blossoms
and Berliners (well, sort of)
Sunday night and after a few days of calm the wind is once again wuthering in what I would like to call a chimney but is really only a most unromantic piece of steel flue pipe. It wuthers beautifully though, and reminds me of the sounds that lulled me to sleep at night during my brief residency in Fair Isle two years ago. The day began warm and soft with a light balmy breeze that encouraged me to strip the linen from my bed and deposit them in the washing shrine (so called because it is low and requires the bending of knees in order to retrieve the processed items. For today’s wash I chose a mix of bitter orange essential oil, bergamot and clove. Just a few drops added to unscented washing powder and my sheets and pillow cases are clean and infused with natural fragrances selected in the hope they will bring gentle dreams in these troubled times.
Despite the recent howling gales there are still blossoms in the garden and their heady scent is heavenly, so thick this almost windless morning that I could feel it warm against my cheek, something that had to be swum through. The flower arranging committee puddled about beneath the trees, bills snapping at drifting petals in the hope that they might magically turn into shreds of sandwich such as might be inadvertently dropped by a wandering infant.
I’ve been at Fabrik this week, unpacking the lovely hand-stitched portraits that were sent in for the ‘present’ project, originally planned to have opened in March this year but delayed by nearly six months due to various building supply issues. I have them laid out across half a dozen tables as well as most of the floor of the newly refurbished Reading Room, a space in which I’ve enjoyed many happy hours before…once sorting out my own work for a solo exhibition somewhere and then a couple of weeks working together with volunteer sewers to join together the three-line poems that made up the “Gardens of the Heart” exhibition. It’s lovely to see how the former Onkaparinga blanket mill has been transformed into a properly lit contemporary exhibition space without compromising the original architecture. There’s so much beautiful light not only from glimpses of sky and passing clouds through the windows on the sawtooth roof but also warm reflections off brick walls outside into some of the lower spaces. I’m saving the sharing of images until after the official re-opening though.
I found unexpected treasures in the parcels, too…a CD of her beautiful songs from
wrapped in scraps of linen and silk; a precious fragment of Budapest lace (thank you , I will be stitching it on to one of my dresses!) and sweet postcards with kind notes on them.Fabrik begins a weekend of celebrations on Friday 20 September, kicking off with an official opening including Welcome to Country by Michael Kumatpi Marrutya O'Brien and a cutting of the blanket ribbon to formally open the facility.
Following the formalities visitors are invited to explore the exhibitions, join an artist workshop, enjoy some live entertainment by Naomi Keyte, and listen to a curator talk from Kay Lawrence.
Fabrik also invites all visitors to be part of our history by adding their name on a commemorative signature cloth. Their volunteers will (eventually!) stitch over every signature, along with the date of Fabrik’s reopening, to create a special memento for the collection.
The complex will remain open to the public until 9pm on Friday 20 September. Several of us will doubtless be attempting to propitiate the weather deities in the hope they will be gentle on the day (though of course none of us will complain if there is rain filling our dams and tanks!).
