Depictions of the Seamstress

http://petersburg.berkeley.edu/olga/olga_singer_sms2.html

Depictions of the Seamstress in Literature - Mary Barton

The Seamstress in Literature

Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life was first published in 1848. The story is set in Manchester and details the life of Mary Barton, the daughter of a man accused of murder and follows her story from a young girl through to marriage.

This story blends fact and fiction, as the murder in the book is based on the real event of the murder of a mill owner around 1831.

Chapter 1
A Mysterious Disappearance.

"Oh! 't is hard, 't is hard to be working
The whole of the live-long day,
When all the neighbours about one
Are off to their jaunts and play.

 - MANCHESTER SONG

Dressmakers Report Circa 1843

In 1843 a report was released describing the conditions offered to young women apprenticed to dressmakers:

“The evidence of all parties establishes the fact that there is no class of persons in this country, living by their labour, whose happiness, health, and lives, are so unscrupulously sacrificed as those of the young dress-makers. They are, in a peculiar degree, unprotected and helpless; and I should fail in my duty if I did not distinctly state that, as a body, their employers have hitherto taken no steps to remedy the evils and misery which result from the existing system. . . . It may without exaggeration be stated that, in proportion to the numbers employed, there are no occupations, with one or two questionable exceptions such as needlegrinding,in which so much disease is produced as in dress-making, or which present so fearful a catalogue of distressing and frequently fatal maladies.


http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/ugoretz1.htm

http://www.fashion-era.com/the_seamstress.htm

Depictions of the Seamstress

Depictions of the Seamstress

Richard Redgrave 1846 The Seamstress

William Adolphe Bourgereau The Seamstress

(Both Redbubble.com) Ash Sivilis & Lisa Defazio
Joseph Decamp

Frederick Daniel Harvey

William Powell Firth

Charles Baugniet

Sarah Dolby The Expectant Seamstress

ISRAELS ISAAC THE SEAMSTRESS HIRSCH SUN

George Romney

Umberto Boccioni The Romance of One Seamstress

Irving Penn

Hal Foster An Archival Impusle

Hal Foster (2004 p145) “...the nature of all archival materials are found yet constructed, factual yet fictive, public yet private”.
Foster’s An Archival Impulse argues that there is a growing interest in artists using the idea of the archive within their work. Charles Merewether’s The Archive also discusses the growth of this within contemporary art practices, and supports this idea in reference to the accessibility to the archive through digital means. I wish to explore this idea through my research into artists such as Susan Hiller who use material in an archival format. For example, From the Freud Museum (1991) is of particular relevance to my work in terms of the use of documentation and inclusion of different mediums, from photographs to writings and ephemera.


http://www.doublearchive.com/pdf/Foster_An_Archival_Impulse.pdf

J Morgan Puett

35 Calhoun:
An introduction to "Cottage Industry"
by curator Mary Jane Jacob

"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."

J. Morgan Puett has developed a unique artistic practice that negotiates the disparate territories of fashion, architecture, and fine art. Her art involves complete systems of production, developed in response to historical and contemporary issues around commerce, history, and labor
http://www.jmorganpuett.com/




Wholesale to the Trade Only 1985-1997



Waxed Couture 1993

Sketchbook Pages

Caroline Broadhead

The Archive - Charles Merewether

Merewether claims that "the archive - official or personal - has become the most significant means by which historical knowledge and memory are collected, stored and recovered".

Jacque Derrida's Archive Fever began as a lecture which discussed the following ideas in terms of the different ways in which the concepts of the archive have evolved.

They are broken down into six sections which discuss different elements of the idea of the archive.

Note
Exergue
Preamble
Foreword
Theses
Postscript

References

http://otherreality.wordpress.com/

Jacque Derrida's Archive Fever:A Freudian Impression. Trans Eric Prenowitz The University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London 1995

Photograms and Photoshop

Jana Sterbak 2

 Chemise de Nuit 1993

Measuring Tape Cones 1979


Measuring tape cones in performance piece



Vie sur mesure 1988

Sterbak incorporates the technical side of dressmaking using a tape measure, but incoporates her own personal view on the tape measure. It is made from vinyl with images tranferred via a laser tranfer process. The incorporation of the family portraits, in this case drawings onto the tape measure, creates an archive within a functional object to evoke a more emotive response in the viewer.

http://www.janasterbak.com/images.html

Christopher Nemeth

http://www.theselby.com/5_13_09_christopher_nem/index.html


You didn't have any formal fashion design training, so how and why did you first get into making clothes?"I moved from Birmingham to London in 1979 to do painting at Cambewell College of Arts. I graduated in 1982, and for a couple of years after that I was painting at home. The paintings at the time would involve me getting old suits, taking them apart, laying them flat, like a canvas. Because there were all these shaped pieces of fabric, it kind of looked like an animal skin. I would put glue on them and chuck sand on them, and paint on them with house paint, and I would stick images on them from holiday brochures. I had no money, I couldn't afford to buy any clothes - and I couldn't actually find any clothes I liked, anyway - so I began to make them for myself. I had this pair of trousers that I'd picked up in a jumble sale, which I really liked the shape of, but after wearing them endlessly they had completely worn out. So, I took them to bits, laid them flat, and made my own new version of them. That was how I made my first pair of trousers - as a way of getting back those trousers that I loved but had worn out".
http://www.i-donline.com/i-spy/memory-christopher-nemeth

Raphael Vicenzi

Raphael Vicenzi is a self taught Illustrator from Belgium.

I am particualr interested in the ways in which he integrates text with imagery to create a unique and individual illustrative style. I want to incorporate both images and text within my work and this maybe something that would inspire me.

I am also interested in the way in which he uses both modern and historical imagery to create a creative and individual look to the work.









www.behance.net/mydeadpony

Katrina Rodabaugh

My Dress/Object




Bark Bust 1

http://www.katrinarodabaugh.com/?attachment_id=26

Dr Jane Turner Tutorial on Embodiment

I was very interested in discussing the ideas of embodiment in relation to my work and how my ideas wree developing in terms of whether or not the idea of my dress should be a container for the archive, or if I should perhaps film myself in the dress or via still photographs.

We discussed the following ideas:

Concatentation - this refers to a series of events or things which can create a link or chain of events. This perhaps would be an idea to develop in relation to the actual physical creation of the garment, weaving the fabric and/or threads.

Derrida's Ideas in particular the notion of absence and presence. You can only understand the absence through the presence of something, eg, item/object/garment/photograph

References

Suzy Gablick The Reenchantment of Art
Kate Atkinson Behind the scenes at the Museum

Victorian Portrait

I am especially interested in the way in which this image is faded at the bottom of the image. This is something I may explore further through my work. This could be achieved through staining of bleaching the material to create the sense that the images and text are aged.

Jana Sterbak

http://www.janasterbak.com/

 Vanitas

Erwin Olaf

Louise Richardson

Louise Richardson combines a range of different media to explore themes of memory and her own personal identity through her work. The examples below reflect the variety of working methods and incorporation of many different types of media including dead insects, material, text, handwriting and fabrics.











http://louiserichardson.blogspot.com/