Residency at Australian Tapestry Workshop, Melbourne

13th September - 22nd October 2010

tieworks 2010

Vintage silk ties from my fathers collection, deconstructed

variable dimensions

In 2010 I undertook a residency at the Australian Tapestry Workshop. I wanted to create a series of works using my fathers vintage silk tie collection, as an ode to him, and examine the handmade construction of a woven textile. I produced 9 works in which I had deconstructed the blue silk weft from the ties, leaving only a skeletal form of the original tie. Each day, I painstakingly pulled thread after thread of the weft leaving the warp as the only structure of the tie. As I was unweaving, the tieworks became more fragile textiles, new forms that reacted to air - whilst in the workshop, the weavers were producing large scale tapestries.