Hello and welcome!
I’m Tara – a modern quilt artist and designer, working from River Studios, Naarm (Melbourne), Australia – known for my bold use of colour, strong geometry and a preference for using recycled textiles.
Take a look around… Here you’ll find the links to both my PDF quilt patterns as well as my art quilts.
Making with my hands is essential to my wellbeing - be that sewing, quilting, knitting or embroidering.
I believe in the power of making – as an act of love; a means of emotional repair; a form of mindfulness or a way of encouraging more sustainable behaviour.
The world does not need my creations however. As I get older and the climate crisis becomes more dire, I recognise the desperate need for acts of maintenance, repair, reuse and reduction. They increasingly inform my practice and I’m passionate about sharing what I learn.
At its core, my attraction to making with fibre is the mix of utility and art form – beauty with a practical purpose.
I have made so many wonderful connections online through the global textile community, so please feel free to get in touch.
Juried exhibitions and awards
2022 Petite Miniature Textiles, Wangaratta Art Gallery
2022 Quiltcon, two quilts juried in show
2021 Quiltcon, two quilts juried in show
2020 Australia Wide 7, two-year nationally touring art quilt exhibition
2020 Petite Miniature Textiles, Wangaratta Art Gallery (work acquired by gallery)
2020 Quiltcon, 1st place American Patchwork & Quilting Challenge, four quilts juried in show
2019 Small Works Art Prize, Brunswick Street Gallery, Fitzroy
2019 Finalist, Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award (work acquired by gallery)
2019 Quiltcon, two quilts juried in show
2018 Buda Contemporary Textile Award, Buda Historic Home and Garden, Castlemaine
2018 Quiltcon, 1st place Handwork
2017 Art Quilt Australia, Queen Victoria Art Gallery, Launceston
Group shows
2021 Material Things, Tenfold Textile Collective, Black Cat Gallery, Fitzroy
2021 Modern Quilt Guild Retrospective, National Quilt Museum, Paducah, KY, USA
2021 Toward Abstraction, Gallery 76, West Concord, Sydney and Jervis Bay Maritime Museum (Curator)
2019 Fibre, Brunswick Street Gallery, Fitzroy
2019 Forage, Tenfold Textile Collective, Neon Parlour, Thornbury
2018 Second Skin, Tenfold Textile Collective, Backspace Gallery, Ballarat
2016 Background Noise, Tenfold Textile Collective, First Site Gallery, RMIT University, Melbourne
Bibliography
2021– Columnist for ‘Make Modern’ magazine, Issues 38–current
2021 Featured in ‘Curated Quilts’ magazine, Issue 16
2020 Pattern and feature in ‘Make Modern’ magazine, Issue 36
2019 Featured in ‘Curated Quilts’ magazine, Issue 9
2018 ‘Aussies take Quiltcon’, Make Modern magazine, Issue 22