I had a very unexpected Friday.  Was going to lounge around working and I received a call almost out of the blue.  It was a friend in the Textile Department at the MFA.  I had made an inquiry two weeks ago on how to use the MFA library to see a book which had been referenced for something I was tracking down.  The MFA library (did you know they have one – distributed through the departments) was the only one in more than 500 miles who had this book.  That stack of books in the background you saw yesterday – that is part of the library!

My friend said ‘The book is on my desk – want to come in and see it?  Then we can ‘play’ in the collection’.  Well, never has a woman gotten through the shower so fast.

So I brought the volume that had the reference in it.  When the staff saw it, they wanted to add a copy to their library (Early metal lace book).  At that moment, a discussion ensued about some other volumes they needed and Pam Parmel said that they would need to add them to a list to try to purchase.  I turned to them at that moment and said ‘geez, you guys need a book fairy’.  We all know that you have to jump on textile volumes immediately when you see them as the runs are too short and their value will jump once they sell out.

A book fairy?  Yes, I said that they should post a list of books they want on their facebook page with a coordinating email address for donors to claim the book purchase so they don’t get extras.  There are those out there who would like to do needed things for musuems but a huge check is not in their personal budget.  Something tangible that is a need seems more appreciated than a small check.  But as we know – small things add up.

Their eyes lit up.  They should really spend their limited budgets on other things!

What do you think?  Anyone want to be a book fairy for the MFA?

Tricia

P.S.  Now if we could just give gift certificates for conservation supplies!  Hmmmm… (As I have learned in the last year, when budgets are tight – those are hard to come by as salaries are first to get paid).

One of the bonuses of the visit was bringing out the famous daffodil jacket to study with its matching coif and forehead cloth.  There had been a move of storage facilities many years ago and this set had gone off-site to a very secret storage facility.  Jill had been able to go there to see it (I didn’t make it – had a fender bender on the way there – ugh).  So we hadn’t really been able to study this one for its embroidery for many years.  I had seen it about ten years ago and it’s goldwork started my serious work on gold threads, needles, and bringing back the stitches.  I had been totally confused by the stitches on the piece.  I didn’t recognize but one of them!  That opened the world for me and brought me to this jacket project.  Funny – it was a jacket that beget this jacket.

So there was always so much discussion about the MFA jacket when we visited over the course of the project that a rhetorical question kept popping up: ‘why is it in the off-site storage?’.  Pam decided to bring it back, and now it is more accessible for study.

I wish I could show you more pictures of it here.  Can’t.  What I can say is that I will be able to include them in the Tudor and Stuart Gold Master Class.  The class will be exploring the metal thread stitches on spot samplers and items such as nightcaps, jackets, coifs, and stumpwork.  There will be fantastic pictures of real pieces every month.  The deadline for registering for that course is March 31st.  After that I will be letting the museums know the count for my licensing agreements on my research photographs.  The only way to get in at that point will be if someone has to drop out before April 30th.

Tricia

So many museums have been supportive of this project, it has been wonderful.  Pam Parmel and the staff of the Textile Department have been so helpful, allowing us to come and do research on pieces in the collection over the last three years.  I think that we must have visited at least seven times for color matching, construction, spangle investigations, etc.  So when an the opportunity and interest was there to give back, we were happy to do so.

In November of 2009, Wendy and I were invited to teach a mini-class to the staff on the Stuart era stitches and materials.  It was also a great opportunity to have the staff work on the coif, which was nearing completion.

Our group consisted of curators, curatorial assistants, conservators, volueneers in the department and members of the Textile Friends group.  We started with teaching the reverse chain and detached buttonhole stitch.  One of the goals was for everyone to experiment with materials to understand how the material types can influence the complexity of the work.  We first worked in Soie Perlee and then moved to Gilt Sylke Twist.

We then moved on to plaited braid in both faux and real silver-gilt thread using Japanese needles.  This is when a wonderful occurance happened about the needles that I will talk about in this series of blog posts.  The staff was amazed at how a stiffer thread could make the plaited braid go easier.  There were many ‘oh’s’ during the work – connections between the history they work with every day and the techniques/materials – as if something they had seen before made a new sense or opened up a new question to be probed.

Tricia

I alluded yesterday to how our small choices affect big things.  I wanted to finish that dangling conversation before moving on to lighter subjects.

Being in the needlework supply manufacturing business also (Tokens and Trifles is a company founded by Jacket Team Wendy White, myself and a third partner, Justyna Teverovsky), I have learned much about how things work and what is broken about our industry.  One of those things is how the big box stores use us.  I won’t name them – but you know who they are.  They are the places with a large assortment of entry level craft materials.  They move into areas and suddenly the small independent stores have a hard time keeping up and slowly disappear.  Now we all know that there is a small market for high-end decorative art supplies, therefore these large behemoths don’t offer these materials for sale.  You would think that the big box stores don’t compete directly with the independents who market such supplies.  You would be mistaken.  This is how it has worked now for about ten years:

The big box keeps data on its shoppers.  It knows what buying patterns there are.  They noted that if someone came in for floss, they would spend on average about $12-$15 in impulse purchases walking through the store to get out.  You all have ‘been there, done that’.  So they figured as smart business people – hey, let’s capture all of the floss market (note that floss is hidden in the back – not a mistake).  So they started to sell cotton floss BELOW wholesale.  Yes – BELOW the price that an independent store could buy it at.  They sell it cheaper than even they bought it to get you to come in, knowing that if you do – you will spend more than you intended and they will recoup that loss.  They call that a loss leader.  Smarter than advertising it is.  And we all ‘bought it’.

So what happens at the independent needlework store?  You don’t make that quick stop that day to buy five skeins of floss.  When you don’t come in, you don’t see that new book, design, fiber, etc. that trips your fancy.  You won’t see it in the big box.  You don’t give the small store the $15 impulse buy you made at the big box.  At the needlework store you would have spent it on silk floss, or hand-dyed linen, or something else which is UPSCALE and increases the market for needlework supplies.  You spent it instead on something that is most likely mass produced in China or maybe a candy bar, glue and a magazine.  None of that expands the industry – in fact the action of buying the floss at the big box helped to shrink the industry by diverting your impulse buys and small amount of excess cash outside the industry.

Then there are the subtle ripples that are quieted.  I learned this big when a certain East Coast needlework seminar stopped being run.  My business cut immediately in half that year and it has taken YEARS to recover.  I was really confused – WHY did it have a such a devastating effect on me and many others in the industry?  The ‘take’ from each seminar for me was not even 10% of that lost business.  Well – it is the ripple effect.

When you go into a needlework store, usually you either see something that you like, are inspired, or are educated by the owner.  You move UP the path of needlework enlightenment and try new things or more difficult things as your visits progress.  You then blog, post, show at guild, tell friends, etc. about what you have seen or learned.  This is the ripple effect.  You have to share your excitement with others that weren’t there.  They then get interested and make a purchase as well.  This social aspect of the industry is the KEY to the vibrant health of the needlework supply and book base.  When the numbers get below certain levels, companies are all in ’survive’ mode and can not  invest in new materials/colors/books/etc.

This is what the jacket project meant to me when it was proposed.  A replacement for some of the events not held anymore that would inspire ripples.  Jill remembers me saying at our first meeting how projects of this sort have the ability to rescue an industry that is teetering on the brink.  It is well known now that the current quilting industry grew out of a landmark quilt exhibit in 1776 which spawned great interest in our national quilt heritage.  I am very proud that this project has been bringing many who are new to embroidery and moving many along the path to needlework enlightenment.  In the process, look how much knowledge and threads we have been able to bring back.

Now what can you do? I would say ‘boycot the big box’ but that would be hypocritical of me.  Even knowing what I know, I have to buy some of my cotton floss there.  You see, the distributors for such floss stopped carrying the stuff as they couldn’t make any money.  I had to buy it wholesale at a higher price than I could do if I walked into a big box.  It is a real pain now.  For legacy kits, when we do a kit run I have to drive between all the big box stores in Boston and clean them out of a color.  They don’t carry as much as I need in one store.  So as much as I can, I have been flipping over to another line out of principle.  Now you know why you can’t find that brand you are looking for in some independent needlework stores – they either can’t get it or won’t carry it because you won’t buy it at even the price they have to buy it at.  And don’t shoot the brand – remember, they didn’t go into this willingly either.  It was the big box that did it.  Now they are trapped (and had to file reorganization bankruptcy two years ago to boot).  A grand company who has done so much for embroidery history – trapped by our American need for cheaper goods.

What can you do?  Just think before you make your decision to save a few cents.  If you really are on that tight of a budget, just try not to impulse buy some glue and candy.  If you aren’t on such a tight budget, consider going to your local independent needlework retailer and giving them a few extra cents for the same product.  It makes more of a difference than you originally thought.  Since we are in a recession, I would prefer my extra few dimes to go to support manufacturing jobs in the USA and Europe in a field that I love.

Tricia

American Schoolgirl Art is the subtitle to Betsy Krieg Salm’s treatise about the subject – a true work of love for the material.  I have heard from several of you stitchers out there who have been reading the book cover to cover and who are in love with the book.  That is wonderful – I know that those who love embroidery to this level, understand the workmanship in other areas of the decorative arts and can be equally enthralled with it.  In this case, the art is intimately wound with our own.  Through this book , we learn about the academy’s which read as a who’s who in sampler instruction as well.

One of the things I found so interesting in the first chapter of the book is the origins of this work in women’s academies as it also spoke to the origin of our own art’s instruction.  Students would progress through a few pieces of wood to work on – including sewing boxes made locally or expensive imported boxes and for some, pieces made by big city cabinet makers such as Thomas or John Seymour.   In fact, the trend for painting on furniture in New England female institutions can be traced directly to this famous father and son cabinetmaking team.

Betsy has been able to locate wonderful advertisements, lithographs of store interiors and drawing instruction handbooks which show in detail how the pieces and supplies were purchased by academy students.  She well defines the differences between other decoratively adorned wood pieces such as transfer ware, tunbridge ware and English Women’s Painted Furniture.  An important set of descriptions as the relative value is extreme – a piece of American work by a schoolgirl commands five-figures often.  I have been at antique shows and have seen a few of the rare examples and while the pieces were exquisite – so was the price tag!

One of the most facinating chapters is the second which discusses the process of creating this type of work.  While Betsy discusses the order of work, she backs it up with passage after passage exerpted from period English and American texts to show why she works the pieces as she does.   The detail presented is comendable – not only scientific analysis of the pigments on multiple antiques, but actual hand drawn patterns from archives with notations ‘For the side of the work box’ showing that these were used for a particular piece.  You must know that I have ‘geeked out’ for hours over the materials and technique descriptions in this chapter.  And that doesn’t even mention the pages on interiors for the sewing boxes and sewing tables

Chapter 3, Motifs in Women’s Painted Furniture, is a visual delight as Betsy shows close up views of antique pieces and compares the motifs to contemporary samplers worked in the same regions.  Chapter 4 deals with Women’s Education and outlines the various known academies where this work was painted with exquisite detail on the inner working so the school as well as biographies of some of the teachers of this work.  Because so many of the pieces are signed in ink with a date and name, Betsy has been able to collect information on the girls themselves and detail them out in Chapter 5.  In at least one instance, the needlework and table by a girl is shown.  I wonder if the existence of all this information in one place will inspire those among us who collect info on samplers to find more of the examples of schoolgirl work by the same girls – furthering the knowledge base.  If any of you find or know of a sampler that seems to be by one of these girls – contact Betsy right away!

Chapter 6 goes into the social changes that brought about the downfall of this art and details some of Betsy’s struggle to bring the art form back -showing many of her interpretations of antiques.  But I have to admit that my second favorite chapter is actually an appendix – Appendix D.  It details in words and pictures the professional treatment of Elizabeth Perkins’ Table.  When do we EVER get to see this type of thing!?  I find the art and reasoning behind how conservators work with pieces to be fascinating and enlightening.  I am so happy that this section did not get edited out.  That said, the editing was done very well – a perfect balance of color photography, excerpts to back up statements, historical information as well as technical.  I certainly hope that when I write the jacket book with my colleagues, we do half as good a job as was done here.

For those of you who are interested in the contents of the book – they are laid out below.  If you are interested in purchasing a copy and seeing some of the sewing accessories that Betsy has provided to me to sell – you can find them all on the same webpage.

Contents:

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Women’s Painted Furniture, 1790-1830

Chapter 2:  The Process of Creating Women’s Painted Furniture

Chapter 3:  Motifs in Women’s Painted Furniture

Chapter 4: Women’s Education

Chapter 5: American Schoolgirl Art Pupils and Their Painted Pieces

Chapter 6: Conclusion: “Ancients” and “Moderns”

Appendixes

Appendix A:  Art Instruction books of the Federal Period

Appendix B:  The Rules of Litchfield Academy, 1825

Appendix C:  A Chronicle of Sir Andreas B. Engstrom’s Advertisements Offering Lessons

Appendix D: Professional Treatment of Elizabeth Perkin’s Table

Appendix E: Recipe for Finishing a Young Lady

Appendix F:  Suppliers of Materials Used to Create Historical Replications

Appendix G:  Historical Societies and Museums with Collections

Appendix H:  Research Institutions Providing Archival Material

Appendix I:  Further Reading