Cleopatra’s Dress is a project that I am developing for the mini arts festival, FREE BBQ CASH GIVEAWAY, in Alice Springs this September at Watch This Space gallery.

 

Cleopatra Katsoolis was my mother’s mother’s mother. She is a hero in our family and a pioneering textile artist. As a sculptor and textile artist myself, I want to make this work to celebrate her work before the silk screens she has left us, embedded with her artworks, perish.

 

She had an amazing life. This is how the story goes…

 

Born in 1907 on a Greek island, items of clothing changed the course of Cleopatra’s life several times. 



 

When she was ten she had to forfeit her education because shoes were required to go to school. Under the deception that she would be adopted and able to attend school, Cleopatra was kidnapped into unpaid domestic service in Athens. 



 

At 13 she was freed by a relative but forced to leave the house in the only clothes that belonged to her, the clothes she arrived in. She was now a teenage girl in the dress of a ten year old child. It was too short and too tight. 



 

The humiliation of this dress and her yearning for education culminated in Cleopatra 
spending 35 years as a free woman at art school in Sydney. She became a respected textile and fashion designer. Her dresses are dignified, structured and feminine. They are printed with bold geometric Grecian rhythms that come alive in dance. As an artist, it’s not only her memory that is left behind. Some of her fabrics and relics of her practice survive.

I am going to carefully re-print Cleopatra’s designs and re-embed them on new silk screens, essentially  giving them another 60 or so, years of potential! I will then print some of the designs on new fabric, and make another dancing dress inspired by Cleopatra's original designs. This dress will be brought to life in a live dance performance at the festival! I will also exhibit the new dress and a new life size photograph of a beautiful piece of Cleopatra’s original work, a fragile and perishing printed silk circle skirt, at Watch this Space. 

I am really excited about documenting this piece of original work while also making new screens and printing new fabric while it is still possible, sewing a new dress, and having Cleopatra’s work danced in again. 

Cleopatra’s muse, model, fan and only daughter Doreen, is 88 this year. She is a total bombshell and I'm really enjoying sharing this project with her.

    
   Left to Right: 16 year old Cleopatra with fiance Spero;  Cleopatra's daughter Doreen photographed by her husband Jack in one of Cleopatra's dresses; Me wearing one of Cleopatra's skirts with my new baby niece Cleopatra.

Our exciting funding situation

The way in which the matched funds are being divided between the artists is very simple, the funds raised through the individual Pozible campaigns will go straight to the individual artists. Which means if I am fortunate to raise an amount over my funding target, these funds will go to me to assist in covering my costs associated with travel, development and time invested in the project. The funds that are to be matched, which is a maximum amount of $1,000 being matched for this campaign, will go towards covering some of the other costs of putting on the festival. 

$1000

o   To purchase a range of special fabrics and inks for printing, and dress construction. 

o   To freight the screens and blocks to Alice Springs where I can do restoration work on the screens and blocks, essentially capturing the designs and making them into brand new screens! The original screens are over 60 years old, are deteriorating and may not last another ten years. With these new screens I will print fabric needed for the project. 

$2000

o    Provide rehearsal space for collaborating dancers. The dance will be experimental choreography incorporating 50's partner dances. It will bring the dress to life and offer a new way of looking at costume and design

o                                     Conservation and large scale framing of perishing circle skirt (the skirt from the picture at the top of the page).

o                                      Professional photography and printing of life-size image of Cleopatra's perishing circle skirt. 

Working with these old, fragile screens before they perish is important. I will engage expert advice on handling them. 
I will need to work interstate. I have organised the time off work to do this.
I will need a printing space in Sydney. I am hoping to gain access to a print studio at the National Art School as a double alumni favour. 

I have worked with textiles for a long time in a sculptural way, and made my own clothes on the side from eye and feel. Now i want to learn how to create 3D forms from patterns, in the tradition of dressmaking. Last year I completed a pattern drafting course and I have a few gifted dress makers in my world to run construction ideas by. 
I experimented with performance in my last exhibition but using performance in this way is new to me and will be challenging. Finding performers who click with the project is an unknown, but should be easy with all the amazing talent around!