In the Mail

During the recent International Society of Experimental Artists exhibit at the Dennos Museum Center in Traverse City, Michigan, participating artists were invited to offer small pieces of their work for sale in the museum store, an opportunity I was pleased to accept.

I was even more pleased to accept the offer to continue making my work available after the show closed and even better, the request to send more, due to the number of pieces that had sold!

The twelve pieces above, are in the mail to Dennos: they represent a northern Michigan herbarium.

Each started with a botanical photograph, shot here on Mackinac, one for each month of the year. The photos were transferred onto silk and then overbeaded, using a variety of beading techniques. They are mounted on small wooden bases and labeled with both their Latin and common name.

GORGEOUS NOTHINGS: The Grave is the Ultimate Seal

I was recently invited to participate in a rather unique exhibit: The Gorgeous Nothings, based on the envelope poems of Emily Dickinson and held at Three Pines Studio in Cross Village, MI.

What's an "envelope poem"?

In the mid-1990s, while examining Dickinson material in the Amherst College Library, the literary historian Marta L. Werner came across a small, irregularly-shaped collage cut from recycled 19th-century envelopes and covered with writing in Dickinson’s unmistakably hieroglyphic script.

Enchanted, Ms. Werner started a search for similar items in other collections and found dozens, long familiar to Dickinson experts but never examined as a group. Most were less elaborate than the collage. Some consisted of semi-intact envelopes that had been gently pried apart at the seams and flattened out. Others were fragments: torn-off corners of envelopes, detached flaps.

Whatever their configurations, the pocket-size papers shared one feature: sentences, stanzas and entire roughed-out poems pencil-written by Dickinson herself.

Now all the known “envelope poems” — 52 — have been gathered into a book called “Emily Dickinson: The Gorgeous Nothings,” published by New Directions and the art dealer Christine Burgin. 

My chosen envelope poem was A842:

As there        are

Apartments        in our

own     Minds        that-

we      never      enter

without          Apology-

we    should       respect

the     seals    of    

others  -        

When I read the poems of Emily Dickinson, it's always through a 19th century filter - I've been involved in mid-19th century living history too long for it to be any other way.

My first inclination was to go in the direction of phrenology, especially the idea of apartments or compartments in the mind.

But I was really intrigued by the idea of envelopes and seals.

Clothing, of course, envelopes the body and I was relatively certain that no one else would use a period correct fan-front dress as the base of their work. Thus, "Emily dressed"!

        

There is symbolism in every aspect of this piece, some relating to the poem and some relating to Emily and her body of work.

I chose a fan-front dress, as that is the style Emily wears in the only authenticated image of her as an adult, albeit in an earlier style of fan-front. And it had to be in white, of course - it helped that I had a bolt of white lawn in my stash.

Adorning the front of the bodice is a winged death-head, an image from a very old Massachusetts grave stone, reference to death that so often is the focus of Emily's poetry.

Crossed bones, from the same stone, embellish the sleeve jockeys. You can also see the very fat piping I used, black wool yarn in the center. While I love the look it achieved, it was rather hard to force myself to use it - certainly not period correct!

Each flounce is centered with a large, ornate keyhole, a reference to seals. In addition, each flounce was hemmed using a feather stitch, an allusion to "Hope is a thing with feathers".

The top flounce also depicts a mid-19th century image of an apartment building, with people going about their daily routine.

The bottom flounce features a very appropriate quote, from Lydia Child's The Frugal Housewife, a book that Emily's mother was known to have owned:

“The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of gathering up all the fragments, so that nothing be lost. I mean fragments of time as well as materials.”

The piece includes two final embellishments, a pair of chatelaines:

The first is a group of envelopes, translucent, allowing the contents to be glimpsed - an barium page, a bit of lace, some buttons, a tiny silhouette and ripped up printed pages. The envelopes are not addressed - who are the intended recipients?

The second is a trio of large over sized keys, keys allowing the opening of seals.

The other participating artists created equally thought provoking pieces, all on display until June 16th. Will you be in Northern Michigan? If so, do try to work in a visit to Three Pines Studio!

HOW Old???

Mackinac is known for our lilacs and with good reason - our cold winters and limestone based soil are ideal growing conditions for lilacs.

Our lilacs tend to grow tall - compare the people to the size of the "bushes" in this photo (and these are not amongst the largest) :

But how old are they and how long have they been growing here...really?

If you listen to the Carriage Tours drivers, they tell the tourists that the French first brought lilacs to Mackinac. But it just seems really unlikely that either French fur trappers or Jesuit missionaries were hauling lilacs via canoe to plant on Mackinac, they were rather involved in other pursuits.

This particular myth makes us think of an alternative version of Johnny Appleseed - Jacque LeLac, anyone?

But at a recent presentation at the Mackinac Island Public Library, by Corinne Smith, author of
Westward I Go Free: Tracing Thoreau's Last Journey has brought to light the earliest written documentation of lilacs on Mackinac yet - in July of 1861 by Henry David Thoreau!

Suffering from "consumption," or tuberculosis, during the last years of his life, Thoreau decided, on the recommendation of his physicians, to take a trip to St. Anthony, Minnesota, to stay with a friend. He died nine months after his trip, so his notebook of the journey was never published.

He was on Mackinac from June 30 to the July 4, 1861. During his stay on the Island, Thoreau took extensive botanical notes and copied down local folk stories he learned from the county clerk, William Johnston, brother in-law of Henry Schoolcraft.

Thoreau may be best known as a writer, but he was also a botanist who collected hundreds of specimens of New England plants to create his own herbarium. In addition, he kept detailed journals, noting when and where particular species were in bloom - in fact, his journals are now being used by climatologists to to discern patterns of plant abundance and decline in Concord — and by extension, New England — and to link those patterns to changing climate.

One of these notes made during his stay on Mackinac stated: "apples in bloom - & lilac"

Will a reference in a currently unpublished diary or letter push that date back further?

Maybe...

But it doesn't change that fact that lilac time on Mackinac is magical - come visit next June and see for yourself!

Flowers of the Sea

"OH! call us not weeds, but flowers of sea,

For lovely, and gay, and bright tinted are we;

Our blush is as deep as the rose of thy bowers,

Then call us not weeds, we are Ocean's  gay flowers.

Not nurs'd like the plants of the summer partere,

Whose gales are but sighs of an evening air;

Our exquisite, fragile, and delicate forms,

Are nurs'd by the Ocean and rock'd by the storm."

Seaweeds, the "Flowers of the Sea", were frequently collected by Victorian ladies, for inclusion in an herbarium - not an easy task given the clothing of the day:

“…many difficulties are apt to arise; among the foremost of which must be mentioned the risk of cold and destruction of clothes. The best pair of boots will not stand salt water many days – and the sea-weed collector who has to pick her way to save her boots will never be a loving disciple as long as she lives. It is both wasteful, uncomfortable, and dangerous to attempt sea-weed hunting in delicate boots. As for the hardier hunters who have learned to walk boldly into a pool if they suspect there is anything worth having in the middle of it, they will oil their boots. Next to boots comes the question of petticoats; and if anything could excuse a woman for imitating the costume of a man, it would be what she suffers as a sea-weed collector from those necessary draperies! But to make the most of a bad matter, let woolen be in the ascendant as much as possible; and let the petticoats never come below the ankle.”  

   Margaret Gatty , “British Sea-Weeds” 1865

Some collections were quite scientific; carefully labeled with date and location of collection, as well as the proper Latin name, if possible.

Other's focused on a more decorative presentation:

In my presentation, "Botanizing Women: The Growth of a Cultural Phenomenon", I spoke at length at the influence botany had on everyday life in the mid-19th century. This was even noted at the time, by Susan Fenimore Cooper:

“Look at the chair on which your friend is sitting, at the carpet beneath your feet, at the paper on the walls, at the curtains which shut out the wintry landscape, at the table near you, at the clock, the candlesticks, nay, the very fire-irons – or it may be the iron mouldings upon your stove – at the picture-frames, the book-case, the table-covers, the work-box, the inkstand, in short, all of the trifling knick-knacks in the room, and all these you may see, in bolder or fainter lines, a thousand proofs of the debt we owe to the vegetable world, not only for so many of the fabrics themselves, but also for the beautiful forms, and colors, and ornaments we seek to imitate. Branches and stems, leaves and tendrils, flowers and fruits, nuts and berries, are everywhere the models… the most durable and costly materials the earth holds in her bosom, stone and marble, gold, silver, and gems, have been made to assume, in a thousand imposing or graceful forms, the lines of the living vegetation. How many of the proudest works of art would be wanting, if there had been no grace and dignity in trees, no beauty in leaves and flowers!”

Here's a couple dress fabrics, which clearly show the influence of the seaweeds:

And a dinner plate, with a coral pattern:

I live surrounded by fresh water, not the ocean, and so was not able to attempt any collection/preparation of seaweeds for my presentation. Magazines and books of the period offered instruction on the proper techniques:

Peterson's Magazine July 1857

To Preserve Sea-Weeds and the proper season for collecting them.- Sea-weeds may be collected at any time, but summer is the most agreeable season for this interesting work. Put each specimen in a plate full of water, it will then be easy to spread out and arrange the branches or fibres. Then introduce a sheet of paper under the sea-weed and carefully raise it out of the water, the specimen will be beautifully displayed upon the paper, and when dry will be found attached to the paper by means of the gluten in the sea-weed.

This past fall, I finally had my opportunity, albeit, not under ideal conditions! 

We were in Gloucester, MA. to attend the opening of the International Society of Experimental Artists exhibit, as I had a piece accepted into the show - coincidentally, a water related creation!

It wasn't until the day before we were leaving that it occurred to me that I could try to press some seaweeds to add to the display that accompanies the presentation. Luckily, our room had a kitchenette, so after collecting some "Flowers of the Sea" and some watercolor paper to use as my mounts, I started trying to "float" the seaweed onto the paper - not as easy as it might sound! A quality mount should have each tiny little filament of each piece of seaweed separate and distinct from each other - no overlaps, no bends, no wrinkles - and while it wasn't too hard to achieve while in the water, lifting them out was a whole 'nother story. I, of course, didn't have a plant press with me, so we improvised; a nightstand, protected with a plastic bag and  turned upside down had to suffice.

The mounts were not even approaching dry when we left, so into the plastic bag and into my carry on they went; we didn't arrive home until several days later and they were starting to get a bit odoriferous. But I put them in the press ASAP and here are the results:

Perfect? No, but not too bad considering the circumstances! And, no lingering odor, either.

While I have some period examples to display, I'm really glad to have tried this experiment - hands on is always preferable to theory.

I first presented "Botanizing Women: The Growth of a Cultural Phenomenon", in 2008, at the Ladies & Gentlemen of the 1860's conference. It is, by far,.my favorite presentation that I've ever assembled and was very well received by the attendees. I've had one other opportunity to share it and would love to do so again , if you know of a group that might be interested, please do let me know!