, I’m thinking!

A visit in the past couple of weeks to some of the offsprings up in Maryland US involved going out to a farm and shoosing a few pumpkins of various sizes for carving and display on the front doorstep. In this semi-rural area I don’t understand why everyone pretty well doesn’t have pumpkin vines trailing all over their back fences – but they don’t: anyway there are lots of places you can get them, from outside your local grocery store to one of the farms between your town and the next. At this place it was big seasonal business – fascinating collections of pumpkin-looking ones and more ornamental quash, incredible variety. Just some are shown here.

Well the boys entered a frenzy of carving and really got into the spirit of a book they have of pumkin carving design ideas – with the emphasis on the less benign, no, lets say, petty nasty pumpkin visages! I joined in too, with help at some of the finer points for the younger carver, and they looked great on the front step with little lights inside….

Well of course, this has nothing to do with the culture in Uruguay, where I am sorry to say retailers are yet again revving up for this imported culturally irrelvant event. We will not be here, but will be enjoying visiting Peru for the first time ever – really looking forward to that. There’ll be a couple of Uruguayans here house sitting, staving off this year’s trick-or-treaters. I hope it’s not all too much for them, as it’s really ‘bad’ here in our part of the city and one or two neighbouring barrios. Our first year in this house I just answered the bell a number of times and siad “Sorry, no, we don’t do halloween” and had an egg thrown at the house for our trouble. It damaged the paintwork badly enough to need repainting, making that just wanton vandalism IMHO, nothing less. Since then we have gone out for the evening, leaving a box of wrapped sweets n at the gate asking people to take one and leave the rest – but I imagine most coming along have been faced with an empty box, but too bad.

This quilt, Ebb & Flow 10, was completed in 2005, and appeared in the solo exhibition I had that year at the Australian Embassy in Washington DC. It is one of a series of quilts with this title, the theme of which is how various aspects of Life change constantly, ebbing and flowing with highs and lows, as with the restless ocean tides.

Although I had been very keen on it during the making, between beginning the quilting and finishing off the binding, somehow some reservations about it developed in my mind. Ideally some of the murky green would have been a perfect binding – but there was none left – this piecing takes a lot of fabric, it can be surprising. Next possibility was a turn back facing, but I had fallen love with a hot pink with fine black pin dots on it, and put that on – I thought it looked good,at the time. But it didn’t seem to attract much interest at the solo or the another public airing here late last year.

Recently an interesting exhibition opportunity for this quilt came up, and I realised I only had gallery shots, not suitable for submitting on cd for jurying. So some new pics would need to be shot – and just before my appointment with Eduardo the photographer, I determined to change the binding on this one. Rummaging in the cupboard I found a mauve fabric, bought only in the past year but one I had still not been inspired to cut into (something occasionally happens between the shop and the workroom) It’s a difficult colour, perhaps, and I am not really sure why I bought it (for the challenge?) – but anyway it turned out to be perfect for this quilt’s new binding…. see photo below. Only a small change, but it makes a big difference. Oh, and IMHO, does not change the quilt sufficiently to re-date it or re-title it, either!