LYNNE CURRAN

I have long admired the tapestries woven by Lynne Curran since meeting her in Warrnambool in the early 1990’s. Her work is autobiographical, inspired by her surroundings and interests at the time. Lynne gave some wonderful talks about her working process and had the most fabulous sketch books. Sadly there is little of her work to be found on the internet so this video is a rare treat. Lynne discusses the process behind designing this tapestry for the Uffizi Exhibit, Self-Portraits of “Invisible Women” Lynne shows her extensive research for the project and how she decided the way that she wished to be portrayed.
During all the years that I had been a student many of the other students were intimidated by keeping an artists journal. One of my teacher’s, Graham Brindly would give us a new sketch book at the beginning of the year and announce that it was to be handed in for assessment at the end of year, full and worked on both sides of the page!!! I have many journals from my years as a student and find them to be a invaluable resource. It is good to look back through them from time to time as see what you were thinking about. Often they can inspire new work. I know many people who are too frightened to work in a new sketch book as they are so clean and pristine when you acquire a new one. My advice is just leave it laying around and let someone else be the first to spill something on it for you! The cost of good hard back journals has come down in price over the years. I had a friend years ago who was a very poor artist who used to buy hard covered story books that had been printed on good quality paper from opportunity shops for less that a dollar. Mark would then gesso the pages, sometimes he would tint the paint and then draw in them. I have often thought that my two most valuable resources as a tapestry weaver are my journals and my dye recipes.
I hope that you also can be inspired by Lynne’s fabulous journal’s.