Down the Aisle - Bridal Dresses and Narratives

Entrance to museum, Lowell.

On April 27, 2013, about sixty or so textile enthusiasts gathered for the second bi-annual textile symposium co-sponsored by the American Textile History Museum (ATHM) and the New England Quilt Museum (NEQM).  Silk: Fabric, Fashions and Quilts, the title of the symposium, explored two concurrent exhibits at the sponsoring institutions. This blog post features the exhibit at the ATHM, Behind the Veil: Brides and Their Dresses, on view from April 6 - August 11, 2013 and organized by ATHM curator Karen Herbaugh.

Worn by Mollie Canfield, 1886, and by her great-great niece Shirley Parish, 1969.

The highlight of each dress display is the accompanying narrative, the history of the dress, often paired with a photo of the bride wearing the dress on her special day. These narratives remind us that important lifecycle events, such as weddings, provoke many responses, some traditional, some innovative.

In the 19th century, women were generally married in their "Sunday best" and did not purchase a special garment in which to be married. So, wedding dresses were not white, an impractical color, and, moreover, women wished to show off material which utilized luxurious dyestuffs.  However, according to curator Herbaugh, when Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in 1840 her white gown established the "white dress" tradition. The wedding was re-enacted in 1854, with Victoria again donning the dress, to be recorded for posterity by the then-new medium of photography.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wedding_of_Queen_Victoria_and_Prince_Albert.jpgon

Wedding ensembles and their narratives.

Many of the dresses were silk, or of a synthetic material, such as acetate, which aspires to impart the luster and sheen of silk. One of my favorites, however, is the cotton dress in the collage below, worn by Mary Bodecker, a June bride in 1952. The sheer cotton has a delicate floral pattern overprinted in white ink, and a touchable sample of the fabric provides a tactile thrill.

Bodecker dress, narrative, fabric sample.

Vaillancourt gown, 1959.

 

One important characteristic of the modern bridal uniform, if I may call the wedding dress a sort of uniform, is that during the all-important exchange of vows - the climax of the performance that is the wedding -  the garment is viewed from the back.  Many of the dresses had lovely details on the back, such as the oversize bow on the dress of Nyola Vaillancourt, worn in 1959, above.  Mrs. Vaillancourt liked her dress so much, she later had a doll dressed in a replica.

Judith Clarke's tiers of cotton dress, 1958.

Frances Chiungos dress, from Filene's Bridal Salon, 1945.

Curator Herbaugh recounts the tale of the train.

 One perk of a curator-led tour is that one learns more about the process of designing an exhibit and the challenges involved. As the silhouettes of wedding dresses changed over the years, these artifacts have more variation in size than do many other groups of garments. The dresses from the 1920's and the 1960's tended to have a smaller footprint than the voluminous gowns of the 1950's, for example. To plan the exhibit Ms. Herbaugh "rehearsed" the layout of mannequins and gowns using full-scale kraft paper cut-outs. 

My one minor quibble with the show is that, since the silhouettes of the dresses - bustles, tiers, oversize sleeves - are often their salient features, I think the outfits would have shown better against a contrasting background, rather than the off-white of the gallery walls. The peachy-pink of the pedestals worked well to highlight the trains and hemlines, but the white or off-white dresses in particular fade into the walls a bit. Overall, however, this is an important and rewarding show, not the least because it records and celebrates an important day in the lives of everyday women, making the stories more real than any "reality show."

Susan Pendleton dress, 1894, with "leg-of-mutton" sleeves.

April Fool's Cookies

Cookies with flecks of thyme and lemon zest.

Wait a minute - thyme, black pepper and olive oil in a cookie? Yes, and it's not an April Fool's joke, just a yummy treat.

Lemon Thyme Olive Oil Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

½ tsp baking soda

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves [I just strip them off the stems and use whole leaves]

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons milk

1 large lemon, zested and juiced

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking sheets.

Put the flour, sugar, baking soda, pepper, and thyme into a bowl and mix together to combine. In a small bowl, mix together the olive oil, milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest.  Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring with a wooden spoon until you form a nice smooth dough. [Note: I throw everything into the electric mixer with regular attachment.]

Roll heaping teaspoons of the dough into balls. Place them about 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake the cookies about 12 to 15 minutes, or until they are browned around the edges. [I find they need the full 15 minutes.]

Let the cookies cool for a few minutes on the baking sheets and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes about 36 cookies

Source: George Duran on foodnetwork.com

Goodbye to the Windsor Button Shop

 

Famous wall of buttons.

A big box craft retailer is coming to my city soon. On the heels of this news came word that the Windsor Button Shop, established 1936, is closing.  The Boston Globe reported that the store, at 35 Temple Place, will close once the inventory, including millions of buttons, is sold off.

Store with 'lost lease' signs in windows.

Store banner.

In 1998 this venerable shop was purchased by husband-and-wife Susan and Stanley Baker, who added yarn to the retail mix in 2001. Their landlord wants to renovate the interior, a space now comfortably old-fashioned.

I hopped on the Green Line for a farewall pilgrimage. My trips to this store have been far and few between recently, but I used to refer people who needed replacement buttons for blazers and other garments.

Another view of wall of buttons.

The two assistants pictured here could not have been more helpful as I selected about 90 red buttons for a future "bricks and boxes" quilt.  As I made my selection from tray after tray of buttons of all types - plastic, horn, shell, crystal - another customer was helped to select new buttons for a favorite jacket and yet another shopper received yarn advice. Will that big box store give this level of customer service? I was in Jo-Ann's Fabrics the other day, and was made to feel like an impediment rather than a customer.

Red buttons.

Cheerful assistant is amused bagging my red buttons.

Perusing yarn patterns.

Women used to sew and knit to save money, but with cheap clothes Made in China, the creative impulse has shifted to stitching and knitting for self-expression and to enjoy luxury materials, such as alpaca yarns and shell buttons, purchased in settings that not only display an inventory but entertain. Moreover, there is a need for community more than ever in this cybernetic age, and the urge to form like-minded cohorts supports crafting groups, such as quilt guilds.  Folks flock to workshops, classes and drop-in activities as well, and not just to learn or improve skills.  Successful retailers must understand and serve all of the motives which influence modern shopping.

Owner Susan neatens a display.

I must say, the tactile sensation of fingering baby alpaca worsted is delightful, and one can't do that online.  Computer screens threaten to rob us of our appreciation for texture. How do we reclaim it?

Bargain bin buttons.

One last look.

Quilts by Ginny Radloff and Judy Niemeyer

Ginny Radloff speaking.

On January 28 quilter Ginny Radloff presented her quilting to our guild. Ms. Radloff is living the dream, turning her quilt hobby into a business as a certified instructor of Judy Niemeyer quilt patterns. Wyoming-based  Ms Niemeyer, whose son Brad is now also involved in her enterprise, is a quilt designer whose patterns are ultimately derived from the Mariner's Compass and New York Beauty quilt traditions.

Antique New York Beauty quilt. Source: http://www.rockymountainquilts.com/files/antique_quilts_18.php

Ms. Niemeyer has perfected a method for piecing these types of quilts using paper piecing techniques, in which over-sized fabric pieces are stitched onto a pre-printed paper substrate; each piece is trimmed before the addition of the next piece. The paper is removed when the blocks are finished. Ms. Niemeyer's patterns and methodology are very popular, so she has licensed a team of certified instructors to meet the demand for workshops and lectures.

Team Ginny included her three children, who were obviously, and justifiably, very proud of their mother's accomplishments as they displayed her quilts.

Three offspring, three quilts.

Influenced by the Red and White quilt show at the Armory, perhaps.

I really liked the red and white quilt above, and it was refreshing to see solid fabrics used, as opposed to the ever-present batiks.  Ms. Radloff quilts her own tops; her machine quilting is lovely and would show up even more on solid fabrics, so I hope she might consider using solids in some of her future work.

One of Ms. Niemeyer's newer designs.

Table runners too.

For those not ready to commit to a large quilt, Ms. Radloff sells Judy Niemeyer patterns for table runners and placemats too. This is a good way to "get your feet wet" with the techniques.  

Quilt top.

Another quilt top.

Judy Niemeyer patterns as beautifully interpreted by Ginny Radloff.

As is usually the case, prior to the quilt guild presentation the instructor led week-end workshops. Ms. Radloff is a very good teacher - organized and clear but still fun, helpful and enthusiastic, as was her helper Susan.  We each made one block of a Niemeyer pattern called Desert Sunrise. 

My finished block, in sorbet colors.

Blizzard of 2013

Parting the snow sea.

Thirty-five years, almost to the day, after DH and I survived the Blizzard of '78, we have renewed our New England weather bragging rights. From early Friday, February 8, until the afternoon of the next day, fierce winds flung 24.9 inches of snow at us, the fifth deepest snowfall on record.  The good news is that we did not lose power, as we did during Hurricane Sandy, when a Norway maple tree on the next block toppled onto a power line.

My car is under there, somewhere.

The Sunday sky was a brilliant, crisp azure, the brightness of the white snow contrasting with the blue shadows. My heroic DH made like a suburban Hercules and dug us out.

Clearing the sidewalks.

A traffic island becomes a very short piste.

 

 

Source: http://www.petrexgmbh.com/year-of-the-snake/chinese-paper-cut-out-snake-as-symbol-of-year/

On a warmer note, February 10 marks the beginning of the Year of the Snake, according to the Chinese zodiac cycle, so Happy New Year to everyone who celebrates the lunar calendar.

Rimpa: Art of Japan at the Met

Top, Plum Tree. Bottom, Hollyhocks. Ogata Kenzan.

Earlier this month family and I viewed two exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, including a display of Javanese batiks described in my previous blog post. The exhibit featured here is officially titled Designing Nature: the Rimpa Aesthetic in Japanese Art, and it closed January 13, shortly after we visited. More images and information are available in the New York Times review by Holland Cotter.

Mr. Cotter's review is long on names and dates but a bit brief on analysis of the style, saying only that "the style is hard to define." This blogger will rush in where Mr. Cotter feared to tread.

Basically, Rimpa (alternate spelling for google searches is Rinpa) is a design style that evolved when the stability of the Tokugawa shogunate - the first stable government Japan enjoyed after centuries of disruption - enabled Japanese artists the luxury to explore their own home-grown aesthetic and move away from the previously all-pervasive, and somewhat stifling, influence of China. This exploration first crystallized during the Edo period - 1615 to 1868 - with the painting of Ogata Korin (1658-1716.) Rimpa means "the school of Korin," and artists continue to work in this aesthetic today. 

As can be seen in the first image above, of the plum tree and hollyhock painted folding screens, the style is largely 2-dimensional - realistic perspective is eschewed. However, the viewer is drawn into these pictures nevertheless. The images are cropped in such a way that no item is seen in its entirety - rather, we see the top of the hollyhocks and just the trunk and lower branches of the plum tree. This mimics our actual visual field when focusing at subjects at close range, so, despite the absence of a "realistic" approach to perspective, the result is that the viewer is not just looking at the picture, but is in the picture. Thus does Rimpa style seek to elicit an emotional response from the viewer.

Red and White Poppies folding screen, attributed to Tosa Mitsumochi.

One Thousand Grasses,  Kamisaka Sekka.

Another characteristic of the Rimpa aethestic is the free-flowing deployment of natural subjects, especially flowers and trees, in opposition to geometric patterns. Above, bright poppies, in white and intense red, burst helter-skelter over a fence of rigid geometric squares.  Below the poppies screen, in an image from a woodcut-printed book, pink cherry blossoms cascade over a diagonal latticework fence.  The folding screen dates from the early 17th century; the book printed circa 1899-1900; these two items indicate the enduring appeal and continuity of the Rimpa style.

Kimono, mid 19th century. Lower right, pattern book, Furuya Korin, 1907.

The Rimpa aesthetic was not just limited to painting or prints. The kimono above, a masterpiece of embroidery over a stenciled bast fiber fabric, again contrasts a man-made structure - the plank bridge -  with an effulgence of floral bloom, in this case irises. The design references a 10th century literary classic in which a home-sick courtier, viewing a marsh of iris in full bloom, writes a poem of longing. The popularity of the imagery continued into the 20th century, when Furuya Korin produced the sample book for kimono manufacturers interested in fashionable patterns.

Irises at Eight Bridges. Ogata Korin, early 18th cent.

Above is Ogata Korin's treatment of the same subject, a zig-zag bridge of planks wending its way through the marsh. Again, by cropping the bridge - we see neither its end nor its beginning - the viewer is placed on the bridge, surrounded by intense blue blossoms and green stems, rising from a shimmery gold representation of water.

I wear robes with well-worn hems,

Reminding me of my dear wife
I fondly think of always
So as my sojourn stretches on
Ever farther from home,
Sadness fills my thoughts. 

Poem from The Ise Stories, translated by curator John T. Carpenter

Left, writing box. Top right, book, Ikeda Koson. Bottom right, tray, Ogata Kenzan.

Rimpa imagery was transmitted to succeeding generations of the artistic community through pattern books, such as the one above, One Hundred Newly Selected Designs by Korin, published in 1864. These sources of ideas and inspiration were utilized by designers working in a variety of media, including the anonymous lacquerware artist who designed the writing box above.  All the examples above are from the 18th century.

Incense burner, mid 17th century.

The exhibit included many wonderful ceramic pieces, including the incense burner above, decorated with "flowers of the four seasons." On a recent trip to Japan, DH and I toured the incense showroom of Shoyeido in Kyoto, a fascinating experience.

When I was growing up in the States, incense became associated with cannabis users, who thought to conceal their activities by burning stinky joss sticks.  However, travel broadens the mind, and in Japan I learned that burning incense is part of a long-standing religious and cultural tradition, and with this fresh perspective I became a convert to the delights of incense.

Left, Poppies, Suzuki Kitsu. Right, vase, Ando Cloisonne Co, circa 1908-1915.

The Rimpa tradition proved itself very adaptable to a variety of markets, as well.  The mid-19th century painting on the left is the ancestor of the vase on the right, adapted to a Western vessel shape, and made for export to a Western country.

Autumn Maple, Sakai Oho, early 19th cent.

In this final image, the Rimpa painter Sakai Oho used color masterfully, as did all the Rimpa artists, as he placed each delicate, soon-to-drop orange maple leaf in counterpoint to the sturdy, enduring mossy gray-green tree trunk. His composition distills the colors and images of autumn, a season of fugitive beauty.

Javanese batik textiles at the Met

Detail, kain panjang or wrapper, early to mid 1940's.

On January 2, DH, daughter and I drank from that fire hydrant for those who thirst after culture, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We were in town to see the opera Les Troyens at the other Met, the Metropolitan Opera.

Javanese batik textiles on display.

We went to the Met to see two exhibits in particular, including Resistance and Splendor in Javanese Textiles, a temporary installation of batik garments from Indonesia, on view through March 3.  The fabrics are encased behind glass in a busy corridor with glare-ful lighting, hence it was very difficult to take decent pictures, so I apologize for the image quality. The works themselves, however, are amazing.

Detail, sarung, mid 19th to early 20th cent.

Batik is a traditional method of wax resist surface design on cloth.  Artisans use a tool called a tjanting (pronounced chan-ting) a drawing implement with a small metal reservoir for melted wax connected to a minute spout. Hot wax is drawn on the fabric; when the fabric is dyed the wax-coated areas resist dye penetration, remaining white. Then the wax is removed, revealing the design. The process is explained very well here http://java.eyelid.co.uk/batik.html

The exhibit at the Met featured women's wrappers, including the sarung (from whence comes our English word sarong), a similar garment called kain panjang, and men's head wraps. Most of the items were made in the mid- to late- nineteenth century and early twentieth century, and are notable for many reasons, including:  excellence of execution; synthesis of imagery from Europe, Java and China; and graphic appeal.

Sarung, still stitched, late 19th century.

The sarung was originally rectangular pieces of fabric whose ends were sewn together to form a tube. The wearer then stepped into this tube of cotton, pulled it up and then gathered and belted the garment to provide secure coverage. The example above is displayed with its seam intact, unlike the other cloths on exhibit, giving an impression of the apparel as worn. It would have been instructive if the exhibit had included some contemporary photographs of Javanese wearing similar garments.

Detail, sarung.

The bird and floral motifs of this sarung show Indian and European influences, but this imagery was popular with the Chinese community as well, so this textile would have appealed to the polyglot of ethnicities that formed the Javanese community during  Dutch colonialism.

Man's head cloth, mid 19th to early 20th century.

Detail, man's head cloth.

Detail, sarung, attributed to workshop of Mrs. Willemse, ca. 1900.

Detail, sarung, attributed to Mrs. Willemse, ca. 1900.

The sarung in the images above, from one of the Javanese-run workshops which developed in the late 19th century, features a lotus, in the fullness of mature bloom, as well as cranes, Chinese symbols of longevity. This garment would have appealed to middle-aged Chinese women with aspirations to long and happy lives.

Detail, kain panjang, mid 19th - early 20th century.

The geometic example above, in indigo and subtle off-white and taupe, shows just how precise and detailed batik can be in the hands of a skilled artist.

Kain panjang, early to mid-1940's.

Detail, kain panjang.

The cloth above was made during the Japanese occupation of Java, which began in 1942 (Java had been part of the Dutch East Indies colony for three centuries prior to World War II.) Supplies of fine cotton fabric were blocked during the war, so the length of the wrappers diminished. To compensate for this the batik artisans added value through extremely detailed designs in multiple colors; the result is a lush fabric counterpoint to the deprivation of wartime.

Wall hanging, workshop of R. Soelardi, early 20th century.

Detail, wall hanging.

The batik textile in the two images above is not a piece of apparel but a wall-hanging, probably made to appeal to Europeans looking for souvenir of their time in Java. The image represents shadow puppets in a scene from the Ramayana. (Although most Javanese today are Muslim, the popular shadow puppet repertoire is largely based on Hindu epics.)At right the brave and clever monkey warrior Hanuman confronts the giant Prahasto. All ends well in the epic, and this batik was a good way to conclude the exhibit.