08.04.08
Posted in Samplers, Historical at 3:02 pm by deRomilly
Now I am not a sampler historian. Until I discovered 17th and 18th century samplers I didnt’ care for them much at all, actually. I hate stitching words in cross stitch or backstitch, and just can’t wrap my head around the little pastoral houses with oversized dogs and cats in the yard. I dislike the “primitive” style intensely on a personal level. I loved Thea Dueck and Just Nan’s samplers, but couldn’t see myself hanging them on the wall once I’d finished stitching them. What to do, what to do?
Then I discovered the historic band sampler and the spot motif sampler, and all the ones in between that combine the best of both worlds and kajillions of different stitches. I was hooked. Basically what this, combined with osme of my other tendencies underscores, is that if it happened before 1800 I’m much more likely to be interested in it. <grin>
Samplers and the motifs you find on them have a bit ofa torrid affair with historians. Just about everyone who gets involved with studying them wants to know the history and meaning of each individual motif.
I fear this has become a bit of a game. You find cats defined as quick-witted, but also as lazy. When I put a cat into my work, I’m much more likely to be thinking of my furry baby at home than about some deep symbolic meaning of the motif. (English majors do the symbology thing too… even though Poe has written countless letters stating that “The Bells” was nothing more than an excercise in rhythm and rhyme, the English departments all insist we dig out whatever meaning we can from it.) As my heart-sister says, “Sometimes a cat in a flowerpot is just a cat in a flowerpot.”
That said, there ARE some overarching archetypes. However, these are often nationality, or even region-specific. We see crowns in the samplers of monarchists families under Cromwell. Some German samplers have coats of arms or crests related to their region of origin that crop up. Dutch samplers often have stylized tulips.
I think rather than symbolic, most sampler motifs are either regional or just something the stitcher liked. The historical pattern books like Scholyker’s Scholehouse for the Needle don’t assign meanings to each little design. Many of the symbols developed out of older symbology, especially in Eastern Europe.
But although people have loved including secret messages in their lives (language of flowers, language of fans, symbols in samplers), even if a meaning was intended we would need to be using the same dictionary as the maker to interpret it correctly. There are as many Victorian dictionaries of flower meanings as there are flowers, all different. And, as different meanings for motifs crop up almost daily — finding the one true dictionary seems to me to be so close to impossible that it becomes irrelevant.
So I’ll continue to stitch historic samplers, but I’ll also continue to design my own. Find what symbology in them as you will: I’m not putting it there intentionally!
Other links of interest:
And that should probably keep you busy for a while!
I’d love to hear your views on samplers and sampler motifs…
Permalink
07.19.07
Posted in Historical, General at 9:55 am by deRomilly
Something I am working on is Wild Abandon. This is a problem for me in two completely different ways. First, I tend to have WAAAAY too much of it when I am performing. Saqra once said in a workshop that you shouldn’t give the audience all of yourself in a performance: they know and still want more. The ballet tradition I come from, being less intimate, requires you to give your all (without appearing to). This is a problem for me in raqs sharqi, because I can burn out, and the point, for the most part, is control. Add this to the excercise-induced asthma, and I can kill myself in a 3 minute routine if I’m not careful. And I’m often not careful. Don’t die onstage, but as soon as I get off I collapse wheezing. Not conducive to extended living.
On the other hand, my stitching designs tend to the elegant and reserved. Sometimes this is construed as not having as much depth as it could. At others it’s construed as elegant! 
Finding a balance in this is my challenge. Hence the Sumptuous Surfaces class. I’ve always admired Sharon B’s deep, extravagent layers of embroidery on her work. (I even drink my coffee at work out of one of her limited edition mugs…I love it so much!) Somehow, though, I haven’t been able to break through the very elegant satin stitch and smooth couched gold that I discovered in the Chinese textiles exhibit that the University of Oregon’s museum of art has on display and in their vaults. I fell in love with the Ch’ing dynasty’s Imperial embroideries, and everything I do seems to reflect this. I want to add more European Baroque to my repertoire.
So. Now you know my two goals for this year: one in dance, and one in stitching. Keep me honest, will you? The final design is finished for the class piece, and I’ll get it photographed and uploaded as soon as I can get to my camera (the heart-sister borrowed it to take pictures of pseudo-nephew’s volcano erupting…)
Permalink
06.21.07
Posted in Historical, General at 1:25 pm by deRomilly
Old needlework patterns: the collecting of, the attempted stitching of, and the storage of, are going to be the death of me. I know this because my pseudo-sister points this out every so often (people with like stashes have to keep each other in line, you know. My husband is very gracious about my stash, so long as I’m equally gracious about his. It’s a good system!)
But the needlework patterns. Oh dear. I have issues of Cross Stitch and Country Crafts back to 1988. I am slowly collecting the entire line of facsimile Weldon’s books. I’ve got the Weldon’s Encyclopedia, printed in the 1930s, a gift from a dear friend. I have old Theresa Wentzler patterns (some still hand-drawn charts) that have been gathering dust since the dates on the Cross Stitch and Country Crafts mags were purchased. I’ve got needlework magazines that don’t exist any more, and needlework magazines that do. I would LOVE to collect sajous ( As much as I love them all, this has got to stop. I haven’t looked at some of these in over a decade, except to pack them for a move!)
To that end, I’m having a culling. Some of these magazines have rare patterns in them that people want. Some of them are just taking up space.
Some of them aren’t going anywhere: My Weldon’s leave my studio over my dead body. Same for my copy of Schuette’s Embroidery (mine’s in French. If you really want a copy, there’s a French online bookstore that still offers it http://alapage.fr/ (Enter Schuette broderie in the search box and click Rechercher). You have to navigate a French site to get it, though.) Used English copies go for over $600. This one is about 50 Euros.
I’m packaging the magazines up in nice little one-year bundles and put them up on Ebay. You’ll find them starting Monday under my username, deromilly. (Oh, my husband’s culling his Science Fiction magazines as well! We want our wall and shelf-space back.)
PS. At some point soon my rubber stamp collection is going, too — most of them aren’t angel companies, so I can’t use them in my art, so I am culling entire hobbies!
Permalink
06.18.07
Posted in Historical, "Freestyle" embroidery, General at 10:56 am by deRomilly
Embroidered book bindings, when I hear the words “Embroidered book bindings,” I tend to immediately think of the book embroidered by Elizabeth and given to Katherine Parr. And, of course, that is the most famous.
The British Library has a Guide to Embroidered book bindings, and images of the bindings online to view . Well worth the time to snoop around them. Very very pretty. To get the best results from the binding search page, search for “embroidered” rather than “embroidery.”
Project Gutenberg has a book on embroidered bookbindings that was printed in 1899. The illustrations were not transcribed into the online copy, but there are detailed descriptions of the objects illustrated. In addition, if you download the html version, the plates are reproduced within it.
However, embroidered book bindings were extremely popular in the 17th century. The blog Mindsigh has a post on these embroidered bindings…
Then, of course, there’s the fact that one of my best friends was/is a bookbinder. I remember well the time in college that she did an embroidered book binding for an art assignment — it didn’t go together very easily and as frustrated as she was at the time, I’m surprised our then-roommate survived when she told her –but it will be so pretty when it’s done! I, also, made the mistake of pointing out that the roommate was just trying to help. If it helps, 15 years later, it WAS beautiful when it was finished! I wonder if that book still exists?
Permalink