2019 AU-NZ: Victoria State Jan 21 to Jan 25

Our flight from Canada was direct from Vancouver, BC to Melbourne, in the state of Victoria (VIC), Australia (AU).

We could have flown more economical to Sydney or Brisbane, but we would have missed two opportunities: Yolanda wished to visit the Australian Tapestry Workshop in Melbourne and see an interesting retrospective exhibit, which was soon being disassembled, and we both wished to volunteer with Bird Life Australia for a pair of events January 26 & 27.

First on the program for our arrival was getting connected, which Bob did at the Melbourne airport.

We then walked to a beach near our hotel in South Melbourne's Middlepark, a quaint, James-Bay-like community to watch the colourful kite surfing show and observe nature.

Jan 21st we had a good transition day in Melbourne. While Yolanda visited the Australian Tapestry Workshop, Bob picked up a rental car for the week and shopped for a camp stove ($20, and $5/4cans fuel!).

In the afternoon, we picked up some 2nd hand camp kitchen gear ("Op Stores" are know to be great for camp gear in AU, as many travelers donate back what they can't take home - we plan to do the same on April 15). Yolanda's favourite item is a pink polkadot spatula $.25, and the orange carry basket $6 and super quality pot $8 will be handy. We also grocery shopped for our upcoming four camp days.

January 22 we stopped at Philip's Island for a few nice nature walks and Bob saw koala in a recovery program. That evening, we paid $35 (plus $25 park fee) for a bare bones, car-length Wilson's Promatory camp site with cheek-to-jowel canvas tents, pop-up-tables, watersports gear, netted baby cots, cars and trailers. This really made us wonder about our three months camping in Australia and New Zealand. We were assigned our patch on Avenue 4 (of eight) and at first sight thought is was just a gap between two tents, and then realized that it was for us.

In spite of the tight quarters, it was quiet and families privately went about their daily camp routine as they were then off to enjoy the spectacular offerings of the Prom.

We had a great morning camp breakfast, a nature walk and then headed off to the mountains, stopping at the Prom's Squeaky Beach en route. (The squeak is due to the fine sand.)

The drive into the mountains (the "Australian Alps") on the Omeo Highway was a bit too thrilling, but the smell of eucalyptus was fantastic. The highway was barely two lanes wide, winding, and with several downed trees. We heard later from camp mates that they had arrived on a fallen tree and had bucked it up to clear the route. At one point Bob stopped the car to see the width of the lane relative to the car and zoooommm... a trio of motor bikes whipped around the corner towards us in our lane ahead and then swerved into theirs. Happily we weren't 100meters ahead and moving.

We arrived at the Lightening Creek no-fee forest camp just before dark, so pitched our tent and called it a night. January 24 we moved from the overflow area to the main site. There we were greeted by Tania & Merve, Ross, Bill & Sue, Margaret, Pete & Trudy, and one additional couple, but we met then too late to catch their names. The group (from Wodonga) meet annually at Lightening Creek and do day outings in their rigged 4x4s. They had been on an outing when returning to camp they had happened across the tree on the route.

Yolanda did some weaving at camp and Bob wandered to photograph birds. It was a relaxing, easy day. In the evening we were invited to the "fire" circle with the 4x4 gang. "Fire" is in quotes, as there was a total fire ban for the area. It was a fun interaction, and Ross gave Bob a recipe for Parrot Stew (see recipe in Tasmania BLog, Feb 3, 2019).

January 25, en route back to the coast from the "AU Alps", the top temperature, which we walked in briefly, but found it difficult to breath, was 47C. Yolanda later remarked that she has experienced a range of 89 celcius, as it was as low as -42C in Edmonton one winter for a stretch of days during her two years there. At the south coast it was 27C, and breezy, so quite nice.

2019 AU-NZ: Australian Tapestry Workshop first visit January 21

ATW Visit: A moment for reflection

https://www.austapestry.com.au

ATW Visit: A moment for reflection

~ Yolanda Olivotto

Visiting the Australian Tapestry Workshop (ATW) in Melbourne January 21, 2019 was impromptu and somewhat unsequential for the staff's usual Monday morning routine. Although closed to the public Mondays, the staff arranged ahead so I could visit, as I was in Melbourne briefly until early Tuesday morning. Sophia greeted me and explained the layout of the workshop and galleries. One gallery was being prepared for the upcoming exhibit of work by the ATW's 2018 Artists in Residence program, AIR2018, and the other gallery was in the final week of A Passion for Tapestry: Small Tapestries from a Private Collection. As a gift, I gave the Workshop a copy of the exhibition catalogue from the show Vamp to Visage, a Tapestry Weavers of Vancouver Island (TAPIS) project in which small-scale tapestries of feet were paired in a responsive way with heads, woven by pairs of TAPIS members (one weaver wove either feet or a head, and the other responded, head to feet, and feet to head). The ATW is in the process of assembling a library, so the catalogue seemed to be an apropos gift, especially due to the collaborative nature of the Vamp to Visage works, first exhibited in 2003.

Canadian Tapestry Network (CTN) readers know the history and on-going excellence of the ATW, or can read about it at https://www.austapestry.com.au/ It was a sentimental and inspirational visit for me, as my introduction to and learning about tapestry in the late 1980s included a workshop with Archie Brennan, who had been brought to Capilano College (now Capilano University) by tapestry artist and instructor Anthea Mallinson. Archie Brennan spoke about the Victorian Tapestry Workshop development (ATW, since 2010), and he and Anthea Mallinson described other workshops. In my first years with tapestry, I visited Dovecot Studios and Manufacture des Gobelins, travelled to see amazing tapestries from Coptic fragments to contemporary works, in situ and in collections in Europe and North America, and wove 10 months at l'École Nationale d'Art Décoratif d'Aubusson. There are more places I need to go, and the ATW visit feels like the beginning of another chapter in my tapestry weaving life course.

A Passion for Tapestry exhibited small-scale tapestries from the collection of ATW supporter Tuppy Cole. The pieces were mostly artist designed and weaver interpreter woven. They ranged from the gradated blue subtlety of a ceramist's slip designs to a sparkling cup of ice tea to a poetic 2-warp black exclamation mark ending in a red dot. The collaboration of artist, weaver interpreter and dyer flows consistently through the Workshop (please read more about this at the ATW Web site).

Mondays are closed to the public so the staff and volunteers have space to reconcile, brainstorm, plan and meet with clients. As a not-for-profit organization, the planning and strategizing takes special effort by the directors, volunteers and staff. Everyone is responsible in their unique way for being attentive to commission opportunities, funding sources, on-going projects and programs and the well-being of one-another.

The tapestry weaver interpreters at the ATW have decades of experience. Their approach to preparing for and developing their large-scale tapestries is evidenced by the wheeled project boards around the main studio hall. In addition to the project boards, there were smaller looms for samples of colour gradations and technical fragments of the large-scale projects. The Workshop dye studio is actively involved with creating for the needs of the projects.

There were two large-scale, front weave, bottom to top tapestries on vertical looms. One project was a portrait commissioned in late 2018 to commemorate the retiring senior partner of a Melbourne law firm. The other project was a weaving of the winning design by Justin Hill for the 2016 Tapestry Design Prize for Architects, a program developed to nurture the long-standing relationship between architectural spaces and tapestry design, weaving and display.
http://www.tapestrydesignprize.org/22-temenggong-road-twilight

The ATW weaver interpreters are masterful at using the tapestry medium to make a design "weaverly" (Archie Brennan, 1989 workshop). On one of the small sample looms was the spectacled eye of the senior partner. His eyebrow was enlivened with weft floats, and subtle gradations of colour. A sample of his lace collar lay on a work table with a scale of flesh colours. A palette of spools of colour were readily available to mix onto the Workshop's signature brass-tip bobbins.

The 22 Temenggon Road, Twilight design by Architect Justin Hill was woven by ATW weaver interns Karlie Hawking, Leith Maguire and Sophie Morris under the supervision of Sue Batten, Chris Cochius, Pamela Joyce and Cheryl Thornton. It's cutting off ceremony was Friday, January 25th, 2019. The Workshop members seemed thrilled at accomplishing another successful collaborative work.

The roles of artist and weaver interpreter that are sometimes a dichotomous, personal, internal challenge for an artist weaver are celebratory amongst the ATW team and including the ATW dyer. CTN weavers will likely have participated in many ways with tapestry, from the autonomy of working alone to the community building experience of a community tapestry project, whether artist designed and community woven or community created and artist curated or assembled. CTN members know the reflection and mindfulness required to sift through their process as artist weaver and many know the outcomes of a collaboration. There are numerous CTN member collaborative experiences currently underway and that have occurred in the past, and I look forward to reading more about, revisiting and seeing these, and to working through more personal tapestry explorations.

As I was leaving the ATW, I purchased wool dyed by the Workshop, and a child's beginner weaving kit (similar to the one I purchased in Kuala Lumpur in November 2018). I have been incorporating the ATW wool into a 25cm square piece I am weaving during my 3-month Australia & New Zealand wildlife camping tour. The visit to the ATW has further inspired me to get out and explore, get busy with more tapestry connections, weave and introduce more youngsters to tapestry weaving, as other CTN members do. I remember feeling in 1990 that I needed to engage with tapestry every day. Being immersed for those few short hours at the ATW amongst and with evidence of those who are immersed with tapestry daily has brought that sense back for me.