I just re-read an old post, and notices a comment at the end about J. Morgan Puett from lovely Charlotte! Thanks for the link - I'd seen images from Mildred's Lane, but I wasn't aware of the extent of Morgan's work, and here's a fascinating excerpt from her artist's statement:
In 1984 I was attempting to research detailed aspects of working people's clothing from 1900-1930 in the costume archives of the Metropolitan Museum, and I was told that no specimens of these clothes survived. The actual reason for this was a shock to me – the clothes had been worn to dust, altered, patched, turned into quilts, chair backs, and curtains, passed down, and eventually used as rags. It was the fact that everything that was part of early vernacular culture was constantly being re-used, re-shaped, and re-worked – in a continuous act of invention that permanently shaped my practice. Categories shifted – clothing became furniture became architecture and vice versa – this changed my thinking about material culture and the inherent fluid nature of things. I realized that these histories and practices needed to not only be preserved and represented in museu
ms but also activated in contemporary public life.
I can't think of a more interesting, relevant attitude to working with our environment.
The images below are from a project Puett collaborated on entitled 'Cottage Industry': In Cottage Industry Puett draws from a deep local rootedness of history and imagery to evoke, through textiles, stories of feminine pursuits at home, women's work and roles, and industrial sites of exploitation. For this project she takes female garments through making and through history -- from designing to dyeing to sewing to marketing, from the 18th century to the present -- employing extensive research and extended collaborations with artists and others from the city and region.
Who wouldn't create something wonderful in this space?
