If you have been following this blog you’ll notice that a lot of my art tends to revolve around certain themes and materials. This particular piece of artwork is a couple of years old now but it does demonstrate how some of these ideas started. As children we pick up a lot of habits, unconsciously and consciously, from our parents. And of course our parents picked up similar patterns from their parents. In my family, especially on my mothers side, there is a strong sewing/craft bent. As children we always had beautiful dresses and outfits that had been made by my mother and grandmother. My Oma was a professional dress-maker and if you flip through my mothers childhood photo album you’ll see many new dresses being displayed. Most of my sisters and I also sew, even when it was an ‘uncool’ skill to have.

In this piece I used some original dress patterns that my mum had kept from dresses that she had made us when we were younger. I found fabric that was reminiscent of these dresses and then screen-printed and used drypoint to transfer some of the images and silhouettes of us older girls wearing these homemade outfits on to the fabric.