Late last year at TAFTA (the Australian Forum for Textile Arts) in Geelong, Victoria, Gale from the ‘get creative’ team met Hilary Peterson and was blown away by the work produced in her class, ‘Mixed media and the artist book’. This month we’re privileged to have Hilary share her story with us, explaining how nature and specific locations inspire her work, and why planning doesn’t necessarily work for her.

Hilary is not the kind of person who can provide traditional project steps to students or publications. “When I teach I like people to be encouraged and learn techniques they can later use for creativity,” she explains. “It’s not necessarily about making things in the class, it’s about what you’ll do when you go home later.”

What Hilary, as a mixed media artist does, when she goes home is immerse herself in the scenery and environment around her. Able to develop her own papers, colour fabrics, make books and more, Hilary’s home base, in picturesque Pambula (a quiet location central to NSW’s Sapphire Coast), serves as a great asset.

“The work I focus on at any given time is constantly shifting. I usually use one site or location as a focus, start out with drawings, then it deepens and then I can never really say what will come next,” she says.

Banksias, the sea, wildlife, all of these inform her work. Hilary sometimes paints, sometimes dyes fabrics, sometimes works on a large scale and sometimes makes small books. “I find one thing feeds into the other,” she observes. For instance there are pieces at the moment that I started working on three years ago. I’ve just come back to them and am enjoying that.”

Suffice to say that her unstructured approach can sometimes be unnerving for first time students. “At Geelong, for instance, I was aware that some people might come to class and think ‘Hang on, what are we doing here?’ because there’s no project as such. But we were developing papers and rusting fabrics using acrylics. We put them into books and did cotton linter paper making. We made covers for the books.”

Hilary began her working life as a professional textile designer, creating carpets and commercial fabrics. Like many, it was not until she left full time paid work to have her family that her art, once a hobby, began to flourish. As her children grew up Hilary started teaching both children and artists and today can call herself a professional artist.

“One of the best things about teaching is watching the students work through from a chaos of ideas, materials, techniques and uncertainties to producing fantastic pieces of work,” she says.

Hilary has a home studio with its own hanging system and she tries to ensure a couple of days a week are spent there concentrating on her own work. “I try to be regular, disciplined about it,” she explains. “You just can’t wait for things to fall out of the sky. Sometimes you have to create your own momentum. Even if I don’t feel like actually working on a piece I’ll force myself to at least clean up the studio; sometimes I will even rediscover a forgotten item in that process and be inspired all over again.

“Exhibitions made me deadline driven too which is helpful. I am a member of the Spiral Gallery, a cooperative in Bega (NSW). It’s less pressure because a whole exhibition doesn’t rely on just you, there’s a group, but it is a good driver.”

Hilary has also tackled art quilts. She says she likes to have a project she can sit down with at night and, because she prefers hand sewing to machine, quilts - using hand dyed fabrics and stitch - fit the bill. “I suppose it’s really more like embroidery than quilting,” she adds.

While 2008 marked her debut as a TAFTA tutor, she plans to be at the Ballarat FORUM at Easter time this year. “We’ll use plant dyes on silks,” she explains. It will be cool - literally - we’ll do it outdoors.”

Name
Hilary Peterson

Based
South Coast NSW

Gallery website
www.spiralgallery.org.au [spiralgallery.org.au]

Email
peterson@asitis.net.au

For more information
See the TAFTA website at
www.ggcreations.com.au/tafta [ggcreations.com.au]
for 2009 FORUM details or call (07) 3300 6491.

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