Stitched and Bound is a biennial contemporary quilt show held in Perth, Western Australia.  It has always been open to only state residents, and so, living outside WA as I have for some time, I usually can’t enter.  So this year I was delighted to be invited to write the catalogue essay.  To do that, I therefore got to preview images of all the quilts the jurors selected, which was great, since I felt sure I’d be unable to visit Perth while this show was hanging through september last.  There were some very exciting pieces, and although I was a little underwhelmed by a few, I know there can be a huge difference in impact between a hanging quilt on a wall and a digital or catalogue image; and there are always a couple of delightful surprises on opening night.  I’d have loved to see it, but anyway, now the show is down I’d like to share some of my impressions, a review in effect, which includes a few exerpts from my catalogue text, and several images posted with each artist’s permission.

All contemporary quilts and quilt-like objects have a common heritage in the traditional stitched layered textiles that provide warm bedding in many parts of the world.  Our Australian wagga has several international counterparts, among them ‘britchy quilts’ in USA, ‘mantas traperas’ (scrap covers) in Uruguay, ‘boro futon’ in Japan, and more.  Whether produced from salvaged textiles or made from all new fabrics, typically traditional quilts combine decorative elements with the utility of warmth.  Utility and decorative values assume different priorities according to source, but in many countries today traditional forms of quilt making have given rise to a thriving contemporary art form, the ‘art quilt’, whose only function is decorative. 

Into this modern fabric-based genre come additional elements from other major decorative arts: painting, drawing, printmaking, photography and urban graffiti, whose symbolic or representative imageries invite the viewer to engage with the artist’s personal observations and interpretations.  A fine example of work combining these and more specific needlework traditions (below) was Marjorie Coleman’s piece, “The Tenants” 130cm h x 51cm w, in which the surface design of free hand stitchery considers, in Marjorie’s words, “what happens over time on a limestone wall in a public walkway”:

plus detail of Marjorie Coleman’s work:

Some of these quilts feature surface designs of paint, print or dye.  Textural surfaces link them to low relief sculptures and carvings.   Hand and machine stitch link them to other ‘needle arts’ including surface embroidery, spinning, crochet, knitting, and lacemaking.  The themes and issues adopted by the individual artists also reflect what is on the minds of quilt artists elsewhere, and this ninth biennial exhibition, stitched and bound 2012, shows work typical of art quilt exhibitions generally.  Several make social comment; there is beauty and ugliness;  bemusement, philosophical contemplation, wonder and joy.   Small details are set against some large concepts including strong personal convictions on current political and social and environmental issues. An exhibition such as this one highlights a major issue facing many contemporary art quilt makers:  how to produce meaningful art in that zone of interplay between the whole heritage-of-the-quilt-as-bedcover-thing and the potential of the textile medium for significant contemporary art. 

The allowable maximum dimensions were pretty typical – 200cm w x 300cm h – yet only three works came anywhere near those measurements, and the rest were a lot smaller.  I wondered if is this a time and materials constraint?  Or are WA textile artists just not tackling large projects?   They’re not alone – its common elsewhere.

Nothing in the entry conditions required all works to hang on a wall, so I was glad to see at least one artist constructed her work to be displayed flat  – below is Marianne Penberthy’s beautiful 20-part, 3D work, ” Perhaps Renewal”,  78cm w  x 46cm h

Although art quilters come from different directions, many make a direct transition from traditional quilt making backgrounds, where technical excellence is most highly prized.  For these quilt makers, pushing against the boundaries of traditional quilt making can be both liberating and occasionally bewildering, as here there are no rules and it would seem that for ideas, materials and techniques, anything goes.  The wobbly lines and torn frayed edges on some of these quilts are not sloppy or inadequate workmanship; they result from artists’ decisions to work that way for reasons to do with their subject.   Some artists chose to include irregular shapes and raw unfinished edges in their work, the most successful of which included Cherry Johnston’s “Open Circle” 95cm h x 100cm w:

showing front in full,  and on the right showing part of the back including the edge. 

Another piece with rough textures and edges, carefully planned and controlled, was Louise Well’s “It’s not just what you see…”  77cm h x 63cm w:

I loved this piece and would like to see it sometime.  The title, which turned out to be entirely apt, intrugued me, as this is a design of bright colours glimpsed through surface slashes on a duller fabric.  I didn’t need the artist’s statement which elaborated- “The hidden stories you hear by being in the right place and time, asking the right questions … amazing, wonderful and sometimes sad.  This work is about 99 of those stories which have given me much admiration for the story tellers.”  Art quilt exhibitions generally ask for an artist statement, but I often wish they wouldn’t; as a few well chosen words in a title can be the most eloquent ‘statement’ of all, and further, and poorly worded or windy artist statements are more distracting than valuable. IMHO.

The next point I am going to make is on an issue dear to my heart.   When the first of these biennials was organised back in 1995, it was felt that if those WA quilters who were experimenting with non-traditional quilts as art works were to be encouraged to enter such a show, they needed to know the whole show was not going to be swamped by competition from the decidedly strong works being made by many artists in that medium from other states, some of whom were internationally prominent at the time.  Things have changed – and with much strong work being done within Western Australia, I think textile artists no longer need this form of ‘protection’ from artists around the rest of the country.  All West Australian artists work in some degree of isolation even if they live in their capital city, and anywhere else in the state they are certainly a large physical distance from other major population centres in the country.  For people wishing to travel to see textile exhibitions, travel is expensive over large distances, although now the internet and paper catalogues help counter that to some extent. On the very rare occasions touring exhibitions do appear in Western Australia, they always bring new influences and spread new enthusiasm.  But they are expensive to tour, and logistically demanding.   I have always thought it rather a shame that the exhibition is only open to WA residents – for, by making it open to others around Australia, WA textile art lovers and contemporary quiltmakers could expect to see first hand some work from makers around the nation included in this now well established biennial.  Greater competition from outside WA would only serve to encourage new levels of experimentation and innovation, by all practitioners of quilted textile art.  The WAQA membership may comprise mostly traditional quiltmakers, but there is a strong segment of people learning and experimenting beyond the traditional, and within mainstream quilters there is quite a large segment of makers who, although they do not work these ways themselves, nevertheless have interest in what is happening in the contemporary field.

In an earlier post, it was clear the black chitz won over over the gold/cream.  Gold/cream looked’OK’, but I didn’t persevere with much of the gold stitchery on that, as this black and gold was already so much more exciting:

I have since done three more pieces like this with sand ripple patterns forming the designs, all very different.  The 4 pieces will form a group, and as usual at this stage, I am tossing up a title for them, and currently considering ‘Golden Sands’, ‘Sandlines’, and of course there are already groups of ‘Tidelines’ and ‘Beachlines’

I just knew this black chintz was a good buy – there’s still about 13.5 m left …..

November 17th

Several weeks have passed, and although it has taken me a while to think what and how much quilting to do, it came to me a few days ago:

I know such intense free machine quilting, stippling, is a bit of a cliche these days – but it really is necessary.  The last time I did this stuff was Hannan’s Reward, 1993,

and one or two others around that time.  ‘Hannan’s Reward’ has more distinct circles, and the thread was metallic, but earthy, grainy textures were required in each case.

So the above black/gold sample is the same quilt as pictured at the top of this post, at the stage of free machine stitch over the freshly painted fabric (oh well of course, it had dried …)  The other three are now all sprayed, free-machine stitched and layered for quilting, and I’ve been chewing through the black thread like mad.  Although it has taken me a long time to get this right,  I  now feel confident it meets the vision I had when I put my proposal in months and months ago.

But, while doing the quilting over the past couple of days on this one, another problem arose to be solved:

I used unbleached muslin/calico for the backs as I normally do.  But with this intense black machine quilting (and no other bobbin colour would have worked well) the resulting finish looks pretty gross. These 4 pieces really will require additional backs to cover that.  However, it’s an ill wind that blows no good, for I now have the opportunity to trapunto (stuff) the unquilted areas, corresponding to the gold shapes on the front representing the tops of the sand ripples.  A little more body in those parts will help prevent them becoming crushed and wrinkled in transit and storage before the exhibition.

I have not yet decided whether to finish each 40cm x 60cm piece with a fine black binding or with turned back facings.

I am now turning my attention back to the pieces I have committed to for the “Golden Textures” exhibition in Maryborough, Victoria, Australia, next february.  My proposal for this included sketches (actually manipulated computer images) of sand ripples, and a collage of some of the works I’d done using leather and stitch/quilting:

I thought I’d apply gold leather to some very dark fabric for drama, and do lots of machine stitch before quilting.  So I began – and below is one of the 4 pieces with leather applied according to one of the sand ripple patterns I’d photographed, including the relevant sketch in the lower right corner:

But at this stage, I took them down for  a few weeks to focus on something more urgent, and when I put them up again last week, I’d lost the head of steam I had- but something told me this was not the best approach after all, and that I should reconsider the leather, also that I should reconsider the background, too.  Previous sample making had caused me to dismiss gold lame (as too brassy) and metallic gold wax, sheer gold organza and gold tulle/mesh all of which were not bold enough on dark fabric.

I then thought of some nice cream canvas I have, and although I’d decided to not even try to get the ‘beach sand colours’,  I now thought perhaps I should try that with gold wax stencilled, then embellished with metallic machine stitch in thread close to the same colour, really, although it doesn’t seem so here.   I realise I’m mentally tossing up between ‘drama’ and organic shapes that really suggest ‘beach’.  And I quite like this effect:

My next move will shock some – because I then cut out every one of the applied leather shapes.  They had been bonded on and for good measure had some securing stitches  from the back of the dark fabric – there was no ‘removing’ them!   This piece of fabric with holes in it then became the stencil for gold wax rubbed onto the cream, and that’s OK – but is missing something I think:

Now I have some gold spray paint and using the same holey cut-outs I will see what gold sprayed on to both cream and black looks like:

On the top row are the overall and a closeup of the gold on cream – love it!  and the lower right the stencil  still over the cream – in process.  The lower left is actually on black – yes, that black chintz again!!! and I love it, too.  Tomorrow, when they have dried I’ll see how my gold thread stash lines up with the colour, and determine which way from here.  Definitely one thing I can do now is cut out the leather bits on the other two dark grey bits of fabric, and then the sun will be over the yard arm somewhere.

I have been a bit occupied the past few weeks with an online introductory course to Photoshop Elements 10.  There’s nothing like some course structure with a few deadlines – it helped me to work through the odd bits and pieces I already knew how to do and place them into an organised framework.  The Pixeladies’ course was terrific, and lots of the exercises we did using their little mannequin dolls, clothes and accessories etc.  But for the final exercise assignment I chose to work with several of my own photos – including a couple of the beach offerings my regular readers know are a focus of my attention:

I’m proud of all my efforts of course  🙂  but this next one, where I learned how to paste in into a selection, features one of the dolls with my choice of clothes and hair  and the background lifted from one of my own early mixed media works. The overalls were filled with pattern from Ivan and Tara’s wedding quilt – both of which can be seen in full in galleries elsewhere on this site.

And, obviously, I have learned a little about watermaking images too.