I totally agree. I have perhaps or at least one of the largest number of Torchon lace patters that I sell at Biggins. After you have made your design and the lace its self so you know it has no problems, you have an item to sell for perpetuity. To make lace and to even charge 50p per hour the lace is either nearly given away or too expensive to buy except by the very rich. It isn't an art it is a beautiful craft as far as I am concerned. My long gone lace lace teacher, Pauline Robinson used to say " lace is for giving with love, not for selling" I have, over the years taught many, many people my craft. I used to tell them that each one of them had to bring into our craft at least one other new lacemaker. Vivienne
> On 23 Jul 2016, at 23:42, Marianne Gallant <[email protected]> wrote: > > I think this discussion is going in the wrong direction. We don't need > young 'artists' to continue the art of lacemaking. If you come right > down to it, it is not really an 'art form' like a painting you put on a > wall. It never really was, it was mainly something to decorate clothing > or household linens. It was more a beautification of a utilitarian item, > not something you hung on a wall. Yes there is some of that now made, > but it wasn't considered an art form that could be collected, or that > increased in value. > What we need is to encourage young people to study lace and become > designers or teachers. Publish patterns, write books, but going in the > direction of making it into an art form, and make a living out of just > making items is not going to work. Really, most ordinary people don't > spend money on these kind of things, unless they want some handmade lace > to add to a wedding veil, or a christening gown. Even there, most of the > time it is machine made lace that gets used (think royal wedding gowns). > But you can make a living by designing patterns and selling them. And > even there you can go the 'artistic' route, but to try and make a living > selling finished lace items is just not an option, most art is bought by > very rich people who could care less about a lace item, or it is an art > installation put up by a big company or a government. But those things > are rare, and not something where as an artist you can make money. > Really, to replace the people that we are losing, we need designers and > teachers, not 'artists'. And we should not be letting them think they > can make money selling their creations, but they can by selling the > patterns. Knitters, crocheters, quilters and for that matter tatters > don't make a lot of money selling their finished products, I hear them > all complaining that people don't want to 'pay' for labour, often not > even enough for the materials. But they have no problem selling the > patterns, and/or writing books. It just takes too many hours to create > and item, which means you can't get even minimum wage for your labour. > > *Marianne* > > Marianne Gallant > Vernon, BC Canada > [email protected] > http://threadsnminis.blogspot.ca, https://www.facebook.com/GallantCreation/ > > - > 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/ - 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/
