Picture: BROOKE LITTLEWOOD
A FABRIC trail, created by a group of five independent textile artists, has brought life and colour to the walls of the Millicent Gallery.
Launched in conjunction with the Geltwood Festival’s official opening night, the South Australian living textiles (SAlt) exhibition combines the work of emerging and well-established artists including Francie Mewett, Judi Bushby, Sara Bell Smith, Julie Haddrick and Wendy Thiele.
Ms Haddrick attended the opening and said she was grateful the group had been invitedto showcase its latest exhibition.
“We are South Australian and we very much wanted that to be a part of the title,” she said.
“I have been quilting for over 20 years and when I first started it was very much about what the Americans were doing and how you could buy American patterns and fabrics.
“I thought hang on, what about Australia?
“Because of this my early quilts were about Australian animals and wild flowers and the idea of SAlt really grew from that.
“It is about being proud to be South Australian and I think we hold our weight in the quilting industry, very much so.”
Artists created a one metre square quilt and a conclusion piece for the exhibition, as well as a 40cm square quilt in response to each artist’s work.
The SAlt group has evolved since its inception to create themes and their current work is based around the theme “hashtag”.
“The hashtag has actually taken on a different way of connecting people,” Ms Haddrick said.
“You know when you put the hashtag with a phrase on social media it will connect with all the other people who have used that hashtag.
“We like the idea of using that on our series.”
The exhibition will remain at the Millicent Gallery until the end of the month.
