The 12th boxes of mystery.

The most amazing thing about the Inheritance Project (my little vintage linen crowdsourcing effort that just keeps growing and growing) is something I didn't quite realize would happen: I've made new friends all over the world and have re-connected with others I haven't seen or heard from in years, many of them artists. The textile arts community is broad and deep; even more vast are the people who feel strongly about passing on their embroidered/crocheted/tatted linens to someone who can appreciate them. No one likes to see these in heaps at the thrift store, but this is often where they go when younger family members don't want or don't have room for them. Our contemporary-always-aiming-for-spare lives don't allow for antimacassars on the arm chair and a doily beneath every lamp. Does anyone have time to dust, even?

My current work is exploring the use of these older, handmade and unwanted materials and I simply couldn't do it without the support of strangers, friends and family members. I am the current inheritor of these items and they will go on to live another life, ultimately culminating in an exhibition at the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center: Inheritance: makers. memory. myth. The Boxes of Mystery series of blog posts are the cataloging effort of all that I have inherited.

Here are the next three boxes:

My new friend from France.

If Nemours, France, sounds familiar to you it could be because of the massive flooding of the River Loing that started last Wednesday (this becomes the Seine 30 km from Nemours). I have exactly one acquaintance in France, Aude Franjou, and she happens to live in Nemours. One of the things I always tell my children when they are complaining is, "Things could always be worse." Perhaps this is something Aude has had to tell her own children this past week. Fortunately, they are all safe (despite quickly rising water and a terrifying rescue story), but the clean up effort in her village will be on a scale more massive than I can fathom.
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Aude is an installation artist who works with linen and hemp, creating organic forms that wrap thousands of times around a core, splitting and becoming larger -- often climbing -- configurations. They are evocative and primal, a study of plant-based forms and materials, with the physicality of the process still resonating in the end work. She is also a mother and balancer who understands that in the thick of the everyday one's art often has to take a back seat, but is never truly booted out of the brain. The hands, after all, still have to make.

I imagine she is as distracted as I am, sometimes frustrated, often questioning, but still compelled to do the work she is drawn to. Throw this flooding event into the picture, and know that she is being tested as well. My heart goes out to her. 

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"The forms I create are born out of the entwining of a fiber of hemp by threads of linen. The tension provided by the thread holds them together... the linen encircles each part of hemp a hundred times, and creates a petrified matter... To understand it, you have to touch it, to feel it, and sense knots, the crevices and the veins. You would be mistaken if you thought that this material is not alive: it becomes tender as the heat rises, and it tightens and becomes harder with the humidity of the night..."

Excerpt from Aude's artist statement.

Aude's "mysteries box from France."

"M" stamps for marking & embroidery.

Mark-making tools for embroidery design on domestic linens, circa end 19th c.

My sincere thanks to Aude for her Box of Mystery filled with individually wrapped items -- all crinkly brown paper and twine -- with hand written descriptions and explanations of each object. I cannot express how blown away I was that a stranger would take the time to send these things to me. Even more lovely is the fact that she is no longer a stranger. We have never met, but have corresponded many times now, especially this last week.
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Maker: Yvonne Engel, Origin: France, Circa: 1976

​I opened one small parcel every day for a week, even inviting a friend over to share the mysteries one afternoon. 

Maker: Unknown, Origin: France (purchased 5 years ago in a brocante), Circa: approx 1890-1900

Maker: Julie Bourrell, Origin: Bram, France, Circa: 1970-80

An additional letter from Aude with indigo sampling.

The cats come sniffing around when the linens get unpacked...all those new smells, after all.

Detail, embroidery on linen.

A length of initialed cotton trim.

I have a metal magnet that says, "ATTENTION CHAT LUNATIQUE," but alas, this is the extent of my grasp on the language despite Madame Lally's best efforts in high school. For all the rest of you who payed attention in French class (and were apparently a lot less distracted by the boy sitting behind you at age 14), you will enjoy watching Aude in the video below. I actually LOVE hearing Aude speak about her work and have listened to this about 5 times. My son finally looked at me and said, "Mom. You have no idea what she is saying."

​Right. Except in my heart, I think I do.

My friend from Pakistan.

My thanks to Shehla Anjum, long time writing friend here in Anchorage for passing on this embroidered tunic yoke and sleeve trim from Pakistan, which she's hung onto for 15-20 years. She and I met in graduate school (almost that long ago, now) and our paths continually cross and re-cross, most recently about a month ago when she invited me for lunch at her home. She thought this embroidery was emblematic of Phulkari stitching or Balochi embroidery (if anyone has any thoughts on this, I'd love to hear your opinion in the comments). A pre-embroidered yoke like this would be applied to a base fabric as trim.

Shehla visits Pakistan annually, often traveling to the Swat Valley to meet with women, many of them entrepreneurs, who are existing in a delicate, sometimes dangerous, set of situations. To read a piece she wrote about her correspondence with Malala Yousafzai, click here. The first time she ever spoke with Malala was in 2009, when the girl was 11. Here's where we can all be momentarily stunned at those few degrees of separation.

My friend from Texas, the flat coastal plain where the farmers grow rice.

Bobbe Shapiro Nolan has sent items to me in the past and I had the joy of meeting her in Philadelphia during a Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) conference (she is also a fiber artist, working in the quilt form -- be sure to visit her website). This tender little baby pillow came folded sweetly in an envelope with the following note:

“It felt wistful to me; babies who  never made it home, perhaps.  But no one ever knows at a garage sale, and the lady selling it gave no details. It could not have been precious to her, as she sold it for $1.”

​Many thanks for thinking of me, Bobbe. I, too, have a wistful emotion when I hold this tiny bit of cloth. We have such an intimate relationship with textiles -- we sleep in it, wear it, wrap our children in it -- sometimes we forget how connected we are to the objects, the wearers and makers.
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Maker: Unknown, Origin/Found: Texas, Circa: Unknown

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If you'd like to follow the Inheritance Project, you can do so on Instagram or Facebook with the hashtags #boxesofmystery and/or #inheritanceproject. Please contact me with questions.