One Day Later and It’s Art to Wear (Mostly)

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I know, I know, I just did a blog yesterday.

But something about how we leave things behind and how I am going to do some drawings on a long scroll to put in a wine bottle made me remember someone.

K. Lee Manuel. One of the few California based artists who started the Art to Wear movement of the 70s. Long after she was featured in this iconic book I read somewhere that she would paint feathers and leave them in places around the world….just drop them and then watch from some hidden place. And when someone picked a feather up, they looked up in hopes of seeing the bird it came from. She loved bringing that bit of magic into someone’s life, someone off in distant places where magic was still possible.

Of course, unlike now, magic was more possible in 80s and 90s. We are too tainted now and if someone found one of her feathers they would likely google it up with a photo and reaffirm their belief that it was not even remotely from a real bird.

Anyway, K Lee Manuel was magic for me and years later (after I came across her name in the art to wear world) I had a chance to purchase one of her feathers that she had turned into a pin. Here it is. I still have it!

Can you imagine coming across this on a path in Central Park or along an Amazon trail? Or on the steps to a mosque in India? How could you not look up!

So thinking of her and others who were such pioneers in the field of Art to Wear, I dug out my book. A book that in 1986 when it was published took every dime I could save to afford its cost of $98 before tax. They ended up having to do a second printing of this luscious book that must weigh close to ten pounds.

I drooled through this book for many years and worked at making my own Art to Wear. And almost all those pieces that did not end up lost to customs in Australia ended up decorating the dining room chairs of a friend in Brisbane, Queensland. I think Peter still picks the one he wants to wear to art openings with his sari.

And another aside, the author Julie Dale’s husband is Jim Dale, the voice actor that took several Emmys for his portrayal of all the Harry Potter character voices on the compact discs. Lee and I found him magic to listen to and I would buy the Potter stories in this form rather than book form…just to be read to. We would sit on the couch and keep ourselves to just a couple of chapters a night.

So here are some of the people from this book.

K. Lee Manuel. Feathers and leather in her hay day.

Jean Williams Cacicedo who just a few years ago I shared a bottle of scotch with when we taught at the same venue and relived these early days of Art to Wear.

Tim Harding who invented the slashed clothing that was layered cloth and later cut into and washed and washed to fray the edges. I did several vests like this and only one full length coat. The best material I could find was cheap and loosely woven cottons from India in very garish colors. It really fluffed up nicely. Somewhere an Australian aboriginal girl might still have hers.

And Ana Lisa Hedstrom. I took a workshop on various discharges from her in the 90s and some of the lesson pieces ended up on a jacket that I gave to David Baker, a favorite masseuse here in Brasstown.

And Randall Darwall. When I bought a large shawl from him in the late 90s, I went up to my hotel room, took off all my clothes and laid under all that rainbow dyed silk. I no longer go places I could wear it, but might just treat myself to a good lie down with it.

When out in San Jose, California in 1991 for an international textile conference, a friend and I went up to San Francisco to visit the Obiko gallery where the best of the best Art to Wear could be purchased. Or at the very least fondled. I came away with Sandra Obiko’s business card. But on the way into the gallery I met a homeless woman selling hand made jewelry. Her name was Dolores. I bought two pieces, chunky with several African trade beads. Soon after I got home I made a small figure of her, called it Dolores, filled her body with cheap African clay beads to give her some weight and adorned her with several beaded necklaces. I kept Dolores for over twenty-five  years….only parted with her last year.

Anyway here is Sandra Obiko’s card. It has a beautiful embossed cover.

When we were in the gallery an older woman, about my age now, came in and tried on a necklace. It was very much of its time….weighted with special tokens spaced out just right. She bought it and I wanted so much to be her, to have that necklace that I had just touched and let go when I saw the price of near $1,000 as I recall. I watched her wear it out into the San Francisco sunlight and was so envious. I hope a daughter or grand daughter is wearing it now.

But in looking up K Lee Manuel and the story I read about her leaving feathers around, I came across a downloadable video of Sandra Obiko’s gallery….http://www.textileartscouncil.org/obiko-archive/. It is so much fun to flip through all the artists she carried. One of them that I was so glad to see because his work is not in Dale’s book is John Marshall with his rice paste Japanese colored cloth made into clothing. He and I were doing a fiber market many years ago and he wanted one of my little pins of a tiny old man in textile clothing with a twig for a body. He traded me a swatch of his cloth, about a quarter meter for it. I still have a bit of that cloth.

I never thought when I bought that book in 1986 that over the following years I would share a bottle of scotch with one, trade goods with another, buy a piece of artwork (feather) made by one, take a workshop with another, and purchase a cloth that made me take my clothes off from yet another.

The story of K Lee Manuel and her generous gift to the world via her magic feathers must have been written in Ornament magazine. It was the inspiration for so many of us enamored with the whole idea of Art to Wear and although I remember the story well, I do not remember the source.

But aside from all that getting side tracked, I cut my first five foot piece of paper today to draw/paint on to put in a bottle. The paper was too porous for my watercolors, so I have gessoed the length of it and might now do small silver point drawings instead of painting. I will show how far I get next time.

In the meantime, Lee asked me if I wanted to go to the dump today. We took all the trash from his truck and put it in my car. This may mean that he has decided to no longer drive. I hope so as he does not use a phone and going to the trash once a week was the only time he drove. We finished that excursion with him telling me, “Thank you for doing that.” I told him, “No worries, it was fun……as long as you do the dumping into the bins.” Then it was lunch….hot dog for him, soup for me and a shared beer.

Til next week or whenever.

Loose Ends

Posted on by Sandy Webster

It was a lovely sunrise two days after Christmas. Our company still here, still helping out where needed. Even the western sky was beautiful that morning.

They have all gone home now. Amy and Marla helped me exchange beds between the apartment and downstairs guest room. Now the twin beds are in the apartment and all the better to house private students. And honestly no one wanted to share the bedroom down stairs with anyone else so now just the double bed is there. I need to rearrange the pictures and add some decent lighting but other than that, a big improvement.

Patrick stayed with his dad in the workshop and the two of them made things.

I had the gift of time in the studio to work on the piece I started earlier and here it is so far on a panel measuring 25.5″ x 28.5″. Lots more stitching to go and those beautiful little stones I covered with cane toad and kangaroo hide were so very helpful in holding the sticks in place while the glue dried. Moving things around on the “canvas” is the best part. And then suddenly it says, “Enough. Leave me here.”

I will show a picture when it is finished and behind the frame. Here are some details of sections that might just be finished.

 

I will finish it this week and then look for other frames that have not been used and do a few more of these. It is relief printing on cloth, various papers that have their own history that seems to fit the narrative. This one is called “The Roads” simply because those words appear somewhere in all that is happening and the image makes me feel like I am or have traveled somewhere into this space.

Collecting loose threads and holding things together is where I imagine myself to be right now. And no wonder. Just this past week when this thought occurred to me I went around the house and photographed things with loose threads. I have always been collecting them it seems.

In baskets.

In textiles from other places.

In my favorite gauzy, thready scarves bought in Australia from Mahdi.

 

In my hand stitched pieces.

And as illustration in my books. Even Proust is reminding me again that “we have to try afresh to settle down to work which has ceased to have any meaning.” So easy to say and so hard to do, that picking up and starting over to get it right, make it matter.

It is hard to just give up on something that demanded all your passion at one time and then without even noticing, it has become something less, something asking to be left behind…or just left alone for now.

But I think I had success this morning with the ginger marmalade! Last week it refused to set up, so with new lids and more pectin and a bit more boiling I think I have it. Six jars of chunky ginger bits and eight jars of ginger jelly.

My suggestion on this marmalade is just buy it if you can. An awful lot of work for something that needs starting over half way through the process. But the flavor and the aroma might just be worth it.

And one more thing….earlier this month I saw how easily it is to thread a needle by rubbing the eye of the needle across the thread. It is supposed to just loop up into the eye. Well, it doesn’t! And even the you tube video showed the fellow demonstrating it with a rather raw palm where he had rubbed it silly trying to make the video.

Don’t bother trying it. Just get your glasses on, lick the thread and spend the next minute or so trying to find the hole…..make sure you have a good length of thread to avoid doing it all over again a minute to two later.

That’s enough advice for now.

Til later.

New Starts in the Studio and Kitchen

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I did a bit of printing on cloth and tea bags today while a friend is in the studio working on small dry point etchings. As soon as there were a few prints hanging up to dry my daughter asked what I was planning to do with them. I told her I was just collecting materials to start something new.

Here is the beginning. Lots of bits arranged on a sheet of rusted paper to be looked at and rearranged….and then later glued and stitched and tied down. It felt good to just “play” with the papers, cloth and sticks and prints.

Here is a very special gift my friend, Marla made for me.

It only stands about five inches high and on the glass she etched a story about how much like a rock I am in keeping it together here as Lee slowly slips further away. Note the small book of my hands and the kantha stitched cloth like my dementia shawl. There is a tiny wooden wine glass to represent Lee’s bowl turning that he used to do and the need to relax and have a drink. This is just such a little treasure.

Our daughter, Amy, helped me make ginger marmalade yesterday. What a process! The fumes watered our eyes and made us cough. The exhaust fan on the range got an extra workout during the almost two hours it took to cook the chunks of ginger to the soft stage.

Here is the process in pictures.

About four cups of chopped ginger cooking up in water.

Two hours later being turned into marmalade.

The ugly greenish water poured off needed food coloring to look edible because this slime green just was not what would make an attractive jelly with the gingery water.

I forgot how much sugar it takes to make jelly!

And here is the color adjusted jelly cooking down.

And here it is in jars. One small problem is that it is slow to set up. We know we used the right amount of pectin but the ginger seems a bit stubborn. The jelly is setting up better and I may not redo it, but that marmalade needs to go back in and get cooked with additional pectin.

And the taste of it might just take the top of your head off. Maybe longer cooking on the front end with more water changes would be the answer.

All I know is that if you make a nice seedy french toast, butter it, add a large dollop of plain yogurt and top off with this gingery marmalade, you have one lovely breakfast.

We are waiting until after Christmas to decide how much needs to be cooked again.

Have a lovely Christmas.

Til later.

Second Best Malted Cookie I Ever Ate

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Finally! Here it is….the last word on malted cookies.

Recipe for The Second Best Malted Cookie I Ever Ate

Set oven to 350 F

 

2 ½ C. all purpose flour

1 ½ t. baking soda

1 ½ t. ground ginger

½ t. salt

Sift all of the above together on a parchment sheet of paper that has been cut to fit cookie sheet.

 

¾ C. softened butter

1 C. packed brown sugar

1/3 C.  each golden syrup and malt extract

1 egg

Cream above together and then add dry ingredients until all is moistened.

 

Shape into walnut size balls and roll in white granulated sugar to coat.

Place on parchment lined cookies sheets about 2-3 inches apart.

Bake 9 minutes, remove from oven and slam down on stove to increase cracks.

Return to oven for 6 more minutes,  cool slightly on sheet and then remove to cooling racks.

Wishing you well-spent Holidays!