Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal

Volume 4 Issue 1, 2019

AN EKPHRASTIC REVIEW OF ILONA PAPPNE DEMECS

AND EVONNE MILLER’S “WOVEN NARRATIVES: A

CRAFT ENCOUNTER WITH TAPESTRY WEAVING IN A

RESIDENTIAL AGES CARE FACILITY”

Adrian Schoone

Auckland University of Technology

adrian.schoone@aut.ac.nz

Adrian Schoone is a senior lecturer in Education. Through poetic inquiry approaches,

Adrian researches in the areas of alternative and inclusive education. Adrian completed New

Zealand’s first poetic inquiry-based PhD.

Abstract: The visual poem, “The loom,” is an ekphrastic response to Ilona Pappne Demecs

and Evonne Miller’s article “Woven Narratives: A Craft Encounter with Tapestry Weaving in a

Residential Ages Care Facility.” By drawing words and phrases from Demec’s article, the

author wove a word tapestry, in a technique learnt from a child in a South Auckland primary

school in New Zealand.

Keywords: visual poetry; found poetry; intergenerational; ekphrasis

An Ekphrastic Review “Woven Narratives”

429

Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal

Volume 4 Issue 1, 2019

The phrase “woven narratives” evoked a memory of this concept when I was teaching

found poetry to a primary classroom in South Auckland, New Zealand. I had instructed the

class of lively students to choose a book from the library corner, to read the book carefully

and then copy down words and phrases that somehow resonated with them. Perhaps these

were unusual words, perhaps the words stimulated an emotional response, or perhaps they

sounded fun to say on the tongue. After the students refined their list of words, I instructed

them to cut out each word or phrase and paste these in a list formation on a poster-sized

chart. Most students dutifully glued the words this way. One student however, placed his

words in a woven-type pattern on the paper, like the poem I have created here. His woven

narrative opened numerous possibilities for reading the text (for example, up-and-down,

down the diagonal lines, read around the boxes, read each parallel line downwards left and

right). Each way of reading opened the text to discover multiple interpretations, resonances

and surprises. Inadvertently, the student reflected Bollobás’ (1986) charge to poets, not to

“master or control language (and force it into linear progression), but to participate in this

performance where spatial configurations are born” (p. 285). Similar to this student, I also

created a woven narrative poem from words and phrases I found in Ilona Pappne Demecs

and Evonne Miller’s (2019) article “Woven Narratives: A Craft Encounter with Tapestry

Weaving in a Residential Ages Care Facility.” My aim was to weave the text in order to

poetically re/present content and to create new encounters.

In writing this review, I am mindful of the generational nexus created between the

woven narrative I learnt from a primary school student in South Auckland, New Zealand, and

the woven narratives created by the residents of an aged care facility. This rich study on

residents’ encounter with “a rare craft,” led me to consider in what spaces the narratives

created through the Tapestry of Home could be shared across generations, and in what

ways the narratives between generations and cultures, could be woven into a unified

tapestry of home. This would be a hopeful gesture in a world that builds walls between

nations, between cultures and between age groups.

An Ekphrastic Review “Woven Narratives”

430