I know that not everyone can make it to Minneapolis to see this exhibition, so I am bringing it to you virtually. I walked through the gallery and took photos of all of the pieces and didactics, so you can walk with me and follow along. For those that are local, you can see the show in person at Hennepin History Museum through April 30.
This video is about 2 1/2 hours condensed down into 34 seconds. That’s me installing just one of the pieces for my first solo exhibition, which opened on Thursday last week. I thought it would be fun to try and capture a little about what installation is like because I don’t think artists often talk about that part. I filmed this on my iPad, which was set up on a windowsill across the room.
The piece is called Well Dressed and there are 144 origami dresses hung on tiny clothespins from bakers twine.
I had sorted them ahead of time by style. If you look closely at the photo, there are about 7 different dress styles and I wanted to make sure they were fairly evenly distributed among the “laundry lines”. I chose colors and patterns to be next to one another as I went along. The patterns on each dress were created by students in the workshops I did as part of this grant project. I printed their designs on wrapping paper in 6 inch squares. Then I did a lot of practice folding. I searched for origami dress tutorials on YouTube and Pinterest and because my paper was much thicker than traditional origami paper, I needed to fold and tweak the designs to work with the heavy paper.
I installed this piece first because I knew it would take the most time. Actually after I finished the time lapse video, I went back and added one more laundry line row so I could spread out the dresses a little more because I felt like they were too crowded.
In addition to this wall, there were 8 other pieces, a section of photos and “the making of” original art, plus 2 interactive sections. The rest of those were relatively fast to install.
Most of my dress forms have to be creatively padded to make things fit just right. I always make pieces that fit me, but I am not as tiny as the dress forms are. Quilt batting, bubble wrap and pins are my friend. I forgot to take a photo of the “before”, but this lady is wearing two layers of quilt batting and a bra with some extra padding so she looks like this dress fits her. The arms on these dress forms help a lot to make things hang right.
You can see from the photos that the gallery I installed everything in is an old house. I thought formal gallery labels would look kind of out of place in that kind of a setting, so I made all of my labels look like framed pieces and used vector drawings of big ornate frames to put them in. I printed those on peel and stick wallpaper and cut out the outside edge of the frame before I hung them up.
144 paper dresses, 288 clothespins, 84 feet of string, 3 dozen velcro hangers, 8 dress forms, 12 trips up and down 2 flights of stairs, 14 feet of wallpaper, 20 yards of fabric, 6 hours to install.
It ‘s #MuseumWeek on Twitter this week and that seemed like a great excuse to talk about my favorite museum in the Twin Cities: Hennepin History Museum. Museum Week is a fun celebration of museums behind the scenes. Yesterday the theme was “behind the scenes secrets” and today the theme is “souvenirs”. And I have some great souvenirs from HHM!
I visited the museum a few weeks ago and brought along my camera. HHM is housed in a turn-of-the-century mansion that is full of beautiful details. When I was there taking photos, an exhibition of hand fans had just opened to coincide with a “Fireside Chat“, an afternoon lecture by a local fan collector. HHM holds these chats every other week and they feature local authors and history experts talking about everything from beekeeping to baseball.
I was really enamoured with this painted feather fan. It is made from white goose feathers which are painted with a floral spray and tipped with peacock plumes. Since I have been designing skirts non-stop the last few months, I looked at this and saw a skirt (naturally). My wrap skirt design is a 3/4 circle, which is a tough shape to work from, but a fan is already a 1/3 circle shape. It was a natural fit!
I love those peacock feathers around the hem! The museum staff was so excited that I was making things inspired by the collection that they invited me to have this skirt on display along with the fans. It was neat for me to see the two side-by-side and you can see them too if you stop by.
I also took some photos of the woodwork details in the Fireside Room. This helix patterned trim is featured throughout the room.
And that also inspired a design. I haven’t stitched up the sample of this one yet, but you can see the sketch. I used this bit of woodwork trim to make radiating stripes from the waist to hem. I also designed a basic stripe based on this woodwork pattern, which I will hopefully be printing to make silk scarves for the HHM shop a little later in the spring.
One visit and two pretty awesome designs! I feel like I found buried treasure. I can’t wait to go back and see what else I find.
I had never actually heard of Hennepin History Museum before a year or so ago, even though it has been around since the 50s. My friend Cedar is their new Executive Director and I think she has some pretty awesome ideas and the enthusiasm to bring their knowledge and collections more into the community. In fact, I joined the Board of Directors in January, so I can help her out with that project. If you are in the Twin Cities area, I hope you will stop by and visit or come for a Fireside Chat.
