Melinda is working on the narration for the video of our project for her exhibit. She asked, how many hours of embroidery have been done so far?

In the fine old tradition of passing the buck, I asked Arianna to go through the heap of time sheets from over a year’s worth of embroidery sessions. She patiently, and painstakingly, combed each one, totaling the minutes, figuring hours, totaling hours, checking, double checking, walking away for coffee ….

After a couple of days, she gave me a little yellow post-it with the total so far -

2183.5

Very nearly 2200 hundred hours. This is, as Tricia says, “time spent moving the needle”. This isn’t shopping, or chatting, or even practicing on the doodle cloth. This includes time spent on the coif and forehead cloth, but not Tricia’s hours or some of Wendy’s, so it probably all evens out. Of course we still have the gold and sequins to go, so the final, grand total may top our original estimate, but we’ll continue to keep good records so we’ll be able to report back.

I’m amazed and humbly grateful. Thank you all so much for your dedication to this project.

Because a number like that deserves some eye candy to go with it, here’s a photo of show & tells waiting their turn. I love this; it’s such a heap of riches, of time and skill and precious needleworked beauty and usefulness. Included here are items by Sandye, Jennifer, Sharon and Catherine.

Part of the point of doing a project like this is to spread knowledge and appreciation of embroidery and lace making and other needlework. I’ve mentioned before how Laura, our 2007 summer intern, did her first needlework project because of her association with the jacket project, and how others have been inspired to pick up old projects, start new ones, or learn new styles and techniques.

Han, the videographer who was here over the weekend, has been inspired too. He said a few times how much he enjoyed this assignment, and how much he learned. He said that he has seen and admired embroidery before, and thought he appreciated it. But after about eight hours of filming our volunteers, examining their work, hearing about the stitches and the research behind them, filming Carolyn making the lace, and in the photo here Mark making the spangles for the lace.

I wish I could remember exactly how he phrased it, but you could see how much of an impression this whole project made. He said that he not only appreciated embroidery now, he understood it much better and would look at other examples of embroidery with whole new eyes.

I think that’s just as important, maybe even more so, than communicating with folks who already embroider.

PS. Here Mark has set up his spangle-making kit (he carried the tall stump on his shoulder) in our “snack room”, also known as the Colonial Interpretation Department conference room. They kindly hand it over to us for our weekend embroidery sessions. Mark set up here because the wardrobe office was full of 9 embroiderers, Wendy, Tricia, Carolyn making lace, and me trying hard to stay out of the way.

Melinda Watt, the curator from the MET who was here filming yesterday, and Han Vu, the videographer from Bard College’s Graduate Center for the Arts, said goodbye this morning and headed back to New York.

Melinda is a teeny-tiny bit stressed over the way time is accelerating and the to-do list is lengthening as she gets closer to the exhibit opening. She’s still working on the catalogue for it, which sounds absolutely amazing and I can’t wait to see it. In fact, I’ve already pre-ordered a copy through our gift shop book buyer, but I refrained from mentioning this to her because I thought the idea that people were pre-ordering a book she isn’t finished with yet might be a little alarming. So send her encouraging thoughts. This exhibit is going to be excellent.

I promised you details – English Embroidery from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1580 – 1700 Twixt Art and Nature December 11, 2008 – March 15, 2009, at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture 18 West 86th Street, New York, NY 10024 – www.bgc.bard.edu

Melinda left a great brochure for the exhibit; here’s a bit of the description:

“English Embroidery comprises approximately 80 objects from the MMA’s collection of embroideries and comparative supplemental material from the Museum and other institutions and private collectors. The exhibition is presented on three floors of the BGC and is organized in sections that explore thematic and typological characteristics of the embroideries. Original printed images and texts, combined with high-quality photo reproductions, help the viewer contextualize the embroideries in a way that has not been attempted previously. There is also a special animation component, consisting of three digital videos that demonstrate stitch techniques, to enhance visitors’ understanding of this art form.”

There’s a lot more, but I bet you’re drooling already. And as if that weren’t enough, Tricia and Melinda and the other exhibit coordinators are finalizing various special events around the exhibit. I’ll ask Tricia to do us a blog entry when the details are set.

We’ve got a lot going on this weekend (OK, how many times have you heard me say that?). But we really do.

Aside from working with us, and her several day jobs, Tricia has also been working with the Metropolitan Museum in NY on a exhibition of 16th-17th century embroidery which will open in December of this year.

This exhibition will include a video of some of our volunteer embroiderers and lace makers actually doing some of this kind of embroidery. So in addition to the 11 embroiderers and one lace maker working in the office today, we also have Melinda, assistant curator at the MET, and Han, videographer from Bard College filming and asking questions and doing all sorts of things – including, in Melinda’s case, a curlique of the gold embroidery.

Penny caught her at work, and there is Tricia in the background photographing her contribution. I, of course, forgot my camera at home.

Also blooming in my garden are two kinds of columbine. I see them as purple and purple & white, but the color of the plain ones could be called dark blue. They look dusty, but it’s pollen. The pollen this year seems to have been extremely heavy and when I took these photos it hadn’t rained for several days.

Gerard, whose 1633 Herball we consulted the other day about pinks, also has an entry for Columbine. He says that each sprig of the stalk brings forth “one floure with five little hollow hornes, as it were hanging forth, with small leaves standing upright, of the shape of little birds. These floures are of colour sometimes blew, at other times of a red or purple, often white, or of mixt colors, which to distinguish severally would be to smal purpose, being things so familiarly knowne to all.” The name columbine comes from the Latin word for dove, columba, and the OED says that the flower “has some resemblance to five pigeons clustered together.”

While I was taking the pictures last week I wondered if my columbines are modern hybrids, and they may be; they were here in the garden when we bought the house. But Gerard’s description and his engravings match my flowers pretty well, especially if you think the purple might be called blue.

In an email, Melinda asked if I was familiar with another 17th century herbal, one that has separate and detailed entries for gillyflowers, carnations and pinks. I’m not, in fact I didn’t recognize the name (and now can’t remember it), but I will definitely try to find a copy and I’ll let you know whatever of interest I turn up.

I think the stitched columbines are definitely of the “mixt colors” sort.