Recently held at Rusten House Arts Centre in Queanbeyan-Palerang, Australia, an exhibition titled “The Art of the Tea Towel” aims to highlight the excellent role tea towels have played in the history of our society.
We were fortunate to see the digitally printed tea towels that BLANC Tea Towel made for our Australian clients many years ago in the exhibition’s tea towels, all of which are Australian cultural themes tea towels. We are sincerely delighted that the tea towels designed for our customers were selected for this exhibition.
The Canberra Times reporter Megan Doherty reports on the exhibition in detail with the headline “The art of the humble tea towel: new exhibition shows they are more than just for washing dishes.” Some of the content below is from this report.
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 center 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.”
Tea towels have played many great roles in our social history, such as wedding tea towels used to record beautiful weddings, school tea towels to record healthy growth of babies, souvenir tea towels to record wonderful travels, and dogs to spoil dog tea towels.
They can be a memory, a souvenir, a family heirloom, an artifact from a past life.
The Art of the Tea Towel is on at the Rusten House Art Centre, 87 Collett Street, Queanbeyan until May 14.
If your tea towel culture is in a hurry, remember to take a look. Please contact us if you want to customize your own tea towels.
What Exhibition Tea Towels Can Teach a Small Brand
When we look at tea towels shown in an exhibition setting, the lesson is usually simple: the artwork needs to be strong enough to stand on its own, but the product still needs to feel useful and easy to buy. For artists, museum shops, gallery shops, and local gift stores, a tea towel can work as both a small art object and a practical souvenir.
If you are preparing a range for an Australian shop or cultural event, it helps to think about the final display before production. Will the towel be folded with a belly band, hung open so the full artwork is visible, or packed as a gift? That decision affects the artwork placement, logo position, label style, and even the size of the main illustration.
- For location-based artwork, review our Australia tea towel page.
- For full-colour artwork or detailed illustrations, see custom digital printed tea towels.
- For general fabric, size, and packaging choices, start with custom tea towels.
To discuss an exhibition, retail, or souvenir tea towel project, send your artwork idea, expected quantity, delivery country, and packaging notes through the quote form.
