with Eve Lamb

Clunes’ Christine Lethlean is renowned for her beautiful textile work and well known through her role as a textiles art tutor and regional  co-ordinator for the biennial Textile Palette exhibition held at Clunes’  Warehouse. But this talented 3D conceptual artist is equally at home working with media spanning print, sculpture, paint and lead to create  works that constantly push her own creative boundaries in a quest to elicit in others a desire to look more closely.  

Eve: Hi Christine, what are you working on there?  

Christine: This sculpture is a 3D depiction of my own hands. I’m using papier mache and I will paint it and then add a rust treatment so that it looks metallic.  

Eve: Once it’s completed will it be able to be displayed outdoors?  

Christine: Yes. It will be suitable for display outdoors. Right now I’m doing the undercoat. I’m aiming to capture all the imperfections of my own hands, things like wrinkles and sunspots.  

Over the past 22 months I have been creating work focusing on the ageing woman, body shape, and the concept of letting go of what was and moving into what is. Work I have produced as part of this project was exhibited in several different exhibitions last year including at the fortyfivedownstairs gallery in Melbourne and at Oxygen College in Ballarat, and I’m continuing with this  project.  

Eve: What sort of work has this ongoing project included so far?  

Christine: It has included making a full-scale cast of my own body, working  predominantly in papier-mache using layers and layers of tissue paper, but also  using electrical duct tape and plaster cast. It’s my first ever full-scale life-sized  sculpture.

It’s called How Did I Get Here? and it’s concerned with the issue of homelessness that’s impacting more and more middle-aged and older women in our community. My daughters, who are both creative, have helped me with this project by  taking photos of me because the work is based on my body.

The girls take the  photos of me and then I work it up. But I’m also working with textiles, painting – I prefer acrylics, printing, graphite and charcoal for drawing. All of what I use in my work is recycled.  

Eve: Do you have any special events or exhibitions coming up?  

Christine: Yes. I will have work in a show called Threaded that will be running for three weeks at Caelene Nee Glen Gallery in Brighton opening February 20. It runs to March 9.

I will probably have six or seven pieces in that, predominantly  textiles. It will involve four textile artists. Three of us are from regional Victoria and one is from Melbourne.

Eve: Do you have any preferred subject matter?  

Christine: Portraiture, landscape, even abstract. But I also do a lot of still-life.  Still-life but really moody…  

Eve: Have you ever worked in any other field?  

Christine: Yes. In a former life I was a health professional, a registered nurse. I was brought up on a farm in Western Australia’s eastern wheatbelt. We learned how  to make something out of nothing. I’ve always had an eye for aesthetics. I’m very  privileged now but I’ve had a difficult and challenging life.  

Eve: What area of nursing have you worked in?  

Christine: Aboriginal health, mental health, drugs and alcohol. I’ve learnt to walk with people.  

Eve: And you teach art as well don’t you?  

Christine: Yes, I teach people how to create a masterful art piece using textiles and  scraps. I have my studio here in Clunes where I teach on Mondays and Wednesdays,  and I also really like to regularly invite guest artists in for special workshops as well.  Every January I do printing classes – woodcut, linocut, monotype printing.  

But I also teach all over the place. This year I’ll be teaching in Melbourne, Ballan,  Broken Hill, Adelaide, Mildura, probably Geelong…  

I do like to teach. I think curiosity is a quality that is so underrated. When  something is giving you the shits you’ve got to get to a space where if something  hasn’t worked you just ask ‘well, what happens if I do that instead?’.  

I’m always working on projects that stress the shit out of me. But you’ve got to  make mistakes because it pushes you into new parameters.  

Words & image: Eve Lamb

If you’re a nifty needleworker with a talent for textiles then the Clunes organisers of this year’s Textile Palette Exhibition want to hear from you.

After a Covid-enforced break, the Textile Palette Exhibition is back, being staged in Clunes over April 1-29, in the Clunes Warehouse for the first time.
And the date for submission of work for inclusion has now been extended from January 27 to February 10, says the exhibition’s regional coordinator, Christine Lethlean (pictured above).
Christine, a talented textile artist who moved to Victoria from WA a decade ago, has called Clunes home for the past eight years, and runs regular workshops from her Clunes studio. She also teaches textile art Australia-wide.
“I’ve always loved stitching,” says Christine who is also a former health professional with a background that includes nursing, mental health nursing and art therapy.
Christine says submissions for this year’s Textile Palette Exhibition are being accepted from interstate as well as closer to home.
“We’re really talking about textile art as a visual art-form,” she says.
“The theme for this year’s exhibition is Time for Stitch. After the past few years
navigating the changes to our lifestyle and restrictions placed on us by the pandemic,
having endured long periods of isolation and separation, what’s spoken of now is how
the quiet time for creativity helped many of us cope.
“Sitting and stitching was a lifeline to maintaining a sense of normality, and keeping a focus and our creative motivation alive.”
With this theme in mind, textile artists intending to submit work for inclusion in the exhibition are being invited to work on ideas connected to their experience during pandemic restrictions – or simply a project highlighting a love of all things connected to textiles and stitching.
Submissions considered for this year’s exhibition may include framed and unframed works, sculptural pieces, wall hangings, costumery or surface design, with artistic soft furnishings and unique upholstered furniture also considered.
As regional coordinator of the upcoming exhibition Christine makes no secret of the fact that she’s aiming to lift the profile of the annual event, and will be applying for a Hepburn Shire grant for promotion, marketing and signage.
“When we held the first exhibition in 2016 – it was a roaring success,” she says.
“We started as a group of about 15 stitching enthusiasts and we’ve had about four
or five shows since the first.
“Now it’s going to be in April every year and I’m anticipating making it a bit
more formally recognised as part of the Hepburn Shire’s events calendar, bringing
visitation from curators, collectors, artisans and anyone interested in stitching as an
art-form. I’m aiming to put it on the calendar as a must-do event.”
Those keen to know more can go to www.textilepaletteexhibition.org and there’s also an Instagram page @textilepalette.