I am fascinated by textiles as a whole. I take great pleasure in weave, patterns and the use of colour. It is a privilege to be involved in one of the original expressions of art in human civilization. I seek to create contemporary pieces using those very traditional concepts and images. I have participated in [...]
Posts under ‘textiles’
Sara Thorn – handmade in Indian cities
Individual designers have been travelling to traditional craft communities for decades in order to develop product using the skills they so admire. But as more rural villagers move to the city, there is a fear that these skills will vanish. However, there are signs that they are re-appearing in urban workshops and factories. Sara [...]
Embroidering survival in Palestinian refugee camps
Though you might lose the world around you, you still have your hands. The Palestinian refugees have been living in refugee camps for almost sixty years. Women maintain their culture partly through embroidery. Luckily, there’s an organisation that can assist in helping their work find a market. For a modest price, you can obtain not [...]
Rwandan grass meets German silver
The range of jewellery made by Martina Dempf in collaboration with basket weavers from Rwanda shows an intriguing combination of cultures. The vibrant designs and fine weaving of African grass is housed within elegantly crafted European silver. How did this collaboration come about? Martina Dempf is a jeweller based in Berlin. She studied jewellery at [...]
Fulidai-dai – another way of thinking about craft
Deb Salvagno works for the East Timor Women’s Association, which runs tours of the Lautem district in East Timor, where traditional weaving flourishes. They also are involved in broader community development including health and education. Here she answers questions about the nature of this exchange between those inside and outside East Timor. It’s particularly interesting [...]
The Baci ceremony, with strings attached
I was at the Selling Yarns market in the National Museum, chatting with Valerie Kirk, head of textiles at the Canberra School of Art. I noticed she had some string tied around her wrist. At first I thought it was some practical material related to a workshop she was assisting on the day. But when [...]
From a hard to a soft place – national identity in metal and fibre
It’s always enlivening when Damian Skinner comes to town. We gave at talk together at RMIT in the unusual setting of Hoyts Cinema 7 in Melbourne Central. It was disconcerting to see the students and jewellers lying back in their comfy seats as though waiting for a blockbuster. Damian began with his reading of the [...]
Let the beads do the talking
Hlengiwe Dube is not only one of South Africa’s most accomplished bead artists, she is also responsible for much of the vibrant craft that emerges from KwaZulu-Natal, thanks to her work with the African Craft Centre. Finally, she has been able to distil her considerable knowledge of beadwork with this new publication. Zulu Beadwork: Talk [...]
Creative destruction in West Timor
Ruth Hadlow gave a very interesting talk about West Timorese textiles at the Victorian Tapestry Workshop last Wednesday night. The images of textiles that she presented were absolutely stunning, with extraordinary melodies of colour, intricate handiwork and animated designs. Ruth talked about how integral textiles were to life in West Timor. She mentioned that it [...]
When there’s no one left to make things
For many years, I’d been intrigued by the factory located on my route to Brunswick Station. The claim to be ‘Actual Makers of Craftsman Tailored Shirts in the European Tradition’ seemed almost medieval in a contemporary retail culture of brands. So I was quite sad to discover that it was closing down. Why? Today I [...]
