Stringmakers 2010

Stringmakers

A shared conversation between Perth women artists Holly Story, Nalda Searles and Bronwyn Goss and senior Ngaanyatjarra women artists Lalla West, Nora Holland, Elizabeth Holland, Tjingapa Davies, Nola Hunt, Walya Mitchell. The artists worked together at Warburton in the Western Desert. Coordinator Sujora Conrad.

Shown at Tjulyurru Gallery, Warburton,Western Australia and Holmes a Court Gallery, Perth, Western Australia, 2010 .

Blog link

www.thestringmakers.blogspot.com

Artists Statement

The journey to Warburton takes me far away from what I know, from the forests of the south coast into desert country. How to find ways of connecting to this new place? I meet artists who know this land, know what happens here. Someone tells me a story about some ancestors. They began their journey a long way away in the south, they come this way, they do things, they go on. Then I begin to understand how places and people all across the land – north, south, east and west – can be stitched together by the thread of story. What threads can I use? My artist’s eyes, my artist’s heart, looking and feeling. And always the bush. So I choose two trees, one from desert country, one from forest country. On both I stitch the fire of life which they hold in trust, as all creatures do. They may come from different places, but they are joined by this living thread.

From the catalogue

This exchange project and the resultant exhibition shows women of the desert and women of the coast working and exhibiting alongside each other. The works sit quietly in the space of the gallery creating their own dialogue. Sujora Conrad, Pturru Palyalpayi – Stringmakers catalogue, 2010.

Review

… a series of felt scroll maps by Story … capturing the entanglement of current moments within the past and the future, use the idea of scrolling beautifully to represent travelling over the vast WA interior. These works help to situate the (exhibition) within a place that is emotional as well as material.
Ric Spencer, The West Australian Today, 23 July 2010, p. 7.