Design and Art Australia Online

Lennah Newson, Palawa basketweaver, was born in Launceston, Tasmania in 1940. Newson spent her childhood in Killiecrankie on Flinders Island, which is in the Furneaux Group of Islands off the north-east tip of Tasmania. Though she spent periods of her life in other parts of Tasmania, Newson remained deeply attached to Flinders Island for her whole life. In particular, the coastline of the island was a touchstone of meaning and inspiration for the artist, as the beach and the sea were important sites of economic and creative activity for her family. As was the case for all Aboriginal people who lived on the Furneaux Islands, fish were an important food source for the artist’s family and Newson’s observation of her father and grandparents making fishnets and fishtraps introduced her to weaving practices in her earliest years. Newson’s family’s resourcefulness nurtured her creative capabilities in other ways, as the following quote from the catalogue for the 2001 Adelaide Biennale “Beyond the Pale” (curated by Brenda Croft) conveys:

“While growing up on the island my family didn’t have much money to buy toys, so we made our own with materials gathered from the beach and the bush. Living on such an isolated island taught me to use my hands and gather the materials that were growing and living around us to make the things that would otherwise be impossible for us to have” (p. 29).

Newson’s sense of belonging to Flinders Island was also underpinned by the campaigns of her mother, Auntie Ida West, a respected Palawa elder who was born on Cape Barren Island in 1919. Auntie Ida fought for many years for the Wybalenna settlement on Flinders Island, the site of over 100 unmarked Aboriginal graves, to be returned to Aboriginal people. The graves are those of mainland Aboriginal Tasmanians who were removed to Wybalenna between 1832 and 1836 by George Augustus Robinson, and title to the site was finally handed back to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community in 2005. Lennah Newson supported her mother through these campaigns, and was a respected Palawa elder herself: in 2006 she was inducted into the Tasmanian Honour Roll of Women for service to Aboriginal Affairs and the Arts. The Honour Roll recognised that “The continuation of traditional fibre art in the Tasmanian Aboriginal community will be the lasting legacy of Lennah Newson”.

Newson created baskets from a variety of materials. These included watsonia grasses, juncus reed, native flax collected from Oyster Cove on mainland Tasmania, river reed which “are gathered seasonally from creek waterways and rivers and dried” (artist’s statement, “Tactility” website), feathers, as well as refuse found on the beach such as commercial fabrics, mohair wool and plastic. The artist would weave these materials into baskets using various combinations of coiling, twining and cross-stitch. As a result, Newson’s baskets are sometimes densely woven and robust, and at other times delicate and transparent.

Besides the 2001 Adelaide Biennale, Newson’s baskets were included in exhibitions such as “Tactility” at the National Gallery of Australia (2003), and “Woven Forms – Contemporary Basket Making in Australia’” at Object: The Australian Centre for Craft and Design (2005). In 2005 Newson’s baskets were exhibited alongside those of Colleen Mundy and Eva Richardson in the NAIDOC exhibition “Twining Culture” curated by Jennie Gorringe at the Moonah Art Centre in Hobart. Newson mentored a number of Tasmanian Aboriginal women in the art of basket weaving, including Colleen Mundy and Newson’s cousin Verna Nichols; she also demonstrated the craft at festivals and school education programs. Newson’s work has been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria and the National Museum of Australia.

Lennah Newson passed away in 2005.

Writers:

Fisher, Laura Note:

Date written:

2008

Last updated:

2011

Status:

peer-reviewed