Barbara said "SharonB's blog pointed my way to your piece, and I'm so glad it did -- it is extremely stimulating. I'm taking Sharon's embroidery class and am conscious of feeling a need, easily suppressed, to apologize for it that I would certainly not feel were I taking a studio art class.
Your piece does such an excellent job of pinpointing the ways women's arts are diminished. Thank you so much for it."
Part of me feels horrified that anyone should feel (even if they can supress that feeling easily) ashamed of what they love to do! I'm proud of what I do, the fact that i can use a needle and thread to create something beautiful!
But I, who have recently proudly proclaimed to my friends I have joined the embroiderer's guild have found some peoples attitudes change towards me when they discover my hobbies. Some of them find it hard to considate it with the more feminist side of my personality (from a young age i didn't like being told I couldn't do things because I'm female.). They don't understand that I just happen to enjoy expressing my artistic temperament through the use of textiles. I also enjoy painting and other techniques but I often return to my fabrics and threads. Part of the reason i got into textile arts to start with was that i started with basics, which were, at the time relatively inexpenisive. These basics compared to those of 'fine' art are more accessable, less messy (though the do take up more room now I have a stash developed! ;) )
Textiles have always been an aspect of my life. My mother taught me to use a sewing machine earlier on and supervised my helping with the sewing together an outfit at an early age ( I think i was about 6 or 7). I helped make my outfit for my cousins wedding when I was all of about 8 including a matching bag! Textiles have always been part of my enviroment. My mothers sewing room was a treasure trove of colours, smells - she screen printed special orders and made her own labels that way - and I was the only person in my Home Ec. class who could thread a sewing machine without directions at age 12.(I was also the only one who knew how to wire a plug...says something about the survival skills known by the youth of the country,doesn't it?!)
My mother made a good proportion of my clothes while I was growing up. I hade a fantastic corderoy and wool paddington style duffle coat in blue and red, she made all our fancy dress costumes (we had a big tin chest full of costumes and vintage net petticoats and things) and the grey knee length pencil skirts she made me lasted me the entirety of high school! There was always something going on, be it orders of the kit clothes she made, (ready cut fabric for people to sew up for thier children) ,screen printing, new clothes for me or my sister, or just some personal projects of my mums.
When i got my own room at 12 me and my mum made me a patchwork quilt to go with the antique iron bedstead that was in my new room (it had been in the attic for a long time!) This is it! We chose the fabric together. She cut them and we laid them all out. I sewed them into strips and she finished the edges. Its actually a duvet cover and its kept in a bag at the moment as every time it gets used it has to be washed and ironed and it fades a little more every time.
When I saw my parents on saturday they had bought me a parcel of things from home...craft and arts things.
This was my aunts embroidery book. It has instructions for stitches in it and has her name scratched into the top of it.
This bag has a netted exterior with a pale purple lining. From what i've been told my grandmother made it. Its very pretty, but has some damage to the bottom left corner that i need to work out how to repair. I need to find something with which to give it a drawstring.
This is my painting box! It was my grandmothers, got given to my aunt when she was learning and then was passed to me when I was learning to paint (my mother still has my first proper painting on her bedroom wall.) The piece of paper is my 'colour chart' and test area. It has all my good brushes in it too!
These are the polymer clay buttons I was finishing for a seamstress friend.
4 comments:
WOW, what a haul you made. Isn't it funny what you can forget about. LOL. I have a feeling that you will put all of it to work! Have fun. Glad you got to have a nice visit with your folks.
I know! Have a plan for some of the beads already!
wrote a big long comment. But think we'll chat later!
:)
Hi Elizabet,
It was interesting to see my comment on your previous post quoted here, and I hope you won't mind my amplifying it a bit. I'm a writer and choose my words carefully, or try to, and shades of meaning can seem unreasonably urgent to me.
In saying that I sense a need to apologize for my interest in embroidery, I mean that I am aware of a need to justify or explain it to others--that it doesn't feel "good enough" simply to state that I'm taking an online embroidery class. Maybe that's related to shame, but I don't think so -- it's more about the marginalization that you so astutely identified in your writing. No one I know embroiders, and I don't know of an embroidery shop where I live, which is not an isolated hamlet but Manhattan. When people ask where I got that embroidered shirt (invariably something simple), they are awed when I say I've done the stitching, regarding me as if I were Rumpelstiltskin's daughter. But my interest in embroidery, I suspect, is considered quaint, not even remotely artistic. Your piece illuminates that divide and how it continues to be maintained. Again, thank you so much for it! -- ElizabethD
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