Robina Summers

Detail Vanishing?

I work  both as a photographer and a textile artist. I often find that in designing a photograph it will often help the design emerge for a quilt. On the other hand the design of a textile piece will often lead to a freer photograph. My work comes from the heart and, whether a photograph or textile piece, starts as a formal design determined by the theme of a particular exhibition. The meditative process of stitching stimulates my subconscious mind and will often dictate the emotional direction a work goes in. I find it impossible to make any work without an underlying statement about something I believe in. That doesn't meant it has to be serious, it can also be light hearted and fun. I continually find that that nothing is ever quite straightforward, visually or intellectually so that my art photographs are frequently manipulated to bend the straight lines and I find it physically impossible to sew a straight line. Quite a contrast, maybe even a reaction against the commercial world where I will pursue exacting reality in a photograph for a client.

I thoroughly enjoy workshops which I often find are a two-way inspiration.

My alter world is as a yarnbomber - or as some would prefer to call it - urban knitting, or even urban art installation. Its heartwarming fun facilitating community projects that soften cold hard reality with wool!

Along with Toni Warrell and Olga Walters I belong to the Star Quilters of Warrandyte where we make almost traditional quilts. We quilt for ourselves but like all quilting groups, big and small, the Stars devote time and materials to making quilts for others in need of comfort - from special care babies to fire and flood victims. The very first group quilt we made twenty years ago when we were beginners was for a charity auction. I never cease to be amazed at the generosity of all quilters everywhere- I guess its a pastime that easily lends itself to providing comfort for others.

When I have spare time (when????) I also blog about yarnbombing, quilting, people and many other things . Just google "Wild Yarns & Stuff"

Nostalgia

Silk organza & habutai, machine & hand embroidery, beads. Wool blanketing, eucalyptus, tea & kangaroo apple dye. Beads.

151 x 126 cm

We never fly when we work interstate. If we possibly can we drive.  We grew up in a time when that's what you did during the holidays.  We grew up loving the main streets in country towns.  They were thriving, busy  places.

Motels didnt exist.  We stayed in country pubs.  They had their own smell - even now, rarely, walking past an old building in the country, that smell will waft out of a doorway, creating a sense of loss for time past.  Shopping stopped at one oçlock on a Saturday, Sunday lunch wa a roast with family.  People grew wonderful flower and vegetable gardens, clothes dried on a Hill's Hoist, the baker delivered bread with a horse and cart and so did the milkman. 

Of course, these things happened in suburban Melbourne, but nothing in the the city remains to remind us of those childhood memories.  For no logical reason, country towns bring back romanticised memories of our lucky childhood and a desire to delve into times past, even times well before our own.

Se we drive and stop in modern motels, and then we walk, cameras in hand, obsessed by buildings of all ages.  Glimpses of many generations past - many have new uses  Lots of old banks are now restaurants, offices and medical rooms.  (I actually get really excited to see a very old bank building still in use as a bank).  In some towns, grand old emporiums lie abandoned.

Detail \Nostalgia

In some towns, grand old emporiums like abandoned.  That's very sad, what were they  like in their hey day - what sort of people shopped there, what did they buy, how did they live?  I could go on forever - instead, here's just a selection of memories from one drive north.

  I have arranged them inside the framework of a piece of ironwork on an old balcony in Armidale, New South Wales.  Look at them and let your imagination run riot about all the lives that have been led behind those doors and windows.  

EUCALYPTUS POLYANTHEMUS

Handwoven with synthetic thread and tissue organza, hand & machine stitching, beads, paint, wool blanketing, eucalyptus & tea dye.

88 cm w x 170 cm h

2014

When I was nineteen, I came back from 12 months overseas and started a course at RMIT.  Directly opposite was the then, National Gallery of Victoria.  When I should have been in the library fI spent many hours trawling the art.

On one of my first visits, I stumbled, almost literally, such was the effect, across Fred McCubbin's "The Pioneer".  Looking at it I could actually smell the bush I hadn't been in for probably eighteen months.  A visit to Eltham the following weekend made me realise just how very much I had missed it - odd as I always wanted to bean ïnner city girl""

When we married we lived in the inner city.  One day on a weekend escape to Warrandyte, we fell in love with a tree covered block and subsequently moved right into the bush.  It was a block covered in Eucalyptus Polyanthemus - red box.  Since then we have moved further into the bush.

Detail Eucalylptus Polyanthemus

When the "Red Box"winery opened I was asked to make a quilt celebrating the tree for the opening.  By chance I discovered a skeleton leaf on our drive - perfect for a design.  Since then I have reworked this quilt as my love affair with the red box has certainly not decreased.  It makes the most beautiful imprints on wool and imparts it's wonderful leaf smell into the fabric at the same time.  I am very happy for you to "touch and sniff" the woollen blanket layer.

VANISHING ?

Silk organza & habutai, machine & hand embroidery, beads. Wool blanketing, eucalyptus, tea & kangaroo apple dye. Beads.

151 x 126 cm

detail Vanishing?

2014 I love the bush.  The community I live in protects and cares for a small area of bush on the Yarra River on the outskirts of Melbourne.  Then there were those terrible firest.  Our community was by good fortune only, physically untouched.  But the whole of Melbourne felt the sadness.  Withing our community neighbours lost immediate family members, all of us lost friends and the romantic innocence of bush living vanished.

Its several years on now and its taken time for all of us to start to feel normal, some never will.

     

Despite that, the passion we all have for living in the bush has, if anything, increased - the burn areas and storm damage remind us of how fragile it can be.  We celebrate its existence all through the year.  There are now fears for its future - seed banks can disappear with fire and plants can vanish forever.  The earth is warmer now and is drier deep down because rain has trouble penetrating very ground making it more difficult for trees to cope.  And, there is less rain too.  I can see the bush has changed, our orchids are not as prolific and some of the trees are battling.  Near my house, beautiful candlebarks that are many decades old have inexplicably fallen over.

Were this bush to vanish, we would all be affected by its loss.  The woollen back of this quilt is covered in imprints of eucalypt leaves - please lift the delicate front to see what's underneath - even sniff the wool, its kept the smell of the leaves.