In her 60s, worked in the Community Sector running small not for profits, currently not doing paid work, likes to make large blankets and swim. Not at the same time.
A few years ago I attended a talk at the National Library given by four women about how women disappear in archives. The National Foundation for Australian Women hosts talks, lectures, podcasts and an annual dinner, about women in Australia and how they make a difference to democracy. The talk I attended had four women, all archivists who work at national and local institutions. They all talked about how women and what they do get lost in archives because it is not considered to be important. They all illustrated their case with a women they had found in their archive who did not have a name anyone would recognise. Women who had been recorded but buried in the records.
Many things of importance were said that day, it was a promotion for a project of the NFAW to encourage women to put what they do in archives, but the person who said something that has stayed with me was Kathryn Dan. An archivist at the Australian National University (ANU) Dan is also a knitter and crocheter. I see her at the local face to face meeting of the Canberra Knitters and Crochet Group at the Tradies on a Sunday. She knits beautiful things. What she said that has stayed with me was, “...women get lost in history because what they do is not seen as important.”
On my way home from the talk I got into conversation with a young man who had been sitting in front of me. He was one of the very few men in the room and the only one under about 50 who was there alone and not with a partner. I ask him why he was there. He told me about his interest in archives and it is who puts them together and how they tell a story, but only a story that they want to tell. The information that is chosen to be archived, how it is stored, recorded and then accessed all leds to an interpretation of that story. He wanted to know how he could his job as a public servant, better to reflect a truer account of any story. This also stayed with me.
The things that women do are not seen as important.
The way data is collected and stored to tell our story is also not seen as important.
We get lost and are invisible.
So now a couple of years on, mulling on these thoughts I have thought of a project that might go someway to addressing this.
The Facebook group the Canberra Knitters and Crocheters was started by a woman who wanted to reach out to other people who enjoyed craft as much as she did. The group is not formal, no joining fee, no committee, not even any real obligation but its nearly four and half thousand members share one thing, they love to celebrate their love of craft. Always encouraging and knowledgable this diverse group is mainly women. They are creative, generous, kind and encouraging and they come from all backgrounds. Some go to one of the regular face to face group meetings held around Canberra on a weekly basis. Some are lurkers who watch the space. Some view the FB page as inspiration for future projects.
Crafting, but particularly knitting and crochet are skills that are passed down across generations. The thread is acquired as a new skill, woven into that individuals being. There are many benefits to crafting: building a skill set, improving concentration, a creative outlet, being mindful about your practice. But making a jumper, a blanket or a pair of socks is not always recognised for the skill it requires. Other crafters might be wowed by a colour combination or a new stitch pattern but outside this there is little recognition.
In “Why the art world is finally waking up to female craft skills” Lizzy Pook starts with a photo of a painting by Mark Rothko, next to a weaving by Anni Albers. Both artists worked in the early part of the 20 Century, contemporaries. Both trained as artists, Albers also taught at the Bauhaus Art School. Pook points out that art Albers made is not remembered but was also not valued at the time, even by her own family. Her mother, given a silk weaving, put it on the piano under a vase, as she did not know what else to do with a piece of fabric.
Part of this disdain for women’s work, and crafting of all forms is work, has come from the Victorians. As the middle class grew across the Western world and women, with means, had more time, crafting was something that was relegated and viewed as something women did to fill their afternoons. This was compounded by the way art was collected by new institutions, run by men, who did not value the artwork of women. Echos of the archives.
In 2007 the Tate Modern exhibited Anni Albers work. “I heard [Paul] Klee speak and he said ‘take a line for a walk’, and I thought, ‘I will take thread everywhere I can,’” said Albers. Her work is delicate, geometric, a riot of colour and form. She wanted her threads to be a form in themselves, “...not to be sat on, walked on, just looked at.”
These are the threads that connect us.
In this project I aim to look at the work of women in the Canberra Knitters and Crocheters Facebook Group. The template I will use is text around four images:
1 A photo of the women
2 A photo of what they are working on
3 A photo and/or description of the work they consider to be their best
4 A photo of an object that means something to them
Here is my entry.
I started to crochet when my grandmother thought I needed something useful to fill my time; something I could concentrate on and keep my amused. She knitted or crocheted to fill her time and to produce many garments of varying colour and skill. My knitting was full of holes and she spent more time picking up stitches for me than I spent doing the rows, so the crochet hook was brought out. There is only one stitch and if I dropped it I could pick it up myself. It also chewed through her scape pile. I soon became adapt at doing blankets made from left overs of jumpers, scarves, gloves, beanies and slippers. All the people we knew having a new baby would get a blanket. The receiver usually surprised such a task could be managed by someone in primary school.
As my skill grew my interest wained. The yarn my grandmother choose was not to my liking and her colour skill was limited. I tried hard to love the yarn, I did workshops, one with Kaffe Fassett, all to no avail. I moved onto sewing clothes and that stayed with me for many years.
The fabrics offered more colour choice, more possibility. It has taken me years to realise it is not the finished product I love, it is not the pattern, it is not the skill I hone but the colours and seeing them meld that is my real interest. The clothes making also offered something for me slightly childish wonder about seeing something completely two dimensional, a piece of fabric, be turned into something three dimensional, outfits on a body.
I really thought I could make a go of becoming a professional fabric person. I went to the Melbourne College of Textiles to learn about how to make the fabrics I could use to sew. I learnt a lot about sheep, silk worms, rabbits and anything that produces wool, how to dye that wool, how to craft a picture for printing, how to take photos of what I produced and how to run a one person business. Some of it was fun. I met like minded people. But the think I really learnt was that not only do you have to be brilliant at what you do but you have to be tenacious. I may love colour and be able to use it but I am not cut out to stick with it until I make it.
I stuck to the sewing and made things for children. I got paid work in the community sector that sometimes used the crafting skills I had. I have taught more than a few people how to crochet.
Years passed and one a holiday I bought some yarn. This was to keep me entertained in the evening as the TV was in Italian. I purchased a crochet hook and I was off. Since that time I have not really put it down. I have learned how to join as you go so I no longer sew squares together. I have also learned new stitches, although it is still the colour and how the colours combine that really drive me.
I am grateful to my grandmother for her patience and her seeing something in me that needed to be entertained. I joke that I crochet so I do not stab people, but it is more than that. Doing something in a rhythmic and repetitive way is meditative. It can be done while watching telly, or one a long journey in the car or even a short one on the bus. It sparks interest and conversations with people. It gives me a sense of achievement when I have finished something, and it gives someone a practical gift (I give most of my blankets away) that will last for years. I like to think of my blankets, now around the world, and the people they were gifted to. Thank you Granny for such a great gift.
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