If you watch a 17 minute interview with Maggie Hensel-Brown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsO5wICsojY conducted by Angharad Rixon, proprietor of Textile Support and the genius behind The Doily Free Zone, you will see that she credits a class with Margaret Stephens with setting her off on her lace journey. I am featuring a series of three pieces of Maggieâs depicting unexceptional moments in the show Lace, not Lace, in New Jersey. These are based on the style of historic punto in aria such as the Judith and Holofernes lace in the Metropolitan Museum. Maggie is now making another series of works dealing with issues of the status of women. She has begun to incorporate, very cautiously, some color in the work. Her piece â Tripped up and strung up on a never ending stream of comments from strange menâ is probably best viewed on her Instagram account. But, it incorporates little male figures that reference ones often found in Italian needle lace.
So, in fact, young artists are learning the skills from traditionalists who preserve and teach them. In addition to that, although my sample is very small, I think that the new needle lacers may start out with larger, irregular stitches, impressionistically applied. But, as they develop, they tend to seek out more sophisticated techniques, looking at Catherineâs work and others, and to incorporate them, and also to improve their technique and regularize the tension. But, an interesting situation that I am encountering is that people who are not in the lace world already are more readily attracted to large pieces, and ones with irregular stitching because they can see what is happening in them. When there are exquisite small pieces that use the techniques perfectly and in a sophisticated way, members of the public tend to blank out and not even think about how the piece is made. Thus it becomes less interesting. It is sort of a situation where say, you are a person who has enjoyed seeing huge Roman mosaics, and then you see very small miniature Byzantine mosaics. You say, âWow, this is like a huge beautiful mosaic, but someone had the skill to make it minuteâ. Instead, in the lace world, you say about a large piece made in cord, or rope, âthis is fascinating in the way the threads move in and out in a complex fashion.â But when you see a small complex, intricate piece where you can barely see the threads moving in an out in complicated patterns, you say, âthis is like lace trim from the five and dimeâ. Challengesâ¦In a way, the public needs to learn about the techniques used in a simple way, before they can appreciate their use in a more complex way. Devon Sent from Mail for Windows 10 - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
