QUEEN OF THE SCENE
Photography by: Dane Singleton
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To begin with, something needs to be stated on the record. Our next interviewee is not a Freak of the Week, rather she is our Queen of the Scene.
In the same theme of honesty, Sally Clegg is my [Claire] grandmother, or as I call her, my Granny. When curating this list of artists we tried to be as diverse as possible, both with the artist themselves but also what they practice. In Ulladulla you will find a plethora of musicians and photographers but if you look a little bit deeper you will also find a strong community of creatives who practice arts and crafts - woodwork, quilting, weavers and embroiderers. My Granny fits in with the latter.
Due to the COVID restrictions a lot of these community groups have put their gatherings on hold but there was one extremely talented local I could interview and that was my Granny. At nearly 90 years of age, she has lived an incredible life and something that has stayed with her since she was just seven years old is the practice of sewing and embroidery.
With the current pandemic slowing down our everyday lives I have seen more social media posts than ever of friends picking up knitting needles or embroidering slogans onto wall hangings. What better time to talk to one of our local’s finest of this practice and pick her brain about how life in Ulladulla has changed in the past 20+ years. As I sit down with her at the kitchen table we are surrounded by different pieces hung on the walls; there’s not only embroidery but marquetry (done by my Grandfather) and small paintings of English seaside towns. An artistic reflection of
Granny’s life. I hope you enjoy the casual tone of this interview and perhaps it will inspire you to reach out to your Grandparents or even start an embroidery project of your own.
The Deadly South: What’s your go-to spot in Ulladulla when you need to clear your head? Your happy place?
Sally Clegg: Bunnings.
I would say that you would share that with a lot of people!
When did you decide to move to Mollymook & why?
It would be nearly 20-21 years we have been here. It would have been the year 2000 I think?
Yeah, probably around then. We were living at Tahmoor in a huge house with a swimming pool in the backyard and a big lawn. We found it was too much. So, we decided to take a drive down the coast and we ended up here in Ulladulla. I looked at Ulladulla coming down the hill into the harbour and it reminded me of my hometown in England. I said that this will do!
Because it was on the sea?
Because of the harbour. All the little boats. I lived in Christchurch on the South Coast of England and there is a harbour which is very like this. That decided me. We sold our house in Sydney, had a settlement date but nowhere to move into! So we came to Ulladulla and we did the rounds of all the real estate people. [My husband Geoff] and I couldn’t agree on anything. We got to the last one and he wouldn’t get out of the car, so I went in and found the house at Mollymook on Matron Porter Drive.
In the last 10 years, there has been a rapid expansion in the town. I would say it has grown a lot in that time, do you agree?
I hadn’t noticed it because I am not a great shopper, I’m not a great one for just walking around the town for the sake of it. I like to go down, get what I want and go home.
Do you find that it’s busier?
Oh yes. I also find that a lot of shops are closing down now, and that’s not through COVID.
The population has boomed, house prices have boomed, but it’s true, there’s so much free commercial space in Ulladulla.
I’ve noticed the number of buildings that are empty too. There’s the big car yard and the multi-story building behind it too.
It’s so sad to see so many of the little shops that have closed down. Places that were so central to what people wanted. It’s very sad. They want to be careful because the town will lose its identity.
I wanted to talk to you about your embroidery. When did you learn and when did you learn sewing?
The first piece I can remember doing was when I was about 7 years of age at school. It was a project we had for Mother’s Day. It was a handkerchief sachet in red satin, with embroidery on the front in black. I can’t remember doing anything after that until I was 16 years of age. I went to what you call TAFE colleges here, but in England it’s just college. We had to do everything in this course called Domestic Science. It covers cooking, laundry and household electronics where you learnt how to mend your iron and all sorts of things.
Women only?
Yes, only women in this course. That’s where I learnt my basic sewing. We learnt how to draft our own patterns. Say, if there was a dress you wanted to make, you learnt how to draft the pattern from a picture to make that garment. We made underwear, all hand sewn.
We go through an old blue trunk that’s been with Granny since she arrived in Australia in 1965. Inside there’s a vast collection of items, from her kid’s Mother’s Day presents to old photographs and lastly a collection of her College notes. Needlework, dietetics, housecraft - there are notes on everything - which products to use to remove an ink stain to the care and use of a sewing machine to the general theory of threading. The notes are epic, meticulously written out in cursive, each step clearly laid out. A foundation of knowledge that is no longer taught. They’re a testament to how life has changed. I feel privileged to read these notes, an insight into my grandmother’s life before she even became a mother.
My mother was a huge embroiderer and I’ve got a lot of her stuff here now.
She tells me about the advancements in embroidery that have taken place since her mother used to practice.
They had 6 strands in one piece of thread, in those days you took it out, used it. Nowadays you take it out, you separate all the strands, and there’s a right and wrong way that they run. If you run them the wrong way it makes a difference to your embroidery. That’s how techniques have advanced since she did it. I’ve got tablecloths that she did. I brought them all home with me [from England].
After College I went to work and I didn’t have the time for anything like that. After I married and had four kids time really went out the window! I made all of my children's clothes and all my clothes. I came here [to Australia] in 1965 but I didn’t have the opportunity to restart my embroidery until my children left school. My friend Jane and I, she is a great sewer and embroiderer, we teamed up and went on courses and weekend breaks for embroideries and all that sort of thing. I’ve never really lost it, it would just dull down. Now I’m back into it again.
So growing up it was more practical, sewing clothes etc, and then when you had a bit more time it was further learning and study. When you were younger in England and learning, was there ever a career pathway?
No. It was part and parcel of the course. I was too young to get a job but I had to do something. So my father put me into this 12-month course.
I was one of 6 [children] and when you finished school you had to get a job because money was required to help with the family.
Brutal.
Yes, but these things happen.
It’s really cool that you know how to draft patterns from scratch. I was looking through a Women’s Weekly from the 1980s and there were so many adverts for buying patterns to sew your own clothes. I can’t think of anyone now who sews their clothes. Even in the ’80s, they were still doing it. I would think now it would not be as financially viable, it would be more expensive.
It’s too expensive and it’s impractical. You can go and buy something for $50 in the shop. You buy the material and pattern as well as the time it would cost you more than that. This is a throwaway society. You wear something 2 or 3 times and don’t wear it again.
I think it’s about convenience as well. You’re expected to work a lot more now and you don’t really have the time, especially when you can go to Kmart and get a shirt for $6.
Dead right.
Why have you continued to sew and embroider?
I enjoy it.
What about it do you enjoy?
Creating something and seeing it finished. I’ll look at something and want to create it. I don’t do it now because my eyesight is too bad.
I enjoy doing not your basic embroidery but three dimensional where say, if you do birds, you do their wings on cake wire.
Could you explain this technique a little further?
You manipulate the wire into the desired shape, in this case the wing, and you embroider from the back to the front. The buttonhole stitch fills in the gap between the wires. Then you join it to the main piece of work and it stands out because it’s raised. That is the sort of thing I really enjoyed.
Have you ever thought about teaching it?
No.
Why?
I wouldn’t have the patience and my eyes won’t do it. See you could do a piece and I could look at it and say it was fantastic, but someone else could come along and see all the stitches in the wrong place.
But that’s art in general. I could paint a picture and you and I could think it’s great but some established artist could come along and say it’s
no good.
Yes, but you could cover that up with paint. Once you’ve done your embroidery that's it! It’s very very hard to unpick it and redo it. Particularly if you’re working on silk or with silk threads and things. Once you’ve made that little hole it’s there. You can’t disguise it.
So you consider yourself a perfectionist.
no-YES! *laughs* in everything!
I am not very good at visual art. I’m pretty good at writing but anything like drawing or painting, I’m not very good at it. So for me done is good enough. Whereas people who are talented in the arts like this, I find they’re perfectionists. Someone like me will come along and think it’s amazing where the artists themselves will always pick it apart.
I do a lot of knitting and I’ve been asked to finish a monkey for someone else. I’m knitting last night and I couldn’t get the number of stitches right so I put it down and left it for the evening. I picked it up this morning and there was one wrong stitch! I can’t leave that, so I took it all the way back down and knitted it up again. It's right now but you see I couldn't leave that I had to have it together right.
See you’d be a good teacher! I think you would.
If you don’t like a piece will you often not finish it? Or will you always complete it?
*laughs* There's a couple in the cupboard that someone else can find and finish one day! I won't!
Because they're too difficult?
They’re boring. All the embroidery is finished on one, it's a big picture, all the birds are done but now with a single black thread, you go back and outline them so that they stand out from the picture. That can stay in the cupboard!
As we sit and talk Granny disappears into the back bedroom and returns with a small but full photo album. She explains she tries to take photos of all pieces she’s finished as a way to keep track. As we flip through the book the variety of Granny’s work is clear. She points out a picture of a Christening gown with a matching petticoat proudly telling me she completed it for my second cousin. Next, she points out a knitted Bob the Builder which won her first place at the Milton Show. Granny tells me they all came out of the magazine ‘Embroidery and Crossstitch’ that no longer runs.
Would you ever consider selling them?
No. They’re not for sale. I couldn’t sell them.
But you give them away to everyone.
I’ve done a lot of cot blankets with wool embroidery. Honey bees, Humpty Dumpty and all that sort of thing. They’ve all been for certain first grandchildren or great-grandchildren. Don’t ask me who got what! I’ve given so many away and that's why I take photographs of them and I am always thinking about who has what.
Has there ever been a time that you wanted to quit? Do you take breaks?
I’ve always got to have something to do but as I’ve said my eyes are too bad to embroider now so I knit. As I said I’m doing this monkey at the minute, I’ve just finished an elephant. I’ve been making aprons and placemats, all cut out ready to go. Everything’s stacked up because I can’t get to Spotlight, can I!
It’s a common theme whenever I talk to people - we love Ulladulla but there’s never what we need here.
That’s right! It’s so frustrating because if it was here you would buy it. Everyone says that. I don’t know if it's a reflection of the same things we were talking about where everything is cheaper from the really big stores, so even if an independent store did open here it would be so much cheaper to get it from Spotlight. It’s frustrating and hard. It’s an age-old thing if you're from Ulladulla you have to leave to do what you want to do.
You go up to Spotlight, and I know it's a big conglomerate, but one; it's much cheaper and two; there's a much bigger choice, but they have the money behind them to run the store like that. Your little people in Ulladulla can’t do it because there isn’t the demand here for stuff like that.
If you could wake up tomorrow and COVID didn’t exist, bad eyesight wasn’t a thing, you didn’t have any responsibilities, what would you do?
Nothing different to what I’m doing now.
That’s so nice, good life then?
Yeah. I wouldn’t do anything different. I’m quite satisfied with my life to a certain extent… I wouldn't move! Imagine having to pack this lot up again.
Do you ever regret moving down here?
No. Never regretted it, ever. Neither of us has ever regretted the move down here. It was a good decision.
Freak of The Week is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.