my mother told me (2024)
39cm X 39, 2024, antique linen and silk and cotton embroidery thread (timber frame)
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This artwork reimagines an 1800s embroidery sampler. Traditionally, samplers were stitched to display a girl’s skills. This contemporary sampler, stitched by an unskilled hand, reproduces a land grant map of Orange, where my mother grew up. It centres on an unusual story recalled by my mother, and is surrounded by animals considered important to the traditional custodians, the Wiradjuri. The story recalls a nuanced interaction, two indigenous women’s’ great and possibly life-saving kindness to a sick non-indigenous child. The work celebrates the generosity of the indigenous community, who despite being completely displaced by generations of colonists to live on “the commons” outside the town, still reached out – and continue to reach out- to share and create community.