I read about Jim Naughten's new book in Selvedge - that magazine that makes me panicky from aesthetic pleasure overload. In a way the website I just linked you to doesn't even come close to capturing. I mean, in what other magazine could you become completely engrossed in a five page article about the origins and maintenance of the 1930's art deco upholstery on the London Tube? Exactly. But I digress.
Jim Naughten photographed the sort-of traditional dress of the Herero tribe of Namibia. The 'sort-of' is tacked on as a kind of explanation for how the Herero adopted and transformed patterns of dress from German and English colonizers in the early 20th century. Naughten comments on the addition of 'cow horns' to the womens' headdresses as a marker of the importance of cattle to the tribe's well being.
This is material culture. This is anthropology at its finest. This makes me panicky.
There are other women who have picked up the quilting thing, I think - I've seen a traveling show of their work. It's like this - bold, and to the euro eye, a bit unpredictable. I came to that from my quilter self. That third shot is profoundly affecting. That is a person of great length and presence and that shaded fabric, the brown set on the diagonal is sensational in the whole presentation. I've always wanted to make something like this. Perhaps I shall some day.
By the way, I think I understand the feeling of anxiousness that things like this sets loose in you. Perhaps mine is different - when I am overloaded by promptings on all sides, set on fire by image or inspiration. Shortness of breath and inability to move, perhaps because I need to move dynamically in all directions at once?
Posted by: Kristen | March 21, 2013 at 04:16 PM
Other tribal women, I meant.
Posted by: Kristen | March 21, 2013 at 04:16 PM