I am not going to go into the complicated detail of this claim though – it’s long and complicated; I just want to post the link to this post on FB, which for some reason tonight doesn’t seem to want to allow me to post all three to illustrate the point I’m making in an exchange there 🙂
Distant Shores 1987
The illustrated catalogue I have just done of my works showed up a couple of gaps in my documenting, as although I thought I’d finished it, I just came across a photo of this piece, which I finished in 2011 just as a dear friend was leaving the country for South Africa and wanted to buy it. So though it is in the Ebb&Flow series, and I didn’t remember to list it at the time, I have done so now.
At that time I was including burned synthetic fabric ‘lace’ in many of my works, and this one features plain black against black nylon organza, then the glittery layer lies behind five segments of pieced fabric – from memory each of these was quilted, but I’m sure Bradley will let me know some time. I really like how the lines in these five sections flow, and this piece is on my mind today.
Compiling the illustrated catalogue of my art quilts over the past 30 years is interesting, and I’m now about 3/4 through and enjoying this challenging project. There have been one or two surprises, and this little wall quilt is one of them. When I came across the details “Forest Floor, 2000, 55cm x 46cm” in my list of quilts, it took a bit of scrolling through a folder of earlier quilts to match these details with an image which had no caption – of a small wall quilt which I simply did not remember making until I recognised some of the fabrics, the style I’d often used and the undeniable evidence of this photo I took at the opening of my solo exhibition at The Embassy of Australia in Washington D.C., June 2005. I guess I must have finished it shortly before packing to go up to USA without leaving enough time to take it into my photographer Eduardo Baldizan’s studio, because I have good photos of everything else in that show. My record says this is Miriam, standing with presumably her young daughter beside the quilt, and that she bought it that night. My embarrassment is that I don’t remember Miriam’s family name! If anyone recognises her, I’d appreciate your letting me know who she is.
From a file of old photos not very often visited, here’s a photo of a work I haven’t seen or thought of in some years. I’m in the middle of a project that is bring a few gems to the surface, and I’ll show another soon including one from the ‘OMG What Was I Thinking? group. This one I always loved – typical of the Ancient Expressions series, exploring landscape’s relationship to the peoples who lived in/on it and some of the marks they left behind.
Ancient Expressions XIII 1992 Approx 125cm x 90cm
Since I began making quilts in 1987, I have always had each photographed with the best technology at the time; I’ve always kept a list of title, date completed, dimensions; kept an index file card for each listing exhibitions it was seen in, where it sold or two whom it sold. I kept my slides in albums of slide sheets, and kept catalogues or other paper stuff in a filing cabinet. Time’s moved on and all this is now woefully old tech – and in my case, disorganised, but it’s complicated, and partly because I never expected how long I’d living in this country, so never brought over stuff I would have if we’d actually moved house. Plus I haven’t spent any quality time with my records in Perth for some years. I’m wondering whether it matters, really, but just in case someone wants to curate a grand retrospective 🙂 I’m compiling a new document that combines basic info plus image(s) of each work. I’d really forgotten about several of them – a couple I am sure I have physically lost, some older works are here and others never made the journey, but I can’t be 100% sure they’re still rolled up in dust covers on top of the bookshelf in Perth.
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In response to yet another question on working in a series, on which I have written before, I wrote a few comments on the Quiltart list this week, including: “I think it is important to write about each work. I don’t mean how you made it – those technical details aren’t the important part of a series. I mean writing your thoughts, ideas, inspirations, concerns, fears maybe – anything about your work, put onto paper, or into a digital visual or artist’s diary of some kind. This writing, in whatever form, is not for publication but for yourself; the act of thinking about why you are doing what you are doing is part of the series process. And when a meaningful artist statement is required, you have already done the groundwork! I’ve occasionally had what I felt at the time were one-offs, and yet with some, hindsight, there are really only two that don’t fit in one of my series. But, even as I wrote that sentence, it occurred to me that those two almost forgotten works, made almost 20 years apart, have something strong in common… perhaps I need to think about that and write something about what links these two very different looking works…”
I can’t find anything I’ve written about this old quilt, although if you have a Visions 1992 catalogue handy you’ll find something in that – that artist statement would refer to the role of chance, in how our lives weave through highs and lows, as nothing stays the same for ever – we exercise skill navigating the swings and roundabouts, but there’s always temptation, the quirky hand of fate, the wheel of fortune, and so on – all these things are alluded to in the images on the quilt, which itself is a patchwork background of brights and darks signifying highs and lows. In many ways this contains the germ of the much later and still current ‘Ebb and Flow’ series.
This morning I went back through my blog posts (aka something like ‘artists diary’) and read here what I’d forgotten about this second quilt I called Arbol de la Vida. It was a exhibited in some exhibition I was invited to take part in – I just don’t remember – and I didn’t write much about it at the time, perhaps I didn’t think it was important enough, I’m not sure. But I can tell you that in the preceding few months or weeks I had seen a fabulous exhibition of the ceramics of very important Uruguayan artist Jose Gurvich some of whose works can be seen today in a dedicated museum in the old city on Plaza Matriz. I love his work which is literally everywhere here. Note the Life theme, and the pictographic symbols on the leaves – I was definitely on that same hand of fate/role of chance track 18 years later.
This morning I watched an interesting profile of Egyptian jewellery designer Azza Fahmy whose beautiful dramatic modern jewellery references her nationality and cultural history – she commented that while designing her Pharaonic collection over 10 years she was constantly combing through museums and archeological sites all around Egypt re-familiarising herself with all elements of ancient Egyptian decorative design that she was using as inspiration. It can take much time and thought to build a series!
English