La Bricoleuse

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon checking out the quilt show and vendors market at the 2011 North Carolina Quilt Symposium. Quilting is a hobby interest of mine, long time readers of this blog will recall that I have covered past symposiums in here and reviewed quilt exhibits and museums as well. I think though, even if I did not myself quilt, I would still attend these museums and exhibitions and symposia for the same reasons that I follow the fashion industry, textile science industry, fiber/surface design arts, etc.–you never know what you may come across that can be used in your own area of arts!

And so, not only did they have an enormous exhibition hall full of beautifully made quilts, but I discovered some vendors whose contact information and products I picked up for my own nefarious millinery devices... ( Read more... )

First, the job posting--since i've been such the gloom-monger about theatres closing in the news, i'd feel remiss if i didn't help propogate this *excellent* job opportunity. No less than four former colleagues have forwarded it to me, and to be honest, if i weren't planning to operate with the Triangle as my "home base" for at minimum five more years, i'd apply in a heartbeat.

Essentially, budgetary restructuring has resulted in a change-up at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, MN. They used to have a separate painter/dyer and crafts artisan/milliner--two jobs, two employees. Now though, they're combining those two positions into a single one. The Guthrie is a heavy-hitter in regional theatre, with it's brand-new (as of 2006) facility featuring three stages, on which they produce a range of productions from musicals to Shakespeare to new works and world premieres. They do between 7 and 13 shows a year, including an annual Christmas Carol and usually at least one touring show. Working there would mean a wide range of different works, with world-class designers, directors, and performers.

You can read the full job posting here, if you're interested. The job's through their local IATSE so figure on union benefits and payscale.

* * * * *

Last month, Peace College in Raleigh hosted the North Carolina 2009 Quilt Symposium, and--being a huge fan of all areas of fiber art, particularly quilts--I headed down there to check it out.

I think i'm especially drawn to the medium of quilting for the same reasons i'm drawn to the profession of crafts artisanship. Quilting comes from a rich panoply of histories, its techniques and styles couched in such a diversity of cultures, from the solid geometry of the Amish tradition, to the graphic strip-piecing of Gee's Bend, to the intricate complexity of Hawaiian applique. It's both an art and a craft, a blend of skill, inspiration, and practicality, and is usually the province of women artists. It can be improvisational or mathematical or both, and--like theatre--engenders collaboration and community.

Isn't the cooperative nature of a quilting bee, a round-robin, or a block-swap similar, conceptually, to a theatre production? Groups of artists come together to coordinate the production of quilts, to gather in guilds for inspiration and collaboration. At the Symposium, rarely did i see a work produced by only one pair of hands--most all involved at least two artists (one who pieced the top and another who quilted the layers), often more. And like theatre artists, quilt artists seem particularly drawn to participating actively in their communities through their work, holding benefit raffles for local charities or creating works for specific causes (such as making comfort quilts for hospitalized children or valor quilts for returning soldiers).

The Symposium was so extensive, I'm going to split the coverage into two posts, the first of which will be images of wearables, accessory design (there was a handbag competition and silent auction), and what they categorized in their competition breakdown as "Studio Art"--free-form wallhanging-scale works often featuring 3D elements or specialized techniques like photo-transfer. The second post (probably coming tomorrow) will focus on larger-scale works which often utilize traditional patterns or specific recognized styles of execution. Admittedly, i didn't come close to photographing the entire thing--there were hundreds of pieces on display. I didn't stick to "ribbon winners" or anything either; i took pictures based on the criteria of whether i felt inspired to respond to an artwork or some element struck me as worth documenting.

Peace College itself was a striking setting for the symposium--it's a beautiful historical liberal-arts women's college, an intimate campus of striking old architecture and classical gardens of shade trees and foliage in bloom.

( Read more... )

Harrisonburg, VA is a small town on the western side of Shenandoah National Park, home to James Madison University and to the Virginia Quilt Museum. I'm an avid fan of quilting and quilt history, and had previously visited the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, MA, which i loved (follow the link for my overview post). When i discovered the existence of the Virginia Quilt Museum, i knew i needed to someday make a trip to see it. This summer was my excuse: because i was driving first to TN from NYC down I-81, i decided to stop off on the way and make a day of it.

The museum is located in a historic 1856 home in downtown Harrisonburg. The downtown area of Harrisonburg itself is a historic architecture enthusiast's dream--tons of beautiful homes and commercial buildings from the 19th century. If i'd had more time, i'd have stayed a second day and wandered its shops and galleries and other historic sites. Once inside the museum house, i was struck with deja vu: I am always reminded of how incomparable seeing a quilt in person is to seeing its photograph. You can get the gist of a quilt's appearance in a picture, but the ability to look closely at the stitching itself is something you can only get in a museum such as this.

Even if you care nothing about quilting or quilters' history or Virginia history, the museum's collection of antique sewing machines alone is enough to make it a must-see attraction. Some of the larger machines--those mounted in antique sewing tables or on stand-alone treadle bases and such--are scattered throughout the museum's other exhibits, and an upstairs room houses the majority of the collection. There are dozens of machines dating back to 1845, children's machines, portable and hand-cranked machines, you name it--chain stitch and lock stitch and even some that sew left-to-right! Some of the machines are labeled with historical info, either on the inventor, the donor, or the former owner, and others are presented without elaboration. You could probably spend an entire day in that room just inspecting each machine.

They seem to have three ongoing exhibits otherwise--the Civil War Quilts exhibit, the exhibit of highlights of the museum's collection, and a rotating curated exhibit which is currently one entitled "Quilts and Quaker Heritage." The Civil War Quilts exhibit is most unusual, because there is so much information displayed about the quilters themselves, including photographs and letters and other ephemera; with quilts that old, it's rare to even know who the creator was, much less to be able to see her picture and read her handwriting and life history. There was even a paper-pieced quilt half-assembled, turned over so you could see the 150-year-old writing and type on the paper used. There's a lot of textual information about the Quaker quilters and sometimes the quilts are accompanied by dressforms with clothing worn by the quilters (one pale green silk wedding gown stands out in my memory), but almost no photographs. (According to an exhibit placard, Quakers preferred to have their silhouettes made rather than photos or portraits.)

The museum also features a modest but lovely gift shop, full of manuals, history books, exhibit catalogues, quilting tools, and quilts both artistic and functional of all sizes, from miniature quilts mounted on greeting cards to bedsize coverlets. I enjoyed the whole experience of my visit so much, i'm probably going to go back for a future exhibit, once they change over their programming to something new!

( here are some photographs i took... )

Tonight is the kickoff "Meet and Greet" for the USITT Costume Commission's Fabric Modification Symposium, hosted by UNC-Chapel Hill and headed up by our Costume Director and MFA Program Head, Judy Adamson. I wasn't sure if i'd be back from NYC yet when this was being planned, but when it became clear that i would be around for it, i jumped on board to participate in whatever capacity is needed. So far, it's been a lot of vetting of safety procedures (to make sure that the courses being offered comply with UNC's safety regulations [1]), and agreeing to assist one of the folks teaching a workshop.

The Symposium is offering four workshops over two days, and tours of a lot of really amazing fabric-industry facilities in the area; i plan to blog ALL of it, hopefully each evening after the fact, but we'll see if that happens or not. Regardless, i promise to bring you as much behind-the-scenes coverage as i can!

I'm also about to hit the ground running on the first show of the PlayMakers Repertory Company season, Shakespeare's Pericles, which looks like it's going to bring a lot of hat and helmet content, with perhaps a side order of dyeing and distressing galore. Hi, Pericles has PIRATES. Grime ahoy!

On the subject of hats, the topic of the graduate seminar i teach this fall is "Millinery and Wigs," so the general blog default content will probably be hats-a-poppin' for the next few months. If you are relatively new to labricoleuse (i.e., began reading within the past year), you can peruse some of the posts from the last time i taught this course by clicking on the sidebar tag called "class: millinery", to get an idea of what's in the pipeline. (For that matter, you can check out past posts about any of the courses i teach via those sidebar tags with the "class:" prefix, as well as some of the other classes offered in our program. Judy Adamson's period pattern class always results in some popular picture posts!)

Okay, time for me to get ready and head off to help with final set up for the symposium! See y'all on the flipside!


[1] This is not a big deal, mostly making sure that safety recommendations in the course structures jibe with what our Safety Officer requires, and putting together a plan of action in case of emergency, etc.