| Summary |
Vicki West born 1960 in Launceston, Tas., is an artist using kelp (seaweed), traditionally used for water carries. West talks about using it for its metaphor of survival; making water-carriers but preferring contemporary works; institutions holding her work; the importance of her Indigenous heritage; her family background; education; Bachelor of Fine Arts (at Univ of Tas) and her first class honours; community projects; training others; working with the Aboriginal speakers' program; going into schools and doing weaving and kelp work; Tasmanian Aboriginal Child Care Association; working with elders and their first exhibition; Vernon Graham, Len Maynard (a ceramicist), Ambrose McDonald (timbers); Shell stringing for herself; Muriel Maynard; making kelp necklaces as a show of respect to the necklace-makers; her Aboriginality from father's side; being taught to basket weave; Riawanna Aboriginal Centre at University (Launceston).
West discusses her father's Aboriginality; the family being taken to Flinders Island by George Augustus Robinson; family marrying into sealers; work using kelp and methods used; other art work, fibre baskets, kelp light-fittings; print-making, using kelp stems; screen-printing, natural dyes, shibori; installations, 'Claiming Place' with kelp; language; fabrics used, raw silks, calico, gauze, silk satins, hessians; clothing, making a block with a thylacine, for shibori dyeing; exhibiting widely; silk scarves; installation for Seven Warehouses; Ralph Haertel; Delia Summers; residencies at Lake St Clair; a community project at Ravenswood; shell-stringing, a rite of passage; other Indigenous artists in Tasmania; artists who are an inspiration to her and where to view Indigenous art in Tasmania.
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