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Rings of history: Contemporary craft from historical timbers

Crafting traditions

This section focuses on wood working traditions in Australia and the adaptation of crafting skills to work the harder Australian Eucalypt timbers, including bush furniture traditions.

Rings of history: Contemporary craft from historical timber focuses on Australian regional diversity. The timbers in the Dadswell Collection were harvested from across Australia in the 1930s. This inimitable collection represents the most extensive grouping of Australian timbers ever assembled. In 2001 the remnant billets of timbers from this Collection are the basis for the creation of the work for this exhibition.

The research undertaken by Dadswell and his team of scientists also recommended uses for the timber in application to industry. The books he wrote specify types of timber suitable for fine joinery, turnery, construction etc. As many of the timbers in this Collection are no longer commercially available this information assisted in determining the species of timbers sent to the artists. In turn, the artists recommended their preference for timber based on their crafting techniques such as carving, construction or wood-turning.

These paragraphs were taken from the catalogue essay Crafting Traditions by Catrina Vignando

Tjulpu Tjuta Nyinanyi Kapingka: River red gum, acrylic paint
  • Niningka Lewis, Pitjantjatjara language group
  • Tjulpu Tjuta Nyinanyi Kapingka, Birds at a Waterhole 1998
  • H80 x W466 x D110 mm
  • River red gum, acrylic paint

Niningka Lewis' highly individual painted carvings are a unique interpretation of her Pitjantjatjara homelands around the Pipalyatjara and Kalka communities in north-west South Australia.

Untitled: Walnut, myrtle, beech resin
  • Georgina Donovan, Vic
  • Untitled 2001
  • H420 x W150 x D100 mm
  • Walnut, myrtle, beech resin

Applying extreme pressure, Georgina Donovan manipulates thin veneers of timber into intricate forms inspired by nature. These vessels are made using vacuum forming, a process normally associated with industrial production. The artist has adapted this process for the creation of one off art works.

Interlacing Series, 3104: Brush ironbark
  • Claire Owen, ACT
  • Interlacing Series, 3104 2001
  • H200 x W300 x D200 mm
  • Brush ironbark

The artist has devised a deceptively simple construction method of interlaced rods of timber to create this open vessel form. By slicing the timber billets into equal size rods, the artist has used a threading technique to joint them together creating a form that encompasses both the negative space between the rods and the timber itself.

Hollow Vessel: Lignum Vitex
  • Anthony Hansen, Qld
  • Hollow Vessel 2001
  • H200 x Ø140 mm
  • Lignum Vitex

Using the very rare tropical hardwood lignum vitex, Anthony Hansen pushes the limitations of his material to produce paper thin forms using wood turning processes. Wood turning was a very common industrial process for the manufacture of utilitarian objects such as cotton reels prior to the development of plastics. It is now a fine wood crafting skill used by artists to produce evocative pieces of great beauty and function.

Electrification: Scented maple, cheesewood, celery top (own collection), silver wire
  • Ian Munday, Tas
  • Electrification 2001
  • H400 x W570 x D135 mm
  • Scented maple, cheesewood, celery top (own collection), silver wire.

The high voltage tower sits astride the landscape. From a distance its tracery of galvanised iron appears almost transparent. Its linked wires also vanish so that one is left with the feeling of a sentient giant alone in a sea of trees. It is this anthropomorphic quality that conveys to me a sense of kinship, but also ultimately one of folly.

Ngintaka Ngampal Ngarinyi: River red gum
  • Topsy Tjulyata, Pitjantjatjara language group
  • Ngintaka, (Perentie lizard), Ngintaka Ngampal Ngarinyi (Perentie lizard lying 'flat out') 1993
  • H170 x W745 x D65 mm, H80 x W466 x D110 mm
  • River red gum

This work is hand carved and decorated with Pitjantjatjara walka, patterns burnt into the wood with hot wire. The carved animals, such as the perentie lizard, have their associations with Indigenous stories of the creation ancestors and the activities that shaped the land, the people and their law.

Lidded Box: Rosewood, tulip satinwood
  • Keith Towe, NSW
  • Lidded Box 2001
  • H60 x Ø110 mm
  • Rosewood, tulip satinwood

Keith Towe has maximised the use of the colour and texture from his range of timber billets by laminating contrasting timbers to produce the decorative effect on the lid of this wood turned bowl.

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