Lynne Stone
Fibre Artist - Botanical Embroidery
Exhibition Review
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Canberra Sunday Times
April 22nd, 2007
Power of Native Flowers
Lynne Stone's embroidered blooms show a botanical
artist at work, writes KERRY-ANNE COUSINS.
ONE OF my favourite possessions is a spray of beautifully made dark red velvet roses from the 1940s, when artificial flowers were a popular fashion accessory. I bought them in Portobello market. They are purely decorative and have no aspirations to be mistaken for the real thing.
These roses came to mind when I saw Lynne Stone's amazingly wrought three-dimensional sculptural embroideries of Australian native flowers now exhibited as Blooming Threads - embroidered botanical studies at the Australian National Botanic Gardens Visitors Centre.
Stone did a TAFE course in embroidery design after she retired from a career in computer technology. It was the initial stimulus for Stone's interest in creating what she calls "embroidered botanical studies". During her nomadic travels around Australia Stone "copies what she sees" on the way so the specimens represented come from a wide variety of habitats. They include different species of eucalypts, wattles, hakeas and callistemons. Their verisimilitude is truly remarkable.
Stone, however, is not only concerned with the decorative effect of these flowers but has also studied them with all the care and attention to detail that botanical artists bring to their work. Her models are made by using machine embroidery on organza as well as fashioning other components using a variety of materials including cotton threads and special dyes. The flowers and foliage seen in such minutely observed detail provide all kinds of visual discoveries of texture and colour.
Stone is clever in reproducing the fluffiness of wattle and the strange fibre-like "petals" and stamens of specimens such as the Silver Princess flower (eucalyptus caesia magna). A display of her working methods, drawings and early models underscores the skill and observation inherent in her work. In addition, accompanying text and photographs provide botanical information on each specimen thus joining art and science together in an entertaining and informative way.
The painstaking craftsmanship and attention to detail that is so evident in Stone's work is remarkable but the exhibition also engenders a sense of wonder - not only at Stone's skill in making her embroideries come alive but also at the strange and beautiful world of our native flora.
* Blooming Threads - Embroidered botanical studies by Lynne Stone. Australian National Botanic Gardens Visitors Centre. Open daily 9am - 4:30pm until May 27.
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