Objects of Substance – The Esther Beanland Medal

Medal winner, Shirley Appleton (Heath, 1957) was awarded the prize for an infant frock which she has kept to this day. By the mid-1970s the interest in sewing had declined and the prize was not awarded for several years until Principal, Mrs Judith Hancock (1977 – 2001) reinstated the prize, altering the specifications to include ‘textile design’. Consequently, Julie -Anne Stephenson (1988) would receive her 1987 Esther Beanland Medal for textile design, not sewing. The 1996 medal recipient, Christina Kim (1996), pursued a career in fashion and is a successful Brisbane designer. Christina’s designs celebrate traditional garment making techniques and handmade finishes.

1957 Esther Beanland Prize piece by Shirley Appleton (Heath, 1958)

The most recent Esther Beanland Medal prize winner, Esther McDade (9H), received the award in 2018 for a textile artwork entitled, Coral Fleece . Combining weaving, knitting and crochet, Esther blended textured earthen fibres onto mesh to create a curious and tactile artwork. It was Esther’s ‘Granny’ who taught her the art of knitting and crochet, having come from a rich family history of textile design. Esther’s grandmother’s family were weavers and seamstresses by profession who immigrated from Ayrshire, Scotland to Australia, and worked in a Queen Street shop, sewing women’s clothes. For Esther, the name of her artwork, Coral Fleece , is a play on words, ‘where “fleece” describes the materials used in the artwork but also alludes to the condition of the coral; it is being ‘fleeced’ (McDade, 2020). Esther has generously donated her artwork to the School, and it is the only Esther Beanland Medal-winning piece that the School has in its collection. Miss Sophia Beanland left more than a prize when she commissioned the Esther Beanland Medal. She left a part of her educational vision, and a tribute to her mother. As the School’s Art Curriculum continues to evolve it is likely that the conditions of the Esther Beanland prize will also change, but the medal’s rich history will remain both in our School’s alumnae and the wonderful artworks created, and in Wyon’s Founder’s Medal in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University, where Sophia Beanland’s educati onal adventure began.

Ms Rachael Christopherson Head of Beanland House