Today it was
An inspired Australian weaver, who declares "no boundaries!" in her virtuoso three dimensional complex weaving, based on early studies in Italy of the Jacquard structure.
She took the courses in Florence, and studied Jacquard texture as well as velvet weaving, which is more than warp and weft. Here's a Florentine artwork depicting weaving, and the equipment for making the punch cards which are the underlying mechanism of Jacquard weaving structure.
Before she started her presentation, she paid tribute to the original peoples of Australia and the art and reverence for the land they bequeathed and continue to live. It was lovely, she acknowledged the debt today's Australia owes them.
She herself has done production weaving, industrial style, and her mother was herself a production weaver and designer in the Australian textile industry.
Here's a young Melanie at work, alongside a shot of her mother's working notebook.
She was an early teacher of weaving to Melanie, who took to it rapidly.
She's fearless in her approach, from traditional two dimensional weaving to three dimensions, with multiple threads, silk, clear filament, washi paper, whatever works for the concept.
She uses computers where they're useful for design, and pencil and paper, too. And she delves into the math of woven structure in the course of working in three dimensions.
At times her approach is almost mystical as she lets the materials do what they want as well as what she wants. She develops a relationship with each piece. She's very ready to acknowledge the influence of other weavers and painters, a generous approach.
Here she's showing a woven paper piece. The image is blurry because she was waving it around!
Bottom left is woven washi paper.
She was an inspirational speaker, equally on point with avant garde art weaving and industrial production. She's currently interested in how the friction in weaving can literally generate energy for use, and is following researchers currently working on the concept. It fits in with her concern for the earth and reverence for materials.
This was an entirely new and astonishing aspect to this viewer. I suspect she's always going to explore new and astonishing work.
