in common

Category : Farm, Kitchen, Nature, Textiles
Date : July 31, 2017

Sometimes the most wildly different can be the most similar. What do the minimally elegant garments worn by Georgia O’Keeffe and the wildly exuberant clothes of the Counter Culture have in common? The clue may be found in the subtitle, “Handmade Fashion in an American Counterculture.” Yes, the handmade. Both O’Keeffe and members of the Counter Culture movement used their hands to make their garments.

Georgia O’Keeffe’s hand sewn silk garments.

 

Recently I had the fortune of seeing Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern at the Brooklyn Museum and Counter-Couture at the Museum of Art and Design. When one enters the first room of the O’Keeffe show, there are four white silk dresses, and upon examination, one may see the perfectly tiny, couture quality stitching. All made by O’Keeffe. Throughout her life, she continued to sew her own clothing. There is not much pattern found in the O’Keeffe clothing, mainly black and white and the occasional rainbow of color in her wrap dresses, yet the opposite rules for the counter-culture: pattern upon pattern, jubilant tie-dye, proliferating embroidered floral motifs, wildly textured crochet – vividly, abundantly they exploit the hand-sewn in their garments.

Garments on view in Counter-Couture

 

The Counter-Couture wall text states:

“The works on display reflect the ethos of a generation of makers and wearers who-against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement–rejected ideals of the American Dream, which they identified as rooted in consumerism and waste, social conformity in personal appearance and behavior, and a political establishment invested in maintaining the status quo. They embraced a vision of a new, homegrown civilization rooted in self-reliance, resistance to mass-market consumerism, an affirmative connection to nature, and forms of communal engagement to forge new relationships between self and Other.”

Step back. Look. Examine. And now ponder self-reliance.   In one of the exhibition videos, O’Keeffe talks about growing her own food and working hard to make a garden, so she would not have to undertake the long drive down the mountain to purchase food. We see her kneeling amidst the rows of food and picking lettuce, carefully placing it into a folded newspaper. Similarly, the Counter Culture was rooted in the Back-to-Land movement, growing their own food and living off the land, often residing in communes practicing “sustainable agriculture and permaculture, bartering, self-reliance and pacifism.”

Georgia O’Keeffe’s sewing kit

 

How did we go so wrongly awry from these self-reliant times in the 1960s and 1970s? Furthermore, how did we get so far from making and growing to boxes of sugar-laden cereals on the store shelves and cheap t-shirts bearing company logos made in sweat shops in other countries? More importantly, where can we go now for inspiration and guidance?

The newly formed Food and Fibers Project asks us to question where our food comes from, who makes our clothes, and how we can better connect both fiber and food to the land. Their mission states, “There are so many intersections of food and fashion, from the soil that grows our food and fiber, to the plants we can both eat and dye textiles with, to the political acts of cooking our own food and mending our own clothes.”

Garments on view in Counter-Couture

 

Summer seems the ideal time to start on a new path, making ‘re-connections’ as Food and Fibers states. Shop at your local farmer’s market, filling your basket with greens and fruit for your next meal. Make a garment from organic cotton grown in the USA with a pattern from Alabama Chanin. Visit a sheep farm and purchase yarn to make a hat or pair of socks for cooler days to come. Fire up a dye pot from plants grown on the land and re-dye faded, stained clothes from your closet, rendering anew. Mend those blue jeans with the holes in the knees instead of purchasing a new pair.

Each and every time one contemplates a purchase, ask who made this, or where was it grown? The time to ponder and choose is now.

Quoted text from exhibition wall text of Counter-Couture Handmade Fashion in an American Counterculture, Museum of Art and Design. On view until August 20, 2017.

 

Comments (4)

Debra Carbarnes

Brece – what an interesting blog post! Thank you for pointing out the exhibit similarities. I’m looking forward to seeing the O’Keeffe exhibit when it comes to the Salem Peabody Museum as I haven’t gotten to NY for a few months. Happy August (!) 1st.

7 years ago

For sure! There is such pleasure in having something bigger to do with our basic needs than purchasing them
in a store or online. There is an immediacy of expression that is so evident in all of these pictured garments.
I hope I don’t miss the Counter Couture show. The dresses with the Malas on them look very familiar to me…
as in I made dresses with those fine embellishments too. I am thinking of a black corduroy dress for my mom
with one centered over the breast that looked similarly ancient and contemporary as the dresses pictured here.
Thank you for all the suggestions!
xoxS

7 years ago
new reader

I was reared on a farm, so we grew our own food and I was sewing skirts with zippers and waistbands by age 10 (on a machine). My brother still farms and also knows how to sew when needed. Some of us still abide by the ‘live close to the land’ maxim. BTW, there are MANY independent American pattern designers. You might want to see http://thanksimadethem.blogspot.com/2014/01/new-alabama-chanin-collection.html to learn how AC refused to acknowledge the fact that ‘nude’ is not an appropriate color name since it only applies to one skintone. A Caucasian skintone. Not surprising considering the models they choose, either. So while I’m a fan of their textile techniques, I’m NOT a fan of their business practices or race awareness.

7 years ago

    Thanks for taking time to read the blog post and for your thoughtful comment as well as your blog post. I was not aware that ‘nude’ was used as a color name choice and agree with you that it is inappropriate. I will look for independent American patterns to use, too. Best, Brece

    7 years ago

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