 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. *ResourcesIf 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):
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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.
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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."
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."
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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."
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."
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.
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.
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.
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. |  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.
Amy Meissner
Artist in Anchorage, Alaska, sometimes blogging about the collision of history, family & art, with the understanding that none exists without the other.
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