Lost and Found

After my talk at GoMA yesterday (which despite my nerves and jitters went really well and was actually lots of fun!), I got chatting to a man who had bought a few of my pieces. A lover and collector of glass and ceramics I was excited to discover that he owned my all time favourite piece!! I made this little tape measure vessel (pictured above, about 4cm high) a couple of years ago and it still remains one of my favs. I like the way the imagery works with the form, how it wraps around the cylindrical shape. But there is also an element of nostalgia for me in this piece, memories of being a teenager in the 80s learning how to sew drop waist dresses (oh yes, I was very fashionable) with my mum, most of them ending up half-finished, shoved in my sewing box never to be seen again! My mum remembers me having a very short attention span for sewing and she can’t quite believe I have the patience to make the work I make now! But even though I may not be very good at sewing and I may not have a lot of patience for it, I absolutely love it. I’m a total sucker for anything to do with textiles and this is reflected in a lot of my work. I use old sewing patterns as imagery on some of my pieces, pattern wheels to make lines of perforations in my vessels and wall pieces, old crochet patterns and knitting instructions.

Visually I’m really drawn to the dotted lines, the dashes, the sweeping arcs and angles in sewing patterns, the tea colour of the old tracing paper they were printed on. It all reminds me of hot summers in our beautiful old house in Murwillumbah sewing with my mum. Although if you ask her I don’t think she’d remember it quite as fondly….a tantrum throwing huffy little teenager frustrated by how DUMB the sewing machine was!! Anyway, I’ve been hankering lately to do something with textiles. I’m very curious to see if my attention span and patience threshold has increased from when I was 14. I’ll keep you posted!

After the talk we went and had a (much needed) drink and I was talking to some other artists about how nice it is to know where your work ends up, and to meet the people who own it. I keep track of certain pieces, mostly my exhibition works, but I had somehow lost track of that little tape measure vessel and had actually wondered a few times where it got to! And now I know! So you can all stop worrying...