Ida Mary Lough

Ida Mary Lough (1 May 1903 – 13 August 1985) was a New Zealand weaver, recognised as one of the country's best tapestry makers.

Life

Ida Mary Withers was born in Wellington, the daughter of Elizabeth Robins and her husband John Talbot Withers, a decorator. She grew up in Duvachelle, Banks Peninsula and attended Christchurch Girls’ High School.

Using coloured cotton and linen thread, Lough built up her skills largely on hundreds of sets of table-mats, which sold well. Brief biographies of the exhibiting artists were included in the catalogue:

Ida Lough. Weaver. Specially interested in weaving home-spun New Zealand wool and in plant dyeing. Doing plant-dye research in collaboration with Dr Elsa Kidson of Cawthorne Institute, Nelson.

In the late 1970s and early 1970s Lough moved away from domestic pieces and focused on tapestries, which were more time-consuming. She took inspiration from her Christchurch surrounding, such as the series of 30 tapestries inspired by Hagley Park. The design of Water Grasses, an abstract tapestry held in the collection of the Christchurch Art Gallery, was inspired by the rushes and grasses in Hagley Park and Christchurch’s Botanical Gardens.

In 1975 Lough was commissioned to weave a large tapestry for the interior of Christchurch’s Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. The tapestry was completed in close collaboration sculptor Ria Bancroft. Titled Earth with Heaven United, the work measures 274 by 244 centimetres and took a year to complete.

In a 1985 profile capturing the history of Lough’s practice, produced in collaboration with Lough, Holly Blair wrote

Ida never makes cartoons, but designs straight onto the loom. Nor does she make preliminary sketches, because she says she is no artist, and anyway ‘no crayons or chalks could ever match the subtlety and warmth of wool’.

Contributions to the craft sector

In the early 1960s Lough helped set up a weaving room at the Canterbury Sheltered Workshop for intellectually disabled people, and taught there for eleven years. She was a founding member of the New Zealand chapter of the World Crafts Council and Patron of the Christchurch Guild of Spinners and Weavers.

Further resources

The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa holds a series of photographs of Lough and her work taken by John Daley in around 1977.