Talking to artist Kaye Hubner about the work she is doing now with her printed fabrics and embroidery reminded me how much I admire the finished work of such, clever gifted women. This is something I could never do myself. I like the idea of it, but neither brain nor fingers seem suited to this form of creativity. Yet I am drawn to its beauty and its power.
‘Stitchery is witchery.’ That’s what Miss McLeod in Friends School, Lisburn, told us when we studied needlework with her in Domestic Science. (Girls only in those days!) My work never made it to the end of year exhibition, but that has never lessened my appreciation of the work of others. And in towns throughout the nation such work is often on exhibition, thanks to ANZEG: the Association of the Embroiderer’s Guild. Browsing through their magazine Threads with its many colourful images of the fine work produced, so varied and so expert, filled me with the same awe I experience when I go to an art gallery and come out stunned into silence by the works I have viewed.
A total of 57 guilds are affiliated to this incorporated society, including Tauranga. Kaye is a member, so we sat down together to discuss the good work she is doing now as an individual, and the good work ANZEG is doing through its branches, its networks, its exhibitions and the sharing of the many different skills among its members and with the public. It’s World Embroidery Day on July 30th 2025 and we agreed to check what’s happening then!
I am always interested in beginnings and where life journeys take us, so I asked Kaye how she first came to be an artist. Like many women, in her later years, when she embarked on a course in art and design at Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology in Tauranga as a mature student, graduating in 2018 with a degree in Creative Industries.
She says, “I learned so many things about myself in particular and about art in general, however we define it. I try to accept any artistic challenge I’m offered, and also allow myself the freedom to continue exploring the many directions art might take me. One was printmaking on fabric and I developed a desire to decorate it wherever my fancy took me. A good part of that is stitchcraft, which led me to the Tauranga Embroiderers’ Guild.”
I suggest that being in a group of like-minded individuals is always a useful method of learning. Though exchanges are seemingly informal, you not only begin to learn by observation and by questioning.
You also begin to understand the skills practitioners of many years standing have absorbed. You discover how generous such expert enthusiasts can be in answering your questions or demonstrating on a one-off basis something you’re eager to know how to do.
Kaye nods in agreement. She continues, “I soon began to understand that I had joined a community of creatives, and it became a second home. For me, the process of learning, as an artist, is to be playful, to explore the possibilities and to express a creativity that is unique to me. The Guild has always welcomed that kind of development alongside traditional embroidery practice. I call it pushing the boundaries of expectations, both mine and others.”
If we’re talking about tradition, I asked her, hasn’t there always been throughout the ages women who stitched simply to make what was necessary and others with an instinct to decorate what they were making. I reminded her of Thrift to Fantasy, Rosemary McLeod’s history of home textile crafts of the 1930s to the 1950s. A homage to women’s art and creativity, I suggested.
Kaye thought about this for a while, and then shook her head. “That book’s a classic,” she agrees, “but we’ve gone far beyond that now. Obviously there is and always will be women who favour tradition, find sewing and embroidery pleasant to do and pleasing to the eye, for whom stitchcraft is basically an absorbing hobby, and that’s fine. Then there are others for whom it has become an artform, and they want to continue to expand and display their skills, through workshops and through exhibitions. That’s fine, too, and the Guild offers plenty of opportunities for both.”
So where do you fit in as an artist, I asked.
“Do we have to fit in?” she asks, deeply serious. “I have never been made to feel that I must or should. I have exhibited work, won the occasional award, and it’s great to have that kind of recognition, especially from other artists and craftworkers who are doing their own thing, too. I describe myself as an explorative artist. I believe that through experiment you learn to trust yourself, to use the skills you’re acquiring, and then wait and see. Here’s where the principles of the Dada art movement kick in for me; to challenge conformity and embrace the absurd, the elements of chance.”
She leans forward and taps my notebook. “To realise if you’re not having fun, you’re probably not doing it right. And by doing it right I mean to begin by pleasing yourself, hoping that now and again you’ll be pleasing others, too.”
