PEOPLE BLACKHEATH NSW
threads of time
JULIE PATERSON PUBLISHES A HISTORY
OF HER FABRIC DESIGNS JUST AS SHE
ENTERS A NEW CREATIVE PHASE
IN NSW’S BLUE MOUNTAINS.
WOR DS LEAH T WOMEY PHOTOGR A PH Y FELIX FOREST
ST Y LING DANIELLE SELIG
Bits of found metal hang on the
studio walls with a landscape painted
on a scrap of tin found in the ruins of
a house burnt in the Mount Victoria
fires. FACING PAGE Julie looks through
work from her recent artist-in-residence
season at Hill End in NSW.
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BLACKHEATH NSW PEOPLE
A
s designer Julie Paterson sits back in the garden of her
Blue Mountains home, behind her on a wall are painted
snippets of the ‘Imperfect Manifesto’ she wrote with her
partner, writer Amanda Kaye. Making things makes us feel good.We
learn to do something by doing it.When we are brave our life expands…
These thoughts were jotted down one Sunday in Julie’s garden
shed studio, where she creates fabric, rug and wallpaper designs
for her textile business, Cloth, and also her art — paintings and
ink drawings on found pieces of wood or old canvases. “I don’t
like working with a new canvas, or if I do, I’ll scratch it up or
leave it outside for a couple of weeks,” she says, laughing.
This year marks Cloth’s 20th anniversary and also a change of
path for Julie. She has closed her shop in Sydney’s Darlinghurst
and made the Blackheath retreat her main home — her apartment
by the sea in Coogee is now for short jaunts to Sydney. She has
happily relaxed her grip on a rushed life.
Although she is still owner and creative director of Cloth, Julie
has handed over the logistics and administration to others, freeing
her to design without the burden of overheads. Her friends at
wholesalers Ascraft in Sydney and Melbourne stock her wares,
while her former production manager, Martine Kilo, features
Cloth at her Home Industry shop in Sydney’s Balmain. >
The red painting Farm on the shed’s
door above pieces from an exhibition
titled Souvenirs. FACING PAGE,
CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT Harry
the rescue dog — “She’s named after
Hariasa, the Norse Goddess of Long
Hair!”; sketches for a new range of
fabrics; an unknown portrait, a David
Bromley ‘Famous Five’ painting and
below, Julie’s “bird’s-eye view” work
Caravan Park. On the sliding door are
cigarette packet prints of Australian
native birds; more works from Hill End.
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PEOPLE BLACKHEATH NSW
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CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT
Op-shop finds on the bedroom
wall; a landscape painted on
deer hide above the heirloom
sideboard; Julie’s own fabrics form
the curtains in the 1963 caravan
(“as old as me”) in which she wrote
ClothBound; four sculptures made
from scrap metal and an old
firescreen treasured for its horse
motif. FACING PAGE Some lines
from the ‘Imperfect Manifesto’
painted on pieces of wood.
“It’s a brave move to cut back,” Julie says. “You get to
a point and think, ‘I’m prepared to let the shop go, but at the
same time get to the essence of what I really want to do.’ ”
She is very close to living by her ‘Imperfect Manifesto’ and
is elated at the thought of what she has done this past year.
“Writing that made me realise ‘This is how I want to live.’ ”
Julie’s new book, ClothBound, is a tactile journey
through the past 20 years of Cloth. It’s covered with
Julie’s fabrics — the ‘Spotcheck’ design on the front
and ‘Boardwalk’ on the back — and each cover is cut
from a different part of the pattern, ensuring variation
and chance in the layout.
“I’ve spent a year writing, it’s really exciting!” she
enthuses, pointing out the little 1960s-style Formica table
inside a caravan parked on her property, where she sat and
reminisced over her life’s work. “The book is very much
about this place, and my place in Coogee and the shop.
It’s all very down home, which is how I use the fabrics
and where they come from.”
Each chapter explores a collection of Cloth designs, starting
with the first, Seeds. Also featured are some of Julie’s famous
patterns — Looking For Water, Banksia, Wattle, Ironbark
and her own favourite, Stuffed Olives. In there, also, is the
personal story of the UK designer who came to Australia
“for a year” in 1989 and has been here ever since.
“Twenty years ago, no-one in the design industry
was looking in their backyard and being inspired by the
Australian bush and plants. I think I was just one of
the first ones to go, ‘Wow, let’s celebrate what’s here.’ ”
Julie is devoted to handmade craft: “The majority of my
work is done with hand-cut paper stencils in my shed.”
She gives her Wagga Wagga fabric printer the samples; he
produces the materials and ships them back.
“I’m interested now in sketching in pen and ink, which
needs to be scanned in to a computer to get a sense of what
it looks like as a textile. Then I’ll do a screenprint to work
out colours and layers.”
While rifling through archives for her book research,
Julie rediscovered her first and only business plan, written
in 1995 seeking a bank loan to start Cloth. In it she had
written that Ascraft would be distributing an exclusive
range of fabrics for Cloth. It has taken 20 years, but that
idea has come full circle.
Julie believes circular journeys often feature in her life.
“Revisiting an idea or revisiting a place seems to happen
a lot. This house is an example of that.” Just recently, Julie
and Amanda’s Sydney signwriter friend Indigo Jo painted
‘Twice Lucky’ next to the front door of their 1970s
Blackheath home. The motto refers to Julie’s curious return.
She bought the home in 2002 and lived there for four
years before reluctantly selling it to a friend, photographer
Harold David. One day in 2011, after a bad storm had
blown through, he dropped by her shop to tell her the big
trees were down but the house and old shed were still
standing. She and Amanda went to have a look and felt
drawn back — so they bought it back from Harold,
a handshake deal in the pub.
“The thing I love most is that all the natives I’d planted the
first time around have grown,” Julie says. “It’s a modest little
house — but it’s fine for two girls and their dog!” *
ClothBound by Julie Paterson (Murdoch Books, $59.99) goes on
sale in April.To see more of Julie’s design work, visit clothfabric.com
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