Arts Council Nelson acknowledge and thank the following sponsors, whose support over the years has enabled the establishment of this greatly valued event.
cover picture: Anne Groufsky ‘Whangarei’
Over the past few years the Changing Threads Contemporary Art Awards show has surged forward from our initial vision to now being one of the most prestigious events of its type in New Zealand. The exhibition has a two stage selection process which ensures that the work shown is the very best to represent the artists working within this area of the arts. The entries selected for the event are those which have embraced the spirit of the challenge and present work of a high technical and artistic standard, with a strong conceptual basis. The result of the selection process means that the art shown in Changing Threads are pieces which stretch the terms of ‘fibre’ or ‘textile ’in their medium or construction, and are those which are thought provoking, insightful, quirky, humorous or inspirational. The visitors from both the Nelson region and farther afield have been enthusiastic and very interested and we have received critical acclaim in reviews published in both National and International magazines. The event is managed by Arts Council Nelson, and receives support from other sponsors which has been crucial to the development of Changing Threads. Without their continued support for which we are most grateful, the event would not have been so successful. It is wonderful to be presenting the seventh awards show in 2015 as the Refinery ArtSpace moves into a new era of growth in the community. Ronnie Martin Creative Director Changing Threads
Prickles 240 Anne Bannock Prickles 240 is made from 240 metres of various gauges of wire cut into small lengths, and then either pierced through or glued to a board 97cm x 82cm. The whole work was then painted with white paint. The objective of the work is to provide a different perspective depending on the position of the viewer.
Untitled Sarah Pumphrey and Katie Tyrell Inspired by a large stand of Oak trees in Richmond and working from the same photograph, each created a series of ten etchings that were joined to form this collaborative piece. Our images reflect the exotic forest plantations and stands of trees that have now become a permanent part of our landscape, a comment on loss and gain, growth and regeneration, changing landscapes.
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Mattress Michelle de Silva Michelle de Silva’s current body of work uses stitching to describe parts of stories. De Silva thinks of her method as drawing with thread, with image that hover somewhere between reality and imagination, choosing not to touch down in either. She looks at the everyday objects which form her environment; those things we look at but never see. The mundane objects and environments which make up de Silva’s world remain eerie and un-peopled and it is this lack of humanity which throws up questions about what could have happened, if indeed anything has.
Two Bottles Michelle de Silva Michelle de Silva is interested in story telling but not grand myths and legends, or heroic feats but the story behind the picture, the truth of which we may never know. Much like the first or last line in book or play, a story is about to unfold, or has just ended. The players are off stage and what happens next is up to the viewer.
Cannon, Capsule & Slipstream Jeanette Gillies Rusted silk organza with 3 lightly painted paper mache balls inside. Embellished with printed rusted muslin and thread. Covered washers are around the bottom. Cannon is hanging from self made cord and a wrapped tyre.
Negative Spaces II Alysn Midgelow-Marsden This collection of new works by Alysn Midgelow-Marsden continues an exploration in visualising the internal emotional environment entered into whilst developing work. This time might be a meditative, focused, quiet and safe state or an entrapped, immobile, negative space which is akin in some ways to the place retreated to during depressive, anxious times.
Negative Spaces I Alysn Midgelow-Marsden The depicted figures are fetally curled, backs turned, heads down and eyes closed. They are drawn in thread on backgrounds of patched, patterned and textured stainless steel cloth with patterns derived from the gaps between spaces created by repeating and reversing the figures.
Negative Spaces III Alysn Midgelow-Marsden A central question posed by these three works of titled ‘Negative Spaces’ is: At times when the negative in life threatens, how do we deal with this? Reaching out for help, or retreating into ourselves and away from the world?
Daisy Blanket Mia Hamilton Artist Mia Hamilton remembers the daisy blanket her Mum and Dad made for her as a child. Dad sheared the sheep with the hand clippers and then spun the wool in the evenings. Whilst Mum made the daisies on an old wooden “bloom loom” and crocheted them together. Mia watched in fascination, as a field of daisies grew over her bed. “Daisy Blanket” is a supersized version of this crocheted blanket Mia had as a child. It makes a strong visual statement. detail
Bring Back Our Girls One year on. Tish North Tish North’s work has been made in response to the young Nigerian school girls who have been abducted. It is a tribute to those young girls whose lives have changed forever innocence lost, freedom lost, families grieving, freedom of ideas, freedom to dance, to be their lively selves is no longer their right. The colourful vibrancy of their culture has been taken from them. Their young lives have been interrupted. They have been taken from their homes and families, no longer allowed to study and fulfill their dreams. All that is left are the empty shoes that no one can fill.
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Nau mai anō e Rongo Sue Garlick He uri ahau o Ingarangi, Tiamani me ngā moutere mokemoke o Shetland. He mihi maioha tēnei ki te kaupapa o Te Ataarangi me ōku pouako o Taipari ki te Raki Paiwhenua. Nā koutou ahau i whakapuāwai. The inspiration for this blanket came from a karakia Sue learned while studying Te Reo Māori in 2010 in Auckland. The karakia acknowledges Rongo, atua of thekūmara, cultivated food and peace. The patterns on the blanket represent the leaves of the kūmara vine spreading like a cloak of peace and love over the land. The text around the borders forms part of the karakia. This blanket kept me warm through many hours of stitching in the winter of 2010.
Sleeping Angel Patricia Armour When visiting London a few years ago, Patricia Armour visited Highgate Cemetery. Even though the graves were overgrown by ivy and moss, there was a picturesque tranquillity in the setting. The monuments of angels watch over their charges in love and beauty. These monuments have been erected in love – the love of mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, friends. There is a feeling of serenity here – a place of rest, and a feeling of peace. Sleeping Angel is part of series of works entitled “A Song of Love”.
The Widening Gap Merrilyn George This work reflects and is inspired by the growing and widening gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ in our communities. The assumptions, the judgements, and comments printed on the panels have been recorded from real conversations. It seems much more acceptable to talk about dealing with the environmental challenges in our country than equity and the widening gap between rich and poor families.
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Magpie Hat Sue Henderson The idea behind Magpie Hats are hats made to be worn displaying mementos and keepsakes. The remaining favourite earring, Granny’s old brooch with the missing stone or maybe your child’s badge, the one they wore with everything or a random bead or trinket that takes your fancy. Sue Henderson usually knits her Magpie hats out of fancy yarns but decided for Changing Threads she would use grass with seed heads to represent the nature of the Magpie nest and the shiny objects the Magpies are reputed to collect.
Deception Jenny Bain The tension of the wrapped words become a metaphor for a double meaning of the word construct. It can mean to build up, arrange, set up, invent, erect, but these can also mean deception. The wrapped words suggest a subterfuge of order. The cloth bolts and satin nuts don’t work. They try to seduce you into believing that they might. They deceive. For Jenny Kerry Bain there has always been a admiration at the huge bolts and nuts that secure mammoth structures. They are about power and strength but this work is about deception and an element of secrecy.
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Scattered Carol Telfer Carol Telfer is drawn to the sight of objects that have been washed up on the beach or to leaves and other plant material that has fallen to the ground, having been dispersed by the wind. These objects have been brought together by chance and will change in their position and physical appearance as time passes. Viewing them is to observe a moment in time, before the next changes occur. In her current artwork she creates contexts which to some degree mimic life or nature and my working method incorporates the concepts of chance and change.
Reflections City Windows Catherine Kenkel This piece plays with a long fascination with the reflective windows on Queen Street, Auckland. Catherin enjoys the way the light bounces around between them, and the constantly moving patterns as walking beneath them.
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Coast Wellington Catherine Kenkel Wellington’s wild south coast is one of many special places to watch the interplay of light and water and land. Being lucky enough to live for a while in Island Bay, I enjoyed many walks along the coast road in many weathers.
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The Wellywood Chapter of the G.C.S. B’stards Conor Jeory (Ngati Porou) The series of work ‘Colouring In 2014’ (gang patches are called ‘colours’) identifies distinct groups within society - NZ’s Gangs. This patch is cut out of the jacket as a trophy, like a scalp or a pelt. In gang culture patches are collected - as tributes, as captured trophies in conflict, as taonga from fallen comrades and displayed with great pride. One chapter president has an entire bedspread composed from a collection of colours.
Protection - 1080 - a Doomsday Conor Jeory (Ngati Porou) The story goes ‘I was deep in the bush when along came a D.O.C ranger checking his trap-lines - What Are You Up To? - spearing some kiwi and weka to make a cloak, sir - No, You’re Not, Come With Me, each time he emptied and re-set a trap he’d throw the possum stoat rat weasel carcass into the bush - can I use those then? Sure, Why Not’. Protection - the Sanctuary of the cloak - “...Ruhia threw her kaitaka over McKenzie. Her act saved his life, as in Māori custom, throwing a cloak over a person symbolises protection”.
Organic Evolution Marilyn Muirhead This work is an interpretation of the natural phenomena where mother nature creates growth out of flames and destruction of the living environment. Burning enables the metamorphous. Without the consuming fires there would be no rejuvenation of the brown land, no growth, no vibrancy, no plants striving up to the light in the green canopy.
Sea Baskets Jasmine Clarke Growing up in Kare Kare beach Jasmine Clark inherited a strong love and appreciation of nature. Jasmine Clarke is constantly absorbing inspiration from my immediate natural environment as well as from other practitioners and craft traditions. As a ‘maker’ she recognizes the value of treasuring traditional and primitive construction techniques, these precious skills, which were passed down through generations as a necessity of daily life are fast becoming a lost art.
Heather and Fern Sally Reynolds
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Sally Reynolds great, great grandfather John Liddell Kelly was a journalist and poet, who emigrated from Scotland to New Zealand in 1880. In his book of poetry “Heather and Fern: Songs of Scotland and Maoriland”, he has written a number of poems, including his most famous “Heather and Fern” about his old homeland and his new country. This work is a response to this poem, by use of stylised motifs and simple stitches. The theme of emigration and belonging resonates with her, as a reflection on the bravery of her ancestors who would never have the opportunity to return to the country of their birth.
Monet’s Garden, Painted in Petal Gillian Dickson This art coat was inspired by the floral colours of Monet’s gardens. Using knitting, hand knitted, felted and dyed the flowers adding hand & machine embroidery, mounting them on hand made felt and then constructed a non-wearable coat.
Contained II Maria Julkunen Edited words and feelings make us fit in, do not offend, save us from getting into trouble. It is socially acceptable to hold back, put a lid on it.
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Familiar Kaela Marshall ‘I am but have not always been, a quiet person. When I was younger my words fell on deaf ears so I learnt to speak through art, and it has become my honest voice’. Keala Marshall’s work is fueled by a personal struggle with human interaction. The desire she has for, yet the belief as invading or intruding on another holds back, almost always. Her work sits within the realm of preordained social systems, as to understand a single entity I must understand the equation I am equal to. In discovering that one has nothing to say one seeks a way to say just that.
When I think of home I Lynn Price Uprooting herself from homeland, took some courage, energy and faith in the future. As an artist, the experience also makes for complex influences that, willy-nilly, manifest in one’s work. In this piece, Lynn Price explores ways of visually communicating ideas about memory and nostalgia; life-sized features of the Derbyshire landscape are ‘dran’ in thread, representing a memory of the rural place she grew up in. ‘Just as a tree, my own roots are wide-spreading, branching from the primary root of my homeland into a myriad of secondary roots of another land I grow to know.’
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When I think of home II Lynn Price ‘the power of a place where formative experiences helped shape identity lives on, a power more remarkable since it relies not on physical presence but only the act of remembering’ John Percival, Return Migration in Later Life
From a migrant’s perspective, this quote resonates deeply for Lynn Price. Lynn Price’s artwork addresses memory and nostalgic association with the landscape I call ‘home’, yet it references a narrative that can be read as personal or generic. I’m interested in the fact that we are able to bring associations to places and landscapes which, through memory, hold a resonance throughout our lives.
Pattern Piece 1 Anne Groufsky Hand dyed silk in natural dyes (onion skins, logwood extract) using the Japanese ‘itajime’ folding and clamping technique. Hand stitched Maori designs add another layer of interest. I enjoy manipulating the surface of fabric with simple techniques such as dye and stitch.
Pattern Piece 2 Anne Groufsky Hand dyed silk in natural dyes (onion skins, logwood extract) using the Japanese ‘itajime’ folding and clamping technique. At a distance the stitched pattern is not obvious, it is only when close-up the viewer becomes aware of the details of another pattern. I am interested in adding layers to create a more complex dimension to the fabric.
perdu Chrissie Cleary The invisible forming the visible, water soluble stabiliser remaining steadfastly stable. ‘Being an older woman my lot, apparently, is to eventually fade into insignificance. As what happens when Wash-away stabiliser is liberally watered, a plentiful application of indifference will eventually wash me away also. In choosing to ‘fix’ my facial image with multiple layers of invisible thread, my features remain steadfastly visible. If you look carefully, you’ll see I’m definitely still here. But only just.’
Capestrano Warrior Unearthed # 1 Averil Stuart-Head Fascinated with the story of the Warrior of Capestrano, a tall limestone statue of a Picene warrior, which was discovered quite accidentally in 1934 by a labourer ploughing the field in the Italian town of Capestrano. The statue stands at around 2.09 m and was the most important archaeological find, in Italy, of the last century. This piece, after rusting and aging the fabric, immediately conveys the earth and what lay beneath. It does not require any other embellishments. detail
Cogitation Erika Lind Isaksen Thinking Yearning Pondering Wondering — speechless Out of reach.
Erika’s work is a constant exploration of ideas and materials, seeking inspiration from her upbringing in a small town in Iceland and her life in New Zealand thereafter. It’s about honesty, identity and emotion — about letting go of all pretence. While often introspective she attempts to encourage the viewers to pause and reflect on their own experiences, to evoke thought and inspire them to be truthful and sincere in their own journey. ‘Life is serious, my art is anything I want it to be’.
Christchurch re build Christine Marks This installation consists of 8 pieces, approx 14cms by 9cms square each. Christine Marks set about making an artwork that depicted what was going on in Christchurch. It had to be a piece that was unbreakable –hence the Perspex and able to show felt in felt what was going on below the earth. These towers [buildings]can be stacked in whatever configuration you want and can be moved around from day to day. The wool has been layered, cut, stitched felted and cut and stitched again to form a complex material. Photograph of work by Ross Beech
Choice Sue Wademan ‘Choice’ is made from old Kiwi flour sacks. In the years of the depression these flour, salt, rice and sugar bags were highly valued for their soft linen or hemp cloth. They were made into many things, linings for other clothing to make them softer to wear, tea towels, aprons, nighties, pillowslips and petticoats.
Recycled and made into a wall hanging to conjure up the past and the ‘waste not want not ‘ attitude that kiwi women had back then. The words on the sacks loosely placed on the map of NZ Win the area they have originated from. The dusty blue/ green silk that surrounds the map and the parallel lines of stitching indicating the ocean we are surrounded by. The final touch was for Spike to airbrush directly onto the completed quilt the shadow around the map that makes the landmass look three-dimensional.
To Be... Colleen Plank By using old and new technologies in my work I make reference to the female form and the act of celebrating being comfortable with oneself.
Pattern Recognition Vicki Smith and Aroha Timoti-Coxon Pattern Recognition assembles a woven combination of tukutuku and the QR code. They both are patterns of light and dark that codify story. The process of tukutuku weaves conversation, with the ara (thread) being passed back and forth between the two weavers, coding information in the form of patterns and motifs that tell local or universal stories. This work discusses traditional craft practices and collective knowledge making through a shared process of construction. A QR (quick response) code is a type of 2D bar code used to provide access to information through a smart mobile phone or tablet device. The digital world is made up of the on/off binary code. Pattern Recognition uses this weaving of light and dark to create a pattern that leads to the front-page of the Westland Library website, referencing the world wide web as the biggest repository of ‘woven information’ [Tukutuku-Ao-Whanui].
Slap Joyce Stalker This found object art piece makes a statement about the approximately 14 New Zealand women who die each year from domestic violence.
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Bubble wrap usually protects our precious possessions from harm. Yet, if you were to break one of the 365 bubbles, you may experience sensory impressions which parallel those of the perpetrators of that violence. You might feel the initial resistance, hear a harsh retort which resembles the sound of a sharp slap, sense the sudden surrender of the captured air to your persistent force, and finally, listen to a soft, final sigh as the bubble collapses.
Unfinished Business Sarah Pumphrey In 1840 Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed between Maori and the British Crown, following this, settlement of New Zealand officially began. Sarah’s work explores different aspects of this colonisation process and the impact it has had on the people of Aoteoroa, past present and future. “ The other side of the coin”, explores the Maori /British relationship, and questions what this relationship would look like if the Treaty had been honored? ‘Unfinished business’ is one work from a series of prints that explores the possibilities of an equal partnership between the British Crown and Maori. This did not eventuate and therefore this partnership continues to require effort and is “Unfinished Business”.
Tenths? Sarah Pumphrey In response to ‘Unfinished Business’, ‘Tenths’? is a reflection of Sarah’s understanding of the land transactions that occurred in the 1840s between local Maori and The New Zealand Company, in Nelson. Inspired by images of the original planning maps of the Nelson Districts, the bales are a metaphor for the land that was sold by The New Zealand Company to be used by the settlers. A key component of the NZ Company colonisation scheme was the obligation to reserve one-tenth of all land purchased for the future prosperity of the Māori owners, this land was known as ‘Tenths Reserves’. The New Zealand Company also undertook to protect all Māori occupation lands, urupā (cemeteries) and wāhi tapu (sites of cultural significance) from European settlement.
In addition to our wonderful sponsors, the Arts Council Nelson Executive Committee wish to acknowledge and thank the following for their valued contribution toward this showcase. Selectors:
Jo Kinross, Lloyd Harwood and Ronnie Martin
Judges: David Ryan, Lloyd Harwood and Ronnie Martin Friends and supporters of Arts Council Nelson who form the hard working team of volunteers who help to ensure the smooth running and success of the event. Last but not least our heartfelt appreciation goes to our amazing artists from around the country whose efforts and commitment enable us to provide such a wonderful showcase of contemporary New Zealand fibre and textile practice.