Gentle Spiders,
The John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin is holding
-- Jan21 thru May 20 -- an exhibition titled "Laced With History".
We've seen a couple reports from it here and you can read more about it
(with photos) in the latest IOLI Bulletin (so, subscribe to IOLI <g>).
I hope many of you will go to see the exhibition; we need to reinforce
the idea that lace is worth exhibiting and we can do it by attendance.
But, because I hope many of you will see it, I want to clear something
up.
In one of the early reports, someone mentioned seeing a piece of mine
at the Kohler. I never sent any but my Editor and friend Debra Jenny
was somewhat involved in organising the exhibition and she does have a
piece of my lace, so I didn't think much of it. It wouldn't have been
the first time that a personal gift ended up being exhibited somewhere
(I once even got a couple of ribbons from a competition I never sent
anything to <g>). I asked her and she said no, she didn't give the
piece to them but she had a guess ass to what happened. I let it go,
because, by the time we got things unscrambled, the original message
was a few days old and "stale".
But, today, I got a personal message congratulating me on "my pieces"
at Kohler, and I cannot stay silent anymore, because it would be most
dishonest.
The exhibition contains two pieces of wire lace which are called
"Tamara's Apple I" (Playing in Antwerp) and Tamara's Apple II" (Mechlin
Brocade). Those pieces were named after me (the story follows, below)
but they *were NOT* made by me. They were designed and made by SUSAN
LAMBIRIS, also an Arachnean (though far more quiet than I am) and whose
website -- which includes the pieces shown at the Kohler -- can be
found here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~slambiris/
Sue has coached me -- e-distance -- on making wire lace for the past 16
months or so and I've taken a class from her last spring but even if I
were as dedicated wire lace devotee as she is, I doubt I could *ever*
reach her proficiency (*do* look at the uniformity of the cloth stitch
in those pieces; it's unbelieveable). Nor am I interested in producing
museum-quality art pieces; I'm perfectly happy with being a "rude
mechanical", designing simple pieces which are easy for others to
reproduce.
Now, for the name of the pieces at the Kohler...
You know the story of Atalanta? Wikipedia has lots on her but the
relevant part is her race with her suitor, Hippomenes. If he outraced
her, she'd have to marry him; if she outraced him, he'd forfeit his
life. So he sought the help of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who
taught him a trick: she gave him thre apples made of gold and told him
to drop them as he ran. Atalanta got distracted by those; she stopped
and stooped to pick them up, which gave him just enough edge to win the
race, save his neck and win her hand in marriage.
That's where the name of Sue's pieces comes from... She knows I admire
her lace -- I have, in the past, comissioned some from her (if you
follow the "this separate page" link in the text under an Art Nouveau
piece, you'll get to a page called Bucks Baroque and Baroque Blazon --
or something like that. In the last picture, the blazon with the coral
"chain" and the earrings are now mine. And I own one of the "study"
pendants pictured with the Apples -- last photo on the main page). She
also knows that I am ruled by the snake in my pocket (it bites if I try
to reach into the pocket for money -- for those unfamiliar with the
Polish phrase)... So, she tried to create temptations/distractions,
which might be stronger than the snake's influence and which would make
me buy more -- Atalanta's/Tamara's Apples.
So far, the snake's winning. OTOH, there've only been two Apples :)
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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