Museum notes of the "Wow" kind!
July 12th, 2006 02:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shiredancerI just spent my lunch break at the most incredible, fantabulous museum exhibit here at the university where I work. It's called "Pattern Language: Clothing as Communicator" and if it gets to your area, don't miss it!
First off, as you know I've done loads of sewing, seamstressing, and costuming in various aspects of my life: theater, various dance venues, and just for everyday wear. I view all clothing as costume -- if I want to pretend I'm a professional businessperson, I'll wear something businesslike; if I want to present my typical aging-hippie persona, I'll wear my tie-dye. Etc., etc. There are probably more costumes taking up space in my home than "real-life" clothes (such as they are; see previous sentence). I haven't performed Polynesian dance in *years*, but I still have my handmade grass skirt and the complete set of hand-dyed grass and shell accompaniments, as well as my handmade Maori costume. I store several types of Renaissance Faire gear and costumes from a number of Gilbert & Sullivan productions. You never know when you'll need them, y'know? And Kidlet has been well-trained in the value of costumes -- we go all out for every school production she's in, and keep them for... who knows what?
So, when my friend asked me to accompany her to the exhibit today, I jumped at it. And it was sooooooooo great. There were pieces from all kinds of artists and designers, including a 60s-era video of Yoko Ono in a clothing-related performance art piece (involving people coming up on stage snipping away pieces of her clothes until she's left literally holding the last shreds together; she remains motionless and expressionless the entire time) -- oddly enough, a good number of the artists were from either Pennsylvania or the UK.
This show was so good, I bought the accompanying art book. My favorite piece hails from Birmingham, England -- it's a sort of ballgown-looking thing, very feminine, with a huge, huge skirt spreading out around it, and with big black phrases stencilled across it. Each piece in the exhibit expresses both a need and a desire -- in this case, the need was for women to be protected in a frequently-hostile world, compared with the desire to... oh, I can't remember exactly, look beautiful or reveal femininity or something like that. So the phrases were taken from women living in difficult circumstances, things they would like to never hear again such as "Don't touch me" or "You're good for nothing but a fuck", etc. And the dress is made of this new (at the time it was made) fabric called Twarron, three times the strength of steel but much lighter and used for protective clothing. So the whole thing mixes the things women would like to be protected from, in a material that can protect, put into a form exhibiting feminine beauty. Just, genius. And piece after piece was like that. Usually it's fun to eye an exhibit and come to your own conclusions, but this was one where reading the accompanying blurbs really helped to focus on the artist's intent. Like the one called "Boy/Girl" -- an 1890s looking costume with a ruffled skirt and big bustle, topped by a masculine flat-chested jacket and cravat, being a Western, colonial style garment but done up in African fabrics. Or the sweater knitted with two necks, to embrace the bipolarity in all of us and give it a place to be acknowledged! The dress composed of a single, continuous zipper -- start at the bottom and unzip, and at the end you're left with... nothing. The ensemble made of fabric digitized with images of the artist's nude body, for the effect of "sharing the artist's skin". Whimsical, thought-provoking, jarring at times -- but hugely interesting and entertaining.
I'm *so* happy I went! This made my day.
First off, as you know I've done loads of sewing, seamstressing, and costuming in various aspects of my life: theater, various dance venues, and just for everyday wear. I view all clothing as costume -- if I want to pretend I'm a professional businessperson, I'll wear something businesslike; if I want to present my typical aging-hippie persona, I'll wear my tie-dye. Etc., etc. There are probably more costumes taking up space in my home than "real-life" clothes (such as they are; see previous sentence). I haven't performed Polynesian dance in *years*, but I still have my handmade grass skirt and the complete set of hand-dyed grass and shell accompaniments, as well as my handmade Maori costume. I store several types of Renaissance Faire gear and costumes from a number of Gilbert & Sullivan productions. You never know when you'll need them, y'know? And Kidlet has been well-trained in the value of costumes -- we go all out for every school production she's in, and keep them for... who knows what?
So, when my friend asked me to accompany her to the exhibit today, I jumped at it. And it was sooooooooo great. There were pieces from all kinds of artists and designers, including a 60s-era video of Yoko Ono in a clothing-related performance art piece (involving people coming up on stage snipping away pieces of her clothes until she's left literally holding the last shreds together; she remains motionless and expressionless the entire time) -- oddly enough, a good number of the artists were from either Pennsylvania or the UK.
This show was so good, I bought the accompanying art book. My favorite piece hails from Birmingham, England -- it's a sort of ballgown-looking thing, very feminine, with a huge, huge skirt spreading out around it, and with big black phrases stencilled across it. Each piece in the exhibit expresses both a need and a desire -- in this case, the need was for women to be protected in a frequently-hostile world, compared with the desire to... oh, I can't remember exactly, look beautiful or reveal femininity or something like that. So the phrases were taken from women living in difficult circumstances, things they would like to never hear again such as "Don't touch me" or "You're good for nothing but a fuck", etc. And the dress is made of this new (at the time it was made) fabric called Twarron, three times the strength of steel but much lighter and used for protective clothing. So the whole thing mixes the things women would like to be protected from, in a material that can protect, put into a form exhibiting feminine beauty. Just, genius. And piece after piece was like that. Usually it's fun to eye an exhibit and come to your own conclusions, but this was one where reading the accompanying blurbs really helped to focus on the artist's intent. Like the one called "Boy/Girl" -- an 1890s looking costume with a ruffled skirt and big bustle, topped by a masculine flat-chested jacket and cravat, being a Western, colonial style garment but done up in African fabrics. Or the sweater knitted with two necks, to embrace the bipolarity in all of us and give it a place to be acknowledged! The dress composed of a single, continuous zipper -- start at the bottom and unzip, and at the end you're left with... nothing. The ensemble made of fabric digitized with images of the artist's nude body, for the effect of "sharing the artist's skin". Whimsical, thought-provoking, jarring at times -- but hugely interesting and entertaining.
I'm *so* happy I went! This made my day.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: July 12th, 2006 10:48 pm (UTC)And hey, you've got mail. ;-)
no subject
Date: July 12th, 2006 11:09 pm (UTC)And I'll check -- yesterday was so busy and I was so tired last night, I couldn't do anything. Haven't even had the focus to read any fic lately, so you *know* it's bad... Then at 2:30 a.m. we lost all power (I know, because the fan that makes my life bearable during increasingly-intense hot flashes went off, leaving me wondering bleakly how women in third-world countries *do* it) and apparently it just came back on. Ah, life.
I'll respond this evening! *Hugs*
no subject
Date: July 12th, 2006 11:39 pm (UTC)exhibit
Date: July 13th, 2006 02:30 pm (UTC)Re: exhibit
Date: July 14th, 2006 07:47 am (UTC)The picture at the link, by the way, is the gown I described.
Re: exhibit
Date: July 14th, 2006 07:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: July 13th, 2006 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: July 14th, 2006 07:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: July 14th, 2006 03:33 pm (UTC)I buy new ones of classic book characters like Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, Three Musketeers, Little House on the Prairie etc. I am a librarian ; ) But I also have gone for vintage ones, too from my childhood especially paper collectibles of television shows, movies and the like. And yes - historicals too but mostly from periods I like reading about i. e. the Victorians, ancient civilizations, the American wild West, and the American Civil War era. Plus then historical figures...
This is an addiction, isn't it? But they are relatively cheap and don't take up a huge amount of room. Oh dear, I really didn't realize I was so deep into this little hobby...
*head desk*
no subject
Date: July 14th, 2006 05:27 pm (UTC)I have a cut-out dollhouse set for Anne of Green Gables, too. Hmmmmm. Should I even mention that I have one of the American Girl dolls with a bunch of clothes (Felicity, from the Colonial era), or that the only unopened collectibles I own are the Star Trek Original Series Barbie & Ken set and the Beatrix Potter Barbie??? Meeep.
no subject
Date: July 14th, 2006 06:35 pm (UTC)*obsesses*
I so didn't need another hobby.