This Queens Birthday Weekend (10-13 June 2016) the finalists in the Tasmanian Art Quilt Prize 2015 -History, Her Story are on exhibition at Gallery Parnella (10am-4pm), St Helens, Tasmania in conjunction with the Bay of Fires Art Festival. My contribution, Secret Women’s Business: Every Woman Bleeds, is part of the exhibition. Here is an installation photo. The exhibition also features in Australian Patchwork & Quilting Vol 26 No1 and issue 23 of Down Under Textiles.
While I have previously shared an artist statement for this work, I realise that I haven’t shared the backstory of how this work was created and the role of serendipity. I love a good process post so here goes!
Red & White Design Exercise
When QuiltNSW announced Red and White as a special theme for the 2015 Sydney Quilt Show, I decided to take this opportunity to explore translating some of my red and white sketches into cloth. This was my starting point:
The Construction
The gist of the engineering challenge was how to piece echo outlines of larger shapes. I can see how this would be reasonably straightforward with uniform shapes (see, for example, these designs that I later spotted on Tommy the Material Girl’s blog). However, I was working with irregular shapes and angles. I am used to working without rulers but I freely admit that this hurt my head!
I tried to minimise shadowing by pressing seams towards the red fabric as much as possible but didn’t angst about it. More troublesome were fraying fabric threads as the red fabric was a loose weave and white it not a very forgiving companion.
I somehow spliced the figures together without losing their jaunty character:
The photo below shows some puffy areas:
With some remedial unpicking, cutting and re-seaming, I eventually wrangled the top into flat submission. Phew!
The Not-So-Finishing Touches
For stitching opted for straight-lining the red sections and free-motion pebbles in the white background:
Of course, this created lots of long red thread tails that I painstakingly buried back into the red sections of the top.
After trimming the piece square to 160x160cm or so, and before I attached the facing, I noticed there was a very slight wave on one side. I was not perturbed. This was .nothing that a quick spritz and steam from the back wouldn’t fix. Or so I thought. This is what greeted me when I turned it back over.
Extreme Laundering
Did I panic? Did I curse? No I didn’t. Well…maybe a little. I did berate myself for not pre-washing my fabrics but I wasn’t overly concerned. Emboldened by Rachelle Denneny’s tale of how she hot-washed her award winning quilt Ruby Roses with Love with good effect, I figured I could do the same. And I had a sachet of laundry product stashed away for just such a contingency.
I threw my quilt into the washing machine with some of the powder and laid out my rubber matting that I use for blocking. It was a warm sunny day. What could possibly go wrong?
As my piece dried, I noticed that the left hand side was developing a distinctly orange-red hue:
Here’s a view from the other direction:
If it’s not already apparent, I would like to point out that laundry is not one of my core skills and I am extremely out of practice. (That’s why I called my husband the Laundry King.) Still, that’s all the more reason I should have read the instructions more carefully rather than being seduced by the illustration of red marks on a white shirt. You see, rather than using a colour-safe product, I used one that is “specially formulated for use on whites ONLY” (emphasis and red-dashed circle added)
That’s right, I effectively bleached my project. Gulp.
The Wash Up
I withdrew the piece from the Sydney Quilt Show, it was no longer really red and white, and thought about it for a while. Along the way, my work somehow morphed from menopausal to menstrual. I reflected on how before the 20th century, most western women pinned rags inside their clothes or simply bled into their clothes. Embracing the serendipity, I looked around for other opportunities to share the work and came across the Tasmanian Art Quilt Prize and the theme “History, Her Story”:
At first glance the theme may seem to focus on women in history but it is an ambiguous statement that may reflect stories in the modern world from a male or female perspective. The theme may be interpreted in many different ways.
It seemed like a good fit except my piece was slightly too big. I trimmed it back again and did another round of extreme laundering. The work ended up at 150x150cm and I deliberately left it with a ragged edge. I sent it off with (optional) wooden clothes pegs for exhibition but do not have any installation photos showing these were used. The Tasmanian Art Quilt Prize continues on tour to Gone Rustic Gallery, St Marys (August) and Island Quilts (September/October).
That’s the backstory. Read more at Secret Women’s Business: Every Woman Bleeds.
Sarah Ann Smith says
Well you clearly didn’t intend it, but I actually really like the fade/orange to red!
Brenda Gael Smith says
Yes! and the extreme laundering gives it an instant antique-like vibe too.
Martha Myers says
I too like the fade from red to orange. And the story is terrific too. Thanks.
Brenda Gael Smith says
Thanks for stopping by Martha. You can see an installation photo on the Tasmanian Art Quilt Prize Facebook Page.