The Common Threads exhibition comprised historical utilitarian Japanese textiles stitched for everyday use, and my contemporary works made in response.  My works (some of which can be seen here) incorporated vintage Japanese cloth, embedded with memory, to explore the art of making-do, a common heritage I share with the Japanese makers of the old textiles in the exhibition.

I curated Common Threads jointly with collector Sue Leighton-White, who owned many of the traditional textiles in the exhibition.  Common Threads was shown between 1999 and 2005 in venues around Australia as well as in the UK, Japan, New Zealand and the USA.

Its final showing was at the Belger Arts Center in Kansas City, USA, as a featured exhibition of the 2005 international Surface Design conference.  The industrial feel of this huge gallery space in a converted old warehouse was very sympathetic to the exhibition content, comprising 30 traditional Japanese textiles and 20 of my contemporary stitched artworks.

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