Alex Would I be correct in concluding from this that you favor the âBuffalo Wingsâ school of thought on this? Buffalo Wings is a term that makes no sense, but everyone knows what it is. (Buffalo Wings are a comestible consisting of chicken wings with a spicy sauce, which may or may not have originated in Buffalo, NY) Should I put you in the âPoint dâAngleterreâ column? One problem with Leveyâs nomenclature is that she says âIn general, therefore, the names used in this book are tied as tightly as possible to the known factsâ¦â As in Alexâs research, we are getting new facts all the time and some of them are crazy. For instance, Levey deals with the fact that people in Bedfordshire were making Maltese lace. But, now we know that people in Saxony were making Maltese lace complete with little Maltese crosses. Would it be too much of a stretch to say that when it comes to fashion laces they were making everything everywhere? It is totally unfortunate that so many technique names like Milanese are location related. Another issue I have found is that do you label the technique Milanese if the piece seems to have been made in Flanders, something you surmise from the thread and the fillings? In cataloguing the collection of the Cooper-Hewitt, they took the approach of categorizing entirely on the basis of structure, so that you have categories like âneedle lace, hexagonal groundâ. This was adapted from the curatorâs observation that there was no way that he could tell where something was made. But, this was also an imperfect approach. I myself went into the museum wishing to see Point de France and it took a bit of cogitating between me and the collections manager to figure out which of the categories this fit into. We do have collectors, dealers and makers who come into the museum. Often they have been reading sources on the internet which tend to predate 1923, the US copyright free date. So, words like Alencon, rather than merely a structural description are often on their tongues. Devon
Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Alex Stillwell Sent: Saturday, April 1, 2017 7:01 AM To: Arachne reply Cc: [email protected] Subject: [lace] Point d'Angleterre or Brussels bobbin lace Re: From: <[email protected]> Subject: [lace] Point d'Angleterre or Brussels bobbin lace When I wrote my Illustrated Dictionary of lacemaking I had many problems like this and spent many hours thinking about them. Finally I came to the conclusion that the bottom line is that words are a form of communication and that what we say or write is correctly interpreted by the recipient. Different words have been used for the same variety of lace at different times, in different countries, in different communities in the same country and whether the name is used by a lacemaker, who knows the intimate structure of the lace, a dealer, who is trying to sell it or a collector who may know little about either but thinks she does. Also, many laces have been made in many towns, places and countries apart from the one from which the lace derived it,s name. We cannot ascribe any piece to a particular town or region unless there is direct evidence. Sometimes design can be an indicator and sometimes techniques, but even these can be unreliable. Researching Bucks point I have found almost all the techniques, in the excellent OIDFA book on Point Ground Laces, in pieces in the Lace Guild Collection, most of which would have been made in England. At best the names of the different laces should be treated as generic and not a statement of where the lace had been made. I have recently been researching a well known lace with an astounding result that I will be releasing in the May edition of the Lace Society magazine. It shows how little we can be sure of regarding the areas in which lace was made and how much research needs to be done. Happy lacemaking Alex - 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/
