Local artist Sally Scott has made great inroads into the fibre art world with her colourful hand- and machine sewn artworks.
Local artist Sally Scott has made great inroads into the fibre art world with her colourful hand- and machine sewn artworks.
She is also a competent landscape artist and her softer hued pastels of aloes and veld are visually striking, juxtaposing well with her intricate fibre art which glints with bright threads and battered bottle tops. In her first solo exhibition, Intertwined, at Carinus Art Centre, she pays homage to the Eastern Cape landscape in colour and texture and her delightful, colourful fish ‘sculptures’ made from fabric and found objects are real treasures.
Her award winning and internationally acclaimed artwork appear alongside a collection of red shoes created in a series of workshops called The Red Shoe Project. Inspired by Jungian analyst Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ interpretation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Red Shoes, the creating of your own pair of shoes is an empowering exercise, bringing women closer to their inner self and exploring notions of value and sacrifice.
The exhibition was opened on Wednesday night by Margie Garratt, a Cape Town based fibre artist and the curator of Innovative Threads, a fibre art exhibition that has been exhibited in the USA, UK, Japan, New Zealand, Germany and France. Garratt met Sally at a fibre art conference in the 90s and bought an artwork from her soon afterwards. She then brought it out to show everyone, unwrapping a detailed, tapestry-like work in warm, earthy tones. Here and there, patches are sewn onto it on which Scott had written about a trip to Khartoum with her pilot father, whom she desribes as "a remarkable man." The artwork, Khartoum, can be seen alongside the others, "but it’s mine! " Garratt warns. Harry Owen, Cheshire’s first poet laureate who is now based in Grahamstown, was the congenial MC of the evening and read a poem he wrote dedicated to Sally’s artistic journey.
Intertwined’ weaves together the three central elements of Sally’s creative work; her fibre art, landscapes and teaching through Red Shoe’ workshops.
Scott says the women who participated in the Red Shoe Project have become a community of friends through the amazing creative process of creating their red shoes. Many stopped by throughout the day to offer their assistance prior to the opening – a demonstration of strong ties of gratitude and friendship. Each woman’s unique pair of shoes is displayed alongside snippets of biographies and personal and sometimes quirky and simple anecdotes about the process. The women "weave their lives, stories and layers of being into their work" using found and recycled materials, beads, as well as dyed and restitched fibres, Scott elaborates. While many have never made art or their own shoes before she describes the experience of learning to create as one of "sharing, about women power, about life and about being true to oneself".
Intertwined is the culmination of ten years spent in Grahamstown as well as 18 months of workshops working with the 40 diverse women. Scott says "It was the best thing I have ever done, moving to Grahamstown," thanking all her friends for their help and dedicationg the exhibition to her mother, Monica Hastings.
Intertwined can be viewed at the Carinus Art Centre, open daily from 9am to 5pm for the duration of the Festival.
