Last week at the Hunt Club

At the Hunt Club we are working steadily towards an exhibition about Glory Boxes, as apart of the Christian Coptic tradition.  The exhibition will be taking place in February - but as you know when you are hand sewing it always takes a long time to finish a piece.

Below are photos of works in progress for some final patches for our group linen table cloth.  This coming Thursday I hope we will be starting to stitch it all together.

 This design is of a mother and daughter, walking with a puppy and also a weeping willow - I wonder what the story is behind this imagery.  Angi Russi is another artist working on the project.  She is collecting the women's Glory Box stories and compiling transcripts.

 

Other items the women are interested in working on include towels, aprons and also tea towels.  Making my way through the Internet I have found some fantastic tea towel embroidery designs - it looks like we will draw our inspiration from these ones below. These patterns can be found here.

 

I like the idea of using the days of the week and glorifying the montany of running a household, which is what really we are making glory box items for - to make a home with the presence of the woman of the house's handicrafts.

How do I feel about this? I like tradition and sewing - so kind of excited, but also free because it is my choice to make, one time girls were not given many options.  I also feel some urgency to return to this way of making a home for sustainable reasons - making do and enjoying what you have.

 

Cross Stitch sourced from here

I have also been thinking about the journey through life to becoming a woman - stitching or preparing to run a household doesn't really play a role in this any more - rather education and getting a good job. 

Listening to The Book Show this morning (one of my favourite things to do whilst working in the studio) there was a review of  Bossypants by Tina Fey - a chapter is on becoming a woman - a story was retold of a workshop she once attended and all the participant were asked to write about the moment that they identified as a woman - and most described this moment as being abused by a man - which is a stomach curdling thought for a mother with a young daughter.

Glory Box workshop week 6

Last week I posted about my preparation work for Workshop 6 for Glory Box.  This project has been challenging for me to facilitate for a number of reasons - cultural, distance (the project is over 200km away from where I live) and also understanding what is shared between the women who want to make items about Glory Boxes.  

At first I had assumed that the women participating had all made items for their own Glory Box or had access to items from their Mother's or Grandmother's Glory box - but this isn't the case at all - for a number of reasons - including the most tragic; war, and most excitingly; feminism.  It is almost like this project is an opportunity for the women - who are mostly entering the autumn time in their lives to have time, space and support to make beautiful items of hope and joy for a glory box.

As mentioned previously we are working towards making a collaborative table cloth that is exploring the meaning of the table; the items that go on a table and also what the act of sitting around a table can mean. Above is the linen squares cut up and ready to be transformed.

The first hour or so of the session was spent researching imagery  - sourced from books, and google images.  Researching also the stitching and techniques to use to develop up a design.

 Other women are also creating individual works - this work here is a traditional needle work method that I had never come across before called Milon - searching this term in wikipedia I wasn't able to find any more information - so hope to learn more.

 

I apologise for the quality of the photo - but had to include as this image is documenting a very special event - the cutting of the nightie - a very important item for all Glory Boxes!

We meet again next Thursday at the Hunt Club in Deer Park.  The focus of our next session will be working further on our table cloth and individual projects that have started.  As the artist in residence I am to respond to the activities and processes that the project is unravelling.  I have started to do this by making a quilt from baking paper - no images yet - it is still very much in experimentation phase, but I will post about it when the right time comes to share.

Getting ready for Glory Box workshops

This morning I have been preparing for Workshop 6 for the Glory Box Project.  A one year artist in residency I have at Deer Park working with a wonderful group of Coptic Women.  Each fortnight I facilitate a workshop exploring the Glory Box tradition in their culture and it creative making processes

It has been a few weeks since I was last with the group, due to some big tragic changes in our family.  And during my time away lots of exciting developments have been happening.

After spending a number of weeks getting to know one another, our skills and sharing glory box stories we have decided to work collaboratively to make items to be placed in a glory box.  The first item being a table cloth.

Creating an item for the heart of the home, like a table cloth is very meaningful. It is upon this textile where family members and friends gather to eat and share their conversations.

Images will be embroidered, crotchet and appliqué on to the separate patches by each of the women participating in the project! (see table cloth design image above!)

This Thursday to get things going I will talk about some difference approaches to designing a table cloth square.  Last year while I was artist in residence at the Kyneton Museum the signature tablecloth played a huge role in developing my new body of work.   Like for this Glory Box table cloth it was produced by a group of women - the theme being names of local families - and the design aesthetics were very strong using white floss on white linen with white embroidered lace - beautiful!

Also free hand embroidery plays a big role in my practice and I will present on how this technique can be used - from previous works such as these:

We will also look at tracing designed embroidery works and I would like to try out this technique by At Swim Two Birds called building a design (she calls it a city) from paper trash)

Here is a shot of a table cloth by my Great grandmother, who passed away in 1996 - she was a fantastic stitcher, as is her sister.

I found this forum of young mum's discussing what they would like to organise and also make for their young daughters glory box - I found this very sweet and inspiring.  It is my children's birthday's coming up in July and I am planning to make them both a small sewing box - I am hoping to include sewing items from various special women in their lives.