Dreams, memories and midnight musings have been stitched, sewn and woven into a striking new textile exhibition at Newstead Arts Hub.
Night Thoughts – Dreams and Inspirations brings together the work of local artists Sally Roadknight, Liz Sardone and Lee Shelden, whose shared love of textiles has grown into a regular creative exchange of ideas, fabrics and inspiration.
The result is a richly varied exhibition that showcases three distinct approaches to textile art – from mixed media and embroidery to intricate stitching, vintage fabrics and found materials.
Visitors entering the main exhibition space are immediately surrounded by their work, with wall hangings suspended from the ceiling alongside screens, baskets and even a textile-inspired drawing.
The exhibition then flows into separate rooms featuring Roadknight’s mixed media works and Sardone’s intricate embroidery, creating an immersive journey through the artists’ individual creative worlds.Sally Roadknight said her works were an exploration of fabric and stitching.
“I am often awake early in the morning with many and varied thoughts running through my head. This series of works is a way of working through and making sense of some of these thoughts,” she said.
“As a mixed media artist I have used close, printing, basketry, found objects and stitching to build up the image.
“The background fabric in the larger works is recycled drop sheet. The coloured fabrics in the smaller works are also recycled, many given to me by Lee and Liz as remnants of their own art practices.”
Lee Shelden’s work also has links to dream imagery.
“Dreams slip away leaving only a feeling of something: fear, pleasure, unease, peace. However, some dreams recur and an image remains. My room hangings, sewn together from vintage kimono fabric and various other re-purposed fabrics and threads, began as a kind of dream diary, an attempt to capture recurring dream images. They have since evolved into representations of the natural world that I feel so very comfortable in,” she said.
“I’ve been sewing and drawing textiles for several decades now, a practice that has endless possibilities for me,” Shelden said.
Liz Sardone is a member of the Castlemaine branch of The Embroiderer’s Guild Victoria and her pieces represent a retrospective of her works spanning many years.
THey span from ornate boxes and books to a gorgeous kimono and a painter’s jacket crafted from an old drop sheet.
“I come from a family of makers in textiles and other media and feel I have inherited the passion,” Liz said.
“I’ve been sewing and stitching since I was very young, but it wasn’t until I retired from a career in corporate human resources that I could truly follow my passion for textiles.
“I always enjoy making something from nothing. Turning scraps of fabric into garments or making pieces that give me or others pleasure is exciting to me. So, the main materials that I work with are cloth, especially vintage silks and cottons from Japan, thread, dyeing and a mixture of hand and machine stitching,” Sardone said.
The exhibition continues weekends through until September 27 and is open from 10am to 4pm.
Newstead Arts Hub can be found in Tivey Street Newstead.