Designed and made by Valerie Kirk (b. 1957, Scotland). Valerie Kirk trained in art and design in Edinburgh, with a post-graduate year in tapestry at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1978-9 and an art teachers certificate at Goldsmiths College in London in 1979-80. After a brief period at the Victorian Tapestry Workshop in Melbourne in 1980, she worked full-time as an artist in the UK, with further lectures, workshops and residencies in Australia in 1984-85. Around 1987 she returned to Australia, and since 1991 has been senior lecturer, and head of textiles at the Canberra School of Art. Her work is in numerous exhibitions, collections and commissions, and she has researched textiles in Europe, and more recently, Vietnam (see detailed c/v).
'The image in the tapestry... has been developed from drawings of the pineforest plantations and areas of native vegetation around Canberra. Coming from a country which has been entirely cultivated, I am aware of the strong contrast here between developed and undeveloped land. I am intrigued by the farming/forestry/building creeping up the hillsides around Canberra. It makes obvious the short period of white settlement and gives a sense of being part of ongoing pioneering times and processes. Replacing the bush with development continues as the nation's capital grows.The overall format is that of a quilt, playing on the idea of the quilt/forest as a covering and looking at women in the domestic environment reshaping fabrics to provide a cover and men remodelling the cover of the earth.' (Valerie Kirk, statement from personal notebook, 1994). See also catalogue essay by Anne Brennan, from 'Texts from the Edge' exhibition of tapestries, Jam Factory Gallery, Adelaide, 1994, for a discussion of combining tapestry and quiltmaking, and for an interpretive reading of the motifs.
The two quilts referred to in this tapestry are both in the Powerhouse Museum's collection. The 'Medallion Quilt' was made by Mrs 'Grannie Brown, from Bowning in NSW about 1895 (90/732) (see extract from 'Decorative Arts in the Powerhouse Museum'). The other is quilt of woollen suiting samples made by Caroline West, Trundle, NSW in about 1930 (85/371). Valerie Kirk was also drawing on memories of a quilt made within her own family from suiting samples of Scottish tweeds and plaids, in the Selkirk area in Scotland.
Designed and made by Valerie Kirk (b. 1957, Scotland). Valerie Kirk trained in art and design in Edinburgh, with a post-graduate year in tapestry at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1978-9 and an art teachers certificate at Goldsmiths College in London in 1979-80. After a brief period at the Victorian Tapestry Workshop in Melbourne in 1980, she worked full-time as an artist in the UK, with further lectures, workshops and residencies in Australia in 1984-85. Around 1987 she returned to Australia, and since 1991 has been senior lecturer, and head of textiles at the Canberra School of Art. Her work is in numerous exhibitions, collections and commissions, and she has researched textiles in Europe, and more recently, Vietnam (see detailed c/v).
'The image in the tapestry... has been developed from drawings of the pineforest plantations and areas of native vegetation around Canberra. Coming from a country which has been entirely cultivated, I am aware of the strong contrast here between developed and undeveloped land. I am intrigued by the farming/forestry/building creeping up the hillsides around Canberra. It makes obvious the short period of white settlement and gives a sense of being part of ongoing pioneering times and processes. Replacing the bush with development continues as the nation's capital grows.The overall format is that of a quilt, playing on the idea of the quilt/forest as a covering and looking at women in the domestic environment reshaping fabrics to provide a cover and men remodelling the cover of the earth.' (Valerie Kirk, statement from personal notebook, 1994). See also catalogue essay by Anne Brennan, from 'Texts from the Edge' exhibition of tapestries, Jam Factory Gallery, Adelaide, 1994, for a discussion of combining tapestry and quiltmaking, and for an interpretive reading of the motifs.
The two quilts referred to in this tapestry are both in the Powerhouse Museum's collection. The 'Medallion Quilt' was made by Mrs 'Grannie Brown, from Bowning in NSW about 1895 (90/732) (see extract from 'Decorative Arts in the Powerhouse Museum'). The other is quilt of woollen suiting samples made by Caroline West, Trundle, NSW in about 1930 (85/371). Valerie Kirk was also drawing on memories of a quilt made within her own family from suiting samples of Scottish tweeds and plaids, in the Selkirk area in Scotland.
Exhibited in the exhibition 'Texts from the edge", associated with a symposium of the same name, in the Jam Factory Gallery in Adelaide in 1994. Also exhibited in 'Capital Works', contemporary art from lecturers from the Canberra School of Art at the Drill Hall Gallery in Canberra in 1995, and in Takashimaya Gallery in Singapore, and the University Museum and Gallery in Hong Kong in 1996.
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