Gomeroi woman Sophie Honess' art titled Rest is made from donated latch hook wool and took nearly three months to weave into the wall rug it is today.
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"I felt my spirit revived through the rest while making this," Ms Honess said of the meaning behind the textile art.
Her art is one of 25 pieces made by 28 artists from across Australia as part of the Residue + Response: 5th Tamworth Textile Triennial on show at the Tamworth Regional Gallery for five months from Saturday, September 9.
Ms Honess said one of those who donated the wool was a woman named Mary, who would weave rugs with her husband before he died a couple of years ago.
"I could tell it was hard for her to part with the wool but it was the wool that gave them that experience together," Ms Honess said.
"And that time together had been at rest for a couple of years before she decided that it was okay to let some of it go."
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The Triennial's curator Dr Carol McGregor said the exhibition is all about how artists have interpreted their observations of society during the previous three years.
"So when you think about bushfires ... the pandemic ... [the drought and floods], there's been little shifts, and what I call 'perceptions and understandings about who we are as humans'," Dr McGregor said.
She exemplified a piece by Adelaide artist Makaeda Duong, whose experience of COVID was interpreted to resemble a knitted cream-coloured oodie with colourful writing threaded through it.
"That was one of the pieces that came out of lockdown that everyone was cuddling up with," Dr McGregor said of the oodie.
"And there's just some of the random comments that people were saying on social media [written all over it].
"So for her, that was her observation of what was happening at the time."
The gallery will hold an official opening for the exhibition that is free to the public on Saturday, September 9 at 6pm, with various ticketed workshops, masterclasses, panel and artist talks being held across the weekend.
One of those workshops is a Knitting Circle with artist Kate Just on September 9 and 10, where participants get to have a yarn while knitting a crocheted yellow square that will be added to the growing blanket hanging in the exhibition titled 'Conversation Piece'.
After the Country Music Festival wraps up early next year, The Residue + Response: 5th Tamworth Textile Triennial exhibition will tour Australia for the next couple of years.
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