Photos: Supplied
Textiles perform an amazing variety of functions in our lives; we use them to wear, decorate our homes, protect ourselves and our belongings, communicate our status and affluence, fabric powered the sailing ships that opened the world to explorers – its uses and its potential as a creative art form are vast.
An inspiring exhibition of textile-based hand-crafted art is on display at the Redlands Coast Museum until 6 June 2025. Creativity-Diversity is a presentation by 15 members of the Queensland Branch of ATASDA (The Australian Textile Art and Surface Design Association), displaying their talents in embroidery, collage, upcycling, felting, patchwork, mixed media, surface design, stitching, lettering, stencilling, eco-dyeing and fabric manipulation.
Kathryn Iliff, President of ATASDA’s Queensland branch, says that textile work is a pleasingly tactile art form that many artists are drawn to through sewing, knitting and crochet skills learned as a child.
“They rediscover their practical skills as an art form rather than a function,” she says. “Even darning and patching have progressed from classic women’s work – make and mend – to become recognised art forms. There’s even an international online group for swapping clothes patches between group members.”
Kathryn says artists have different ways of working; some plan carefully and journal the piece’s design and development and some just envisage a project and go for it. “That’s my favourite way of working,” she says. “The result isn’t always exactly as I’d envisaged it, but it’s an art piece; I can’t control it too much.”
In some places, textile art has also functioned as a form of activism and social comment, reminiscent of the HIV memorial patchwork quilts of the 1980s.
“Women’s craft groups in New South Wales create artworks on cleaning cloths that address women’s equality and societal roles – they call it ‘craftivism’,” Kathryn says. “There’s also a woman in America who has a project of embroidering ladies’ handkerchiefs with Trumpisms. It’s called Tiny Pricks.”
Creativity-Diversity runs until 6 June 2025 at Redlands Coast Museum; for more information call 3286 3494.
