Millinery as Sculpture: "Art from the Ashes,' Knoxville Museum of Art in TN
"Art from the Ashes" is an exhibit currently running on the first floor of the Knoxville Museum of Art in Knoxville, TN. I have three pieces of artwork--millinery as sculpture, really--on display as part of it. The exhibit isn't mentioned on the KMA website, nor have i seen any press on it whatsoever, beyond an announcement at the RoaneViews blog aggregate. I don't know why this is so, this lack of exposure or information about it, and every reason i can think of either makes me sad or angry. I won't speculate.
It's a small exhibit, "Art from the Ashes" is, with maybe 50 pieces of work clustered in a single hallway-style gallery, all of which are being auctioned to support the Cumberland Plateau-based grassroots advocacy and relief organization United Mountain Defense and their support of the victims of the TVA Kingston coal-ash spill that happened December 22, 2008. (You may recall that, shortly after the spill, i posted an MSDS analysis of coal ash in this blog.)
If you didn't hear about the spill--which some have called the worst environmental disaster in the history of the US--it's not a surprise. It wasn't in the news much. GQ Magazine, of all places, has a really well-researched and extensive in-depth 17-page article on it, entitled "Black Tide," here in their most recent issue. If you prefer photojournalism and first-hand soundbites, photographer Carlan Tapp has assembled a striking and succinct seven-minute audio slideshow here.
A couple of my recent posts actually pertained to my work for this exhibit: the block spinners from bun feet constitute the bases of each piece, and the research into cornhusk milliners of the 1930s and experimentation with the medium was also a component of my process. My original proposal was for three pieces, collectively entitled "La Bricoleuse Couture Millinery: Roane County Collection."
At the exhibit opening, i met several of the people whose lives and work in Roane County and in various Appalachian relief and preservation organizations I've known of online for quite some time now--among them lifeonswanpond and her grandson Evyn, Matt Landon of UMD, and artist Francesco di Santis. I guess i'm still a child of the pre-Internet world, because i never fail to marvel at how it feels to meet people in real-time whom i've previously known of or about only as pixels and text.
The exhibit itself is quite diverse in its range--sculpture, paintings, photography, seriography, jewelry, glassware, collages, mixed-media stuff, you name it. The museum doesn't allow photographs so i don't have any in situ images, but thankfully i did take photographs of my pieces before dropping them off.
Emory
This one was inspired by a photograph that lifeonswanpond posted of the Emory River, in which it actually looked kind of normal and deep blue, but for a huge yellow line of floats supporting a contaminant collection scrim of some kind below the surface.
Magdalen
This one was inspired by the dogwoods which are blooming in their pinks and creams, riffing off the mythic connection of the dogwood to the Crucifixion and how the dogwood blossom's petals, with their strange dried-blood-colored punctures are metaphors for sacrifice and destruction.
Perdita
I wrote some text which was supposed to be exhibited with the pieces, but which is not--maybe the folks setting up the exhibit thought it was just explanatory info and not intended as an intrinsic part of the artworks, or maybe they forgot, or didn't have a good way of attaching it near the case, or who knows. Regardless, i'm going to transcribe it here, because i DID intend it to be a part of the experience of the works:
Dolly Heads
The proper term for these head-shaped display stands is "dolly heads." A standard modern dolly head is made from sturdy canvas or twill and stuffed with ground cork. Milliners use them in the way that dressmakers use dress forms-as a base on which to build their creations. These dolly heads are made from fabrics salvaged from damaged garments and yardage remnants, and stuffed with a blend of grits, corn, sawdust, birdseed, and diatomaceous earth (to prevent weevils).
Block Spinners
The pedestal base of each piece is a traditional millinery tool known as a block spinner. A spinner supports a dolly head or hat block while a milliner works, lifting it up and stabilizing it, while allowing her or him to spin it around for 360-degree access. These block spinners are made from hand-turned pine buns from a woodworking shop in Jonesborough, TN. Bun feet are typically used to support heavy furniture like bureaus and cabinets, but are the perfect diameter to serve as spinner bases. Each has been stained, varnished, equipped with a spinner post and leather pad, and furnished with a cork bottom.
"La Bricoleuse"
Many milliners have historically adopted French noms de chapeau, regardless of their heritage. “Bricoleuse” is the feminine form of "bricoleur," one who practices bricolage.
bri·co·lage "brE-kO-'läzh, n. [French, from bricoler, to putter about, to tinker; also bricole, trifle] To use an item at hand as a tool for which it was not designed. Ex: a brick used as a hammer. A person who engages in bricolage is a bricoleur. A bricoleur/bricoleuse is one who creates things from scratch, is creative and resourceful, who collects information and things and then puts them together in a manner for which they were not originally designed.
Construction Details
The method for making these hats is almost a lost art-spiral construction hats of hand-braided cornhusk. Broad-brimmed utilitarian hats of this sort have been around for centuries in the South among farmers, slaves, migrants, anyone who had to work outdoors in the sun. Cornhusk hats also play a prominent role in the headwear history of many native tribes including the Cherokee. The cornhusk material is lightweight, sturdy, and inexpensive.
In the 1930s, about the time that the Tennessee Valley Authority was created, a very successful shuckery milliner resided in the Cumberland Plateau area, known only to history as "Mrs. Ridenour" (though census records from 1930 suggest her first name may have been Goldia, Essie, or Myrtle). Mrs. Ridenour's cornhusk hats were so popular that she was able to save enough money to purchase luxuries such as a pressure cooker for canning.
None of the Tennessee milliners once known for shuckery hats are still practicing the craft. Surviving hats and purses made of cornhusk plait can be found in the archives at Western Carolina University. In fact, the only current practitioners of this type of hatmaking, according to the Louisiana State Museum, are "a handful" of Louisianans, including a particularly renowned African American milliner named Leola Simmons.
Working only from images of shuckery hats in the Hunter Library's "Craft Revival" Digital Archive at Western Carolina University, La Bricoleuse deduced the technique for plaiting traditional shuckery braid and created the Roane County Collection, three couture hat styles inspired by popular cocktail shapes of the 1930s and 40s.
Visitors can bid on the artwork via an ongoing bid book on-site, and the auction will conclude in a reception on June 28, 2009, at 3:00 p.m. Ultimately, I'm glad that i created these pieces, and i hope they and the exhibit and auction generate some money to help the people whose lives have been wrecked by this disaster, but it also feels like spitting on a forest fire.
I drove through Roane County twice leading up to the art opening, on my way to and from Memphis, and the destruction is incomprehensible. Considering it is like trying to imagine exactly how it played out when Vesuvius erupted. When you're there, you're the fly on the cowflop--the relative scale of the landscape to you is so enormous that you think, "From this vantage point, it looks like the whole world is just made of shit." And it really does seem like everything and everyone who lived there, their lives are just destroyed, full stop. It just breaks my heart and then breaks the pieces.
It's a small exhibit, "Art from the Ashes" is, with maybe 50 pieces of work clustered in a single hallway-style gallery, all of which are being auctioned to support the Cumberland Plateau-based grassroots advocacy and relief organization United Mountain Defense and their support of the victims of the TVA Kingston coal-ash spill that happened December 22, 2008. (You may recall that, shortly after the spill, i posted an MSDS analysis of coal ash in this blog.)
If you didn't hear about the spill--which some have called the worst environmental disaster in the history of the US--it's not a surprise. It wasn't in the news much. GQ Magazine, of all places, has a really well-researched and extensive in-depth 17-page article on it, entitled "Black Tide," here in their most recent issue. If you prefer photojournalism and first-hand soundbites, photographer Carlan Tapp has assembled a striking and succinct seven-minute audio slideshow here.
A couple of my recent posts actually pertained to my work for this exhibit: the block spinners from bun feet constitute the bases of each piece, and the research into cornhusk milliners of the 1930s and experimentation with the medium was also a component of my process. My original proposal was for three pieces, collectively entitled "La Bricoleuse Couture Millinery: Roane County Collection."
At the exhibit opening, i met several of the people whose lives and work in Roane County and in various Appalachian relief and preservation organizations I've known of online for quite some time now--among them lifeonswanpond and her grandson Evyn, Matt Landon of UMD, and artist Francesco di Santis. I guess i'm still a child of the pre-Internet world, because i never fail to marvel at how it feels to meet people in real-time whom i've previously known of or about only as pixels and text.
The exhibit itself is quite diverse in its range--sculpture, paintings, photography, seriography, jewelry, glassware, collages, mixed-media stuff, you name it. The museum doesn't allow photographs so i don't have any in situ images, but thankfully i did take photographs of my pieces before dropping them off.
Emory
This one was inspired by a photograph that lifeonswanpond posted of the Emory River, in which it actually looked kind of normal and deep blue, but for a huge yellow line of floats supporting a contaminant collection scrim of some kind below the surface.
Magdalen
This one was inspired by the dogwoods which are blooming in their pinks and creams, riffing off the mythic connection of the dogwood to the Crucifixion and how the dogwood blossom's petals, with their strange dried-blood-colored punctures are metaphors for sacrifice and destruction.
Perdita
I wrote some text which was supposed to be exhibited with the pieces, but which is not--maybe the folks setting up the exhibit thought it was just explanatory info and not intended as an intrinsic part of the artworks, or maybe they forgot, or didn't have a good way of attaching it near the case, or who knows. Regardless, i'm going to transcribe it here, because i DID intend it to be a part of the experience of the works:
Dolly Heads
The proper term for these head-shaped display stands is "dolly heads." A standard modern dolly head is made from sturdy canvas or twill and stuffed with ground cork. Milliners use them in the way that dressmakers use dress forms-as a base on which to build their creations. These dolly heads are made from fabrics salvaged from damaged garments and yardage remnants, and stuffed with a blend of grits, corn, sawdust, birdseed, and diatomaceous earth (to prevent weevils).
Block Spinners
The pedestal base of each piece is a traditional millinery tool known as a block spinner. A spinner supports a dolly head or hat block while a milliner works, lifting it up and stabilizing it, while allowing her or him to spin it around for 360-degree access. These block spinners are made from hand-turned pine buns from a woodworking shop in Jonesborough, TN. Bun feet are typically used to support heavy furniture like bureaus and cabinets, but are the perfect diameter to serve as spinner bases. Each has been stained, varnished, equipped with a spinner post and leather pad, and furnished with a cork bottom.
"La Bricoleuse"
Many milliners have historically adopted French noms de chapeau, regardless of their heritage. “Bricoleuse” is the feminine form of "bricoleur," one who practices bricolage.
bri·co·lage "brE-kO-'läzh, n. [French, from bricoler, to putter about, to tinker; also bricole, trifle] To use an item at hand as a tool for which it was not designed. Ex: a brick used as a hammer. A person who engages in bricolage is a bricoleur. A bricoleur/bricoleuse is one who creates things from scratch, is creative and resourceful, who collects information and things and then puts them together in a manner for which they were not originally designed.
Construction Details
The method for making these hats is almost a lost art-spiral construction hats of hand-braided cornhusk. Broad-brimmed utilitarian hats of this sort have been around for centuries in the South among farmers, slaves, migrants, anyone who had to work outdoors in the sun. Cornhusk hats also play a prominent role in the headwear history of many native tribes including the Cherokee. The cornhusk material is lightweight, sturdy, and inexpensive.
In the 1930s, about the time that the Tennessee Valley Authority was created, a very successful shuckery milliner resided in the Cumberland Plateau area, known only to history as "Mrs. Ridenour" (though census records from 1930 suggest her first name may have been Goldia, Essie, or Myrtle). Mrs. Ridenour's cornhusk hats were so popular that she was able to save enough money to purchase luxuries such as a pressure cooker for canning.
None of the Tennessee milliners once known for shuckery hats are still practicing the craft. Surviving hats and purses made of cornhusk plait can be found in the archives at Western Carolina University. In fact, the only current practitioners of this type of hatmaking, according to the Louisiana State Museum, are "a handful" of Louisianans, including a particularly renowned African American milliner named Leola Simmons.
Working only from images of shuckery hats in the Hunter Library's "Craft Revival" Digital Archive at Western Carolina University, La Bricoleuse deduced the technique for plaiting traditional shuckery braid and created the Roane County Collection, three couture hat styles inspired by popular cocktail shapes of the 1930s and 40s.
Visitors can bid on the artwork via an ongoing bid book on-site, and the auction will conclude in a reception on June 28, 2009, at 3:00 p.m. Ultimately, I'm glad that i created these pieces, and i hope they and the exhibit and auction generate some money to help the people whose lives have been wrecked by this disaster, but it also feels like spitting on a forest fire.
I drove through Roane County twice leading up to the art opening, on my way to and from Memphis, and the destruction is incomprehensible. Considering it is like trying to imagine exactly how it played out when Vesuvius erupted. When you're there, you're the fly on the cowflop--the relative scale of the landscape to you is so enormous that you think, "From this vantage point, it looks like the whole world is just made of shit." And it really does seem like everything and everyone who lived there, their lives are just destroyed, full stop. It just breaks my heart and then breaks the pieces.
