ALTERED STATES - Artist Talk and Exhibition Opening

Altered States
The West Australian Fibre and Textile Association (WAFTA) is an innovative and energetic not-for-profit group of established and emerging artists and makers from across the length and breadth of WA. 
Their membership is passionate about traditional, contemporary and experimental fibre and textile related art. 
In light of the difficulty their regional members face in accessing WAFTA opportunities, the committee developed a touring model for their 2018 exhibition Altered States so that South West and Great Southern communities could see WAFTA artworks at the Painted Gallery in Northcliffe then the Lake Grace Arts Space in Lake Grace.
The genesis for Altered States came after WAFTA's Spring Stash in 2016 when they were left with boxes of unused fibre and textiles.   The committee devised an exhibition challenging WAFTA members to create artworks from these leftover materials supplied to them in a bag.
The bag contained a selection of materials including metres of wool, carpet yarn, sea grass, strips of beaded and embroidered sari silk, a square of cotton batik, knitted cotton gauze, an embroidered doily, a guitar string, vegetation of the Watsonia plant and a sizeable bag of unwashed alpaca.  A copy of Textile magazine and a paper pattern along with an item of clothing from the op-shop completed the contents.   
There were a few rules to the challenge:

• To use a little or a lot of everything in the bag
•  the finished dimensions were to be within 30cm x 30cm for 2D and 30cm x 30cm x 30cm for 3D.
• The contents could be altered in any way; paint, dye, bleach, distress, weave, knit, crochet, stitch, darn, unpick, unravel, print, knot and more.  Sewing threads, glues, dyes and armatures could be included
• no further material could be added or swapped.
• The deadline was set at six months and to be exhibited at the Perth Town Hall in September 2017.

To expand upon the exhibition project, WAFTA hosted many 'Textile Technique Toolbox' workshops including recycling paper, stitching, printing, eco-dyeing, basic spinning techniques, creating armatures and writing succinct artists statements of no more than 50 words.  To encourage and create a place for participants to share their experiences, exchange ideas and support each other they created a closed Altered States Facebook page. This challenge was not only about using up leftover stash but also taking many of our members out of their comfort zones and to stretch their creativity and skills
63 WAFTA members completed artworks at the end of the six months.  These works came from as far as Esperance to Geraldton.  The result is a diverse, imaginative, range of works from the whimsical to the bold and delicate.
It’s definitely worth seeing what creative minds and talented hands can do with ‘some leftovers in a bag’.
‘Altered States’ is open daily and closes on September 16th. Southern Forest Arts is deeply appreciate of WAFTA’s generosity in funding the cost of touring this exhibition to Northcliffe.