Care as animating creative connections to lineage

In my studio, amongst various accumulated textiles that I intend to experiment with, there is a small pile of textiles that have a sentimental value for me as they represent a connection to the women in my family. It includes several scarves inherited from my grandmothers and garments I associate with their homes, as well as some textiles I took from my family home in Croatia. I almost never wear these garments but I have been appreciative of the memories embedded in them and have been moving them with me for the past ten years, since I first moved to Australia.

In my recent practice, I often considered these objects as I have attempted to engage with my lineage of women and their textile-based practices but have felt reserved about using them in any way. However, I would often find myself revisiting them as potent anchors that enable me to tap into memories and associated sensory experiences. Over the past month, I have decided to explore some ways to contextualise these objects into my artwork by hand-stitching them together with other found textiles.

Exploring my creative connection to my paternal grandmother

I was given the vintage yellow scarf by my grandmother who used to wear it quite often. I have since worn it on no more than two occasions. One was a family celebration when I was about twenty years old and the other one was when was based in Melbourne, on the day I learned about this grandmother's passing. On that day, it literally felt like the only material thing I had to hold onto and it felt comforting amidst my realisation that I was no longer able to see her or to say goodbye to her.

I have decided to attempt stitching the scarf together with the large white scarf that I recently bought at a bazaar and that I have mended using this grandmother's technique. I have tested different compositions in order to use found textiles to achieve a sense of subtlety in terms of emotions I associate with the yellow scarf.

Following the same process of assembling personal and found textiles, I have symultaneously started another material exploration of my creative connection to this grandmother. Starting from another scarf I inherited from her and a shirt I found in her attic, I have attempted stitching together a tonal composition to materialise my strong association of colour blue to her aesthetics.