Odds and Ends

A little while back (on October 2), I wrote about a postcard I have from a soldier at Camp Sherman.  I wasn't sure then if the card was sent before the deadly influenza outbreak influenza outbreak at the camp - I have confirmed that the outbreak began in September.  I have not yet tried to find more about the card's sender, I only have a partial name due to the wear on the edges of the card.  This is something I plan on investigating soon, so stay tuned for more details!

The past few days have been a bust as far as sewing or other creativity.  I am looking into making zipper flowers, as recently acquired a small stash of vintage metal zippers.  The zippers and a whole bunch of other sewing notions came out of this nifty little antiques show find, thanks to my mom:

This is the third diptych style sewing caddy that we have.  They are turning out great to have for keeping threads and embellishments together by project.  They still take up a bit of room when folded, measuring about 18 X 30 X 5."  I am envisioning creating a space for them somewhere to line them up like books on a shelf.  These sub-collections within collections are getting out of hand...

Latest Adventures, Having Fun

Can anyone blame me for not wanting to sit in front of my computer when I've had a week like this?  First, this is the week of the annual Route 40 Yard Sales.  I took a day off from work on Wednesday, rain dampened the four days of the event, but I found a couple of astounding late 1800s scrapbooks.  Here is a sample of the treasures in them:

I am a casual collector of paper ephemera, I never thought that I would find anything like these.  They have a bit of everything, calling cards (social media, 1800s style), advertising cards, newspaper clippings, and embossed and printed cut outs that were sold just for scrapbooks.  The newspaper clippings are mostly social news columns for rural communities near where I live.  Notice the date in the above image, but I don't know who MSL was, I have not found a full name with those initials yet.  One of the scrapbooks goes to World War I, with clippings about local residents in the war effort. 

In between everything else, it is tomato planting time again:

Finally, I tried something new this year and went to a produce auction to get a stash of locally grown. strawberries to freeze for the year ahead:

I have usually been able get strawberries from local Amish farmers selling from the roadside, but I have not been in the right place at the right time this year.  They must all be taking their produce to the auction, so I will be buying there from now on.  I simply cannot eat grocery store strawberries anymore, they are picked when underripe to survive shipping, and strawberries do not continue to ripen once they are picked - sour and tart tasting.  The local berries are right on ripe, so sweet and delicious.  I am looking forward to strawberry cake, strawberry milkshakes, strawberry shortcake, strawberry bread...

What is Art Worth? Part One

What is art worth to you?  This could be addressed in a multitude of ways: cultural, emotional, financial.  Right now, I am referring to the money worth of art.  Not the elite objects that are enshrined in museums, I want to focus on the art and fine craft made by the many creative individuals that produce and sell for the most part on a local or regional basis and travel around to sell their work directly to buyers. 

I returned this year to two art sales fairs that I attended regularly some 20+ years ago: the Boston Mills Art Fest and Winterfair.  I was inspired by both shows, and they confirmed my thoughts that I if work hard at what I love, I could eventually support myself with my creative endeavors.  However, some other recent incidents that I have observed make me concerned for the future of the local arts markets. 

These two ceramic boxes were made by Rob Wiedmaier,  The one on the right, I purchased from the artist at Boston Mills in the early 1990s.  The one on the left, I rescued from an estate auction earlier this year.  I do not recall the purchase price of my original box.  I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I bought the other one for all of two dollars.  (By the way, Mr. Wiedmaier, if you happen to see this, I treasure both of these lovely boxes!)

This black walnut bowl, made by a local woodworker, was purchased recently at a local benefit for a school.  The high bid was only $15, and sadly, plastic made-in-China toy trucks (likely from a certain national discount retailer) were selling for over $70 each.  How did this happen?  Why aren't the handcrafted, one-of-a-kind items; crafted locally with skill and love, valued more?

To be continued...

Odd and Ends

Oh my, there really is a random acts of art movement!  I mentioned the concept in my last post, not knowing that this was a "thing."  Even though I'd love to sell my work (I need the money!), I really like the idea of encouraging future artists and collectors by leaving original art trading cards, postcards or bookmarks for others to find. 

Earlier this week, I had a great time with my art journaling group, making artist trading cards.  Enough cards were made so that we all had a card from everyone else.  The group is continuing, but is was a nice way to have a memento from each participant.  I love the cards I that received, and will always treasure them.  This has been my first real stint at teaching, and I think that is has gone well.  I have learned just as much as the rest of the group, and I am pleased that we are inspiring each other.

Going off in another direction, I had some more auction success this past weekend:

Yes, I have a problem with fancy hankies!  This is part of a bunch of 311 vintage hankies that I bought.  Most of them will go into the resale stash, but I am going to make things with them too.  I have to have samples of projects for the stuff I sell.  These are too pretty to keep hidden in boxes and dresser drawers.  This winter I will be making several fabric collages with hankies.  Keep checking back for my progress...

Auction Wins and Losses

Astonishingly, my sickly, blight-stricken tomato plants are continuing to produce beautiful fruit.  I've been canning more sauce for the winter, while gazing out at a goldenrod, Joe-Pye-Weed and ironweed filled meadow that will have to wait for another year to be simmered with silk and wool to create lovely colors.

I slipped out to the local junk auction last night, and came home with some more vintage damask linens to dye.  I was outbid on a handful of lovely doilies and a generous fat quarter of vintage bark cloth.  I have my limits on bidding, and even though I really wanted the doilies and bark cloth more than anything else on my list last night, I did not want to pay much.  I keep getting outbid or just making dumb decisions on bark cloth and vintage printed feed sack cloth.  Twice in the last three years, I have found a large box of uncut feed sacks, only to leave each auction before they even started because I didn't want to sit through half a day for one box of stuff.  Of course, the boxes might have gone for far more then I could have paid, I don't know.

So here are five things I really want to find in the waning auction season this year:

1. Bark cloth
2. Feed sacks
3. Wooden ironing boards
4. Elna model 50 sewing machine (the "Grasshopper")
5. A really good deal!

Scrapbooks and Ephemera, Conclusion

Hopefully, I have enlightened my readers about two fascinating collectors, Theodore Langstroth and Joseph Cornell.  I have good reasons for spending so much time on them in this textile art blog.  First, the odd subject-specific scrapbooks and dossiers are perfect illustrations of how one can find creative inspiration just about anywhere.  If you are looking for ideas, consider things that you love and look at what you have chosen to surround yourself with at home.  Make a list of people, living or not, whom you would find interesting to meet.  What countries fascinate you, what regions of your own country interest you?  What is your town known for?  What has been forgotten about it that people might want to know?  What mundane objects in your life deserve more attention?

Memories of past road trips, before interstates.  There is an art quilt idea here...

I know that not everyone is a collector of stuff.  Many of us want to get rid of stuff.  This leads to another reason why I profiled Langstroth and Cornell.  I'm beginning to believe that a good bit of what we throw in the trash, someone might be in need or want of elsewhere.  I am constantly amazed at the prices some people pay for things at the junk auction that I would have tossed out.  Yes, a lot of trash is just trash, but I wonder how much money gets thrown away each week in the way of objects that others would pay to have.  Not only am I thinking of the cultural heritage that is being thrown out, but potential aesthetic creation.  As I have described before, I use re-purposed vintage textiles in my dyeing and fabric collages.  I'm working on some craft workshop ideas where I work that will re-purpose select trash items, so this whole theme is on my mind quite a bit.  I could go on and on with this, but I should work on securing some compact discs that no longer play.

The Little Things in Life

I got quite sidetracked by the New Year's preparations and celebration, though we celebrate rather quietly compared to most - a weekend with family, lots of food, and doing things we enjoy.  For me, that included sewing, of course.  Some progress was made on the fabric collage that I've been discussing, it will reappear next week.  Today, I have just a short list of five things that I like.

1. My Elna Model 50 sewing machine, from 1951.

2. the "Anvil Chorus," from Verdi's Il Trovatore

3. Peanut Whirligig cookies (homemade)

4. Fiesta Ware colors

5. The Cretan stitch

Find delight in what you have around you.

Scrapbooks and Ephemera, Part Two

Ephemera n.  1. Anything short-lived or transitory.  2. Such things collectively: a writer of ephemera.  3. Items, as pamphlets, notices and tickets, originally intended to be of use for only a short time, especially when preserved as collectibles.  (Random House Webster’s College Dictionary,  1991)

I want to bring to light a little about Theodore Langstroth in regards to scrapbooks.  Langstroth assembled his scrapbooks in 1975-1978, after retiring from a career as a dye chemist, spending the bulk of his adult life in Cincinnati, Ohio.  He must have collected material for his scrapbooks long before his retirement, and also must have had great connections in order to secure the paper and images in his stash.  Read more about him here, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County has most of his scrapbooks.  Some images from his scrapbooks may be seen here.

A few of Langstroth’s scrapbooks reside elsewhere, I had the good fortune to catalog a few of his scrapbooks for a former employer.  While researching his life back then, I discovered the insightful observation that Langstroth saved whatever needed saving.  He latched onto subjects that no one else thought were significant.  Now, these collections are treasure troves of information.  He collected not only subjects such as color lithography, art on stamps, Price and Bonnelli's Greater New York Minstrels Showboat, the Boss Washing Machine Company and the use of flags on envelopes in the Civil War; he also collected items on individual people: Hiram Powers (sculptor), Blondin, the hero of Niagara Falls, artist Fannie Manser and Joseph Boggs Beale.  Not exactly household names anymore…

Information on Langstroth from John Fleischman, “The Labyrinthine World of the Scrapbook King,” Smithsonian Magazine, Feb. 1992.

Next time, I’ll introduce you to Joseph Cornell before I tie all of this together.

Scrapbooks, Part One

If you’ve been a frequent reader here, you’ve likely noticed my fascination with bits and pieces – scraps.  Not just scraps of fabric, but scraps gleaned from research projects, bits from the lives of others (my auction addiction) and so on.                        

               

I have a great appreciation for antique scrapbooks from the late 1800s and early 1900s, having had the opportunity to view some stellar examples in a couple of libraries where I used to work.  I have not really jumped into the contemporary scrapbooking trend, though I do have a couple of sketchbooks in which I keep clippings from assorted sources for creative inspiration.  Assembling a scrapbook of this nature is a great way to have a steady source of ideas in one place.  The creative-type scrapbook is also a way to condense piles of magazines.  Pull out the articles you want, (making sure to note the title and date), get rid of the rest.  Don’t be afraid to add anything else that inspires you: advertising graphics, literary or music quotes, names of artists to study, whatever strikes your fancy!

Earlier this year, I acquired a box lot of paper ephemera that was definitely the remains of a disassembled late 1800s scrapbook.  At that time, “chromolithography, die cutting and embossing unleashed a flood of cheap, brightly colored scrap [commercially printed paper],” made specifically for the scrapbooking hobby then.  (John Fleischman, “The Labyrinthine World of the Scrapbook King,” Smithsonian Magazine, Feb. 1992.)

Personally, I think that the 1800s printed scrap papers are much better in quality and innovation than the scrapbook papers churned out today.  That said, most of the 1800s scrapbooks that I have come across at the antiques shops and markets are just page after page of litho pictures, nothing else.  Rare is the one that has a clear theme and/or includes text of any sort. 

I picked up these small volumes at an outdoor market this year. 

They consist entirely of newspaper and magazine articles on a single subject.  The dealer had a large boxful of them.  I selected volumes titled Color, Wool, Textiles, Vegetables and Fruit.  Sadly, most of the articles lack a source and date, but from the few dates that I found in them, the books were assembled between 1920 and 1957.  They are a fascinating insight into the midcentury decades, and I love the idea of keeping personal groups of related articles.

These little scrapbooks raise many unanswerable questions though.  Did the individual who made them intend for them to say something about that person after they passed on, or were they solely intended for their maker’s lifetime?

Later on, I will profile two tremendous collectors of ephemera: Joseph Cornell and Theodore Langstroth.

More Cigarette Silks

In an earlier post this year, I lamented the lack of cigarette silks in my collection of vintage textiles.  I have corrected that now, with this recent antiques mall find:

This is an unfinished project, done in the crazy quilt assembly style.  Most of the pieces are true cigarette silks, printed with flags of various nations.  The silks are larger than the two that I have already, these are about 3 X 4".  Two pieces are commemorative ribbons from social club events with a European ancestry requirement.  These identical ribbons are dated 1927, and I have no idea yet what language they are imprinted with... will have to investigate "Kesajuhlet."  The world of old social clubs and secret societies is a whole areal of study on their own, a fascinating study.... for someone else!

The silks are machine sewn to a piece of muslin backing, then lengths of satin ribbon were machine sewn over the seams,  The maker hand stitched over almost all of the ribbon with a herringbone stitch.  What I want to know (and never will) is why the yellow herringbone stitching on the top horizontal row stops half way across, and why four of the silks are upside down.

What is fun for me is making connections with these vintage objects,  I'll never know the maker or the answers to the above questions, but I am certain that the hand stitches are done in Glossilla Rope embroidery cording ("Brighter than Silk").  I found a stash of new-old-stock Glossilla at a recent quilt show:

I have found it to be impossible to pull through regular cotton fabric, but it works well for couching or for the weaving thread in whipped and threaded back and running stitches.  Someday soon I will try it through silk.

More Auction Treasures

If you are looking for creative inspiration, there is so much in your own community.  This past weekend for me was chock full of local history.  I attended an estate sale and an estate auction and came away with more knowledge of the area I now call home and some great future art project ideas. 

                                      

The first sale yielded a small collection of gravestone rubbing how-to books and supplies, among other items.  Old cemeteries are a great source for local history and genealogy, and potential places to observe folk art stone carving.  I have already been well acquainted with incorporating gravestone carving into my own art, first in ceramics, and now making crayon rubbings on fabric.  This is a printed vintage tablecloth, pulled out of the weekly junk auction, covered in a collage of gravestone rubbings:

Image copyright RPS, please do not pin or re-post

The auction was the estate of a couple who had printed the town newspaper for decades.  There were a few rare local history books; I was soundly outbid on one lot of the books, but I bought the second lot, and I am dutifully studying them.  Half of the auction was the contents of the house, the other half was the bulk of the printing items.  The newspaper was apparently printed in a shed at the back of the property.  A calendar from 1974 in the shed had a note on December 26 that read, “Last day of Home Towner.”  After the printing of that last newspaper, the owner must have locked the shed and left it.  I bought a boxful of copies of two local history booklets that had been printed there and were authored by the couple.  There were lots and lots of old metal printing blocks for advertising, all of them went out of my price range.  I would have liked to get a few for display and to have something from this piece of area history.  I didn’t want to bid too much on them, as the metal plates were too shallow to use for rubbings, and I don’t want to get into messy printing inks.  I’m more interested in things that I can use rather than just look at these days.

There were several boxes of 9 X 12” sheets of embossed advertising graphics.  They were embossed in a positive orientation, which made them good for rubbings, if the fine detail could be captured.

Image copyright RPS, please do not pin or re-post

 I decided to take a chance on them.  Luckily, no one else wanted them, I and have two large boxes full of the sheets and a boxful of the monthly catalogs for the ad sheets from the manufacturer.  The ad sheets I now have are from the mid to late 1960s.

I have not been able to find much about these ad sheets.  All I have found so far is from an Ebay listing  from seller BenningtonBargains: “In the days of hot type, advertisers would send these mats to newspapers who would pour lead into them and then use the lead plate on presses to print the ads in newspapers.  These were generally discarded after the lead pouring.  So this mat is extremely rare.”  It looks like they are made of fine grained paper (heavier than cardstock) with some sort of coating.

I am happy to report that they make great rubbings on fabric:

Image copyright RPS, please do not pin or re-post

They work decently with paper, although the sections with finer detail do not turn out as well.  These open up so many creative possibilities in my collage explorations.  I will have some of the ad sheets for sale at upcoming quilt shows, and I will list a few on my Etsy store in the next week. 

Auction find! Singer Sewing Machine adversting

I'll admit, I am rather easily distracted.  While I am still basking in the glow of new fancy threads from my Lexington trip, the excitement has dimmed a bit due to this:



Image copyright RPS, please do not post elsewhere

Something I had never heard of before, an annual almanac put out by the Singer Sewing Machine company.  It is my latest find from the frequent junk auction near my residence.  It is filled with the usual suspect information akin to the still published Old Farmer's Almanac, but of course peppered with useful articles and advertising about Singer sewing machines.  This particular one still has a string through the hole in the upper corner, for hanging in an easily accessible location and its condition indicates that it was consulted frequently.  It is a fascinating look back into another time; a postal rate chart (two cents an ounce for a first class letter), time of transit table from New York City to various locations around the world (two days to Quebec, 33 days to Singapore), an article on "The Family Medicine Cabinet."  No one now knows what Jamaica Ginger was used for, on page 30, it was recommended as a stimulant for severe pain.

Also on page 30 is the following advice:
     "Every sewing-machine operator should have a piece of white (cloth or paper) and a piece of black to put under the needle in threading.  When the thread is black use the white cloth; with white thread the black.  One who has never tried this will be pleasantly surprised with the help it gives."

Image copyright RPS, please do not post elsewhere

Some of the Singer promotional articles are a historical gold mine.  I'm especially intrigued by a discussion of their cabinet making processes in the almanac.  And then there is the proclamation that Singer sewing machines were "America's chief contribution to civilization." (p. 45)  Arrogant?  Maybe not, the 1997 special edition of Life magazine listed the invention of the sewing machine at number 67 in their "100 Events of the Past 1,000 Years," and quoted Gandhi as claiming that the sewing machine was, "one of the few useful things ever invented." (p. 57)  Learning to sew certainly has changed my life.

Summer Break

I'm taking a bit of a break from the textile art this week for an event that has to do with a nearly lifelong hobby of mine.  So, if you are waiting for something creative from me, you will have to wait until next week, sorry!  However, I will be starting a new project this weekend... in a cemetery.  Yes, it is a textile art project.  Please check back next week for the details.  I'm also negotiating a new vending date for late September, more to follow in the next couple of weeks.

If you are joining this blog after meeting me at the Zanesville quilt show, welcome, and thank you for your purchase.  Please explore my older posts until I get back to my normal posing schedule next week.

Check out that hand dyed fabric underneath the Breyer model horses!  It is one of my dyed vintage damask tablecloths.

The Collecting - Creativity Conundrum

I am a collector of many things.  I've often wondered about a possible connection between the collecting mentality and creativity in people.  Is collecting linked to being more creative?  How many producing artists are collectors of... anything?  One could get a headache pondering this, but I'd love to investigate it someday. 

Off the top of my head, there are some art history heavyweights that were collectors: Joseph Cornell, Louise Nevelson, Claes Oldenburg, and Robert Rauschenberg had to have some quantity of cast off stuff for materials for their artwork.  In the case of Oldenburg, the objects were not used in his artwork, but were the inspiration for his large scale sculptures of everyday objects.  In Claes Oldenburg, An Anthology (Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1995), there are a couple photos of shelves in his studio, piled with all sorts of odd items.  I sometimes wonder how these artists acquired their collections.  Did they go to junk auctions like the ones I frequent?  Were they dumpster divers?  Did they claim whatever things people that they knew were discarding? 

What do you collect, either consciously or unconsciously?  Some collections grow without the collector realizing he or she is collecting.  One of the easiest and cheapest (make that free) collections would be the gathering of quotations.  I have a small sketchbook just for the purpose of recording quotes that I like.  Since I have much to do before the quilt show this weekend,  I will leave you with this until next time:

"Art is not to be awaited; it is to be chased down, cornered, and beaten into submission with a stick."
--Michael Perry, Population 485

Now, go make something!  Or start or add to a collection...