Spontaneous Combustion Blog

To wed.

8/21/2017

This summer I had the privilege of working on a vintage wedding gown. This wouldn’t be unusual if you knew I'd spent 9 of my 12 years in the clothing industry making and designing wedding gowns in the late ’80’s and ’90’s in Canada and the Lower 48. If you knew I’d constructed everything from family-gathering-at-the-farm shifts to custom froth for penthouse-bound adult film stars (okay, only one adult film star, but it was kind of a big deal in 2000). It wouldn't be unusual if you knew I’d once wrangled jealous bridesmaids, estranged mothers, best friends who felt left out, grandmothers arriving from the Old Country demanding silk gowns be remade “more white” a week before the wedding, crying brides who would be divorced in 4-6 months and my own insecurities as a 20-something with a whole lot of something to prove.

It wouldn’t be unusual, my taking on this project, except that 17 years ago I said I’d never work on a wedding gown again.

Like, ever.

Repositioning lace panels by hand.

Mending a rip in the armhole.

There are many reasons why a bride chooses a certain dress. Some of it is based on myth, or emotion, or the search for perfection. If she has the stamina, she will travel from city to city “looking for THE dress.” She will question herself. She will ask for advice. She will count her pennies, she will break the bank. She will present a designer with a black and white magazine photograph of a bride wearing floppy rubber boots, bareback on a horse, gown wadded up in one hand and field flowers in the other and say, “I want this dress.” Not because of the way it looks (who can figure that out?), but because of the mood. Because she wants to feel a certain way.

Often, the challenge isn't how well you fit a dress to a body, it's how well you fit the mind.

New loops and buttons.

Mending ripped lace.

Robin, the bride, was referred by a friend in a I-think-you’re-maybe-the-only-one-who-can-take-this-on kind of way. The bride’s mother wore the dress in the ’80’s, but someone had worn it before. There is mystery around the provenance — maybe it came from an antique store, maybe from an aunt — but the bride’s mother isn’t here to tell the full story, which is why Robin wanted to wear the dress, the closest she could be to her mother on the day she married her partner, Jess.

Indiana, early 1980's.

The sheer cotton batiste and eyelet lace dress had been home made, perhaps in rural Indiana, with stitches so small I couldn’t get the tip of my seam ripper beneath, with areas so fragile they blew apart in my hands. I saw the dress in February, before it was sent away for cleaning and restoration* — it was yellowed, stained and had been suspended on a wire hanger for decades, partially covered in plastic.

I worked with the dress after it returned to Alaska from a cleaner in California. According to the bride, the professionals began with dry cleaning, then a wet cleaning process with Orvus paste, then a gentle bleach soak over several days, checking at critical points to ensure the fibers weren’t stretching or tearing. The transformation was stunning, but it took time.

My part of the project required properly fitting the dress, textile stabilization and updated finishing. Gathers at the waist became pleats. Metal hooks and eyes at the center back became hand made loops and silk covered buttons. I replaced the skirt lining. I repaired areas of stretched or ripped lace by hand. I trimmed away excess. I steamed, I pressed, and thought about the woman who first made this dress, the women who had worn it since, the woman who would wear it again. Connected, I became another link in a line of of makers and women crossing thresholds.

Jess and Robin, Summer, 2017. Photography, Madeline Wilson.

And this is the difference between working on wedding gowns in your 20’s as a seamstress/sewer/pattern maker/shopgirl/designer/assistant/or whatever else I was referred to, and working on a wedding gown as a mid-40’s artist and mother. My energy and intent had nothing to do with proving myself, and everything to do with respect, curiosity and creating the most supportive, most nurturing experience I could for another woman — for 2 women, actually — during a life moment when the experience should be beautiful and easy for a couple, but often feels overwhelming.

It’s also the difference between choosing to work with a vintage gown or making all new. Old cloth holds stories, secrets. It’s always my preference.

Photography, Madeline Wilson.

During the process, I was able to share discoveries about Robin’s mother -- she had a 24-inch waist when she got married, and had likely been losing weight since the seams at the hip had been taken in 3 times…the final time by hand, maybe stitched at the last minute, maybe the morning of the wedding. These are small things, small curiosities. But I wanted Robin to know that part of the story.

The rest of the dance belongs to her and Jess.

Photography, Madeline Wilson.

*Resources

If you are interested in having a vintage wedding gown cleaned and/or restored, here are some resources:

National Gown — www.nationalgown.com

American Institute for Conservation -- www.conservation-us.org
See pdf: "Guide to Caring for Your Treasures"

List of Conservators (this list was originally provided by the Anchorage Museum, although they don't endorse anyone in particular. Refer to the above website to find a conservator near you):

Margaret Geiss-Mooney, Petaluma, CA, (tel) 707-763-8694, (email) meg@textileconservator.com
Denise Krieger Migdail, San Francisco, CA, (415) 931-1085, (email) dmigdail@asianart.org
Yadin Larochette, Santa Monica, CA, (tel) 310-808-7979, (email) yadinl@gmail.com
Susan Schmalz, Los Angeles, CA, (tel) 323-857-6169, (email) sschmalz@lacma.org
Cara Varnell, Long Beach, CA, (tel) 562-209-1039, (email) carav@earthlink.net
Nancy Wyatt, Tacoma, WA, (tel) 253-572-5863, (email) ncwyatt@aol.com

Some do’s and don’ts for storing a wedding gown:

Don’t:

store in plastic or “sealed” boxes from the dry cleaner
store hanging on a hangar
store in a cedar chest or against wood of any kind without some kind of barrier. Wood is acidic.

Do:

have the dress professionally cleaned before storing, even if it appears clean. Body oil, lotions, perfumes and perspiration will emerge as yellow stains over time.
fill the bodice and sleeves with acid-free tissue paper and gently fold the skirt around more tissue, resulting in a loose bundle. *Amendment: Margaret Geiss-Mooney, one of the conservators listed above, contacted me with this advice: "Use fabric/yardage/sheets to stuff out sleeves and bodice (don’t use paper tissue as the tissue becomes acidic over time and, in the event of a disaster involving water, becomes paper pulp which is very difficult to remove) ... The fabric used to stuff out sleeves/bodice can also be re-used by just rinsing in the washing machine." Thank you Margaret!
wrap the bundle in clean sheets or unbleached muslin and store in a lignin-free box, off the floor or away from possible leaking pipes or dusty ventilation ducts.
unwrap the dress once a year and re-position the folds before storing again. (okay, okay, my wedding gown is stored this way, but have I EVER taken it out of the acid free box since 1993? No. I probably should have a little look-see).

Nevada, 1993.

One year ago on this blog:

The 15th boxes of mystery. (Part of the Inheritance Project).

Two years ago on this blog:

Box of mystery. (The catalyst for the Inheritance Project...have I really been working on this for two years?)

12 Comments

Alterations girl.

1/30/2016

13 Comments

Amy Meissner, textile artist | From the post Alterations Girl | www.amymeissner.com/blog/alterations-girl

"Girl Story" (22.5" x 37.5" ) Vintage domestic linens, ink. Hand embroidered, hand quilted, 2014.

My first job in high school began as an internship at a small shop in Nevada that made costumes, wedding gowns and casino uniforms. I fell in love with a Brother single needle industrial machine whose push-button start up and whining motor stood my arm hair on end. I was also smitten with the gravity fed industrial steam iron (I once forgot to turn it off and left it smoldering on the ironing board...overnight). Loading cones and rethreading a 5-thread serger with its zig-zagging internal paths became as navigable as learning to drive a car -- which happened at around the same time -- and for a girl whose father worked with loud equipment and flying sparks all day, yet kept his daughters safe from this, it was a way to harness industrial energy and wield power over a machine at a moment in life when a young woman is vulnerable to dismissing her own capabilities.

That was all the fun stuff (except maybe the casino uniforms), but the bread and butter work in that shop were the alterations. I've hemmed more Carole Little knit pants from Macy's than I care to count, and learned to make way more small talk in a fitting room than any other 17-year old I've ever met (I'm still not great at it, but I can probably still make a half-naked lady feel pretty comfortable. Wow, except that came out wrong).

To rip into another person's worn clothing has an intimacy rivaled by actually making clothing and fitting a person's body. I've found used tissues in pockets (into the garbage), money and jewelry and keys (into the small return baggie) and seams filled with dust, lint and scales of skin. I've been gagged by cologne and perfume and cigarette smoke. A woman once delivered several vests to be copied and remade, only to discover that her male cat had sprayed on them just that morning. She tried to leave them anyway, and when I explained there was no way I could hand them over to the woman who does the alterations (me) before dry cleaning (her), she snorted and craned her neck to see who this picky "alterations girl" in the back room might be.

"Girl Story #3" (26" x 26") Vintage domestic linens, cotton velvet, wool, found objects. Machine pieced, hand embroidered, hand quilted, 2015.

During the 12 years I was in the clothing industry, doing everything from alterations, to running a commercial cutter, to fitting custom gowns, to sample sewing PVC raincoats/stretch jeans/metallic halter tops for 14-year olds, to marching to the bank to try and deposit paychecks (9 of those bounced at one factory), to making patterns, to crying on the bus, to finally being mentored by a master tailor for 4 years in the '90s (more crying), the constant hum for me was the intimacy of cloth. And the years that this intimacy was absent (factory work), it bothered me that clothing was so disposable. Later in my career, when returning to custom made wedding gowns, I thought I'd be creating garments that would be revered.

Some were. Most of the clients were lovely women. And I try really hard to remember their smiles, vast embraces and impossibly smooth shoulders.

But the fond memories are often overshadowed by mothers telling daughters how fat they looked, or girls bad mouthing the size of an absent friend's ring ("...you know that marriage won't last... "), or bridesmaids who (I'm not kidding) pushed each other out of the way to vie for the mirrored walls, the ruined gowns returned for fixing ("... we got such a great photo in the hotel fountain!"). It's comical now. But for a girl from a small town, brought up to sew and respect the work of the hand, it was devastating. My last boss, a mentor and man I respected and loved like a father, called me "Provincial." The hardest part was realizing my own lack of skill when it came to matching wits with princesses.

For Pete's sake, who even knew that was a thing?

All this to say: alterations don't bother me. Neither does the prospect of incredibly time-consuming work.
(And I steer clear of Princesses).

Girl Story and Girl Story #3 have been accepted into Focus: Fiber 2016 at Kent State University Museum. If you are in Ohio between February 12 and July 3, 2016 I highly encourage you to check out the exhibition (and send pictures please, because I won't get down there for this one, unfortunately).

One of the notations in the exhibition agreement stated, "Velcro is preferred but not mandatory." A few months ago, I met with the textile curator at the Anchorage Museum and she had mentioned this very thing in terms of displaying tapestries and textile work.

Velcro.

So I ripped off the sleeves.

Adding velcro to a piece and the accompanying mounting bar is easily reversible, protects the fabric and will eliminate curling and bulging at the bottom edge once installed by allowing for minuscule adjustments at the top until the piece hangs straight across the bottom.

So while I didn't have to make this alteration to two pieces of artwork before shipping, I chose to.

"When we mount quilts, we use 2" velcro stitched by machine to a muslin strip. The muslin strip is then hand sewn - carefully and lightly - to the quilt backing so that no stitches or muslin show. Put the soft side of the velcro on the strip sewn to the quilt and staple the hard side to a 1" x 2" piece of poplar. 2" velcro gives us a better chance to get the piece hanging straight since most quilts are not perfectly square."

Jean Druesedow, Director
Kent State University Museum

If making clothing for people taught me anything, it's this: there is no one way. Every body is different, every mind is different.

Every show is different.

(But darn it if male cat pee is always the same).

I'd love to hear your comments about successful mounting/hanging techniques. I'd also love to hear what went terribly wrong so we can all learn from each other.

This post is filed under the How To category in the side bar. There are a few other how to posts available there, although I'll never walk you through anything by blah, blah, yaddah-yaddah because there are lots of other verbose bloggers out there breaking sewing steps down. I know you're on your game, so I show you lots of pictures instead.

And I tell some stories.

13 Comments

Finer.

2/8/2015

10 Comments

Amy Meissner, production 2015. From the post Finer. www.amymeissner.com/blog/finer

In the late 80's and early 90's, I worked for a little bridal salon and alterations shop where I made a lot of headpieces and veils. It started after my employer, Laurel, had ordered a new line of wedding accessories on a buying trip to Dallas, and when we unpacked that first frothy shipment of tulle and pearl-encrusted finery, analyzed and dissected the construction, tried everything on and had sufficiently marched around all afternoon sweeping our arms and singing "One Grecian Urn! Two Grecian Urns!" we'd agreed: Amy can make these.

And I could.
So I did.

And let me just say, I could use a hot glue gun like nobody's business. Those opaque sticks of glue -- so shiny! The nozzle -- so melty! I massacred the end of the Laurel's cutting table with permanent drips and smears of cooled glue. I glued the shit out of those headpieces.

One might say I was self taught.

It was the time and place for this, and I did a pretty darned good job. The work was well done and clients were happy. But I was also a teenager and I can't imagine I would have picked up on the finer points of customer relations or the nuances of happiness or disappointment. I know I didn't -- unless they were my own happinesses and disappointments -- but this is the deeper work of what we now scientifically define as the teenaged brain. But that's so, like, totally a different story.

Years later, after factory jobs where I'd been a cutter-sewer-patternmaker-illustrator-designer-production manager-etc., I returned to the bridal industry to work for an expert tailor and couturier from Manila, Manuel, my mentor, in an atelier where white-girl-proving-herself felt like the primary job description. One of the first brides I worked with still needed a simple veil made. Normally the seamstress -- a lovely, sharp-witted woman from Vietnam, with ramrod posture and a powder blue vintage sewing machine -- made the veils. But I offered to make this one, and I knew this much by then: no hot glue.

I created a small buckram frame, alternated silk organza and peau de soie in a pattern that echoed the gown, added a single layer of fingertip-length tulle. Done. I hadn't made a veil in years and it felt great. I brought it in for the final fitting where the bride twirled in and out of family members with cameras, handed it to Manuel, and as he tucked the comb into her loose bun he leaned in and said to her, "This is just a fitting, what do you think about the length?"

Wait. What?

No. This was the real thing. This was her veil. I made it. It was ready to go out the door with the dress. This veil was getting married tomorrow.

"We'll deliver everything later tonight," he said, kissing and hugging and dancing the beaming family out the door, then he disappeared into the back room to quietly ask the seamstress to make a proper veil. Of course I asked what was wrong with the one I'd made.

"It's just not ... fine. It's not fine enough."

I woke at 3 this morning, my son snorting and blowing his nose on the other side of the wall, and this was the memory that came to me, this embarrassment and confusion about what "fine" meant. And I think it emerged from a comment my friend Christine Byl added to a recent post I wrote that touched on that old semantics debate between art and craft. The imagery in her comment stuck with me, and a lot of other people contacted me to say it resonated with them, too. I fluffed my sniffling kid's pillow, discussed the merits of Mentholatum in the darkness (met with refusal) and thought about the weight of words and understanding and experiences decades removed until 4 am. Then I made coffee.

I will preface the following by saying that Christine Byl is a fine writer. Her thoughts are culled from a spectrum of experiences and education that is as deep as it is broad. She intimidates the hell out of me on paper, but then I get to spend time with her and she's so real and kind and interested in everyone and everything that this silly "I'm-really-dumb" feeling fades right away. Her first book, Dirt Work, is an exceptional exploration of her ongoing work as a trail builder, an academic and a human; I highly encourage you to seek it out and read it. She is a woman who knows her tools, and one of them is language.

Here is her comment:

Some interesting thoughts here, Amy. Isn't it amazing how many people find it difficult to talk about these distinctions without a whiff of value-laden language? As if art or craft or amateur or expert must be better or worse, when really the intents or histories or positions are just different. As my favorite quote of the year goes, "It is bizarre to treat all differences as oppositions." (Marilynn Robinson)

Gabe and I talk a lot about craft-art distinctions, particularly because of his work which includes elements of both, as you know--the aesthetics and training and palette and intention of "fine art" and a medium and method (cutting up tiny pieces of paper) more associated with craft. I've come to think that there's a false dichotomy in setting art and craft opposite each other. Craft is more a subset of art. Art is like a river with lots of different feeder streams--ground springs and silty glacial run-off and rain-fed mountain gushers--and the quality of the art will be influenced by what primarily feeds it. It could be craft techniques, or aesthetic concerns, or activist impulses, or all of them blended. But while those may all affect the character of the art, they don't make it something else. I mean, it's a huge discussion in "fine art", how something is "crafted" or a discussion of the artist's "craft"--not at all diminutive. The degree of skill in the making is part of the success of any piece. So what we call "crafts" are perhaps types of art-making that foreground the "made" component. (Woodcraft, needle craft, etc.) In this way, craft is a component of art that may be present or not, but it isn't an opposition. It's apples to oranges, in a way.

"Expert" is also so loaded. My favorite experts--and the kind of expertise I aspire to--are utterly cognizant of nurturing Beginner's Mind. True expertise does not shun the qualities of apprenticeship.

So we need some new words! What's the word we really mean to contrast with art, to signify some pastime or activity that's not intended to be considered as an aesthetic object in addition to whatever its use is? What's the word for an Expert that is unafraid of continuous learning? Ah language, such a fluid, tricky, incomplete thing. Makes you want to go build or stitch or glue something, doesn't it?!
CB

There are days I'm rushing at that larger river, others when my output is reduced to a trickle waiting for the log jam to explode, but there will always be an underlying intent to my work, a scrutinizing mantra, a point to it all --

make it finer.

At this time and in this place, and despite my efforts to do a pretty darned good job, fineness is a shifting thing. There are constraints and realities to consider, the many small and large needs of others, so finer falls somewhere between "better than good enough" and "my very best," somewhere between "walk away from this piece of crap you think you're making" and "head down, keep working," somewhere between the upswell and excitement of Beginner's Mind and the cynicism of a mind thick with history and knowing and thinking and worrying too much.

Fine. Finer. Fineness. I do not have some new word to add to the discussion of Art and Craft.

But I will keep considering and coming back around to this old one.

10 Comments

A history of chaos.

11/8/2014

28 Comments

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.

Gustave Flaubert

I recently spent 4 1/2 hours cleaning a kitchen with a friend. This kitchen isn't mine and it's not hers and I won't say who it belongs to, but I will say that I've cleaned this kitchen before and have always been dismayed at its state. There is nothing like a common enemy to bring two women closer together as friends, and in this case the common enemy was filth ... and something that looked an awful lot like bird poop on the dish drying mat, which remains a great mystery to us both.

While we wiped drawers and hauled dented pots and pans from deep, deep cupboards, we both agreed on the following: stay on top of your cleaning so that this (arms spread, looking at the kitchen) doesn't happen. Do you wipe down the stove after every meal? Yes. Clear the counters at the end of each day? Yes. Wipe behind appliances? Yes. We both love the hum of the dishwasher in the evening when we turn out the lights. This is order. This is predictability. This is entering a clean kitchen in the morning and pouring yourself a lovely cup of coffee.

In a clean mug.

With no bird poop.

I know. Bizarre.

I come from a Swedish household and still refer to my mother's style of housekeeping as "Swede Clean." Her baseboards/door trim/decorative plates will always pass the white glove test. Mine? No. But this is why I don't display decorative plates or wear white gloves.

This friend and kindred spirit I spent hours cleaning with had a different impetus for an orderly life:
she grew up in chaos.

But that's not my story to tell.

Amy Meissner, Vein 2, vintage textile, wool, found objects. Machine embroidered, hand embroidered, felted. 2014. www.amymeissner.com

My story is that I've spent the better part of 40 years fearing chaos, and in turn, holding the sad belief that if I remained tidy, I couldn't be an artist. I believed that artists live in stirred spaces where inspiration circled them at all times and if you took the time to sweep beneath and around their things you'd scoop away all that artistic energy and ready it for the curb and the Tuesday morning garbage truck (but do not roll it out on Monday night because the bears will get into it and spread it all over the damned driveway and that's just a nasty mess).

My last mentor in the clothing industry, Manuel, was a true artist and a craftsman; a master tailor from Manila with so much creativity swirling around him he created his own weather system. He used to write in the appointment book with the purple disappearing ink pen we used to mark wedding gowns (Appointment? What appointment? There's no appointment here.). He preferred delivering a gown to the bride at 11 pm the night before her ceremony (Nervous? Why are you feeling nervous?). He loved putting off and then solving the engineering challenges of a corset 3 minutes before a client was due at the door (Sew faster!). He loved dancing. And singing. He loved the beauty of women. And spontaneity. And chaos. And he loved me like a daughter.

He used to call me Booger.

And it was, at times -- for a tidy, methodical person like me -- utterly maddening to be with this kind of energy, especially when I let it dictate how I expended my own.

It took a lot of mental capacity to remain pulled together -- myself, the shop, the cutting, the appointments, the fitting, the sewing, the clients, the logistics, the dancing, the singing, the deliveries, the 20+ custom wedding gowns some months generated in an atelier mostly comprised of one seamstress, one tailor, one Manuel and one me -- I was the oldest 26-year old you ever met. And then I finally had a break down, I blew out my creative energy and had nothing left to give. I weighed 105 pounds and migraines seemed manageable compared to this idea that I wasn't inspired, ever, and perhaps never would be. That part was debilitating.

What? Booger, how can you not be inspired? I'm inspired every day of my life.

And this is when I started thinking that really being an artist meant belting out "The Girl from Ipanema" while busting out some Bossa Nova moves. And never worrying about tomorrow. Or schedules. Or disappearing ink. Or the challenges of the next client. Or caring when you finally made it home from work at night. Maybe I wasn't working hard enough. Maybe I wasn't loving life enough.

Maybe I never would.

Maybe something cold and Scandinavian and stoic and bleak was too lodged inside of me.

I left that career before I turned 30 and walked away from 12 years in the clothing design industry, something I'd wanted since I was 13. I didn't believe in myself as anything more than an assistant and I didn't want my own shop, my own line, my own label, my own runway shows. I just wanted out of chaos.

A different career altogether separates me from who I was then and who I am now (I'm taking a longish exploratory break from it, I say). But the lure of continuing to use my hands in the way I was taught initially is too great to ignore.

Manuel died two years ago. And while I know that rainy, silent day will come when I hear a Stan Getz horn or Astrid Gilberto sing off key and I'll finally lose myself to uncontrolled sobbing, I continue to think about my mentor. Can you be so good at something, so confident, that the only way to maintain your inspiration is to generate chaos? I wonder.

Or, can a quiet confidence in a skill well earned eventually offer one ... freedom? Did I misinterpret chaos as artistic freedom? Could it be that there were so few problems Manuel couldn't solve that sometimes he needed self-generated problems to stay alive and creative? Or, was he just simply sanguine and I, always the melancholic, am still reading too deeply into a situation and a relationship, despite years removed, that ultimately helped define me as an artist and a maker?

Maybe that's enough.

There is a German word: sitzfleisch. It means to be persistent in your work, despite obstacles. Like the good old: Ass. In. Chair. And I was this, all through my 20's, until I had to scrape that chair back and walk away. And among the myriad of lessons Manuel taught, perhaps the biggest and most unintended was to recognize where my own threshold for chaos resides. My work will be original and violent, but my counters will be wiped. My threads will be trimmed, my corners mitered.

Booger, are you sending this out the door? It looks like the dog's breakfast. Figure out how to fix it.

And for every screaming temper tantrum I never had, for every chair I never threw, the Swedes also have a saying, about persistence and discipline and a fair sprinkling of violence as well.

Translated, it means:

"You have kicked your way here."

28 Comments

How to box & ship a quilt (like a Swede).

9/29/2014

24 Comments

I'm going to tell you how I pack & ship quilts and/or textile work to far-away places, but first I have to tell you a story:

In the 1970's it must have been a lot cheaper to ship overseas, because huge Swedish boxes used to arrive at our home in California loaded with embroidered textiles, dishes (!), lead crystal (!!), children's books, nyponsoppa, trolls made from river rocks, wooden-soled clogs, Dala horses and any other impossibly heavy object that you wouldn't dream of shipping to a family member now, 40 years later. Okay, maybe if you have a magic checkbook you would do this.

The boxes of my childhood weren't designed in Silicon Valley, they weren't filled with styrofoam peanuts or air bags, they weren't barcoded, they weren't shipped Prime. They were wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string (seriously). Indestructible and filled with mystery, they held the key to my mother and her past and to a family that loved and remembered us, despite living so far away. But the most sensual part? The part I still remember? These things smelled like Sweden -- all paper pulp, wind-whipped laundry and oiled wood. Heaven. Even still.

These Swedes were expert packers and in all the years of sending and receiving boxes, only one coffee cup ever arrived broken (and we happily glued the handle back on). Opening a box from Sweden was steeped in the ritual of tangible and magical. When I hear about the strange phenomenon of contemporary self-videoed "unboxing," the epitome of consumption, it makes me sad. Our unboxing wasn't consumption, it was absolute nourishment.

In my 20's, I traveled to Sweden alone and brought small handmade coin purses for my cousins -- two young women I didn't grow up with and barely knew. The sisters both unwrapped and immediately held the packaging to their noses, closing their eyes, like they'd done this a hundred times before. They looked at each other and whispered, "Smells like America."

Amy Meissner, how to ship a quilt, www.amymeissner.com

So here's how to pack your quilt (maybe like a Swede):

I recently spent several hours preparing five textile pieces for travel. Two were delivered to the Anchorage Museum for the final round of jurying for their biennial show, All Alaska Juried XXXV (a 9 minute drive for me), two were dropped off for a local show at the blue.hollomon gallery (also a short drive) and the fifth was shipped to the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in Auburn, New York for the show "Quilts=Art=Quilts, 2014," and this place is just really far from where I am in Alaska.

I'm not an art shipping expert, but I love art. I've had work shipped to my home and been thrilled with the care involved; alternatively, I've been dismayed by terrible packaging, and left wondering how the work arrived intact at all. One thing I am an expert on is packing wedding gowns (but, do NOT ask me to make you a wedding gown, do not do this), so I came to this latest task with this history in mind. And the key is a safe cushion of air. And time. And a beautiful presentation.

Some tips:

Save packaging materials despite your husband's complaints ("Why, yes, we do need an exploding closet full of bubble wrap and polyethylene foam"), allow more time than you think you'll require to do the job and gather all supplies in advance -- shipping tape, tape dispenser, blade, scissors, measuring tape, tissue paper, bubble wrap, lint roller, plastic, etc. Put good music on. Go pee. Wash your hands.

The box:

These are wall hangings we're talking about here, so plan on rolling them (do not roll a wedding gown ... did I mention I'm not making one for you?). I sourced 8" x 8" x 36" boxes that open on the long side. One piece measures 72" wide so I telescoped two 40-inch boxes together. (I'm hand delivering this big one, luckily because I would have had to use a magic checkbook to ship it, and if I create something this large again, I'd consider folding and rolling it, then making arrangements with the gallery/museum for an appropriate hanging apparatus. Well, I'd consider it, but in the end probably pay the shipping bill and no-way fold a textile piece or trust someone else's hangar. And then I'd make smaller work in the future. And this would make me feel disappointed. So then I'd manifest a magic checkbook).

Boxes in my studio, ready for loading.

Double hull reinforcement with cut-to-size cardboard paneling -- this one's getting shipped.

Packaging:

I read a post a while back from artist Kathleen Loomis, in which she described collecting foam pool noodles to roll her textile work onto for shipping and I thought this was awesome advice. But here's the not-awesome part: try finding a pool noodle in Alaska in September. So I built custom-sized "noodles" from sheets of polyethylene foam, covered them with felt sleeves and this worked perfectly. Begin by spreading a single layer of acid free tissue and bubblewrap on the surface of the work, then loosely roll the textile onto the noodle from the top edge, wrong side out.* Wrap in another layer of bubble wrap, but don't use tape...someone will have to rip it off and may be tempted to use scissors. Keep it loose, keep it tidy, keep the cats out of the studio because you have already cleaned all that hair off with the lint roller in advance. If you failed to do this, go back and do it now.

Custom made foam noodle.

Loose roll of foam noodle, tissue paper and quilt.

Loose layer of bubble wrap.

Next use a plastic bag to cover the roll and secure loosely at both ends. I've pieced white kitchen garbage bags together, but it's better to use clear.* The plastic creates more air around the work and also saves it when it slips off the conveyor belt and onto the tarmac in an Alaskan snow storm. Note here that this is for shipping and/or short term storage only. Do not store textiles in plastic. Do not store a wedding gown in plastic. Do not store your cheese in plastic. Plastic is bad, very bad for things that need to breathe, plus it will off-gas or trap moisture and facilitate mold. Quick, go run into the kitchen and put that cheese in some cheese paper while you're thinking about it. Wash your hands.

Do not roll the artwork with the mounting mechanism or bars in the sleeve(s). Keep them separate in the box, but labeled. If you are shipping to an exhibit, along with many other artists, the gallery will be handling as many slats and bars as there are wall quilts, if not more. Label these with your name and the name of the piece, indicating if it is a top slat or bottom. Your artwork's label should have the same information. If you have a piece that could potentially be hung upside down by accident, indicate which way is up. It happens.

Label your packaging materials with a business card, so it's easily returned to you, or so someone knows who to phone when your box is mangled in the conveyor belt in the Alaskan snow storm.

Leave a cushion of air at each end of the roll inside the box. It shouldn't move around in there, but be sure you don't cram your work into a box that's too small either.

Use those salvaged air packs for cushion during shipping. Seeing them leave your closet will make your husband happy.

Cover all the packing material with a cardboard insert before sealing the box with tape so no one ACCIDENTALLY SLICES OPEN YOUR TEXTILES WITH A BOX CUTTER.

Paperwork:

This should include addresses and contact information to and from, pre-printed return labels (see next section), an inventory of everything in the box that you wish returned (including the packaging), plus hanging instructions. I inserted these in plastic sleeves and lay them on top, just below the cardboard insert.

Shipping:

Last step (or in my case, it was the first step to this whole process) -- obtain a UPS account (or FedEx, or whatever). Learn how the website works, and when you run into problems help-chat with Peggy O. and when Peggy O. doesn't understand your question about generating a pre-paid label with bar code to send to the gallery in advance, spend an hour on the phone with customer service while your children feed themselves dinner and periodically come show how they've grated 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese on their pasta all by themselves, luckily your 5-year-old daughter will give you many hugs because you are nearly in tears with frustration; you will attempt to print a pre-paid label with the advice you've received but soon realize the system won't let you insure the art for more than $1000, so connect to tech support, who will finally explain that you can't do it this way (despite customer service's assurance that you can), but they will tell you what to do and how to fix this issue (sort of) and then you will phone the gallery, explain, and those good folks will be happy to use your UPS account to insure and ship back to you after the show. With all of your original packaging material. Because you've labeled it.*

And luckily, you've followed my best advice and allowed A LOT OF TIME for this whole process, especially if it's the first time. But it will get better, you will become faster and more efficient, your closets will bulge with pool noodles in anticipation. You'll know which work fits best in which box.

For hand delivery.

And for any of you seasoned quilt/art shippers out there, if you see something I'm missing or doing wrong -- let me know and I'll make note of your advice right here by adding to the links at the end of this post. I would also, at this time, like to request a lead on a magic checkbook.

Further resources for shipping and storing quilts:

Kathleen Loomis: quilt storage, more quilt storage, preparing for shipping
Quilter's Home Magazine: a seemingly definitive list of do's and don'ts
Machine Quilting Unlimited: an even MORE definitive list

*Amendments & Further Advice from others:

1.) Kathleen Loomis pointed out in a comment that rolling your artwork with the right side in will likely create a marred surface that is "all wrinkled and nasty." (Eew). So, with this advice in mind, roll your quilt with the right side out. But do consider surface treatment, materials, construction, and duration the piece will be stored -- then make a judgement call. The first piece I packed last week featured fragile elements on the surface like bone that I didn't want bashed around, especially when the piece is lifted out of the box and handled, so I know why I chose to roll it loosely inward with lots of cushion everywhere. It also wasn't going to sit in that state for very long.

2.) Joyce Potter (Swede) has these three things to add: 1.) A horror story about plastic wrap somehow melting onto a quilt during transit (Whoa ... just, whoa), so wrap in muslin before putting the plastic over top. Sheesh. 2.) NEVER wrap in opaque trash bags lest some well-meaning soul think s/he's being helpful by "taking out the trash" at the gallery or final destination, and 3.) a good point about shipping labels and sticky fingers ... a box labeled "textiles" or "second-hand fabric" is far less interesting than "quilt" or "artwork."

Do you have further advice based on your own trial, error and experience? I'm happy to continue adding amendments for everyone's benefit.

For more posts on how I do some things in my studio and art practice, check out the How To Category on the side bar of this blog.

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To wed.

*Resources

Some do’s and don’ts for storing a wedding gown:

One year ago on this blog:

Two years ago on this blog:

Alterations girl.

Finer.

A history of chaos.

How to box & ship a quilt (like a Swede).

So here's how to pack your quilt (maybe like a Swede):

Some tips:

The box:

Packaging:

Paperwork:

Shipping:

Amy Meissner

Subscribe

Follow

Categories

Archives

To wed.

*Resources

​Some do’s and don’ts for storing a wedding gown:

One year ago on this blog:

Two years ago on this blog:

Alterations girl.

Finer.

A history of chaos.

How to box & ship a quilt (like a Swede).

So here's how to pack your quilt (maybe like a Swede):

Some tips:

The box:

Packaging:

Paperwork:

Shipping:

Amy Meissner

Subscribe

Follow

Categories

Archives

Some do’s and don’ts for storing a wedding gown: