Deb Lemcke

One Thousand, 2026
The night sky is such a beautiful thing. As with sunrises and sunsets, it is notoriously hard to photograph in a way that captures the awe, but our camera rolls are still full of them! This one is special because it features the eucalypt that guards our backyard, clearly marking it as our little corner of Castlemaine.

The process of slowly hand-stitching each of nearly one thousand stars became quite meditative. With each stitch, I found myself thinking less about the image as a whole and more about a game of finding all the hidden sparks of light and bringing them back to the foreground.

Stitching is one of the only times that I sit still. It is how I give my brain a break. For me, it is the perfect balance: an activity that requires focus and attention yet allows my mind to wander and explore in the background.

Kitchen Counsel, 2026
Women are alchemists, blending and weaving, creating and connecting. So much of the best advice we receive is shared in the kitchen while cooking together, in the car on the drive to school, working in the garden, or simply hanging out the washing. Life is a collection of these singular moments lovingly crafted into teaching and learning without us even realising it. The domestic should never be underestimated, and neither should the women.

Kitchen Counsel developed from a project in which I collected the best advice people had received and who had given it to them. My hypothesis is that most of the important ‘life’ advice we get is usually shared in ordinary domestic settings. A larger work called Never underestimate them (shown at Gather 2025) explored where and how we value these people, places, and things by hand-stitching the advice onto tea towels. I used photos of that work to create the fabric for this miniature apron.

Seventy-Five Hours of Certainty, 2026
I love creating something unexpected. If it can also spark a little joy or surprise, then that is very satisfying for me.
For this work, I was exploring the idea of words hidden within the textiles. I have stitched words onto fabric, colour-matching the threads so perfectly that the piece appears blank. Switch on the light beneath, and the secret emerges. It took me seventy-five hours to stitch these words, creating something that can be felt with your hands before it can be read with your eyes.
It's a work about hidden meanings, patience, and the joy and satisfaction of creating for your own amusement. In a world of constant visibility, there's something subversive about embedding language so carefully that it asks the viewer to slow down, to touch, to look closer — to participate in its revelation rather than simply receive it.