Now and Then

150th Anniversary of Gympie celebration, group exhibition 2017.

Artist in Residence Gympie Woodworkers Museum and Interpretive Centre.

The romance of nostalgia and the reality of lives lived are two very different things. The colonial woman’s experience remains veiled in accordance with her absence from historical records. Doilies and lace remain remnants of her struggle.

The replica Timber Cutter’s slab hut and the Mill Office at the Woodworks Museum are much like the historic Miner’s huts of The gold Fields of Victoria where I grew up. The austerity of the buildings reflects the hardship of pioneering days, but it was the absence of the feminine that drew me to the office. My work is an intervention in the museum display, creating a different reality, where women are also present.

In my practice ‘now’ and ‘then’ exist concurrently. The threads of our past are interwoven with who we are today. Rituals handed down to me as a child ensured the passing on of knowledge, often unspoken. These repetitive, everyday, domestic rituals connect memory and identity with that which we hold sacred. Crochet has provided me with a link to my past, my ancestors and their stories. Each stitch is equivalent to a brush stoke in my creative language.

Pokerwork sears tattoo like images into wood, much as the repeated motifs of filet crochet are seared to memory. The negative spaces and gaps allow for allegory and the untold, unspeakable aspects of the feminine experience.

A small remnant of unfinished applique work by a Great Grandmother holds deeply ingrained, cultural significance. The generic image of Dolly Varden has been crocheted, appliqued, embroidered over and over again throughout decades. This emblem of femininity, affirms a woman’s place in history. Today she stands as a figure representing the historical separation of women from their own natures, the realities of their lives and the natural world, a testament to the obsolescence of sentimentalising and isolating women.

By Meaghan Shelton

Opening Night – Now and Then