Painter, basket-weaver – crafts of necessity – used grass for basket making, and so on, daughter of Jennette and Bernard Ridley, May Gibbs’ cousin was a very independent woman who made her own tools, machinery, stripped a car, built her own house, built three boats and had fights with parliament during World War II.
Ridley made and exhibited colourful crafts of necessity during the Great Depression and World War II. She is particularly known for her Guildford grass bags and boxes. It is a technique taught to her by Joan Heath who had developed it when she lived with her family on Flinders Island. In the 1930s after she had moved to Western Australia she taught the technique to Marjorie. This enterprising lady explored dyes which would be effective and with the help of the Blind Institute was able to successfully use bright colours.
During the war Ridley was invited to teach at the Edward Millen Rehabilitation Home for Servicemen, “Miss Ridley led a women’s war group out cutting Guildford grass and taught them how to use this product in basket making.” Furthermore, “[s]he cut it in great quantities and when it was dry, she dyed it with varying rich colours. She made it into baskets, mats, and wallets, belts, and trays. Her baskets, adorned with tiny gum nuts, quandongs, and native twigs and grasses, were very useful and very charming.” Ridley tried a variety of techniques: coiling, plating, spinning and weaving. Rationing of some art and craft materials in Western Australia after the war meant inventiveness continued to be the order of the day.
Weavers wove rag rugs, stockings were made into mats and baskets continued to be made with Guildford grass. Mrs A. D. Robinson and Miss Ridley were the most prominent names in these two techniques. A reviwer of the Women Painters and Applied Arts Society’s annual exhibition wrote, “[a]lways a feature of the society’s exhibitions is M. Ridley’s weaving with Guildford grass. Dyed a variety of lovely colours it is woven into a number of useful articles of particularly fine design and finish.”
Charles Hamilton wrote of her 1939 exhibition work, “A most interesting exhibit of articles made from Guildford grass by Miss M. A Ridley shows that this despised weed can be put to some use after careful preparation and dyeing.” After the war Ridley moved to Australind near Bunbury, Western Australia where she built her own home and continued to make baskets. A 1920s watercolour of hers is in the J. S. Battye Library of West Australian History listed under Tridley.
- Writers:
- Dr Dorothy Erickson
- Date written:
- 2010
- Last updated:
- 2011
