Textiles have, for a long time, been relegated to craft fairs and rural galleries where a limited audience is given the opportunity to appreciate the value of this medium. It is therefore highly commendable that the Fremantle Arts Centre has had the vision to show work by a range of textile practitioners in the Kathleen O'Conner Gallery. Here, eight women who meet regularly have produced work that ranges from the highly precise and workman-like, to the highly creative.
The humble thread is woven, dyed, twisted, knitted in a myriad of ways. Evelyn Peterson knits the finest cobweb yarn into the most exquisite and complicated patterned shawls and scarves. Her Print O' the Wave hand spun mulberry silk stole exploits the colour nuances of the raw silk fibre while her semi-circular cobweb shawls seem too fine to wear. The bobbin lace of Honorine Fumo, on the other hand, is used as edging for simple handkerchiefs as well as beautiful christening robes. This time-consuming craft is best appreciated in the making, as machine made lace that floods the market belies the skill required for such fine work. It is fortuitous that an example of lace in-progress, with the multitude of bobbins used, is also on show.
Weaving conjures up visions of long hours at the loom monotonously passing the shuttle back and forth to produce cloth which is subsequently made into garments. The skill lies in manipulating the weave structure in combination with the choice of fibre and colour. While there are a fair number of woven wraps, shawls and scarves by Shahida Russell, Nola Bennett and Elizabeth McLoughlin, each invites the viewer to touch and indulge in the sensuousness of the fabric. The most intriguing are those exploiting adventurous colour combinations and textures. A tighter example of traditional weaving can be seen in Jean Leary's work. She has several framed pieces woven in the Krokbragd technique.
It is heartening to see the infiltration of tapestry by Sue Arvidson and Elizabeth McLoughlin. For too long tapestry connoted needlework, to the detriment of its original technique of weft-faced weaving. It is more labour-intensive than yardage weaving as colours and shapes constantly change to fit the design. McLoughlin calls This Happy Country a kelim, but to all intents and purposes, it is a brightly coloured tapestry woven in the Kelim technique. Arvidson's tiny flower tapestries mounted on jarrah backing, on the other hand, are bijoux expositions of the Gobelin technique.
Arvidson's main works in the exhibition are highly creative felt garments. The technique of felting - creating fabric by placing woollen fibre under stress of heat and pressure - has been used to make housing as well as durable garments. The coloured wool and silk that Arvidson manipulates into felt make her garments wearable paintings that take on the uneven edges which are characteristic of the craft. Her range of embroidered felt slippers bring visions of the Arabian Nights with their rich hues and embroidery.
The body is the ideal prop for handcrafted fabrics as movement enhances the characteristics of the technique more than a flat surface. This is highly evident in Trudi Pollard's fine shibori-dyed garments. At the entrance to the exhibition, two of her works hang side by side in contrast to each other. On the right is a pieced wall-hanging, Iron Age to Now, It's Still the Same Dye Method. Here the imagination is stilled by a mundane exposition of rust and tannic shibori. Next to it, on the other hand, is a simple jacket, Rustica, which allows one to appreciate all the nuances created by that same technique and materials in three dimensions. Pollard's indigo jackets have a similar effect of intrigue at the nuances of dyed cloth.
While this exhibition beautifully offsets the
ceramic works of the concurrent shows at the Arts Centre, it has the tendency
to adopt the nature of a craft bazaar with the wide range of work on show.
It is, nevertheless, a show not to be missed.