CREATIVE PRACTICE

As a textile artist, I have worked with plant dyeing and leaf imprinting onto cloth for more than thirty years, a technique now commonly used and known as ‘eco-dyeing’ or ‘eco prints’.

Over the years, I have developed and fine-tuned my technique of imprinting and the process has become a way of articulating my relationship with landscapes in Australia.

My love of textiles and cloth has often been connected to where I am, and where I have been, in terms of place and belonging, and I have discovered a kind of openness in bringing the two together.

I am interested in the way memories can be held in cloth and in the close connection with materials, especially through the meditative act of hand stitching. I love the process of plant dyeing – the collecting of plant material in a given place, the extracting of dyes and imprints, and recording it in the cloth.

There is a magic to the process due to the element of serendipity involved. I gather the leaves, perform the tasks required and bring my intentions to the mix, after which I have to let go and let the alchemy of the dye pots take over. In a sense, I just set the scene for the mystery to unfold.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in close contact with the natural world and knowing how to assess this connection as a resource throughout my life. We often live as if we are separate from nature, but we are actually inextricably part of the ecology. I am beginning to regain a sense of my interconnectedness with the other-than-human world, and it is both a joy and a resource, as well as an ongoing complex relationship. 

It makes me feel more whole and more alive.