Inspirations Calendar Giveaway!

I have a gift from Country Bumpkin to give away today!  Their latest absolutely beautiful calendar (2014).  It is full of amazing high resolution pictures of embroideries.

I would like to send it to a lucky reader.  Send your Name and Address to me at tricia@alum.mit.edu.  Include CALENDAR in the subject line.  I will choose one person from the entries I get by Jan 31st, midnight EST to send this to!

Tricia

Auction Results!

I managed to finally get to NYC Thursday night (Storm Janus caused transportation havoc) for the Winter Antiques Show and Americana auctions at Sotheby's.  I am glad I got there as I had the opportunity to see the wonderful folk art as well as one of those amazingly rare samplers that has it all - color, condition, graphic appeal and rarity.  I must have stood in front of this piece for almost 20 minutes marveling at it.  Ok, I coveted it in a big way!  It had been at the American Folk Art Museum as a promised gift of a famous folk art collector who unfortunately is now in jail and his collection was being auctioned to pay debts.

This was a Boston sampler from 1744 and I believe it wasn't exhibited in Pam Parmel's landmark exhibition of Boston Colonial Embroidery at the MFA Boston in 2011. (Read an article by MFA Boston curator Pam Parmel on the exhibit here with lots of pictures).  It's cousins were, and so the style was well known to me.  This piece out shown them all as the silk amazingly was the same color it was when stitched as well as done so well.  Graphically it is really stunning and the inclusion of the detached needlelace flowers is fantastic. Pan Parmel has theorized that these samplers were derived from 17th century samplers that may have been in the possession of the teachers at the time because they do not follow the progression of the early 18th century samplers of the English tradition.

There have been only a handful of embroidered samplers which have sold in the six figures ever.  One that was also in this type of condition and worked by the daughter of the man who rowed Paul Revere across from the North Church for his ride was sold a few years ago for this level.  Again, it had 'everything going for it'.  This piece was estimated at $30,000-$40,000 but it went for $233,000.  I would have liked to have been there to hear the buzz yesterday in the auction room.  $30,000 now sounds like a bargain.  But I am so happy to have seen it, especially as so many of our pieces that survive are devoid of the exuberant color that only little girls could have imagined going together.  I just might have to work a piece in these dark and bright colors myself.  I love the line up of the animals in the garden of eden, look to the far right and you will see a tiny frog stitched just above a small bird.

Secretly I hope that the MFA Boston was bidding and won this piece so everyone would be able to enjoy it some day, but I doubt that they had the acquisition budget for this level.

Below are the catalog notes from Sotheby's on this piece.  You can go to their site and use the zoom function to enjoy the piece and its lovely stitching and color from home.  Remember that this piece is only the size of a sheet of paper!

Lydia Hart worked the most visually appealing example within Boston's earliest known group of samplers which presently dates from 1724 to 1754. Nine pieces portray nearly identical figures of Adam and Eve above similar beasts, birds, and bugs. They also include elegant renditions of the Scottish thistle and Tudor rose, signifying the 1603 union of Scotland and England upon the ascension of James I (1566-1625). Lydia's work is the first to have what became a characteristic border for these and later eighteenth-century pastoral samplers, but its solidly worked background is unique. Earlier pieces by Mehetabel Done (1724), Martha Butler (1729), and Abigail Pool (1737) depict Adam and Eve beneath borderless alphabets and band patterns. In 1734 Ann Peartree and Elizabeth Langdon worked nearly identical borderless pictorial samplers with similar motifs on brown linen. More closely related to Lydia's work are samplers by Rebekah Owen (1745), Sarah Lord (1753), and Mary Lord (1754), with the same borders and gardens.² Rebekah and Mary worked the same inscription as Lydia. Lydia's identity remains uncertain. The Lydia born in Boston to Elias and Lydia Hart on September 12, 1719, is unlikely to have worked this at the age of twenty-four.³Among the nine pieces described, the known ages of six makers range from nine to thirteen years.

A Lydia of appropriate age was born in Northington, Connecticut, to Joseph and Mary Bird Hart on August 8, 1728. Her father was a shoemaker, deacon of the church, and a town magistrate.⁴ Quite possibly his daughters were educated in Boston. This Lydia married Noah Gillet (1718-1790) on December 15, 1748, and their ten children were born in Farmington, Connecticut.⁵ No woman is known to have kept a Boston girls' school from 1724 through 1754, but circumstantial evidence suggests that these samplers may have been worked under the instruction of Susanna Hiller Condy (1686-1747) and her sister-in-law Abigail Stevens Hiller (?-1775), who advertised her school from February 1748 until May 1756.⁶ Four samplers dated 1765 to c. 1772 have Lydia's border and similarly worked flowers, including one by Mary Welsh, whose sister Hannah married Abigail's son Joseph (1721-1758).⁷ -B.R.

¹ For five of the nine samplers mentioned here, another closely related example, and the best known English prototype, see Ring, Girlhood Embroidery, vol. 1, pp. 37-41, figs. 33-370 39, and the catalog for Sotheby's sale 7010 (6/97, lots 330, 331, 332).

² This was probably the Lydia Hart who worked a borderless band sampler inscribed "Boston" and dated "February The 4 Day 1731" (collection New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord).

³ Alfred Andrews, Genealogical History of Deacon Stephen Hart and His Descendants, 1632-1875 (Hartford, Conn.: Case, Lockwood, and Brainard, 1875), pp. 169, 181.

⁴ Wilma Gillet Thomas, The Joseph Gillet/Gillett/Gillette Family of Connecticut, Ohio, and Kansas (Chicago, Ill.: Adams Press, 1970), p. 32.

⁵ Boston Evening-Post (Feb. 1, 1748, April 22, 1751, and April 9, 1753), and Boston Gazette (June 11, 1754, May 26, 1755, and May 24, 1756).

⁶ Stephen Huber and Carol Huber, The Sampler Engagement Calendar 1992 (Old Saybrook, Conn.: 1991), fig. 45, Calendar 1993, fig. 38, Elisabeth Donaghy Garren, "American Samplers and Needlework Pictures in the DAR Museum, Part I: 1739-1806," The Magazine Antiques 105, no. 2 (February 1974): 358, and Ring, Girlhood Embroidery, vol. 1, p. 53, fig. 51.

⁷ Helen Bowen, “The Fishing Lady and Boston Common,” Antiques 4, no. 2 (August 1923): 70-73.

Does that Star-Spangled Banner Yet Wave

Checking in on Sheriff Joe:

A diet of bread and water is the punishment for dozens of Arizona inmates who allegedly defaced American flags placed in their jail cells.

[...]

"These inmates have destroyed the American flag that was placed in their cells," Arpaio said. "Tearing them, writing on them, stepping on them, throwing them in the toilet, trash or wherever they feel. It's a disgrace ... this is government property that they are destroying, and we will take action against those who act this way."

The flags are part of a push for patriotism in county jail cells that includes listening to the "Star-Spangled Banner" every morning and "God Bless America" every night over the intercom system.

Piping in patriotic songs and hanging flags in a notoriously abusive prison and then punishing the inmates with bread and water when they don't show adequate appreciation. It'd be difficult to make-up a better Orwellian America mash-up.

JANUARY & FEBRUARY @ GALLERY NORTH: Rebels, Hipsters and Visionaries, Bay Area Poets and Artists, 1950s and 60s

OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, January 10, 5:30 - 8:30pm

Zan Stewart on Jazz Saxophone. Refreshments.

Firehouse Gallery North is located on 1790 Shattuck Avenue, North Berkeley, CA 94709

January Events

Monday, Jan. 13, 7:30 - 9:45 pm

Beat/SF Renaissance author & poet David Meltzer’s seminar on the Beat Era: Beat Things - Using as a starting point, Beat Thing: La Alameda Press, 2004, a contextualization of that cultural moment's history. Both personal and critical, Meltzer offers a look at problematizing mythopoetic versions invented by successive generations. $20 at the door/Info:julmind@mtashland.net

Saturday, Jan. 18, 7 – 8 pm

Screening of 'San Francisco's Wild History Groove' by Mary Kerr. $5.

Friday Jan. 24, 7 m

Screening of 'Howl', directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman and starring James Franco. $5

Monday, Jan. 27, 7:30 - 9:45 pm

Beat/SF Renaissance author & poet David Meltzer’s seminar on the LA Avant Garde Scene & Wallace Berman: an exploration of Berman's utilization of kabbalistic ideas and symbols in his variegated body of art works. $20 at the door/Info:julmind@mtashland.net

February events

Saturday, February 1, 2 – 4 pm

Poetry Reading with Jack Hirschman and David Meltzer - $10

Friday, February 7, 7 -8:30pm

Screening of 'Venice West and the LA Scene' by Mary Kerr. David Reid host discussion. $5

Saturday, February 15, 7 - 9 pm

The Zan Stewart Band with pianist Keith Saunders, bassist Adam Guy, and drummer Ron Marabuto, $7 - 10 at the door.

OPENING NIGHT, JANUARY 10, 2014

Posted by: Julia Lazar
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Lego Robots + Textiles = WOW

So the robot guys are relaxing and they were searching cool mechanical things to do with the Lego robot parts and found these two looms made from legos.  Yes - working LOOMS with legos.  One is mechanical and the other is a programmed loom.  Crazy cool.  I told them I wanted them to weave me something.  Go to the sites and watch the videos.  Totally crazy cool.

Tricia

Friendly Rivalry

Without a doubt, the most important thing about this story is that JDate and Christian Mingle collaborate on an annual survey.

Also, Jews are less likely to cheat. So that's good.

David Hirsh's 101 Lesson on Opposing BDS

David Hirsh, in a masterful post gets all the key points of the anti-racist and counter-anti-Semitic movement against the BDS in one place. This is a necessary resource (Engage is already a necessary resource, but this post is an absolutely invaluable compilation).