Lucienne Day kitchen towel designs

Black Leaf.

 

 

In my textile travels, I have had the joy and privilege of connecting with other like-minded folks, including Denver-based modern design aficionados Jill Wiltse and her husband, H. Kirk Brown III.  Brown and Wiltse shared items from their collection of textiles to create the 2010 exhibit Art by the Yard: Women Design Midcentury Britain at the Textile Museum in Washington D.C.  Fabric designs by Lucienne Day were featured in this exhibit, and Wiltse and Brown also made a documentary, Contemporary Days, about Day and her husband, industrial and furniture designer Robin Day. This excellent film is just one of a series celebrating modern architecture and design.

 

The documentary is well-researched and just delightful - luckily there is a lot of extant contemporary footage of both Robin and Lucienne.  Their daughter Paula has obviously been a good steward of their legacy, in addition to establishing her own career as a garden designer.

Bouquet Garni.

 

Viewing the DVD prompted me to dig out my Lucienne Day kitchen towels.   Day designed a number of towels in the late 1950's and early 1960's, and states in the film that she enjoyed this work, as when developing a towel motif she didn't have to worry about the "repeat". "Repeat" refers to taking a single motif and deploying it into a "repeated" continuous field on yardage.  Today this can be accomplished digitally, but it used to be a time-consuming process.  

Too Many Cooks, lime colorway.

 

The towel designs have the same wonderful sketchy graphic quality of many of Day's furnishing fabrics, as well as her distinctive use of color.  Several of the designs were produced in multiple colorways on Irish linen.

 

Too Many Cooks, purple colorway.

Too Many Cooks, red colorway.

Too Many Cooks, detail.

Both Robin and Lucienne were recognized in their lifetimes with awards and commercial success.  At least two of Lucienne's towel designs were celebrated by the British Design Centre.

Provencal.

Provencal, original stickers.

Day produced at least nine designs for towels and several have been reproduced, under license, by a British company, twentytwentyone.

 

Good Food, red colorway.

Good Food, detail.

Good Food, teal colorway.

Good Food, detail.

 

While Day's furnishing fabrics can be expensive on such sites as ebay, the towels provide a more affordable opportunity to own and enjoy work by a celebrated woman artist.

 

Jack Sprat.

Raining rainbows embroidery

Raining Rainbows design, simplified.

Time for some easy stitching. I found this free, downloadable embroidery pattern at:

https://www.shinyhappyworld.com/2016/04/its-raining-rainbows-a-free-pattern.html

I simplified the design a bit and followed the artist's suggestion to use a product called Sticky Fabri-Solvy to transfer my modified pattern to my fabric.

Simplified design on trace paper.

 

Using the single sheet feed on my photocopier, I fed in one sheet of the Fabri-Solvy and photocopied my trace paper design. Then I followed the directions on the Fabri-Solvy package - peeled off the backing sheet and stuck the design right down on my blue Essex cloth.  Essex cloth is a linen-cotton blend with a fairly open weave, so it's good for embroidery.  The layer of Fabric-Solvy did make my embroidery needle stick a bit but, for a simple running stitch, sewing through the adhesive sheet and fabric substrate was fine.

 

Light blue Essex cloth and pack of Fabri-Solvy sheets.

Fabri-Solvy, with design, adhered to cloth and in hoop.

I initially stitched the cloud outline in white, but decided that would be too low contrast with the blue fabric, so I removed that stitching and resewed with black. Much better. All the stitching done with two plies of DMC embroidery floss, by the way.

Hard to see white thread on light blue.

Cloud restitched with black, red rays stitched.

Continuous stitching started at the eyes, then the mouth and finally the outline.

All the rays stitched, but yellow and green colors too wimpy.

I also swapped my original yellow and green threads for richer colors. Once the stitching was complete, I trimmed the excess Fabri-Solvy from the design, following the package instructions.

New green and yellow colors, now finished.

Trimmed and ready to dunk in water.

Fabri-Solvy flaking off in water.

 

When immersed in warm water (no soap) the adhesive does flake off and dissolve, and I detected no tackiness after the project air-dried. Don't know if I'd use the Fabri-Solvy for something intended as an heirloom, but certainly a convenient way to transfer patterns.  Not sure yet what I will do with my Rainbows - but may simply frame it in a hoop, for display. Stay tuned.

Keith Haring: Grace House Mural in Denver

Radiant Baby motif.

Late last month DH and I got on a plane for the first time in a year and a half. Masked from the time we stepped into our Uber in Boston until we left the Denver terminal, we flew to Colorado to visit family and took in this exhibit. 

In the early 1980's artist Keith Haring painted designs on a stairwell at Grace House, a Catholic-run youth center in Manhattan.  In 2016, the church which operated the center decided to sell the building and removed thirteen images, no easy feat as these black-and-white line drawings were painted on concrete block walls. Removing valuable artwork from walls is not without precedent, but in this case it was the institution's decision.  After removal, the segments were sold at auction and purchased by an anonymous buyer. The fragments are on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, through August 22.

 

Exhibit includes original stairwell utilities.

The images are slightly larger-than-life.

 

Haring painted these images right around existing doors, a mailbox, and other stairwell elements, some of which are included with the fragments.

 

Haring responded to elements of the stairwell. 

Fire extinguisher sign from original stairwell.

From the exhibit wall text:

After experimenting with collage and automatic drawing, Keith Haring (b. Kutztown, PA, 1958, d. 1990) developed a direct and unmediated approach to artmaking, which Grace House Mural vividly reflects.  This project makes clear how the strength of his work lied in his bold and flexible use of line. A fluid, confident, and jubilant application of paint on the wall pulsates with energy and vitality.  Haring's graphic style is expansive, extending beyond a frame and stretching into our space; it is meant to be in conversation with its viewer.

Grace House Mural was designed specifically to inspire and elevated the spirits of some of New York's teens and includes some of his most iconic motifs: the "Radiant Baby," "Barking Dog," and dancing figures.

Barking Dog motif.

Dancing figure.

 

At the base of some of my images you can see what look like metal tabs sticking out at the floor level. If I understand the wall text, and brief comments from a gallery attendant, correctly, the concrete blocks were sliced so as to retain only part of the face of the block. These wall slices were then mounted on some kind of metal framework, which stands on brackets visible at the base of the walls of the exhibit. It would have been fun if one fragment had been free-standing, or otherwise displayed in such a way as to demonstrate these conservation efforts.

Somewhere in transit between New York and Denver some cracks appeared, sadly. This is most easily seen in the image below.  This must have been very challenging conservation project.

A few fragments developed cracks.

However, at least the mural survived, even if removed from its narrative flow. Very few of Haring's murals are extant.

Below, more dancing figures. They just vibrate with motion and joy.

 

Exterior, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver.

The MCA Denver doesn't have a permanent collection but does feature a rooftop cafe with fun views of downtown Denver, and a small but well-curated gift shop.

New British Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum

Japanese-inspired 19th-century Worcester ceramics.

New York City is re-opening and so are the museums. A week-end in May found me at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, viewing, among other exhibits, the newly-reinstalled British Galleries. These galleries were opened on the eve of the pandemic and are still not fully accessible; whether due to a staff shortage or other issues is a mystery.

Sadly, not able to see the embroidery.

The wall texts give a much more inclusive and honest narrative of these objects, especially with regard to that quintessentially British beverage: tea. 

The Tea Gallery.

 

There is one entire room devoted to the storing and serving of tea and the display is as exciting as the objects. One can now see the teapots from every angle, in all their shapely glory.  Ever since the King Tut exhibit, designed by the late Stuart Silver, the Met has presented its objects and artifacts in some very imaginative formats.  The design of the British Galleries hits it out of the park.

In a gravity-defying display, ceramics and small metal objects are "floated" using all-but-invisible supports affixed to transparent paneled display cases.

 

Display of ceramics and small metal objects.

Finally - we're able to see all sides of these beautiful creations.

 

Another aspect of these galleries is that there is no distinction between "fine art" and craft  but includes paintings, sculpture, furniture and even entire rooms from stately homes.  The anonymous artisan's work is celebrated as much as the work of Sir Joshua Reynolds or Christopher Dresser.

 

Iron balusters, ca. 1730-80.

Chair, ca. 1755, mahogany and needlework.

 

The chair above is from a design by Thomas Chippendale; the needlework design in the chair back depicts the Annunication, or "Lady Day,"which falls on March 25.   England had adopted the Gregorian calendar on March 25, 1752, only a few years before this chair was made. On this feast day contracts for tenant farmers and landowners were renegotiated. 

I look forward to returning to the galleries when they are fully open.

Return to the Metropolitan Museum

Flowers in the Main Entrance.

 

In late May, DH and I went to New York, to visit family. The Metropolitan Museum re-opened earlier in the spring, so off I went. Timed tickets were required, but as a member I was able to join the line at the lower level entrance, without a reserved time slot. 

I went to see the Alice Neel exhibit, People Come First, after waiting in another line. According to the friendly guard managing the line, there's been a wait to enter the exhibit from opening day. 

 

Cut Glass with Fruit, 1952.

 

While Neel is celebrated for her portraits, her still life paintings are very appealing, and the exhibit also includes cityscapes, as well as illustrations for periodicals.  Neel painted people famous and not; many of the portraits are of family members or neighbors in Spanish Harlem.

Hartley, 1966.

 

Hartley, Neel's younger son, relaxes in a chair in this portrait. His face has a neutral affect; great care is taken with the drape and folds of the t-shirt and trousers, giving the form solidity.  Elbows and knees extend the territory of the body, which is delineated with Neel's trademark blue outline (Cezanne, an influence, often outlined his figures too). 

Below, Neel's daughter-in-law slouches on a stool; her face is inscrutable, but the loose knit shirt and the red mini-skirt suggest comfort and confidence.  The angles of elbows and knees again expand the space taken up by the sitter, and create negative space through which the white wall appears. The image remains quite flat despite the suggestion of shadows and the emphasis is solely on the figure.  After seeing this image, I began to note the motif of stripes in many of the paintings; adjusting the organization of the stripes suggest folds and drape in a more abstract manner than shadows or highlights. 

Ginny in Striped Shirt, 1969.

David Bourdon and Gregory Battcock, 1970.

 

David Bourdon (1934-1998) was an editor at Life magazine; he sits on the right in this double portrait, comfortable in a striped chair, and striped tie. Gregory Battcock (1937-1980) was an art critic, educator and activist who had a habit of lounging and working in his underwear. The contrast between the two men is humorous, as are Battock's orange socks. The postures are animated, again, by knees and elbows.

In contrast, a portrait of the artist's mother, the elderly woman is shown almost slumped in her chair, cocooned in a plaid bathrobe with a striped belt forming a limp, loose cincture. It's the personification of resignation.

Last Sickness, 1953.

 

Finally, my last image is Neel's self portrait at age 80, holding a paint brush and a rag.  Is this portrait her rejoinder to the tradition of the male gaze? (The brown bit at upper top is my crummy photography capturing a bit of the frame)  Neel's body sags into a crisply upholstered striped chair, but her head is steady as she looks directly out at the viewer, with authority.

Self Portrait, 1980.

For more images and review, see this article in The New Yorker by Hilton Als.