Selling Yarns

Australian Indigenous textiles and good business in the 21st century

 

Papers

Hugging the cloth

Session: Makers Forum 1:00 - 4:00 pm, Saturday, 12 August 2006

Bobbie Ruben

Fabric screen-printer and technical assistant, Charles Darwin University

Abstract

Through looking at images of printed fabrics produced at recent workshops I have delivered in two remote Northern Territory communities and at CDU campus, it is evident that the tradition of printed textiles as a means of telling stories plays an important role for Indigenous artists. Textile printing allows a direct translation of the artists' work onto fabric, whereby themes of identity, history, spirituality and law, via motifs and pattern are communicated. While hand printed textiles are unable to command the financial returns of prints on paper, there is an intrinsic value in the combination of significant imagery with the functionality and tactility of cloth.

See also: Bobbie Ruben's biography