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Rosie H. Cook

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Asialink+AsiaSoc.23March(1)

2017 Asialink Arts Residency

Crazed Puppets 04  Crazed Puppets

bundengan-01 This is not a Kowangan

aptccarn5 #APTCCARN5

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DELICIOUS! What a result cleaning silk upholstery with polyurethane make-up sponge (after first using the brush vacuum technique!). The interns I am working with were blown away to discover the glossy gold and brown silk underneath thick grey dust. Posted with kind permission of my colleague Mr Tiger Wu, Head of Conservation at the National Science Museum, where I am currently working and supervising interns on textiles projects one day a week. #textileconservation #textiles #conservator #upholsteryconservation #furnitureconservation #thisisconservation #silk
Today I’m at the National Science Museum and during my lunch break I was able to attend a session on “Communications between Conservators and Museums” at the 2019 International Conference on Contemporary Challenges for Museums”. I also bumped into Mathew Trinca, the keynote speaker and Director of the National Museum of Australia, who was surprised to hear I am also Australian (I still don’t have a real Australian accent!). Back to work now! #rosielovesteal
Today I made a mini sewing table with windows, based on the one we were shown at the Japanese Textiles Conservation Course in August (seen top and bottom in following photos). The windows pop in and out and slide around as needed. Super handy for accessing the middle of large, fragile textiles! #textilesconservation #conservator #sewing #DIY
Most of the time I can’t believe how fast time passes. But here I’m astonished to discover it has only been 4 years since I worked in Guizhou, China, for a company doing the multimedia exhibitions for the launch of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was such a bizarre time in my life (and I have had some bizarre times), and utterly miserable — working from dawn to midnight, often for 30 days straight, and then heading back to Melbourne for a few days before turning around and going back to China — all set in the most astonishing beautiful landscapes, with the site access requiring 1.5+ hour of hiking up steep mountains. But I didn’t suffer anywhere near as much as the local populations. I learned so much about the cruel bureaucracy of bargaining for World Heritage Site status, and witnessed the local people chased out of their ancestral homes (whether by money, coercion, brute force, or simply by running bulldozers over their homes), just to meet the UNESCO zoning standards. Everything was rushed and angry and sometimes scary — from the unsafe building practices where a wrong step would see you falling down a cliff, to the Director of the Department for Propaganda censoring our exhibition content over and over yet refusing to give us an official version. I cannot believe this was just 4 years ago — so much has happened since. I’m so lucky to live in Taiwan, and yet China looms again on the horizon, threatening and violent from Xinjiang to Hong Kong.
I couldn’t be there in person but I got to watch my wonderful smart James graduate via livestream from my desk at work! I am so proud of him and his official status as Master of Humanitarian Assistance ✅ 👨‍🎓 #deakinuniversity
Not quite 50 shades of grey but the 9th shade (2.2) was the right one! There’s not a huge amount of difference at first glance (especially if looking at just one layer!) but the right tone of browny-grey coloured net melts very discretely into the faded grey wool it will be supporting. I have tons of this sickly-coloured netting (the “original” swatch) and it seems to take up my new Lanaset dyes nicely, which is great news! #conservator #textileconservation #conservationdyes #conservationdyeing #lanaset #netting #textiles #dyeing
On dyeing in the tropics 🌴 yesterday was my first time doing conservation acid dyeing “by myself” (supported by the very talented textile researcher and artist Eloise Rapp @rapprapp — you should see her beautiful Instagram account which is how I met her!). My previous experiences involved professional dyeing machines, which allows you to set temperatures and times very precisely (eg. heat to 75C over 10 minutes, hold at 75C for 10 minutes, raise to 80C over 10 minutes, hold at 80C for 30 minutes...). Instead we had to juggle between two hot plates, neither of which had precise temperature settings, and use both a traditional thermometer and an infrared thermometer, constantly tweaking the heat up and down, stirring all the while. I won’t see the dried results until Monday when I’m back at work, but it was a great experiment in dyeing nylon net for the first time and working out all my processes and equipment! Thanks Eloise for all your help and assistance, despite conservation dyeing being quite a different experience compared to the sustainable natural dye practice you are developing! (And of course thanks for the photos!) #textileconservation #conservationdyeing #lanaset #conservationdyes
It’s only 8:30 and I’ve already had so many creepy-crawly friends to deal with... first when I was cycling to work a turtle (a Taiwanese pond slider!) that kept trying to cross a VERY busy road (in the end I had to grab it and chuck it over into the grass, it would not have lasted a minute in rush hour traffic!). And then this buddy crawled out of nowhere and is now awaiting inspection by the pest experts upstairs! 🐢 🕷
Back to work, taking consolation in the various @auverasoie silk threads and ribbons I picked up in France (and some YLI silk ribbons, and some no-name, bargain, 50% off silk ribbons!). These silk threads are much thicker than I would usually use but I couldn’t resist the range of neutral, discrete colours. Silk ribbons are really useful for supporting very small holes, slits or tears, because they don’t require hemming along 2 sides! #textileconservation #conservator #silk #auverasoie
Goodbye Nantes, and my precious sestra @bindweedmind, seen here standing in front of the building where she used to live as a student. What a doorway! She doesn’t miss the 4 flights of narrow winding stone steps though.
I chose this Hornsea Pottery mug for my breakfast tea — it’s a favourite of my grandmother’s and my mother remembers it from her childhood in the 60s or 70s 🧜‍♀️ #rosielovesteal #hornseapottery
For his tapestries, Lurçat worked with a limited palette of 44 colours of wool. He would draw his cartoons back-to-front, and rarely used gouache to colour them, instead numbering them according to his prepared set of dyes wools. Here you can see 1) a painted detail of the cartoon, 2) the full cartoon with primarily numbers for colour references, and 3) the resulting tapestry. Such skill to be able to envision the work in his mind — almost like a digital camera which then sends the information to the “lissiers” — the weavers — to interpret the encoded information and produce Lurçat’s vision. #tapestry #tapisserie #jeanlurcat #jeanlurçat
Some more details from around the house and Lurçat’s tapestries. 1)- a set of colour references for his ceramics. 2)- a tapestry referencing the Resistance of which he was an active participant— at one point the Nazis burnt down his workshop. 3) and 4) He was very fond of his three Afghan hounds, who feature in several works and photos in the museum. 5-7) Lurçat decorated every surface in his house including door panels, ceramic tiles for the kitchen or living rooms, furniture, or ceilings. Even the vegetable garden has a sunburst flower patch. Lastly — such a beautiful day to visit the chateau! #jeanlurcat #rosielovesrainbows
I wish I had the energy to do justice to the wonderful Jean Lurçat museum at St Ceré, which is in fact a castle where Jean Lurçat lived and worked. Lurçat was a prolific and immensely talented artist who worked across many mediums, but I know him best for completely re-starting and invigorating tapestry in Aubusson, where I grew up. He was very politically active, including during the two World Wars, and there is so much to say about him — too much to even skim over in an Instagram post. Here is a selection of photos of the house/workshop, I will do a separate post with some favourite tapestries. #tapestry #jeanlurcat #textiles
After a beautiful day of museums and exhibitions we paused in Autoire for an ice cream and a cold drink. Much to our delight we came across the Atelier Tissage et Filage where Monique cards, spins and weaves her own wool, as well as making patchwork. I was able to finally get some beautiful BEAUTIFUL natural-coloured wool roving from her too! Merci Monique 💖 #woolroving #textiles #patrimoine
Sisters 1992 #SESTRA
Walking the dog at 7:30pm and the sky is so blue and I am wearing a woollen jumper because the air is crisp and cool, and everything is so beautiful... oh France, why must you be like this?
Just after going through emigration, Kaohsiung Airport has a lovely little display of a traditional Taiwanese shop, before 7-Eleven invaded the island! #taiwan #kaohsiunglife #7eleventaiwan
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