The Community Lacemaking Project
There were two urges that combined to make this piece.
The first one was the pure joy of a proud teacher. I’ve been teaching needle lace for three years now, and it has genuinely been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Ushering so many new lacemakers into being, keeping the skills living and breathing and in as many hands as possible. When I started stitching there were fewer lacemakers, and now there are more. Isn’t that miraculous?
I’m incredibly proud. I love seeing the people that I taught make their own incredible pieces. I love recognising my stitches in other peoples works. I love knowing that I’m playing a role in keeping a centuries-old artform alive.
The second urge was more complicated. In 2023, the slow demise of an unhealthy relationship had left me gaunt, jumpy, defensive and lonely. I had withdrawn from most of my friends and family. Finally I found myself sleeping in my childhood bedroom feeling lonely and reeling from a year’s worth of whiplash.
I was working on a huge piece of lace with a tight deadline. Making a design that looked like little leaves scattered around the border of a large piece. As the deadline approached I was stitching in 12 hour daily stints. I began to worry that I couldn’t meet it.
So I sent out a Hail Mary text to those people I had withdrawn from. Though we hadn’t spent much time together over the last year, I asked for help. I offered a plate of food and basic needle lace instructions in exchange for everyone making some little lace leaves to scatter and stitch into the border of my piece.
And they came through. I had the absolutely life-changing experience of asking for help and my community coming through. All of these beautiful friends and family members sat around my mother’s dining table and helped me stitches those little leaves.
It was wonderful experiencing that shift in the meaning of that piece. What started as a navel-gazey artwork about the trivial stuff in my life turned into this deep lesson about the importance of community.
So that’s how the community project was born. I wanted a piece that was all about that process. To bring as many people into that community as possible and to put the basic skills into as many hands as I could. My lofty aim was to have two hundred collaborators.
So I started with an instructional video on YouTube. Just recorded quickly, uploaded and then left to see what would happen. It ended up getting ten thousand views and reached enormous ranks of new stitchers. Then followed six months of travelling around and teaching in person.
In Australia I taught in Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle, Adelaide. In the USA I taught in New York, Colorado and Los Angeles.
I had zoom classes, cafe stitching sessions, informal lessons with friends and family. It was truly delightful. So many bright, enthusiastic, generous new stitchers. In the end, I got more than double the amount of contributors I was aiming for. The grand total came to FOUR HUNDRED AND ELEVEN beautiful people who contributed. And over SEVEN HUNDRED leaves. Overwhelming. It was completely, joyfully overwhelming.
Joining them together was again a marathon. Twelve hour stints of stitching. More asking for help from friends and family. More conversations over the table, sitting with them and stitching, joining those hundreds of little leaves. The piece travelled with me, I dragged it around the house, to other teaching jobs, on trains, I fell asleep under it multiple times.
I called it RADIANCE. Because that’s how it felt to me. This glowing thing that starts small and radiates outwards into something big and beautiful.
Currently at Penrith Regional Gallery, Sydney
2.8 x 3m
Here are some FAQs:
HOW MANY LEAVES?: I lost count at seven hundred.
HOW MANY CONTRIBUTORS?: Four hundred and eleven. There is a screen right next to the work that cycles through everyone’s names. I’ll be posting it also in a video on Instagram.
DID YOU USE ALL OF THE LEAVES?: Almost! There were a few that fell apart, and a few that were just slightly too brightly coloured or too dark to fit cohesively into the design. But I made sure to use at least one leaf from every contributor. So everyone who stitched along is represented in the finished piece.
DID YOU MAKE ANY OF THE LEAVES?: Probably about twenty. I included the ones that I made for examples. I also completed a lot of unfinished leaves. There were lots of people who started stitching in class but couldn’t get around to finishing them. (Not to mention a fair few who picked it up and then realised that they didn’t enjoy the repetitive monotony of the process… Complete respect for that kind of self-knowledge.)
WHERE WERE THE CONTRIBUTORS FROM? The majority are from Australia and the USA, but I recieved leaves from everywhere! Iceland, Korea, Ireland, India, New Zealand, Mexico, so SO many places. Some were even stitched in Antarctica!
HOW WAS IT FUNDED?: I decided not to apply for funding, just give participants the option of donating a small amount to contribute to materials, venue-hire and some travel expenses. Again I was overwhelmed by the generosity. The piece officially broke even in the end.
HOW DO YOU FEEL NOW THAT IT’S DONE?: Happy, exhausted, overwhelmed, proud, and SO grateful.
Thank you thank you and thank you again.
To everyone who contributed. To everyone who provided a place to work and a place to stay. To everyone who encouraged, talked about it, spread the word, set up your own stitching circles. To everyone who sent your leaves from around the world with all of those heartfelt and thoughtful letters. You are all absolute marvels. Those of you who want to see it in person, I’ll keep updating it’s exhibition venues.
It’s out there in the world now forever.