Ag Art

 

 Ag Art is a classification under which country women show wearable art garments made solely from farmyard materials. Garments are entered along with the stories that have inspired them. These stories tell of the issues and events experienced by these women on the land.      Models on this page parade garments at the largest Ag Art event in Victoria, held at the Elmore & District Machinery Field Day every year.

I believe wearable art is the Contemporary Visual Language of the Country Woman.

 

Culturally signifcant practice. 

To understand culture is to be aware of a body of knowledge that we may have of a particular society that we live in.

 

This knowledge can be seen in various ways, through the artifact or art, places or events, symbols and information gathered through the observation of a way of living.

 

Culture provides a framework in which people live their lives and communicate shared meanings with each other.

 

The works created for Ag Art could be categorized as 'folk art' if we speak of the community members who engage in these activities as artists at all. This is work done totally outside professional art worlds by ordinary people, self taught or passed down from mother to daughter, in the course of their lives. Their work reflects the constraints and opportunites of what surrounds them, documenting what materials are availalbe at a particular time. The farming techniques and material found, to be gleaned are constantly changing. In 2008 a dress incorporating CDs shows how technology was now a common farm practice.

 

It is necessary that these works are preseved. 

 

Reading left to right.

The first photograph shows the workings behind stage, as a model prepares to enter the catwalk 

The outer bodice has been woven using cumbungi reeds. The overlay skirt is also made using strips of cumbungi reeds. Flowers hand-made from a wool pack, have been attached to her outfit. 

 

‘The Net’, Figure 2, celebrated how the internet had made life on the land so much easier. Internet is used as GPS for the tractor; for ordering parts and lodging taxes online through to weather forecasting and all kinds of useful information.

This outfit was fashioned from baling net, insect net and bird net.

 

Figure 3, this outfit designed  by Corinne Heintze called Triangle Tangle is welded wire covered in baling twine. The silved is sisalation insulation. Corinne received 2nd place in the Avant Gard section of the Elmore Show in 2015.

 

 ‘Dough’ Figure 4 represents a farmer’s protest at how much time he wasted at the silos during the last harvest when they should be spending the time back on the headers trying to get the crops harvested before the next rain. As it was, the grain was already sprouting and still the rain kept falling. He felt he should have been saving what grain he could, rather than waiting at the silos.

The main part of the garment is made up of dough discs that were made from milled wheat collected at the silos combined with stock salt saffron and baked. These discs were then sewn onto bird netting and stock crate protection. The splash of yellow connected to the back of the garment is made from broom bristles to represent the ‘umbrella’ that was useless in keeping things dry.

 

Figure 5 has been constructed from poly pipe, approximately 4000 zip ties and seed bags. The way the ties swirl around the pipe is representative of a hay rake. 

 

History

New Zealand is a world leader in agriculture and pastoral farming and holds a ‘Fielday’ in Hamilton each year, which is the largest exhibition in the southern hemisphere. This is the ultimate launching platform for cutting edge agricultural technology and innovation.

 

In 1994 Barry Quayle, General Manager of the Show, felt there needed to be activities and events that appealed to rural women. He was concerned that women comprised of only 18% of those who attended. Acknowledging that the farming women in NZ often "holds the cheque book", do the farm accounts and are a key to purchase decisions, meant that the Fielday needed to attract women to ensure the show facilitated more sales while, at the same time, making it an enjoyable experience.

 

A new event was born called Ag Art Wear. It was hoped that this would encourage women’s involvement and add an exciting and unique event to the Fieldays. Today

 attendance at present is 45% women.

 

 Ag Art Wear garments is a competition that offers a challenge to designers to create ‘wearable art’ garments from materials sourced or used on the farms or the land. It should not include items processed from clothing or found in city or town shops.

 

Ag Art comes to Australia

In June 2000, several Committee members of the Elmore & District Machinery Field Days Inc flew to New Zealand to attend the field days. It was there that the committee viewed the Ag Art Wear® Competition. They were very impressed with the whole concept.

 

The first competition in Australia was in October 2001 with only twelve entrants. Today the number has risen to forty-eight. The age group of the entrants range from the early teen years right through to some ladies who are in their late 70s. Most of the older women who have entered a garment still live or have lived on farms and they are always on the look out for something interesting lying around the ‘farm tips’ or at farm clearing sales that could be fashioned into something wearable. Being artistic, they seem to have Ag Art in their mind most of the time. Other country shows have similar events under categories of ‘Farm Art’ or ‘Wearable art’.

 

There are now thirteen Ag Art Wear licences in Australia, The most recent is in the Dowerin Field Days east of Perth.

 

Ag Art does not receive any government funding nor is there any provision for the storing of these garments some of which Ibelieve, are valuable works that need to be preserved and documented as a chronicle of a regional history. They are the visual language of country women.