Selling Yarns 2

Innovation for sustainability

 

Workshops

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Registration and payment for the workshops is required in advance. Registrations are now open and you can indicate your workshop and seminar selection on the Selling Yarns Registration Form.

Morning sessions: Sunday 8 March, 10.00am - 1.00pm

  1. Needle felting with Merran Hughes
  2. Weaving the cultures together – Maoritanga meets the Webstuhl with Rokahurihia Ngarimu-Cameron and Christine Keller
  3. String and necklace making with Steven Russell, Phyllis Stewart and Suzanne Stewart, Boolarng Nangamai Aboriginal Art and Culture Studio
  4. Possum skin cloaks with Vicki Couzens and Lee Darroch

Afternoon sessions: Sunday 8 March, 1.00pm - 4.00pm

  1. Euraba Paper – pulp painting with Aunty May Hinch and Lola Binge
  2. Basket making with Catherine Kay
  3. Contemporary aboriginal weaving with non-traditional materials with Lee Darroch and Andrea James

Artists' Development Workshops: Sunday 8 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm

  1. Big Sister Basket with Margie West, Louise Partos and Artback, NT
  2. Creating space for Indigenous artists with Artback, NT

Workshop 1: Needle-felting with Merran Hughes

At the National Museum of Australia
Cost of workshop: $30.00
Sunday 8 March, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Limited to 15 participants

Merran Hughes has been the Artistic Director of the Alice Springs Beanie Festival since it began. She has worked in remote communities running textile workshops. Merran has a Masters in Design, majoring in graphics and textiles.

Participants will be shown examples and images of needle-felting from Australian Desert communities for inspiration. Participants will first work on design, then learn the technique of needle-felting and correct finishing whilst exploring the creative possibilities of the technique. There will be a focus on Health and Safety and participants will leave the workshop with a finished embellishment on a beanie or item. There will also be discussion on other applications for needle-felting.

Each participant will need to purchase a kit on the day containing: commercially made felt beanie/beret; large foam; couple of needle-felting needles and coloured fleece. The tutor will sell the kits on the day for a cost of $20.00

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Workshop 2: Weaving the cultures together – Maoritanga meets the Webstuhl

With Rokahurihia Ngarimu-Cameron and Christine Keller
At National Museum of Australia
Cost of workshop: $30.00
Sunday 8 March, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Limited to 12 participants

Roka Cameron is a lecturer at the University of Otago, Te Tumu, School of Maori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies and is a registered artist with Toi Iho, Maori-made mark. Roka’s Maori art viewpoint is paramount in her work as she looks to her culture for inspiration and sophistication.

German born Christine Keller, trained hand weaver, textile designer and artist, is the academic leader of the Textiles Section of the School of Art at Te Kura Matatini ki Otago/Otago Polytechnic. She is known internationally for her weaving and textile works created on a variety of different looms.

This workshop explores an innovative, cross-cultural Maori-German approach to working with harakeke and loom tradition, developed in New Zealand by Roka and Christine. To honour the sovereignty of the phormium tenax- te whitau o te harakeke, Roka needed to develop her own technique to use individual strands of the harakeke (flax) fibre on a loom, which traditionally requires continuous spun threads. Roka says of the harakeke (flax): “Its unique texture fuelled my desire to experiment and to push the possibilities of the fibre even further. I refer to this fibre as the thread of life, Te Aho Ora. … Not only has Te Aho Ora clothed our people for generations, it has been instrumental through its form in maintaining the adaptability and preservation of our art and our people.”

"Tihei Aho Ora." In this workshop participants will learn how to prepare harakeke for M?ori weaving and how to weave it into the warps set up on sample looms. With our experience we would like to open discussion how new methods for other cultures could be developed in combining different techniques, for example painting onto the warp before weaving.

Looms with warps, print paste, brushes and weft yarns will be provided for sampling. Participants will need to bring scissors, coloured pens and paper.

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Workshop 3: String and necklace making

With: Steven Russell, Phyllis Stewart and Suzanne Stewart, Boolarng Nangamai Aboriginal Art and Culture Studio
At the National Museum of Australia
Cost of workshop: $30.00
Sunday 8 March, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Limited to 20 participants

This is a hands-on string and necklace making workshop with South Coast artists Steven Russell, Phyllis Stewart and Suzanne Stewart. String, in its simplicity, is one of the most sophisticated pieces of timeless technology and is used traditionally to bind people, place and objects together. Learn to use traditional and contemporary materials to make an armband or necklace.

All materials supplied including shell and seed pendant.

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Workshop 4: Possum skin cloaks

With Vicki Couzens and Lee Darroch
At National Museum of Australia
Cost of workshop: $30.00
Sunday 8 March, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Limited to 20 participants

Vicki and Lee will give a visual display and presentation of community cultural development projects and personal works over the past 10 years.

Both artists, in collaboration with Treahna Hamm, have been working on possum skin cloaks and their work has been the catalyst for major regeneration of cultural knowledge and practices in relation to possum skin cloaks across Victoria. The influence of their collective work is spreading across borders into New South Wales, ACT and South Australia.

Participants will be offered the opportunity to sew a cloak together with the artists.

Possum Skins will be provided.

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Workshop 5: Euraba Paper – pulp painting

With Aunty May Hinch and Lola Binge
At the National Museum of Australia
Cost of workshop: $30.00
Sunday 8 March, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Limited to 20 participants

Pulp painting is a painting method used by Euraba artists. 100% cotton rag pulp is coloured with ochre pigments and used as an integral part of the papermaking process to create paintings that are embedded in the structure of the paper sheet.

Embossed paper drawings/prints - Euraba artists use pulp to emboss sheets into lino-cut blocks to create Goomeroi artworks. Euraba artists make their paintings to talk about stories pertaining to the Indigenous culture of the Goomeroi people of far northern inland New South Wales.

Visit www.eurabapaper.com.au for information about the Euraba Paper Company.

All materials will be supplied.

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Workshop 6: Basket making

With Catherine Kay
At the National Museum of Australia
Cost of workshop: $30.00
Sunday 8 March, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Limited to 15 participants

Exploring the use of materials and pushing the boundaries of basket making techniques have been part of Catherine Kay’s artistic endeavors for the past twenty years.

This workshop will investigate the creative process born from encounters with Indigenous cultures in Australia and in the islands of Vanuatu. It is about sharing these moments of creativity with the participants of the workshop. The participants will be encouraged to use a diverse range of materials and to explore techniques beyond the boundaries of basket making. Twining openwork basket and plaiting techniques will be used.

An emphasis will be placed on the use of diverse materials and scale. The participants will make several baskets, mastering new techniques and seeing the possibilities in contemporary basket making for self- expression and creativity.

Participants are asked to bring a variety of pliable materials for exploration – paper, thin card (packaging), plastic strapping, tinfoil etc. and scissors.

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Workshop 7: Contemporary aboriginal weaving with non-traditional materials

With Lee Darroch and Andrea James
At the National Museum of Australia
Cost of workshop: $30.00
Sunday 8 March, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Limited to 15 participants

Lee Darroch, Gurranyin Arts, and Andrea James from the Koorie Heritage Trust, are two respected Yorta Yorta women artists. Lee has long practiced the cultural tradition of coiled basket weaving using plant fibres such as Cumbungi, Spiny Mat Rush, Red Grass and other native grasses and reeds. Her mother and Elders taught her the techniques when she was a child, sitting around the campfire, at school or in workshops talking and laughing. Some Elders were concerned about passing on this specific knowledge and the difficult techniques, known only to a few people, using Red Grass to make contrasting patterns and how to make handles for baskets

In the workshop participants will learn to work with traditional and non-traditional materials in the coiling technique. They will explore ways of creating vibrant and ecologically sustainable artworks in any form from basket to bird or animal.

Participants are asked to bring recycled manufactured materials – plastic, fabric, wool, raffia string, anything pliable and large eyed needles and scissors.

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Workshop 8: Big Sister Basket

With Margie West, Louise Partos and Artback, NT
At National Museum of Australia
Cost of workshop: Free for selected Indigenous artists
Sunday 8 March, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Artists' Development Workshops

These workshops are for selected Indigenous artists only and are not open to the public for participation. The artists involved have come together from their homeland across Australia to share skills and knowledge, exchange ideas and reflect on their work and the work of other artists in the groups.

Members of the public are welcome to observe the work in progress.

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Workshop 9: Creating space for Indigenous artists

With Artback, NT
At the National Museum of Australia
Cost of workshop: Free for selected Indigenous artists
Sunday 8 March, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Artists' Development Workshops

These workshops are for selected Indigenous artists only and are not open to the public for participation. The artists involved have come together from their homeland across Australia to share skills and knowledge, exchange ideas and reflect on their work and the work of other artists in the groups.

Members of the public are welcome to observe the work in progress.

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