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Detail from tapestry work in progress inspired by Ngayuku Ngura (This Is My Country) by Nyankulya Watson, 2009

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The weavers’ tales

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Behind a heritage facade in South

Melbourne, craftspeople are reinterpreting original art works of

significance by local and Indigenous artists in elaborate tapestry form,

many destined to adorn Australian embassies around the world.

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apart from Homer’s penelope, who famously wove then secretly unpicked her tapestry while fending off suitors in her husband odysseus’ absence, it’s hard to think of any other well-known tapestry weavers. theirs is a quiet, anonymous art. So you could be forgiven for failing to notice the discreet name change of the Victorian tapestry Workshop. thirty six years after Dame elisabeth Murdoch and Lady Delacombe, wife of the then governor of Victoria, founded this unique workshop where weavers interpret the work of the country’s best contemporary artists, the enterprise has gone national. It’s now the Australian tapestry Workshop – which is only logical, as it collaborates with artists from around the country and flies the flag both nationally and internationally.

one initiative has weavers interpreting Indigenous paintings to exhibit in Australian embassies. their pieces are in Paris, beijing, Washington Dc, tokyo, New Delhi, Dublin and the Vatican city.

Kunawarritji To Wajaparni hangs in the chancery of the Austral-ian embassy to the Holy See, the central governing body of the catholic church in rome. based on a collaborative painting by eight men from the same family group in canning Stock route country in Western Australia, it took five weavers six months to complete.

“All this – from that line to this line – are all our family trees, where our mob used to go from one waterhole to another, all as one people,” explained one of the Indigenous artists when he visited the workshop to see how the tapestry was progressing.

Another work, Nyankulya Watson’s Ngayuku Ngura (this Is My country) took four weavers 1750 hours to complete, with its incan-descent palette of orange, yellow, magenta and red dots depicting the waterholes and tracks of her country in remote Western Australia. “Sometimes when they finish a work like this the weavers say, ‘No more dots’,” says workshop director Antonia Syme.

Tapestry inspired by Untitled, by David Noonan, 2012

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A senior Pitjantjatjara woman, Watson now lives and paints in South Australia, and the tapestry inspired by her work hangs in the Australian embassy in rome – its launch was attended by such luminaries as Paolo Zegna, chairman of the Italian menswear dynasty and a major fan of Australian merino wool.

Ngarrgooroon, a painting by Patrick Mung Mung, has an earthy palette of ochres and an unusual dusky pink, made from crushed rock taken from a nearby diamond mine. Following blasting and drilling, the company supplies the material to the Warmun Art centre at turkey creek in the east Kimberley of WA. Mung Mung says that local artists feel the resulting paintings are a way of reclaim-ing their territory. the reinterpreted tapestry of Ngarrgooroon currently hangs in the Australian embassy in Dublin.

behind the heritage-listed, 1885 facade of the Australian tapestry Workshop’s South Melbourne premises, there is a light-filled sense

of purpose as state-of-the-art technology is literally woven with traditional practice. the dyeing lab is the nerve centre for producing the 370 wool and 200 cotton colours that make up the weavers’ palette. In a timely response to the resurgent popularity of weaving and embroidery, the public can now purchase yarns from the work-shop’s retail area, which also exhibits a selection of pieces for sale with a starting price of about $1300.

Syme is particularly proud that the superb fade-resistant yarns are created from Australian fibre that has been farmed sustainably and ethically. “that means no mulesing.”

brass-tipped wooden bobbins made from recycled timber hang like limp puppets from works in progress on eight mobile upright looms. None currently occupies the biggest frame, which is nearly eight metres long and held the monumental Arthur boyd Shoal-haven landscape tapestry, created in 1988 for the Great Hall in

Tapestry inspired by Ngarrgooroon, Patrick Mung Mung, 2010 (left); Kunawarritji To Wajaparni (detail and complete, below)

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Parliament House. that tapestry is the workshop’s biggest project – it took 22 weavers to create it (the workshop has a permanent core group of four weavers, with others being brought in for large commissions). there is a collective sense of excitement as a piece nears completion. “It is hard to let them go,” says Syme, “because we’ve lived with them, often for very long periods of time.”

While most works are interpretations of paintings, increasingly the workshop is collaborating with other media. Photography and digital images have presented weavers with new challenges.

David Noonan’s Untitled (2012) looks like a transposed photo-graph, but it is in fact a digital file that weavers first printed onto photographic paper to create a pattern, or cartoon, to work from. Its complex, layered imagery and subtle black, white and grey tones give it an enigmatic quality, which the tapestry has captured.

Another work that presented special challenges, with its black background and close-up details of skin, strands of hair and delicate bodice beading, is the striking Alice Bayke by New Zealander Yvonne todd. Inspired by imagery of Priscilla Presley and Loretta Lynn, the photographic portrait has a gothic, dramatic intensity thanks to its exaggerated features. It took two weavers more than 1700 hours to complete the tapestry, which was commissioned by the Queensland Art Gallery.

other works are destined for corporate clients. Past commissions have included works for Deutsche bank (a snake and apple design for the new Sydney HQ by local artist Nell), the royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne (a large work by Sally Smart) and the Sydney opera House (an abstract tribute to carl Philipp emanuel bach created by Jørn Utzon as part of the building’s redevelop-ment in 2000). More recently, there have been commissions for the

National Library in canberra (designed by John Young) and the State Library of Victoria (by Indigenous artist ben McKeown).

currently, weavers are interpreting North Facing, a painting on tile by ceramicist bern emmerichs destined for the foyer of the Northern Hospital in epping, Victoria – appropriately close to where the artist grew up. Also in progress is Concerning The Wading Birds Of The Warrnambool Wetlands, a new work by John Wolseley, whose complex paintings of the Australian bush and its flora and fauna have been special favourites in the workshop. the challenge in this work, which will grace the walls of Victoria’s Warrnambool base Hospital, is to capture the extraordinary transparent effect Wolseley creates with watercolours.

the larger tapestries produced by the workshop often have a thicker texture, thanks to the technique of weaving at a coarse warp setting (the warp is the set of lengthwise yarns held in tension on the loom). “We like the look because it’s very recognisably woven,” says production manager Sara Lindsay. “A traditional tapestry house, like the historic Gobelins in Paris, weaves more finely, but they don’t have the commercial considerations we do. If we wove like that it would be completely unaffordable. It’s also an aesthetic considera-tion. We want you to see the surface is not smooth – it has a sawtooth edge we call a step. We think it makes our pieces more vigorous.”

the workshop continues to look for new collaborators. “We work with upcoming as well as established names,” says Syme, of the workshop’s artist-in-residence scheme that attracts diverse practi-tioners such as collage artists and printmakers. the workshop is also planning to run two community-centric programs. one will explore weaving as a therapeutic activity for hospital patients; the other will work with members of Melbourne’s Afghan and burmese refugee communities, sharing skills and techniques.

Anyone who fancies seeing elaborate tapestries in progress, and meeting the talented craftspeople who make them, is most welcome to visit the workshop – even if their name isn’t Penelope. c

Tapestry inspired by Fire And Water – Moths, Swamps

And Lava Flows Of The Hamilton

Region by John Wolseley, 2010

Australian Tapestry Workshop, 262-266 Park Street, South Melbourne. www.austapestry.com.auWorkshop open Mon-Fri 9am-5pm. Guided tours

available by appointment on Wed & Thu, (03) 9699 7885.

Special open day Nov 17.