Don't know how this -- what looks like a part of a private
correspondence -- wound its way onto Arachne, but I find the subject
fascinating and am grateful for the mysteries of the e-space which made
it public :)
On Jul 28, 2007, at 12:12, Aurelia Loveman wrote:
I keep thinking about this all the time. Technique and Design.
Technique and Design. One without the other, and all you've got is
virtuosity, not a real plunge into the current current.
and:
What you say about wire lace is very much to my point. Just because
the wire medium is new (or unconventional?) isn't enough to make a
wire piece "modern." Something about the design has to have been
propelled into existence out of the stringencies of wire technique. So
far, all the wire lace I've seen (not very much, as yet) seems to have
derived from thread lace patterns.
Yes, well... In part, that's because people who make lace with wire,
come to wire from thread lace-making. They use wire because they're
searching for a particular behavioural characteristic (stiffness, or
sleekness, or no need to wash and starch), but the basics of techniques
they'd learnt do carry over from the "previous life". People who come
to wire lace from the other side -- they're used to wire but need to
learn the lacemaking techniques -- tend to give up even quicker;
forcing the fiber into submission via soldering is easier/quicker than
mastering the tricks of lacemaking techniques.
And it doesn't help when one of the best (currently practicing)
wire-lacemakers (Susan Lambiris) keeps insisting on "marrying" the two
media (anything thread can do, wire can too), instead of focusing on
their *differences* :)
From a later message:
We lacemakers seem to have learned to think small, indeed to think
tiny. Flower-petals; a leaf here and there. How did that happen?
For me, the minuteness of lace and its intricacy is the inherent charm
of it :) If it's small, it makes you stop and really concentrate on
detail; if it's big, it's more obvious, less mysterious. The -- by now
famous -- "lace fence" with Brugge flowers in it is cute, and I'd love
to have it instead of the plain one I now have, but... I'd get it for
"here lives a lacemaker" value, not for any other reason (beauty,
clever workmanship, etc)
And, of course, there's the matter of pliability, at least when working
with wire; if the wire is fine enough to make intricate/detailed things
with it, then making something large enough to fit in with the "current
current" would take a lifetime. If it's fence-thick, then the detail --
and a lot of the excitement -- is lost (for me, anyway).
We lacemakers have to stop thinking of our lace as auxiliary (a mat
under a teacup; an edging for a nightgown). That is going to take lots
of time; lots of shows; items in the newspaper (quick! before
newspapers all vanish!); and the courage to think of ourselves as
artists.
You have two problems here.
One is that lace, traditionally, "belongs" in the *applied* arts
category -- with the porcelain, silverware, jewelry, furniture etc. The
best examples of those can be stunningly beautiful but, unlike
paintings and sculpture, they were never meant to be *just* admired;
they were meant to be used. Some of them ended up in the museums or as
display items in people's homes, but that wasn't the original intent of
the artisan who'd crafted them in the first place.
The second problem -- at least from my POV -- is that, if one thinks of
oneself as an artist (rather than an artisan), one is intentionally
creating items which are unique. To be admired, but not copied. And,
not necessarily perfect technically, either, because the imperfections
could be judged to be a part of the uniqueness.
And that way lies the extinction of modern (in the sense of "hobby")
lacemaking, I think. Because, if each item is a unique piece of art,
what's the motivation to learn the necessary *skills* going to be? And
without skilled lacemakers -- who can appreciate a level of
"craftiness" above their own -- who's going to pay much attention to
the "lace art"?
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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