North House Folk School

Earlier this month I made a pilgrimage down to the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa. There I visited the national exhibition of Norwegian-American folk art (which I have work in) and visited fellow resident Tara Austin’s solo exhibition. It was incredibly exciting to see myself and people I know in a museum, but the main reason for my trip was to conduct a collection visit.

A few weeks prior to my trip, I made a request to view a jacket in the Vesterheim collection. The jacket was part of a wedding ensemble that was used in 1807 in a town just outside of Stavanger. Upon my arrival, the head curator Laurann Gilbertson had surprised me by pulling the rest of the wedding ensemble, as well as several other jackets with similar gored construction. I was awed by the fine craftsmanship of these garments. They were simple yet cleverly patterned. Another thing that jumped out at me as I inspected the garments was all the instances of piecing.

In modern sewing, a pattern piece is usually cut out of one continuous piece of cloth. However, if you do not have enough cloth to accommodate the pattern piece, two pieces of fabric can be sewn together to make a piece large enough to cut out the pattern. Nowadays, having to piece a garment might be a sign of improper project planning. But back when fabric was much more of a commodity, it was essential to ensure that there was as little waste as possible. Looking at all of the piecing that was done on these exquisite pieces got me thinking about our modern standards for craftsmanship.

The more I looked at the pieces, the more I noticed the uneven stitching and messy selvedges on the handwoven cloth. These are things I would beat myself up over if I had done similar things in my own work. In our post-industrialized society, we as craftspeople now have to compete with power looms and plastic goods. Craftsmanship is now almost synonymous with the pursuit of precision and perfection, but this shift has really only happened in the past 100 years or so. The concept of craft as we know it today developed in opposition to industrialization. Before, craft was simply how things were made.

Despite all the “imperfections” in the Vesterheim pieces, it was hardly noticeable when looking at the garments as whole. It was at this point that I began to think that if museum pieces had loopy selvedges, then perhaps my occasional variation in the selvedge was not the end of the world. If I want my weavings and garments to be used, then I need to allow myself to finish them as well as they need to be, rather than striving for state fair levels of perfection. I am one person. I cannot compete with mass-produced textiles and nor should I try to. 

For doesn’t the beauty of craft lie in the presence of the hand? I certainly think so.