Dear Devon,   Arachne is an international lace treasure; intended to be a communication platform for lace makers everywhere.  I did not intend to be addressing only you and Elena the other day. I wrote to all who subscribe to Arachne (not Facebook and Instagram), hoping others would be encouraged to share lace news. We need a lot of lace reporters. Arachne is a good place to practice. News here can, with specific permission from the author, be adapted to appear in guild newsletters and bulletins. Editors are always looking for news. Our members should be reporting from many geographic areas, not just Northeastern America where you, Elena and I reside and the upper Mid-West, where Lorelei is located.  The U.S. has a huge population, of which there is a very low percentage of lace afficionados. When I beg for more lace reporters, I mean - what is happening lace-wise in other parts of this nation? It was encouraging today to hear from David Collyer. He will be visiting the Pacific Northwest in early 2019. The announcement did not come from the P.N., but from Australia. What else is happening in the U.S.? What is happening in California? The Mountain States? The Southwest? Central States? The South? Alaska? Hawaii? Puerto Rico? We should be inclusive - encouraging our entire nation to be represented in Arachne postings. Â
Friends in Europe have told me how quickly circumstances of a nation can change, and what can happen to museum collections and research libraries. Throughout history, smaller nations were overrun by armies in a matter of days. This put their historical relics in peril. Maps of the world changed substantially in the 20th C. due to major wars. Ask anyone from Eastern Europe how long it took to resume lace study when their nations needed their labors elsewhere, or were occupied by other nations with a controlling agenda. We know about the textiles of South Korea, but nothing about what may have been preserved in North Korea. (Those who attended OIDFA in Groningen The Netherlands, met a group of South Korean lacemakers. How many reading this know that?)  Weaponry today has the ability to wipe out large geographic areas. Major museum collections are in places that may be targets. Yes, perhaps information will be saved because of modern technology. However, will the actual works of art survive so our descendants can personally hold them, study them and write about them? Concentrating museums and libraries in rather small geographic areas is a dangerous custom about which we can have little influence. We can, however, learn about less-populated areas where there is lace, and less chance of destruction.  What you said about yourself and Elena is so good that I feel it is a perfect time to cut back.  There are many things to do, starting with finding my collections good homes for future lace educational use.  If you remember my laces, perhaps you can suggest safe places where they can go, to educate about history, the stories they tell, conservation/restoration of laces. This is how many laces here are used. Quote: This is an example of ..... 1) holes from micro-organisms eating lumps of potato starch and the underlying linen, 2) storage that has resulted in acidic off-gasing of wood pulp, severely weakening a textile, 3) visible replacement sections inserted to replace torn lace, 4) careless pressing, 5) mold/fungus, 6) lace where it is apparent more than one lacemaker created it - you can see different tension, workmanship, etc.  I sincerely hope you find more protegees, Devon. You never know when one will stray away to focus (as many have) on motherhood, or because of changing family/career circumstances. An old adage is - Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Think. How fragile are eggs? How fragile is our hold on our lace heritage?  Jeri Ames in Maine USA Lace and Embroidery Resource Center ---------------------------------------------------- In a message dated 5/10/2018 9:16:45 AM Eastern Standard Time, [email protected] writes: Jeri writes: The above is an illustration of how one of you might take over some lace news reporting, so I can cut back. I would like to reassure Jeri that in fact Elena and I do a great deal of lace news reporting, but it is invisible to those people without facebook or instagram. - 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/
