The Legacy of Handmade Objects

[Music]

i want to take a few moments and talk

about a topic i call the legacy of

handmade objects

in order to get my arms around a topic

that’s huge i want to tell a few stories

which is something i love

and i want to highlight the lives of two

remarkable women

my grandmother maisie and my daughter

mary

maisie kelsey fitzgerald sly was my

paternal grandmother

granny slice we called her granny sly

was born in the mountains of virginia

in 1907 to an abjectly poor family

family’s story is that her parents died

in an institution called the poor house

something like a debtor’s prison

granny sly married young to escape her

childhood only to find herself plunged

into an alcoholic marriage with my

grandfather

who drank up all the money before it

ever made it home

my father tells stories of his dad

drinking vanilla extract out of the

cupboard

and siphoning alcohol off the top of

sterno cans in order to feed his

addiction

granny sly had eight children by the

time i came along

my grandfather had committed suicide one

of her children had died as an infant

the other children were scattered around

the world and there were dozens of us

grandchildren

and i can say that as a child i often

saw granny as kind of a bitter angry old

woman

perhaps as i think back now there might

be some reason for her to have felt that

way at times

but one year for christmas granny

decided to marshal her

her limited resources and create a gift

for each of the families of her children

i don’t remember her ever doing that any

other time

but this particular year drawing on some

knowledge of the past that i can’t trace

she decided to create embroidered

trapunto

framed pieces for each of her seven

surviving children and their families

just briefly trapunto is an embroidery

method where you stitch around the outer

edge

of figures on fabric in order to give it

a 3d effect

i know that granny’s resources were

limited i know that gathering

frame fabric glass fill material and

threads would have been a major expanse

and i also know that creating those

pieces would have taken the better part

of a year

i still have the trapunto piece that

granny sly made for our family

but i have to say it represents a

bittersweet memory

when we got it i think all the families

kind of looked at it

and thought hmm that’s not too pretty

and it’s kind of old-fashioned and some

of us

grandchildren were always a little

scared of granny

i know my parents hung it in the

basement

where it would seldom be seen

but as i’ve thought back through the

years and i’ve considered the life my

grandmother lived and understood some of

the struggles

that she endured that picture represents

a great deal

of perseverance and hope

in the midst of adversity

i’ve never been able to get rid of it it

doesn’t fit in

any of the decor in my home

but at the same time it’s an enduring

piece of who i

am and the legacy that i bring forward

i suspect every one of us has pieces

like this in our family histories

perhaps in our homes

in reclaiming those items and the

stories they tell we are connecting with

who we are as part of the human family

and those legacies are meant to be

carried forward

speaking of legacies my three children

are the beat of my heart

i look for every opportunity to spend

time with them

and to pass along their heritage to them

about 10 years ago my daughter mary and

i took a trip to greece

mary’s an accomplished photographer and

one day as we were rambling around

athens we stepped into a fabric shop

and mary took a photograph of the

proprietor an older man

standing in front of hundreds of bolts

of colorful fabric

when mary graduated from nursing school

i turned that photograph

into a cross-stitch creation

i’ve done something like this for each

of my children when they graduated from

college

now i can honestly say to mary and mary

can say to those who come after her

that for about 18 months working

approximately 24 hours

every week stitching well over 60

thousand stitches

i thought about mary and i thought about

the trip we took

and the images of that time together

no fabric no threads could ever be as

valuable as those memories

think about this that’s 725

760 seconds

of concentrated energy for one singular

purpose

something that i’ve discovered pretty

amazing as i’ve thought about these two

pieces the trapunto horses

and the county cross stitch fabric

my granny sly wanted to be a nurse

i know that because the family’s story

tells us that she worked in a

tuberculosis hospital as a young woman

and later she sat with aged patients

as a nurse’s aide granny never had the

opportunity to pursue her education

but i think the dream was always there

for her

my daughter mary knew she wanted to be a

nurse when she was in preschool

i would take her into her brothers to

the library and she checked out the same

book

every time the story of an emergency

room nurse

we actually bought a copy of that book

and gave it to her when she headed off

to nursing school

as an inspiration mary had the chance to

pursue her dream

and she’s pretty passionate about it you

can talk about

many things with my daughter but when

you get on the subject of health care

for the poor and homeless

you better wait out you better watch out

she’s going to tell you what needs to

happen

and so i think in a kind of a marvelous

way life has a way of circling back

around

perhaps mary is fulfilling a dream

that maisie never had the chance to

pursue

handmade objects are often forgotten

and pat bypassed in our modern culture

many times people spend hours months

working on creations

and yet with the rush of modern culture

the devaluation of work

by women and manual laborers

many times those pieces become cast off

items

if someone takes the time to put their

essence into a handmade object

it’s worth cherishing my own connection

to handmade objects comes as a result of

my 50-year passion

for fiber arts and there’s a book

if you’re at all interested i hope

you’ll look up it’s called

threads of life the history of the world

through the eye of a needle by

a scottish artist named claire hunter

when claire hunter writes about the

value of

fabric and textiles she says this

the textiles we keep demand to be lifted

stroke handle

they literally connect us to our past

cloth softens with handling

it absorbs the human touch and the

smells that surrounded it

when it was being made sweat

spices perfume would smoke

bury your nose in a textile and you can

literally

bring up the sights and sounds

of people long ago and far away

and if it is a family heirloom

you can be transported to a forgotten

blend

of family fragrance isn’t that a

wonderful phrase

a forgotten blend of family

fragrance i think everybody has a spark

of creativity don’t tell me you don’t

one of the things that we find is that

creativity is manifest in different

people in so many different ways metal

work woodwork

painting sculpture fiber arts

cooking

it’s important to think about

what aspect of handmade work appeals to

you

and to think about the value of taking

the time

of digging in and understanding and

learn the medium being used

and thinking about how we can ourselves

create

a legacy creating handmade objects can

ignite the flames of creativity in each

of us

and i’m also convinced that creating

handmade objects and working with our

hands

cultivates a rich internal spirit

i have one stitching friend who always

says that stitching

centers her gives her a kind of

tranquility

now i will admit you have to find the

kind of handmade work

that gives you that tranquility and

doesn’t create

tension and conflict and that will be

different for each person

but creating and working with our hands

is a way

of finding a meditative process

we know that after world war one in new

zealand

wounded veterans were taught embroidery

in order to calm their ptsd

symptoms

in world war ii women were held

prisoners of war

in china and we found the remnants of

their embroidery that helped them to

express

their fears and create a memory of their

suffering

creating handmade objects is a way that

we can

connect ourselves to the human

experience

and in a lot of ways be transported

from the day-to-day as we become a part

of that great cosmic sweep of life

that surrounds us in the world

when all is said and done whether the

work be expert or amateur

pretty or ugly hard or soft or

impermanent

handmade objects are really the story of

who we are

as part of this human experience

that we’re a part of it helps

connect us to the story

that has come before us and that will

pass along after

creating handmade objects

is a way to complete the journey that we

walk

together so there’s a couple things i

want you to think about doing

when you leave here today number one go

and see if you can identify

some of those legacy items that are part

of your household

or that you may have grown up with i

suspect that a lot of them are hidden

away maybe folded up and put in a

dresser somewhere or hung in the

basement like granny slice piece was

take them out lift them up put them in a

position of prominence and learn the

stories that go with them

because that’s what’s really important

and tell those stories to anybody who

will listen

children nieces nephews somebody walking

down the sidewalk

and then the second part of the quest i

truly believe is equally as important

find

the handmade work that ties you into the

universe

that gives you a sense that you are

creating something that never

existed before and that nobody else can

do in quite the same way

that you can pass along as part of the

legacy of the future

i want to end with another story this is

about

my other grandmother mabel

who was my soul mate

the story of this really bright

white and green scarf this was the first

piece of fiber arc i created at the age

of 12

50 years ago now my grandmother mabel

was about

four foot ten inches tall and she only

ever wore

soft pastel colors

but i have a memory of her with this

scarf

around her face wearing it

as if it were made of gold and a gift

from the king of england

why because her grandson made it

create your story through the legacy of

handmade objects

[Applause]

[Music]

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