Tapestry weaving
Tapestry weavers in New Zealand are using the ancient skills of the old world to tell the new stories of this island culture. They express through the medium of woven tapestry their personal journey in this multicultural land of Aotearoa.
Their language and visual imagery is distinctive and unique.
Foremost artist weavers Gordon Crook and Kate Wells, in either miniature or mural work, use vibrant images and colours of the Pacific to reflect the landscape, within and without. These images of land and sea and sky live deep within a New Zealand psyche.
Weaver Lesley Nicholl's pioneering partnership has been an enduring, productive union, without parallel in New Zealand. She wove all of Gordon Crooks early work.
Patricia Armour's mural work reflects on the European history of her forbears. Her small works show an emergent awareness of the Maori culture.
Marilyn Rea-Menzies' work has recorded our colonial heritage. Elizabeth Arnold has made witty political comment with her mural tapestry.
Vivienne Mountfort, Beryl Debton and Therese Hollingsworth look to the vistas of the New Zealand landscape for their vision.
Goldie Lester marries a 'way with words' with distinctive playful ethereal imagery. Her sense of whimsy is weighted with an energy and strength of colour that will delight.
Kelly Thompson and Yvonne Sloan are tapestry weavers in the broadest sense of the definition of woven tapestry - "a narrative textile fabricated with a discontinuous weft". Kelly's work, woven in the warp faced ikat techniques of the Indonesian tradition, speak of voyage, exploration, maps and mystical marks. Yvonne Sloan's multi-layered twill weave works are centre in Pacific idiom. Strong line and colour suggest shafts of brilliant light, radiating on sea, through forest or on the mountain tops. The geometric structure of the weave plays an important part these mural tapestries.
Marian Scott-Rowe
Lace Knitting
The knitting of lace appears to have been an early 16th Century invention used to decorate the more comfortable knitted silk stockings and gloves of the aristocracy when they replaced the earlier cloth garments which would have been finished with bobbin lace. It is frustrating that there is very little documented early history of this craft, however, it was well established and very popular by the early 18th Century when a variety of fine yarns were readily available and the early settlers from many different backgrounds brought knitting in its many forms to New Zealand.
It was my desire in the 1970s to invent designs of my own rather than repeat or modify the classic patterns which appeared in knitting treasuries, that led me to search for a 'how to' book or class on how to create lace designs. This was a period when the market was flooded with 'design your own garments' using intarsia knitting, fair isle patterns, arans etc. But I soon discovered there was no equivalent for lace and this eventually led to my own publication 1995, "Creating Original Hand-knitted Lace". The result of working through dictionaries of knitting patterns and analysing how others had resolved the problems encountered in creating the design elements, my own personal experience in manipulating stitches to get the results I wanted and from discussing my findings with other knitters skilled in the techniques of knitting complex designs not necessarily in lace.
Although there are numerous competent knitters of lace both in New Zealand and overseas there are only a handful who have seriously focussed on original design in this medium. The most notable of these are Mary Walker Phillips and Barbara Walker of the USA, the late Maianne Kinzel, a World War II refugee from Czechoslovakia who lived in England and the late Herbert Niebling, designer for Burda magazine in Germany.
As a result of teaching my workshops in this craft I have discovered, that in common with most art disciplines, there are definite groupings - those who wish to become competent practitioners, those who wish to use this expertise to produce their own style of craft and then perhaps one or two who are excited enough by the discoveries they have made to 'jump over the boundaries'. Unfortunately, not many of the latter persevere due, no doubt, to the time consuming nature of the process and lack of mentors.
In New Zealand we do not have an organisation specifically for hand knitters. The New Zealand Spinning, Weaving and Woolcrafts Society has provided the best support system for those interested in knitting with handspun yarns and more recently has included commercially spun yarn if knitted with originality. Four New Zealanders currently are members of the Lacy Knitters of the USA and others subscribe to magazines such as knitters, Interweave Knits, Cast On, Vogue Knitting all USA publications and Slipknot a UK publication.
New Zealanders who have specialised knowledge of knitting lace are Beverley Francis, Wellington; Jenny Hart and Heather Nicholson, Auckland; Nola Fournier, Nelson; Pauline Kirk, Rangiora; Lesley Wright, Invercargill.
Margaret Stove
Embroidery / Stitched Textiles
Embroidery encompasses many different techniques which involve fabric and thread, a needle or sewing machine. Stitched textiles combine this with other materials and methods including printing, dyeing, painting and paper.
It can be a celebration of the encounter with fabric and thread or a personal statement about aspects of life. It can accommodate a variety of scale and may be enclosed in a frame, be a free hanging or a 3 dimensional object. It can be a bridge between the past and the future. Whatever the chosen method, the marks made on the surface by the thread are what
distinguish embroidery / stitched textiles from other craft and art forms and give it it's special textural qualities.
New Zealand embroidery gained world-wide notoriety with the making of the Globe Theatre Hangings in 1990. 500 women from around the country took part in this massive project, a recognition of the willingness of practitioners to co-operate and share ideas beyond their own circle. The involvement of
all the Guilds under the expert guidance of the project manager is testimony to the strength and interest of embroidery in New Zealand.
Other major projects for public places have occurred in regions throughout the country, and as well as strengthening the traditional values of embroidery as a craft, these have led to the development and acceptance of textile art as a valid art form.
Marianne Hargreaves
Tapestry Weaver
September 1998
Lace knitter
September 1998
Embroidery is a craft which has a long history – it has been part of the lives of generations in domestic, religious and ceremonial forms. It has evolved this century beyond the use of functional items to be a means of expression for visual artists, becoming known as Stitched Textiles or Textile Art.
Embroiderer
September 1998
