Love Lace

Last Monday I went back to the Powerhouse Museum to have another look at the Love Lace exhibit. I had gone to a symposium back in June when I had first arrived in Sydney. At that point, I had wanted to check out some of the fiber arts scene here and meet some like-minded people that I might get to be friends with. It was a wonderful event and I was overwhelmed with inspiration and anticipation of days and months and years of mixing in a creative community. I listened to talks given by some of the artists, chatted with some of the attendees, and breezed through the exhibit. I planned to come back to spend more time looking at the over 100 pieces.

So, months later, I was not disappointed when I returned. The museum website has an extensive description of the artist with lovely photos, but I snapped a bunch anyway. I hope the inferior quality of my camera doesn't deter from the beauty of these works.

The mere technical skill and determination to make these things is marvelous and inspiring in itself, and while not all of it was to my taste for one reason or another, many of the pieces were just so lovely and amazing. Anyone who loves texture, pattern, or light play, would be enticed by this exhibit. Since shadow and negative space are so important to lace, the lighting was important. In many of the photos you can see the pattern better in the shadow than in the piece. I love this because it is like you get two for one.

It was hard to pick a favorite because of the variety of materials and categories (i.e. fashion, jewelry, home decor, architectural) but I narrowed it down to 2 for me: 1. I loved the seaweed hair picks because I have always loved the artistic qualities of seaweed, I love that they are made out of colored and melted plastic bottles (yay recycling!), I love the twist on a Chinese hair pick that is usually made from jade, and finally, just because they were beautiful. 2. I loved the lacework in the native New Zealand grass. I just love the idea of weaving a bit of art into something so common, simple, and ephemeral as a blade of grass. It reminds me of something fairies might do and I imagine that if I owned one of these, I would never get tired of staring at it.

One of the things they talked about at the symposium is the fact that lacemaking is a dying art. I truly hope that young people get exposed to it and have the opportunity to appreciate it and learn the techniques because I think there is a primal response to it whether it is done traditionally or with a modern edge.

The last photo is a close up of a spider web on our front porch. I manipulated it to show off the lacy texture.