Wednesday, February 16, 2011

other tent dwellers


 Before I start to plan an itinerary and detail the guidelines or show more maps or images for my expedition  I want to investigate the influences that have been simmering in the back of my mind for a long time.
I made this work for Murray Darling Palimpsest #6  titled Women's Work. The  house was hand stitched calico onto a steel frame, the door and windows are stitched into place so they can't be opened however the windows are made from netting this allows the viewer to look into the little house. I have hand  stitched phrases from a Country Women's Book on how one should choose a site for a home.


This work and a chapter  from Tim Winton's novel Cloudstreet are the first two references that  have given me the inspiration to camp in the anabranch.  
  
The chapter is titled "The Tent Lady" 

"On New Year's Day, 1949, people gathered to watch Oriel Lamb move her things out to the white tent beneath the mulberry tree at Cloudstreet. They crowded into the second floor rooms overlooking the yard, and found cracks in the scaly picket fence; they climbed trees in yards all around and perved through pointed gum leaves at the little woman carrying bedclothes and fruitboxes out through the bewildered half circle of her family. no one missed the sight of Quick Lamb helping his mother out with the jarrah bed and umps and bumps they made getting it in.
There wasn't a noise to be heard otherwise except Fish Lamb slapping away at the piano in the centre of the house; everyone looked on in wonder, missing nothing. she had a desk, Tilley lamp, chamberpot,books,mysterious boxes. People gathered at the fences. When she had it all in shape, Oriel Lamb tied off the door flap and went back into the house to organize her families dinner,and the crowd went away murmuring that surely this was a day to remember".  

Thank you Tim Winton

There are others but will discuss them at a later date


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