Last week I received two parcels filled with vintage linens for my project. This work is without a name, which isn't unusual since titles often don't come until I'm deep in the process, but it would be helpful to refer to it as "The (insert brilliant title here) Project." I sometimes call it "The (expletive-expletive) Mouths," which they sort of are, but this project is more than kinky body reference and me being annoyed that I can't totally immerse myself in this one yet (also -- can you believe it -- "The Scream" is already taken. Drat). This project, like much of my work, is about voice and reverence, the created and the discarded. It's about history and narrative and distance and time and effort, it's about what is beautiful and what is hideous. And why. It's about work and process and destruction and rebirth. I've been meditating on it as I fall asleep each night, sure that by morning the Muse will have whispered a name in my ear, but so far she's silent. And this is fitting, because right now the items I'm collecting and the old handmade things women have sent all remain silent as well. When you are a discarded thing, perhaps you become this way. Maybe you give up your voice, or lie dormant, or close your eyes and die. I've written about spirits dwelling within objects before. This project is going to rattle them awake. But first they are finding their way to me. And we are receiving them with great curiosity and joy. All the smells of lives lived and meals cooked, all the energy and spirit of the women who have made these things, all the lurid and the vivid and the obscure spilled into the room the night we opened this parcel from my Swedish artist friend Boel Werner. It's her second shipment to Alaska. I think she's having fun. These are Swedish grytlappar -- very fancy cotton crocheted oven mitts and hot pads. Have they been used? A few of them, but most look pristine. As my good friend Oona always says: Save the best for never. Some are created with layered doilies, some incorporate 3-dimensional flowers. Others ... they are completely ridiculous. And charming. And from such a different era, constructed with leftover bits of this or that. But the strangest discovery within the two latest parcels of mystery, was finding that the most "authentic-looking" Swedish grytlapp didn't come from Boel's shipment, but from the one my friend and fellow textile artist Roxanne Lasky sent. You know, from the Scandinavian hinterlands of South Carolina. Roxanne was beyond pleased with her bad self when she found this in a charity thrift shop. Can you blame her? Of course, we don't know if it truly originated in Sweden, or if it was really made in 1940, but I'm 99% sure. We think it's commemorative, so if anyone knows more about this, I'd love to have that information. (My daughter, age 7, below: also pleased with her bad self. Of course you should make a rainbow. Of course.) I hesitate to reveal the second item of interest that Roxanne was also pleased to send, because this is, after all, a family-friendly blog. However, it's just too hilariously crass to not share here: Whoa. Just, whoa. My 9-year old boy, mind blown, said: "Mom. Why would somebody ... make that?" Indeed. Luckily there are plenty of outhouses in Alaska (and that, my friends, is not an open invitation to send more toilet seat covers, I'm officially cutting that off), however I have other big plans for this item. But back to these oven mitts for a second: I've been told the Brits call these "pan rests." So, what do you call them? The language is the other emerging piece to this project that feels vital, so please comment and let me know where you're writing from. If you are new to this blog and wondering what in the world is going on here and why my home is overrun with doilies and toilet seat covers and why my husband is throwing up his hands every time he opens the mailbox, please pour yourself a cup of tea and check out a little backstory: Box of mystery. A second box of mystery. A third box of mystery. Splitting open the idea. If you, too, would like to contribute to this effort, please contact me and I will send further specifics. And lastly, a year ago I wrote this post: Better. It's a good one. I should probably re-read it.
15 Comments
Amy
12/10/2015 07:40:22 am
I'm enjoying the progress of your process. I call them pot holders - I started out in Pennsylvania and am now in Virginia by way of Massachusetts, South Carolina, Georgia and Venezuela (I didn't cook much there so I don't know what they're called there...). As I looked at your work this question popped into my head: Why is a woman's voice too hot to handle?
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12/11/2015 08:43:53 am
Amy,
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12/11/2015 04:21:58 am
Down here in Texas, we just call them pot holders. I love seeing all these versions. Keep showing.
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12/11/2015 08:32:55 am
Hello Sharon,
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love how this gathering looks deep into the heart of one of the big sticking points with working with cloth as a medium, how the ordinariness of the materials & processes can marginalize ourselves and our art... & why we choose to do this? how often in interviews with fibre & textile artists the work is differentiated from the past by saying "this is not what your grandmother or auntie does"... and yet it is... you are asking the big questions with the development of this body of work
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12/12/2015 06:56:51 am
Mo,
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12/12/2015 11:48:17 am
Hi Amy!!
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12/12/2015 02:21:15 pm
Elizabeth,
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Elizabeth Woodford
12/15/2015 06:40:58 am
Each time I work with a vintage piece no matter where the source I think about the women who created the work and how they took great pride in their work. It becomes extra meaningful when I know the provenance of the piece. For example I made little fabric Christmas trees out of worn Swedish, red and white linen, dishtowels. the were towels that my grandmother brought with her from Sweden and that we had always used to dry our dishes. that takes me to cooking alongside this wonderful woman and now I see the towels which were used till they were practically transparent , and sporting some holes. sitting on my mantel! All of my family now have several of these trees in their collections of decorations. Honoring the past and inspiring people to create with their hands with whatever they have, is my goal in life. When we create we empower ourselves and we create rather than destroy!
Kate
12/14/2015 11:51:58 pm
Amy, I'm thoroughly enjoying your thought process; why women have always had the need to make things, both on a practical and emotional level.... a need to be occupied perhaps?(Oh the irony, as if we weren't already fully occupied!). I'm really interested in the emotional and cultural reasons, and I know that you are researching and questioning this thoroughly.
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12/15/2015 05:55:29 am
Kate,
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Holly Hudson
3/4/2017 12:24:25 pm
pot holders, too. grew up in eastern Pennsylvania. I am 60 & have lived in Richmond, VA for the last 15 years....and now am Giggles or MorMor to 4 grandsons. I have been taking a series online embroidery classes from Brit, Karen Ann Ruane; she often uses vintage textiles. Since 2015, I have rescued many "wounded kitchen textiles"...hankies, embroidered tablecloths, napkins and bureau top linens. Some in a current class with Karen has invited us to read your wonderful story.
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3/6/2017 10:38:47 am
Thank you for reading and sharing your experience, Holly! I, too, had a Mormor and my mother is now Mormor to my children. I'm thrilled that my name was passed on to you from Karen's class and hope you'll enjoy following this little project.
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Amy MeissnerArtist in Anchorage, Alaska, sometimes blogging about the collision of history, family & art, with the understanding that none exists without the other. Categories
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