Meet The New Quilt Artist: Carolyn Sullivan

 

Name of Artwork: It's About Language

New expressions are invented to fit new situations. Old expressions are reinvented to fit new circumstances. It is a recognition that words reflect the events in a period of time. Three distinct time periods are portrayed in these words.

 

Knowing about places has been an important influence on Carolyn's life - where she lives, where she visits, how to get there, what it looks like, why it is the way it is. 

Carolyn travelled in Australia with her parents as she was growing up and has continued that as an adult. Although she has been overseas, seeing Australia interests her most. She always feels "at home". Leaving Sydney for a life of retirement in rural NSW has been an important influence on how she looks at the world and the textiles that she makes.

Visits to arid Australia have been particularly significant - looking, photographing, writing about and drawing what she sees. Seeing the desert in full bloom has lead to a series of works showing vast expanses of land covered in wildflowers. Looking at dry river beds in the midst of drought and knowing that they are part of a much larger river system has also been important.

At home, Carolyn loves the mists as they come up the escarpment and shroud her area for days and have led to another body of work where the mists, stitched in purple, covered the cloth. Using the plants of her local area to colour and leave imprints on cloth has been fascinating.

Carolyn's first introduction to textiles when she was in third class was hand stitching and that has continued for her whole life. She expresses how she is thinking when she stitches by hand. It is slow and repetitive and gives her time to think about the texture of the stitch as well as colour and how that changes from minute to minute and over time.

Carolyn Sullivan online: Webpage  Facebook  Instagram

The New Quilt, on exhibition at Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, Windsor, NSW from 5 February – 11 April 2021. 

Gallery hours: Open 6 days a week Monday, Wednesday-Friday 10am-4pm Saturday-Sunday 10am-3pm. Closed on Tuesday and public holidays.