September 29th, 2024Artists of the Central Highlands
with Eve Lamb
Clunes-based Prue Simmons is a zoologist turned SAORI weaver who revels in colour and in this meditative form of creativity. Having discovered this beautiful form of Japanese weaving whilst exploring the mountains of Japan in 2007, Prue was instantly hooked. She has gone on to establish her Dyeing To Weave business and, as one of only three accredited SAORI teachers in Australia, is very busy sharing her love of the unique art-form through workshops, immersive retreats and special events throughout the district and way beyond.
Eve: Prue your journey to becoming a SAORI weaving textile artist and teacher is pretty interesting, and I get the impression it’s pretty much taken over your life.
Prue: Yes it has completely taken over my life in a wonderful way. I had worked as a zoologist for 10 years and if you’d said to me 20 years ago that I’d be teaching a meditative form of weaving I wouldn’t have believed you. It was not on my radar at all. I was very much a straight-laced scientist. And I didn’t come from a textile background. My poor mother tried to teach me to knit and I was terrible at it.
Eve: But you discovered SAORI in Japan.
Prue: Yes, in my 20s. I was in Japan, volunteering and immersing myself in the culture and language. I turned up at this beautiful old school that had become an arts and crafts village in a tiny little hamlet in the middle of nowhere. I turned up to build a pizza oven. As a thank-you my first mentor, Toyomi, taught me SAORI and it opened up this incredible ability for me to see that I could be creative. It’s completely taken over my life in a beautiful way…
Eve: And you have gone on from learning the art of SAORI weaving to becoming a teacher of it as well, one of only a very few accredited in Australia?
Prue: Yes there are only three of us here in Australia accredited to teach. I went back and did training to teach over a decade ago now. I trained with Sensai Misao Jo who has since passed away just shy of her 105th birthday.
Eve: What is it that about SAORI weaving that so captivated you, Prue?
Prue: The SAORI loom is actually designed to be a moving mediation where you get a chance to get into that flow state and drop down into that creative space in your heart and it’s lovely to see that unlock for other people too. I am on a one-woman mission to share it with as many people as possible.
I don’t like having to concentrate when I create. I want to create from the heart not the head.I want to just relax and enjoy my creativity, not feel pressured to recreate a particular pattern, to copy someone else’s work, to be worried if I’m doing it ‘right’. I never considered weaving in the past, as it seemed too complicated, too mathematical and too structured for me.
SAORI is not about repeating patterns. It comes from a person’s own inner source of creativity. The Japanese call it Kansei which translates to your inner creative spirit. No two pieces of SAORI weaving are ever going to be the same. It’s about self expression. And then you get to wear a part of your personality. You get to wear this tangible moment in time.
It’s been such a such an honour and privilege to teach hundreds of people. For me it’s not just a form of textiles I’m teaching, it actually offers people an amazing awareness of their own creative potential.
Eve: And I believe that you also happen to run llamas on your property at Clunes. Do you use the llama fibre in your work?
Prue: Yes. The llama fibre is a specialty fibre for me and I am getting my llama fibre commercially processed. But you can do SAORI weaving with any fibre. You can weave with wool, cotton, cashmere, silk, paper, even things like dried material from your garden… And it’s a very sustainable form of weaving which is something else that I love about it.
Eve: So now that SAORI weaving has pretty much taken over your life, through your own creative practice and teaching others, and also as one of only two people in Australia accredited to import SAORI looms, is it what you do full time now?
Prue: Yes. I had another part-time job at the library for 11 years, singing to young babies, and I loved it. But I had to give it up this year.
Eve: I know that you have plenty of workshops and teaching retreats on your calendar ahead, both in this area and interstate. Do you also have any exhibitions coming up?
Prue: Well the exhibition we held in June this year (at the Clunes Warehouse) was so successful that we’re going to make it an annual event now. We had people visiting from all over Australia. It was the largest exhibition of SAORI weaving ever in Australia.
