A lifetime of talent on show
100 embroidered pieces on show at exhibition
lifetime of stitch, colour and texture is currently being celebrated in an exhibition at the Percy Thomson Gallery in Stratford.
Closing at the end of this week, The Majesty of the Needle regional embroidery exhibition features around 100 embroidered pieces.
One of the highlights of the exhibition is the work of guest artist Lee Westfield.
Both Lee’s mother and grandmother were embroiderers, so it was almost a given that she too would take up the needle – and later also pass it on to her daughter and granddaughter, creating a five-generation legacy of stitching.
Lee, who now lives in Stratford, was born in Christchurch and trained as a florist. Her embroidery needs were supplied by what she remembers as ‘a funny little shop in Cashel St’ that sold fabrics and threads, as well as embroidery transfers, although, because it was just after World War II, linen fabric was not available.
After marriage and a move to Tokoroa, she used her skills with the needle making christening gowns. One christening gown is particularly well remembered in the family because she stitched it while sitting up in bed in hospital after the birth of her daughter. She recalls that the nurses all laughed and suggested it would only be finished in time for the baby’s wedding. But it was finished in time for the christening and it became the family joke – so much so that when her daughter was getting married, she asked Lee to make her a replica in white satin as her wedding dress.
Although she stitched while her children were small, it wasn’t until the 1980s that Lee was able to be involved in the wider world of embroidery and became a founding member of the South Waikato Embroiderers’ Guild in Tokoroa. With a background in teaching floral arts to adults and working as a Girl Guide trainer, plus Waikato University Extension courses in teaching adults, it was almost a given that she would start teaching embroidery as well. After a move to Coromandel, Lee and a friend founded a guild there as well.
Lee says she firmly believes that a tutor should know the history of a technique and what fabrics and threads are traditionally used and finds the research for her designs fascinating. One of her later projects, entitled My Italian Love Affair, features 11 different styles of Italian embroidery, all meticulously researched.
Over the years she has explored and embroidered a wide variety of traditional counted threads and created at least 15 traditional samplers, including two mystery stitch samplers for the North Shore Embroiderers Guild and one for The Embroiderer (shop) in Auckland. Mystery samplers are usually done over a year with a new section of the pattern released each month so that the embroiderer doesn’t know the final outcome until the very last stitch. She also used to design kits for sale.
Although Lee is no longer teaching embroidery, she is always creating and designing and is enjoying the chance to stitch for herself rather than for classes, including beautiful needlework accessories and boxes. Many of them feature flowers from her background in floristry and her mother’s special love for violets and alpine flowers and Lee says she often stitches them from living specimens. She’s also ‘having a ball’ designing for and dressing dolls which she then photographs and creates storybooks about to entertain her granddaughter.
Her work has been widely exhibited, including in two British exhibitions, and Embroidery 2000, an international showcase of embroidery held in Auckland, plus her work has been published in a number of publications including Exploring Embroidery which included many of New Zealand’s best known tutors in the 1990s. Over the years Lee has kept a notebook listing everything she has created and it is amazing how much stitching she has managed to fit in over the last 50 years or so.
A selection of Lee’s embroideries is being exhibited in the Percy Thomson Gallery alongside more than 100 embroideries from Taranaki, Manawatu¯ and Whanganui embroiderers. The exhibition finishes this Sunday and includes a huge variety of techniques and stitching styles.