Sir William Deane cuts the Canberra Centenary Community Tapestry from its loom at the ANU School of Art Textiles Workshop. Photo: Jeffrey Chan
Size isn't everything in works of art, and of course the Australian impressionists painted masterpieces on the little lids (nine inches by five inches - 23 centimetres by 13 centimetres) of cigar boxes.
But two impressively colossal, centenary-inspired pieces, hitherto kept indoors and on their creators' leashes, were unleashed on our city on Wednesday.
At noon Centenary of Canberra patron Sir William Deane, wielding golden scissors, began the cutting-off ceremony that set the 2.7-metre by 1.4-metre Canberra Centenary Community Tapestry free from its frame at the ANU School of Arts Workshop.
The felt sculpture entitled, "See...the land is dancing", by local artist, Julie Armstrong, on display at the Orana School, Weston. Julie shows her work to 7 year old student, Toby Ednie from Macarthur. Photo: Graham Tidy
Earlier on Wednesday, and without ceremony, felt artist Julie Armstrong delivered her 3.2-metre by 1.7-metre See … The Land Is Dancing from her home/studio to the Orana Steiner School in Weston. It is her Canberra Centenary gift to the school.
Alas, one of the two burly works, the Community Tapestry, is not only colossal but is a colossal bore and disappointment.
This column has spent a year going hoarse singing the praises of almost everything about the centenary but a year of centenary creations and occasions is bound to contain some disappointments and at this stage the tapestry, lifeless (a panorama of Canberra it doesn't contain a single Canberran!) uneventful, unsexy, sterile and dull, is for us the greatest of them so far. It will be nice if the tapestry inspires some Skywhale-like discussion about itself (and about how Canberrans depict our city). But we are in such a self-congratulatory mood this year that everyone will probably fawn over it the way we all fawned over it at Wednesday's soft, fluffy event.
Back to the tapestry, to give the last word to its designer Annie Trevillian, in just a moment.
See … The Land Is Dancing offers a spiritual view of the Canberra landscape and place from the kind of perspective enjoyed by a high-flying Wedge-tailed Eagle or a high-flying saint. For at the very top of the work a stylised St Michael with diaphanous wings and a steely sword is urging for Canberra to be the best it can be.
Felt artist Armstrong says the work explores the spiritual power of the mountains and their relationship to the Griffins' design for Canberra and also honours the traditional custodians and their care of the land.
The Griffins were pioneer practitioners of Rudolf Steiner's philosophy, known as 'Anthroposophy' and were part of the group that brought Steiner education and philosophy to Australia. Hence the connection with the Steiner school in Weston.
Armstrong says her representation of the Archangel shows him ''sending sparks of courage to the people of Canberra to help us to fight for the care and wellbeing of the land on which we live and for the survival of the Earth as a whole''.
People who get the chance to come right up to See … The Land Is Dancing will have fun picking out the famous features of the landscape. The Molonglo and Murrumbidgee rivers flow, babbling and blue, right across it and the projecting felt mountains tempt us to fondle them as if they are spaniels' ears. Important places in the city, like the Parliament House, are marked by some of the golden sparks of courage that the saint has sprinkled.
Perhaps one of the saint's precious sparks alighted on us for somehow we plucked up the courage, at an occasion where everyone was pretending the Canberra Centenary Community Tapestry was an awe-inspiring thing, to challenge Annie Trevillian about it. ''Where are the people?'' we quizzed her. Where is the real Canberra, the real city of crowds, lovers, traffic, splendour, sleaze, struggle and joy? Where is Summernats? Where is the Life?
Trevillian said that ''There were lots of things I could have put in but I had to choose the most important, whether it was a place [almost all of the city's monumental edifices, like the Carillon and National Library, get guernseys] or whether it was the flora or fauna. I wanted to make it personal to anyone coming to see it so they can pick things out and go 'There's the Brindabellas!' Everyone loves the Brindabellas.
''Why are there no people? Well that's probably my design aesthetic. In my design work [as a textile artist] I don't include a lot of people.''
''But there are 360,000 of us!'' your columnist pleaded, making the point that cities are their people. The tapestry's Canberra is not the city I live in, I whinged.
Trevillian countered that for her the Canberra of the tapestry is, really, full of people, and that lots of the tapestry, being about people's buildings and places, ''is representing people but without having them actually there''.
And to my complaint that the Canberra of the tapestry is not the Canberra I live in she retorted, feistily, that ''It is the one I live in''.
Armstrong's See … The Land Is Dancing will be on display on Sunday, November 10, at the Orana School Spring Fair, which runs from 11am-3pm. The tapestry, with no people in it but with a very nice bogong moth, will go on display in the Legislative Assembly exhibition room from Monday, November 25, for two weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment