I receive private memos often. They feed my desire to know what is happening in the lace community, and sometimes inspire memos that are sent to Arachne. A Pennsylvania friend has sent some interesting information, for which I have asked permission to share. The words are hers, unless they are identified as mine. 1. Here's a link to lace in the Philadelphia Museum of Art: http://bit.ly/229QEnT I found this particularly interesting because I contacted them in 2004 to schedule a field trip to see their lace collection. I had documentation that indicated that Philadelphia MoA had a 'sister' collection to the Metropolitan MoA collection. A curator, whom we later met at the 2005 Costume Society Conference we attended together, adamantly insisted the Philadelphia MoA had no lace collection. Now, it shows up 12 years later??!! 2. On another note, this past weekend I attended the Civilian Symposium, which provides a scholarly approach to the civilian side of the Civil War that you were asked to do the research for last year. Oh, my!! She obviously had no respect for lacemakers past or present, or their historical contribution. In fact, she was quite flip about the subject as a whole. She couldn't pronounce the names of the laces correctly. Her "expertise" at identifying lace was based on a few pieces in a collection that she was privy to, and she drew some seriously lacking conclusions, based on her 20th and 21st century perspective. I received a copy of her bibliography, which included Pat Earnshaw's books, but made no reference to Elizabeth Kurella's research. I was sitting beside a Civil War-era needlework expert - a scholar with knowledge of technique and history. She was appalled. Unfortunately, about 275 participants walked away with serious mis-information. (I, Jeri - recall not feeling I should do Civil War lace research for someone who obviously knew very little about lace, but was being promoted as an expert and probably receiving a speaking fee. I did not want my name to be quoted by a person I did not know. Sad, but I very much care what the public learns from us, and how they use it. The organization should have done more research into their speaker's qualifications.) In getting approval to share the original contents of information from my Pennsylvania friend, she added to the above paragraph: "I, too, care very much what the public learns, and I think this was a situation where this speaker mis-represented her expertise. There have been presenters from Old Bethpage Village in the past who were very credible, and I think she was riding on their coattails." 3. Here are links to 21st C. bobbins made with a 3D printer: https://www.youmagine.com/designs/lace-bobbins and https://www.youmagine.com/designs/openwork-decorative-lace-bobbin
Jeri Ames in Maine USA Lace and Embroidery Resource Center - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
