Fiberworks - A Celebration of South African
Fiber and Textile Artists

Title: Baghdad

Description: This work was made during the Iraqi war, where every day we were bombarded by images of the conflict and the emotions overwhelming Baghdad.

Winding through this ancient city, the River Tigris is its lifeblood. I wonder how many conflicts it has seen during its long history. Our modern world owes much of its knowledge and richness to the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia, bounded by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, with Baghdad at its centre.

In spite of this long, rich history of culture and civilisation, people do not change. Daily we have seen media images of the city grid set in its desert landscape. Battles have raged in front of us, overlaid by the desert sand and the smoke of burning oil fires. Opulent palaces and ornamental lakes contrast with the grinding poverty of the majority as targets are found.

As I did this work, I had a sense of history being made, and yet again ordinary people were caught in the crossfire.

My hope is that the waters of the Tigris will wash the city and its people clean of pain and conflict. So this piece of work is for the city of Baghdad, its history, its ancient culture, its conflict, its people and their pain, and its future.

Title: Immersion/Submersion

Description: Water is the element in which we were nurtured. Legends tell of Mankind's need to find it, explore under and beyond it and conquer its moods and dangers. Stories of Noah's Flood and Atlantis are told universally. We relax near it, seek hidden treasures below its depths and plan how to escape its force.

The twin notions of being immersed or submerged alternate in our psyche and seem to echo the currents of my creative life. Are there hidden treasures under there or just a muddy mess? Am I drowning in my work, or is it life-giving and sustaining?

Title: Everywoman

Description: This work, showing the back of a woman's head, deals with what women wordwide have in common.
Although we may have different hairstyles of forms of ornamentation, the essence of women beyond those outward trappings remain the same. I have backed the work with an image of the back of my own head. Any woman could be me or you. Everywoman could be me or you.

Title: Journeys 1
Finding the Way

Description: The Journeys series was started after a did a round-the-world flight on a teaching trip. I was fascinated by the idea of the filigree of flight paths that weave their way around the earth, coming down to touch base every now and then.

I was part of this invisible network carrying people, luggage, planes, plans, dreams, hopes and fears. It was astounding to me that someone knew the way. It became a metaphor for the journey we are on through our lives.

Title: Journeys 2
Are we There Yet?

Description: Save our planet with the splendour of our oceans...
Such beauty to cherish
Such magnificence to behold....
What a wonderful gift from above....
Use it wisely...be responsible...
For it has been given to us only once...

Title: Journeys 3
Spice Route

Description: The top third represents all the quaint extraordinary evergreen villages we drove through.
The middle third represents all the beautiful cities, most of them having a river running through it, a castle, a cathedral etc.
The bottom third represents all the cobblestone roads, squares and planes where we shared magical moments together.

Title: Journeys 4:
Night Flight

Description: I was very anxious about leaving home for a proposed 4-month long trip and made this quilt to deal with the anxiety of being gone so long. I thought about the final stage of my long flight when the plane comes in low over Durban harbour a few minutes before landing. I would be able to see the lights of ships, buildings and streets shimmer on the water. The excitement of seeing that view is almost unbearable. I am almost home.

Title: Almost Forgotten, Never Told

Description: The orange arch was an older quilt that I cut up through all its layers and revamped it to use in a new way. That became the damaged ozone layer that protects the earth.
Beyond that layer everything dies...At the base of the arch you can see the damaged delicate ozone layer tumbling...
This artwork soon developed a mind of its own and grew to Global message with messages about saving trees written onto the arch.
The bottom of the artwork is the layering of rocks beneath ground level and the roots sucking up precious water....

Title: Awake my Soul

Description: This quilt is one of my series based on the sun and the magic and mystery of our universe. Here I used the image of the sun to reflect the somewhat difficult phase my work had been through. I knew I simply had to get warmth and light back in my creative life.

Title: Watching and Waiting

Description: "with olives and oil, the story of Noah"s ark with the rain and sun coming out and the dove that found an olive branch.... a story told in Africa...
In 2004 750 table olive trees were destroyed in a mountain fire... The trees were 10 years old. At that time I bottled 600 kg of olives on my own - a product I was very proud of. I have since planted a few new table olive trees and am waiting in anticipation to bottle my own olives again.

This piece was made in 2 weeks."

Title: Gypsy Summer

Description: This quilt voices my concern over women and children leaving refugee camps in Afghanistan. As they walk to an uncertain future dust swirls around their feet. They have become traveling gypsies, not knowing where water or their next home will be. I am astounded at the strength of these wandering people, particularly the women with their children to care for. I wonder whether their memories of past happiness with families, homes,song and dance is what helps them survive.

Title: Durban Dreams

Description: "The design developed by taking bits and pieces of 10 of Hitchcock"s movies.

Title: Invocation on Midwinter's Day

Description: As part of the Sun series, this quilt is what I imagine could be worn on Midwinter's Day to persuade the sun to return bringing warmth, light and life.

Title: Phoenix

Description: As part of the Sun series, this work was made after a series of devastating summer fires around Cape Town in January 2000. People's homes and the order of their lives was turned upside down by the blazing inferno.

This quilt was inspired not only by the fires, smoke, ashes, sparks and burning embers of those memorable days, but also by the knowledge that new life would emerge from the ashes and devastation.

Title: River Walk

Description: This work is a celebration of the textures and colors of a walk along a river's edge in the country, where the quietness is broken only by the rustle of grass as one walks through. For the hopeful fishermen the prize lurks just below the surface of the water.

Title: Beach Walk

Description: This piece was made to express my delight in walking along the beach with its various textures and found treasures. I wanted to give a sense of crisp granular sand, sometimes rippled by the tide or shimmering in the water, and sometimes found in soft dry ridges. It is along the edges of this waterline that I find shells and water-worn pebbles as I cool my feet.

Title: Cross currents

Description: I am fascinated by the strength and energy of crossed patterns and lines. Sometimes they are clear and strong, and sometimes they are subtle and delicate, but still there. Their visual impact reflects strength, stability and often symbolic meaning which have ongoing interest for me.

Title: Earthday

Description: This was made as a response to a trip to Utah. I was totally captivated by the contrasting golden light and deep dark of the canyons. Cutting through millions of years of geological history, they reveal breathtaking views as a testament to unstoppable forces, sometimes slow and grinding, sometimes cataclysmic. I felt deeply moved when I found a rock engraving of the sun on the canyon wall. Thousands of years ago another human being had stood there and felt impelled to record the light. I made a quilt, but I think we were both doing the same thing.

Title: Diaspora

Description: "This work grew out of my Journeys series when I considered that the longest and probably most arduous of journeys was that of the early humans walking up the length of Africa and eventually reaching the entire world. It is made mainly with a variety of African fabrics including Ugandan bark cloth, Zairean raffia, and Nigerian hand dyed cotton. Contemporary hand dyed cotton and lamé relate ancient Africa to today's world."

Title: Handwork

Description: This work is a homage to all the people who make their living and feed their families from the work of their hands.

Rosalie Dace