BRIEF: The aim of the eleven artists is to create a textile and mixed-media travelling exhibition. The initial inspiration was the map of the Western Hemisphere embroidered by Elizabeth Cook (c.1800) that shows the voyages of her husband James Cook currently housed at the Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney. Elizabeth Cook’s map provided a starting point from which the concept of ‘map’ can be understood and interpreted in both concrete and abstract ways. Maps can be about many things; geography, history, geology, personal space, migration, movement, memory, travel, genealogy.

Exhibition Dates

Museum of the Riverina,

Botanic Gardens site, Wagga Wagga: March 15 to April 29, 2012


Shoalhaven City Arts Centre,

12 Berry Street, Nowra: May 31 to July 26, 2012

Launch Saturday, June 2, 12noon to 2pm


McGlade Gallery, ACU Strathfield campus, June 15 - July 6, 2013


Cessnock Regional Art Gallery, 16 Vincent Street, Cessnock, Feb 19 to March 16, 2014








Wednesday 4 August 2010

Mitchell Library visit

We were given the delux, 30 minute tour of the library before our meeting with the curator. Very interesting and well worthwhile a more leisurely repeat tour, one day.

We were shown an embroidery of "the world" done by Janet Berry. It is similar to the one, purportedly by Elizabeth Cook at the Maritime Museum. But is done on printed silk satin. So the embroidery is covering some lines and the floral wreath outside the map. It, like the "E. Cook" had several tracts and tracks across the oceans by various explorers.










The waistcoat is done by a different hand than the embroidery at the Maritime Museum. Our opinion is that a professional embroiderer did it. The embroidery is complete. The cloth just needs to be made up. For the time it is a discrete waistcoat, suitable for a middle aged sailor without aristrocratic pretensions.

The stain is ink, they think. They believe that it was spilled on the cloth sometime after it came into their collection.




The tapa cloth is fine, but not as fine as silk satin so it must have been a challenge for the embroiderer to achieve such beautifully fine, even stitches. The cloth is beige and there is an underlayer of linen to support the embroidery. We couldn't tell if it was tambour work because the stitches were so even and tiny.

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