Hello, A friend, Annette Meldrum, sent this email on to me as the article it refers to is mine. I am happy that it is of interest to you, though I just wanted to comment on what was written as the Powerhouse project was done with a budget of almost nothing...there is not really unlimited funding for any form of historical research! To me the challenge is not so much one of seeking funding from other fields as it is making sure that our research really is worthy of a share of what little research funding exists. Lace is a fascinating textile, but what makes it interesting to a wider audience is the context; be that the development of techniqe and design, the use of and trade in materials, or the relationship between lace and other decorative art forms. Research must be focused without being blinkered. One needs to find what really interests them about lace and then allow research to develop from there. It is not that lace is the low man, it is simply one man in a very large community of decorative and fine arts - research institutions all over the world are experiencing funding cuts and the simple fact is that the share which goes to lace research is small, but in reality no smaller that that made availible for research into other highly specialised fields such as research into antique velvets, or Roman glassware, or Baroque medallions. The sheer number of books which continue to be published on the subject of lace would suggest to me that the state of lace research is surprisingly healthy considering the global climate for academic funding. My last point is that much current research on lace is not written in English...in countries which have a long tradition of lace such as Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium, research into textiles, including lace, continues to flourish, and so one must always be aware of what is going on outside the English speaking world. Eventhough academic research is going through a hard time, lace is doing fine! Kind regards, Angharad
>Oddly, I have been given a copy of an article by someone in Australia. There >was a piece of lace that was on a ship that was wrecked off Australia in 1629 >thus giving an actual date that the piece was in existance. The Maritime >Museum's lab there did a fiber analysis on the lace and determined that it was >linen with cotton fibers added to the linen. Subsequently the woman was allowed to >do a fiber analysis on laces from the same era at the Powerhouse museum and a >sizable majority of them also had cotton fibers with the linen. This is >rather interesting since generally, people think that cotton wasn't used in lace >until the 1800's. > >Clearly the challenge is to relate our study to some other discipline, ie. >Maritime History, or Shroud of Turin studies. There seems to be unlimited funds >for some innately intriquing fields, whereas lace is sort of the low man on >the totem pole among textiles and textiles are the low man on the totem pole in >art. >Devon > __________________________________________________________________ Partecipa al concorso Tiscali "collegati e vinci", il primo premio e' un viaggio per 2 persone a Zanzibar! http://point.tiscali.it/numerounico/ - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
