Gallery in bloom

Where to begin?

After many hours work by many people, our gallery is full of the most eye popping array of crafted textile and paper objects. FloriART and The Great Gallery Garden opened last thursday night, with a very appreciative audience and plenty of the participants who spent their time looking carefully at the installations to see exactly where their contributions were placed!

It was easier for some than others!

Anna-Maria and Kaya with their contributions!

Obviously many people couldn't attend due to distance (NT, NSW, SA), so I'd like to list everyone who has participated in all aspects of the project here!

PET Garden and Yarn Bombing

Alex Asch

Carla Papas

Emma Papas

Francisca del Castillo

Inta and Frank Burden

Joseph Garufi

Kaet Lovell

Kathryn Shen

Louise Shen

Malinda Dickins

Maria Luiasa Garufi

Mariana del Castillo

Matthew Shen

Messengers students

Phoenix McKay

Timothy Phelps

Wendy Papas

Atrium Gallery

Jo Hollier

Julie Bradley

Naomi Crowther

 The Great Gallery Garden

Alexandra Davey

AMC²

Anna - Maria Sviatko

Belinda Allison

Cate Aichroy

Cerri McLean

Diane Workman

Donovan Hannis

Emily Haesler

Gaylene Bourne

Inta and Frank Burden

Jan Hatch

JeanetteTrumbly

Kate Mills 

Kaya Aichroy-Wutts

Macarthur Textile Network

Malinda Dickins

Margaret Wilson

Margaret Hammond

Mary Argall

Narelle Phillips

Pamela

Renate Eigenwillig

Rhonda Pitson

Rosalin Duncan

Sonia van den Berg

Sue Marks

Thelma Caruana

Wendy Papas

I really hope I haven't overlooked anyone, because I am so grateful that so many people were inspired by the initial concept, and were dedicated enough to keep making, and patient enough to trust me for the final results!  The response to the outdoor artworks, Atrium space exhibition and the Great Gallery Garden has been so positive. We have had cameras, media and lots of very appreciative comments in our visitors book. Here are some of them -

"a gorgeous synthesis of Art and Spring!"

"very uplifting"

"an impressive showing"

There are plenty more comments on our facebook page too, check in and leave some of your own if you like!

By way of curating the exhibition, I stuck pretty firmly to the belief that all of the disparate elements would be united by planes of colour. I treated the gallery space in quite a conventional way - a series of wall pieces and the remaining objects grouped atop very large plinths. Most of the separate installations had elements of real branches in them, which gives a sense of continuity through the whole exhibition.

Although the makers hands are visible in lots of areas in the gallery, I tried to keep the garden restricted quite formally to the plinth tops to give it all a bit of structure and some boundaries.

Occasionally some rogue vines and tendrils break loose though, and next time perhaps we will go unashamedly for the wild, untamed secret garden look. That means of course, that there will be a LOT more knitting, crochet and felting required!

Following are lots and lots of pictures of everything that has made up FloriART at Tuggeranong Arts Centre.

Beginning with some quirky and colourful works outside on our lake front lawns...

a collaborative installation "Frida's Garden" by community members and Messengers tutors and students

cobweb yarn bombing by Malinda Dickins, from Sydney

And inside the gallery...

  

collaborative installations and a "floral canopy" by Sydney artist AMC²

collaborative installations and "Elements - Nature" by the Macarthur Knitters Guild, NSW.

above left, crocheted flowers by Helen Tiernan (Canberra) and right, by Donovan Hannis (Alice Springs). Below, paper flowers and origami by Cerri McLean and Thelma Caruana (Canberra).

 

the pointy end of the stick

Things are tootling along here, towards the pointy end of the stick.

While all of the individuals are crocheting, knitting, felting and wrapping items for the post, I have been fine tuning the installation plans, timing and looking after some of the promotion for the event.

As with all great projects, there is a lot more to the successful delivery of it than the actual making of the work! I have had plenty of occasions to be grateful for the creativity and interest of so many people - there have been proposals for some yarn bombing or guerilla knitting activity, more parcels arriving in the post with beautiful and quirky contributions to the garden, and also an exciting side project.

We have been approached by Sonia, a Masters student who is studying Visual Culture Research, and more specifically the uses and re-interpretations of public space. She's into guerilla gardening, yarn bombing and all sorts of other great "aesthetic interventions".

Our FloriART project was of interest to her because of our aims to connect with our local community, to re-energise the spaces outside of the Centre (which are public and recreational but also sometimes uninspiring) and our mission to engage and entertain participants and audiences. Through our installations, yarn bombing and gallery garden we hope offer whimsy and to instill a sense of ownership. As well as producing a short film, which will be a fantastic documentation of the otherwise ephemeral project, Sonia is writing about her experiences with us on her blog

On my part, there has been lots of prep work - getting stuff out ( a sample above), looking, thinking of ways to group, attach and display. I have been entertaining the ideas of branches, large spheres, and covered plinths.

With such a variety of disparate objects, the challenge is to get the whole installation looking impressive, with a big impact and WOW factor in the gallery, whilst avoiding the cluttered, confused look and allowing visitors to see the flowers, leaves and creatures up as close as possible.

My thinking at this stage is to present three parts of the garden - floor based, wall based and plinth based. Some of the objects received already show a predeliction to one or other of those. My golden rule will be to group items by colour, as I feel we can achieve the most impact this way. This is my natural way of working anyway, and one of my favourite things is varying shades of the same colour. I will always remember a very disparaging remark about my work from a lecturer when I was at art school, saying "you are really just a colourist".

I think I'm ok with that.

Below are some more of the contributions...

 these were made from recycled felt ( a scarf!) and needle felted centres.

this guy above (by Inta), and this wonderful tree below, from the Macarthur Knitters, in NSW.

these ones from Helen and Cerri.

 

So much to do, and so little time to write about it!

Next post I will outline some of the other exciting things happening here alongside The Great Gallery Garden!

how things grow in Alice Springs...

As it turns out, things grow pretty well up there actually!

Apart from the fabulous and unfamiliar flora like Sturts Desert Peas, crazy pods and gumnuts (more about these later!), a little festival called the Alice Springs Beanie Festival has really taken off. Since its beginnings in 1997, it has grown to present a themed exhibition of around 600 handmade knitted, felted, crocheted, stitched, beaded and otherwise embellished beanies as well as a hall filled with beanies and tea cosies of every shape, size and colour under the sun for sale!

The Beanie Festival website has MUCH better pictures and credits* than these, and tells you about the origins of the festival too. It notes -

"The festival’s aims have always been to develop Aboriginal women’s textiles, promote womens' culture and the beanie as a regional art form, as well as promote handmade textile arts".

                                 

  

 

*apologies for this set of photos - I was not really meant to be taking pictures and can not credit most of the artists, so I have kept these images small and direct you to the Beanie Festival official website for better, more legit pics!

Based at the Araluen Arts Centre, the festival also hosts a full schedule of workshops just next door at Central Craft , including this one which we attended, Weaving Baskets with local women frrom the Tjanpi Desert Weavers group. It was very low key, friendly and relaxed and a great way to connect with some of the local women.

As our goals were to meet fellow crafters, share The Great Gallery Garden project and learn some new and relevant skills, we also attended a crochet workshop and a couple of felting workshops  - learning to make large flowers and shapes which could be crafted into nests, pods or stones. 

While we chatted, watched and learnt, our heads filled with ideas and possibilites for the gallery garden. We were then totally blown away by the quirky, unique designs from Donovan Hannis whose specialty is local desert flowers, worked by crocheting and felting.

Sadly I don't quite have the skills to master a Sturts' Desert Pea, although I admired them greatly and bought a couple as beautiful, one-off souveniers to bring back from Alice Springs. All things going well, we will have some of Donovans' creations in the gallery garden in September! These are all his work, below.

It was such a great experience to be in an unfamiliar town, and taking in so many inspiring and interesting things for all of the senses. Back here in Canberra I am loving wearing my ininti seed necklace with its brilliant crimsons and it's funny scent of fire (or tobacco?) and I am missing the sight of red earth. I feel a bit like I have left a little part of me there, but maybe just my shadow.

 

I hope your crafting is coming along! Next time I might show you some of the flowers, plants and animals for inspiration in textile work.

P.S. Here's a little taster of things happening down on the lake front here at the Centre. Maybe you recognise some of your flowers in there?