When I was the IOLI Historian I wrote some pieces culled from information in the earliest publications of the IOLI. I was intrigued that in addition to Kaethe Kliot, there was another major lace figure in San Francisco, Gertrude Biedermann, who espoused a more traditionalist point of view on lace. Could this be a possible source of dramatic tension in a work of fiction? I never met her, although she was very active, even writing a column in the nascent IOLI publication. It was also the practice to contribute articles about lace that had appeared in other publications. I was surprised to see that Biedermann had contributed a piece about lacemaking in Russia that had been published in the Daily Worker, a communist publication, leading me to wonder about a woman who had traditionalist leanings in lace, but possibly atypical political leanings. I had forgotten that Biedermann had predicted the demise of contemporary lace.
I quote myself, "In, Lacemakers bobbin' along, the San Francisco Examiner profiles Martha Anderson and Gertrude Biedermann, "self-styled traditionalists and the only teachers of bobbin lacemaking in San Francisco. They demand equal time in their gentle warfare with contemporary approaches to lacemaking. 'It's a fad,' Mrs. Biedermann says. 'I'm not being critical, but I think contemporary lacemaking will phase out. It reminds me of the paintings you look at and ask, 'What is it?'" Unlike most readers of the San Francisco Examiner, those of us who are in the know, realize that at that very moment, technically outside the city limits of San Francisco, but in nearby Berkeley, Kaethe Kliot is cutting loose, making gargantuan examples of contemporary modern lace and teaching at her business Some Place, the precursor to Lacis. Kathe Kliot remains unnamed in this article, but even Mrs. Biedermann concedes that there are some issues with traditional lacemaking, "Mrs. Biedermann is mildly indignant at the impatience some students show when they take up lacemaking....They want short cuts. They want to hurry...That isn't possible in traditional lacemaking...It's like piano, if you don't practice your scales, you'll never play the concerto."[i]" ________________________________ [i] 1974, p. 64 - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
