Tea towels are for more than just washing the dishes.
They can be a memory, a souvenir, a family heirloom, an artefact from a past life.
Rarely are they celebrated. Until now.
A new exhibition at Rusten House Art Centre in Queanbeyan, honours the humble tea towel for its role in our social history.
Artist and administrator with the Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council Janita Byrne curated the exhibition.
"It came out of us doing some cleaning out of cupboards, basically, from our tourist information centre and there were some tourist tea towels and table cloths," she said.
"And I just looked at them and said, 'These are so good. They're kitsch but they're artworks'. They tell a story of a time and a place because they were older ones.
"I thought there would be people out there with some fabulous tea towels from their own travels or which they might have inherited from their mothers or grandmothers."
The call was put out for interesting tea towels - with a proviso.
"It had to have a story attached to it. It couldn't be just any old tea towel," Ms Byrne said.
"So we know have all these fabulous stories with go with them all."
More than 50 tea towels are on display in The Art of the Tea Towel. They are all hung by pegs, another nod to domesticity. Many are made from 100 per cent Irish linen, still stiff, not softened from years of re-washing.
One of the tea towels dates from 1961, packed up into a trunk by Thea Brandi when she left Italy for Australia.
Two mark the 1981 wedding and engagement of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, the owner also camping out in London to see the wedding procession in person.
Another beautiful set - embroidered for each day of the week - date from 1936.
A circa 1970 tea towel showing the names of the Brownies groups came from Canberra from a woman who used to attend Brownies at the Girl Guides hall in Flinders Way, Manuka, the building now long gone.
A tea towel from 1992 featuring Felix the Cat was special to a local family.
"The daughter who submitted it said her father had a Felix the Cat doll when he was a child and he lamented that he still didn't have that. So they came across this tea towel and bought it for him as a memento of his lost childhood toy and it also never got used. And when he passed away, they uncovered it in his belongings, so they also keep it as a memento of their father," Ms Byrne said.
"It's those stories and those connections which are amongst a lot of these."
Contemporary artists are also included in the exhibition, their designs often including political statements.
So, the tea towel is much more than a domestic rag. Portable and meaningful. Easily stored and brought out. But still not revered.
"No museum in Australia seems to have a decent tea towel collection. The poor tea towel has been overlooked, " Ms Byrne said.
- The Art of the Tea Towel is on at the Rusten House Art Centre, 87 Collett Street, Queanbeyan until May 14.
