Hello all, I too am finding this conversation very interesting. There are a couple of things that I would be interested to know: 1. How dramatically have enrolments of young people, let's say under 20, fallen in recent years? 2. How many professional lace makers/ artists /designers are there among you who use bobbin lace as one of your techniques, even if only to make prototypes?
And a few thoughts from my personal experience: - I started making bobbin lace when I was 11 (now I'm almost 32), and when I began it was already considered difficult to find children who wanted to learn the technique. Perhaps this has ALWAYS been a problem? Certainly the most part of the thousands of young lace workers in here in Italy - and indeed Italian immigrant lace makers in the US - in the late 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries practised this craft out of economic necessity rather than private passion. So perhaps deep down it has always been a technique that only appeals to a certain kind of person... - I also agree that there are lots of things to which other people devote their time and concentration, one which I and other lace making/historian friends find absolutely fascinating is that of folded tessellations - if you google that you will find amazing things that speak directly to that puzzle solving part of the brain that has been mentioned by many. Another more closely related field is that of braiding and knotting which I find is extremely useful for getting people started with off-loom techniques. - In fact I have had very good results with loop manipulated finger braiding as a way of getting fledgling fashion and industrial textile designers to work with their hands... why? Apart from the incredibly strong link that exists between our fingers and our brains, it is something that appears complicated but once you start it becomes surprisingly natural. The students also work with threads that are as long as their forearms, so once they have got into the rhythm they have completed their first piece within 20 minutes! That is very encouraging!! There are similarly satisfying samplers that can be made in bobbin lace, but the beauty of LM is that since a beginner cannot put the threads down and pick them up again later it forces them to stick with it. I have found that once they have gotten over their initial inhibitions they are more open to other techniques from the "off loom" family. - Another point I would like to raise is that of quality; both of design and workmanship. When I was at school my sisters and I always sang in the school choir, one year many of the key voices graduated and the numbers fell as there were few beginners. The choir mistress, wishing to increase numbers and become more "cool" changed the name from "St Patrick's College Choir" to "St Pat's Singing Group" reduced the complexity of the repertoire and introduced (really embarrassing!) dance moves. The result was disastrous. The fact is that many people like to dedicate their time to activities that require practise and study in order to do them well, and sometimes with the desire to make something that we love popular with others we reduce its quality and in the worst cases decline into kitsch. Lace was born as a highly refined fashion textile, and (Please, nobody is to take this personally!!!) the most part of what we see nowadays simply does not reflect that. At last year's Cantu' biennale the entries for the competition (despite the offer of 1000 prize money) were few and did not give a good impression of contemporary lace at all...entries close for the Como Silk Museum's biennial bobbin lace award on October 30 you can find details at http://www.museosetacomo.com/attivita_concorsi.php so let's show the world that high quality bobbin lace still exists! - Speaking of design, I was talking with a lady at a dinner party a few weeks ago and it turned out that her grandmother had a bobbin lace workshop in Chioggia (near Venice) in the first half of the 20th century. On the subject of the collapse of the industry she simply said "the taste for such things no longer exists"... is it a question of taste or our ability to evolve with it? Lace evolved very successfully as an art form from the Renaissance to the Baroque to Rococo and to some extent Neoclassicism but in the post-industrial age has suffered greatly except for the occasional bright light. More than other arts, decorative arts rely on a series of relationships in order to remain relevant; relationships between artisans, designers, artists and industry, when these connections die the art becomes endangered. If we want lace to be relevant it we need to think about what we wish to communicate; in this sense the "Lace Fence" project of Dutch designer Joep Verhoeven has been an important step forward. These pieces are worked by hand in India on large pegboards... now there is a fun idea for children! If I get one student every 2 or 3 years who is interested in bobbin lace I consider that a good average and do what I can to put them on the right track. Competitions like that of the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and others which force us to look at potential applications for our work, I hope, will be the way to bring the younger generations closer to this antique art. I had the extraordinary good fortune to study with Rosemary Shepherd and Thessy Schoenholzer Nichols, so I have been very spoilt and know just how beautiful bobbin lace can be. Kind regards, Angharad -- Angharad Rixon Via Milazzo 191 27100 Pavia ITALY Teaches at NABA (The New Academy of Fine Arts) in Milan, the Roberto Capucci Foundation in Florence and is the founder of Textile Support in Pavia. - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachnemodera...@yahoo.com
