Review Abigail Crompton AGDA ACT 5 June 2007

5th April, 2007

Abigail Crompton has dubbed herself the 'teatowelologist' which for some reason sounds as though it might be a fawlty towers endeavour. Her wonderful 'artwork' tea towels are available online of course, but also locally in Canberra from The Hive in Braddon, where the beautiful presentation and diverse range is quite impressive.

This is a 'project' for Abigail, one that started out locally in Australia and has grown to encompass the world. She spends a lot of her time online exploring tips and links sent to her from what is now a vast network of artists and designers who have been seduced by the idea of her products.

Abigail talked about the logistics of taking an 'artwork' and reproducing it as an 'edition' using screen printing methods. She mentioned her enjoyment of the serendipidous outcomes when something is taken from one medium and rendered in another. The slight frisson of excitement from taking risks and being out of your comfort zone, but still having an underlying confidence in your ability to make it work.

She didn't mention just how much time and obsessive energy must go into reproducing these works so beautifully, including some, which have individual machine stitching, or applique.

Abigail talked to us about how she is now allowing herself to live with a certain amount of imperfection. Turning certain imperfections into an advantage—a very good lesson for designers raised to be obsessive about detail.

She also talked to us about how she tends to get personally involved with her artists and what they are doing and then re-interpreting the ideas and images to her ology. She visits them overseas, but also has a lot of visitors who come to Melbourne to meet her in person. She described to us one rather confronting experimental adventure organised by a group of her artists which was to take place at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. It ended a bit like many projects where we find ourselves involved in something that starts to feel like a bridge too far—it was cancelled.

She briefly showed us pics of her wonderful little house/gallery in St Kilda, off the main beat, just down the road from the sex shop and the 'milk bar'. At night it looked like a beautiful golden box illuminated by incandescent lights in the gallery. This could be some designers' dream option—living-area upstairs with a gallery downstairs, and maybe just enough room out the back for a small vege garden and perhaps for a well-behaved border collie to take for walks along the St Kilda Esplanade.

The consensus seemed to be that Abigail was fascinating and inspirational and it was very good to listen to someone who can appealed to our arty souls, but who is not so close to the usual world of design. Thank you Abigail, for coming to Canberra in the middle of a particularly cold winter—you warmed the cockles.