Kate Gordon on TASAR
Malleable and delicate fibre art.
Hand knit and created on Bundjalung country.
Hand made from recycled materials, pure wool, and reclaimed yarns.
Tasar is a playful experiment lit by movement, nature, expression, desire, transformation and love.
Can you tell us a bit about your practice—what drew you to working with mohair and hand-knitting these beautiful pillbox hats?
K: I collect things that spark a joy in my imagination, and mohair is one of those things. I am not sure why I gravitated towards it as a fibre to knit with, but I have always been fond of how it glows in the light, and how thin and delicate yarn is, and how when you knit with it, it transforms into a strong web, beyond what I thought.
I am drawn to colour and shine and movement. Kind of like a crow.
I create sort of a mood board/ essence for each hat, or phase of creation that I am in. I collect a myriad of inspiration, from things I see online to pieces and trinkets I find in real life. And the more I see, and use and play with these things, the more inspired I am. It’s a conscious part of my process where I try to emulate what I feel from the things I gather around me. So I guess my practice starts there.
The colour, silhouette and name of each hat are carefully thought out intentions, and are based on feeling.
L: Beautifully put, I love the fact each piece has a personality. You can feel the love and intention in each piece. Do you source your mohair secondhand?
K: I have been working with Jane for over two years now. We’ve never met. I purchase all my mohair from her. I met Jane on FaceBook marketplace after moving to Melbourne in 2023. I call her my yarn lady.She puts up with me pretty well - I am so passionate and desperate when there is a particular colour I am inspired by. Lately, and pretty much always, I am drawn to bright hues - and is probably why I am so entranced by mohair.
L: Love this, Facebook marketplace is where true friendships blossom <3 Where does Jane get all this mohair from? Does she own a store?
K: No. She was, and still is selling her mother’s mohair collection. And sometimes, her aunt’s. So there are times she doesn’t have the colour, or enough of, what I need to satisfy my imagination and creative practise. It’s a balance between patience and creativity, and satisfaction and curiosity. I usually end up purchasing more than what I intend to each time I message her.
What’s something people might not know about you or your work?
K: I have never really worn hats.
L: You don’t wear hats?
K: Well, yes and no. I love them as an accessory, or as a prop. And I am so inspired by the shapes and silhouettes they form and create that my own creative practice has pushed, and inspired me to include them in my own personal expression.
What’s been inspiring you lately—any music, books, styles, or trends you’re into at the moment?
K: The reign of creativity that I am in now started last year, while I was living in Paris. I moved abroad, and therefore, only took a very scarce amount of mohair and one pair of needles with me. I found myself less concerned with creating a garment or a piece, and merely experimented with the materials I found walking around. My practice took on a new form of creativity that challenged my preconceived concepts of knitting and making. I was no longer knitting and creating for a final piece, and rather embraced the process of knitting with unconventional materials. This kept my inspiration afloat while travelling through cities, trying out different stitches on different pieces of string or leather. Art like this becomes fun and light and keeps the experiment (and therefore inspiration and curiosity) everflowing.
L: I’ve always loved how environment can inform your practice, it’s a beautiful thing to experience that journey and end up in a place that can seem so far from where you began. So then how did your practice manifest into pillbox hats?
K: When I first came back to Australia, and more so, home to my small town, that urge and inspiration to create from unconventional materials lingered, and I first explored hat making out of the leather scraps I collected in Paris, and then jersey and fringe, and then mohair. Throughout this time, settling into my new space, I stayed inspired by my practice with leather and algae yarn from Paris. I felt I needed to push myself and the desire to knit a garment once again returned. So I started with a mohair hand knit, that fashioned a collar and five buttons, and I went on from there.
L: You started with leather and jersey hats, I am so glad we got home one of your jersey pieces! They are also so fun. How did mohair get introduced?
K: I am extremely inspired by antique and vintage fashion, and indulge in a lot of antique centred content online. I came across this velvet pillbox hat from the 1950s by Bill Cunningham, titled ‘William J’. And was so inspired by it that I started to experiment to create one for myself. I began drawing and going through my leather scraps and after discovering I didn’t have enough to make one, I pivoted to mohair. My first idea was to combine the two mediums.
I don’t usually get so lucky where my imagination manifests perfectly on the first try. But for my first mohair pillbox hat, ‘le chat noir’ it pretty much did. I create each pattern myself, and with each sample I made I knew what to change for the next.
To create something that traditionally has a lot of form and structure out of a material known for its malleable and delicate composition, is an experiment that continues my exploration into unconventional materials. *It is a challenging experiment persevered through expression, desire, perception, survival and love.
L: Does music inspire you and what have you been listening to recently?
K: Yes. music inspires most of my hat names. And if not music, they evolve from literature and films. Or my experience and feelings while listening, watching, reading and indulging.
Recently? Probably too many to list but a lot of Mazzy Star, Nina Simone, and Labi Saffire. And always Al Green, Amy Winehouse Eryakah Badu, Otis Redding…. and untold amounts more.
This is what I have been playing and desiring this week:
“Mississippi Goddam/ don’t let me be misunderstood - Nina Simone”
“Crying, laughing, loving, lying/ cannock chase - Labbi Saffre”
“I’m your man - Leonard Cohen”
I can apply a song to each experience and piece of my imagination, and every small, curated playlist of songs resonates with each material, idea and design. For example, I was listening to a lot of:
“Kinky Love - Pale Saints”
“Monkey Gone to Heaven - Pixies”
“Swingin Party - The Replacemtns”
while I was making my jersey hats.
Where do you see Tasar heading in the next year or two?
K: Tasar does not sit within a traditional timeline. It's more so my imagination and creative process manifested into real life, tangible things. So I cannot really answer that question in a conventional sense, as Tasar reflects who I am at the time of creation and that ever changing essence of being.
I am working on my second collaboration with my partner, and artist @definitelyfeel. Intertwining felt and mohair on my pillbox hats. In the past I have used his ceramics to adorn my knitwear, and it is something we want to take into the future. I build a lot of my own inspiration from him, and from seeing my friends around me inspired and creating. I find it a beautiful collaboration between love, creativity, and community. And an experiment of patience and perception at the hands of creativity.
L: Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us, I am so pleased to introduce you to the Array Store Family <3