RADICALCROSSSTITCH

Handcrafting a new society

One of the biggest highlights of my trip was a super inspiring but way too short trip to Hamilton.

As soon as we arrived, I arranged to meet up with Dr Joyce Stalker whom people might remember from her talk in Melbourne last year. We met Joyce at the school of education where some of her work is on display in the foyer (text from the show).

Nice Women II
70 used tea filters, 70 beading clusters, brown cotton thread
60x95cm
2008

Each year, the [NZ] Police receive 70,000 call outs for domestic violence, an average of one every 7 1/2 minutes. It is estimated that five times as many people acknowledge family violence as call out the police. Meanwhile, nice women sip their tea.

Money Down The Drain
My Mother’s (green) quilt remnants gifted to me on her death, PVC drain pipe, glue, bucket.
50x200cm
2008

Once the quintessential example of recycling acumen, today quilting is a highly commercialised activity. Most quilters, already committed to a search for perfection, now search for the perfect palette, pattern and shading among fabrics manufactured specifically for quilts. We have every right to spend money on or hobbies, but when second hand clothing stores overflow with 100% cotton items, when drains in developing nations run with the colour of toxic textile dyes, I can’t help but wonder if we have too easily let our world of fabric craft be taken over by commercial interests.

My Heritage is Bigger than “I Am”
heritage quilt made by my Grandmother, canvas, embroidery thread
122x175cm
2008

Seventeen years after emigrating to New Zealand Aotearoa, I feel more sharply than ever the loss of my Canadian heritage. I have read that McCahon is this country’s greatest artist and been told that all artists here reference him. I remain stubbornly unmoved by his dark and complex works and deeply stirred by the fabric of my family’s lives.

Night Sounds on Pitcairn Island
used zippers, embroidery thread
80x240cm
2008

Like quilts, zippers can carry many messages. They can be sensual and suggestive, but stories from Pitcairn Island remind us that they can carry darker messages. Romanticized as the windswept refuge of The Bounty’s mutineers, Pitcairn’s history is now tied to the reality of generations of islanders who tolerated the systemic abuse and rape of the island’s young girls.

BACKGROUND

These fabric works originally were part of Threadbare: An exhibition of unruly quilts held at Artspost, Hamilton, 29 August to 22 September, 2008.

Threadbare was a collaborative project between D Wood (a studio furniture artist lecturing at the School of Media Design, Wintec) and Joyce Stalker (an associate Professor lecturing in adult education at the School of Education, Univerty of Waikato).

The purpose of the Threadbare exhibition was to explore what happens when orthodox quilt processes and messages were challenged or eliminated completely – in other words, when quilters and quilts became unruly. We played with the traditional elements of quilt design: repetition (duplication of a predetermined module), pattern (arrangement of the module), layering (front, filling and back), and fixing (method of holding elements together).

I really enjoyed taking some time to see this work.  I was particularly impacted by the Pitcairn piece as I was working in Parliament at the time that story was prominent in the news.  There was quite a process trying to figure out between the various governments involved, the Islanders and the victims what would be an appropriate way to trial the offenders.  I remember the universal horror at the story.  I remember how everyone just stopped dead in their tracks trying to imagine how ingrained and systemic the abuse was for something so awful to go on for so long.

The Pitcairn piece sits nicely with the Tea piece in connecting up quite how universal the systemic violence against women and children in our society really is.  And also how universal the culture of silence and denial is.

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After catching up with Joyce, we heading down to the Migrant Resource Centre (which is an AWESOME venue for a talk) for the talk I was giving about radical craft history.

Despite being 4pm on a Tuesday, there was a great turnout and everyone there was involved in actively creating craft or change in the community.  We had a fantastic discussion after my presentation and it was so inspiring to see so many active thinkers on the issues surrounding craft, women’s knowledge and activist theory.

Even better is that the group decided to meet again soon!  Here’s the callout:

To all Hamilton craftivists, anarcho-embroiderers, eco-crocheters, knitta-street-artists, radical quilters, indy needleworkers, contemporary textile artists, Luddite lacemakers, evolutionary creators, creative evolutionists, stitching saboteurs, etc etc

You are cordially invited to the Vicarage to foment revolution over your needlework.

Whether you are looking for a crafty political collaboration or just some interesting company and conversation while you finish the project that’s starting to drag, this gathering will be more interesting than anything on TV. If we have enough fun we might want to do this regularly.

Forward this invitation and bring your crafty friends along too.

Where: The Vicarage, 25 Thames St, Claudelands (the house with the wooden fence next to the carpark on the corner of Thames and Heaphy)

When: Tuesday 17 March, 7.30pm

What to bring: A handcraft project to work on, your crafty friends

RSVP Meliors

I look forward to hearing reports of what this group gets up to!

Thanks tons to Joyce for organising the talk and all those who helped spread the word.  And thanks to Meliors for picking up the needle and getting the group going!

Finally, I did record the talk so I’ll put up a link when it’s online.