Friendship fuels creativity.

Textile artists Maria Rofe, Sue Shute and Gail Stahmer use their friendship to fuel their imaginations and develop their individual creative talents. An exhibition of their work opening at Timeless Textiles in September 2012 features the three friends’ interpretations of common design inspirations.

In the exhibition, each of the artists has made a large textile piece and asked the other two to respond to it by making a smaller piece to hang beside it. The respect each artist has for their friends’ approach to textile art results in a rich exhibition of different techniques and artistic interpretation. From Maria’s excellent use of hand stitching to Gail’s intuitive sense of design and Sue’s use of colour, the exhibition is a wonderful showcase of textile art.

The artistic output from these artists has been diverse – art pieces, 3D pieces (including books), framed images, handbags and wearable art.

In recent years Maria, Sue and Gail have exhibited together in the annual NCEATA exhibition (Newcastle Creative Embroiderers and Textile Artists Inc). Sometimes they have chosen one colour to work with, or a certain shape or theme. In this exhibition, in the art quilts “Red Gum 1” and “Red Gum 11”, Maria and Gail have captured elements of Sue’s photographic images and, using a common stash of fabrics, they have independently created two different, but complementary, art quilts.

The artists’ use of friendship to enhance and enrich their individual creative journey is beautifully demonstrated in the ‘Friendships’ exhibition at Timeless Textiles Gallery. Friendshipswill be opened from 6-8pm on Thursday, 27 September until 14 October.