This isn't really words of wisdom, but for your information, Hallwalls
Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo sponsored a wonderful installation
called The Bra Quilt a few years back. The two artists sat in the
gallery sewing all summer and many women came in and donated bras. I
thought this might feed in to your larger interest in gender/femininity
issues. Also, at CEPA Gallery also in Buffalo Fay Fairbrother did a very
poignant wedding piece, including the cake, the dress and other
elements. I'm sure there is a lot of other wedding work that's been
done, but I thought these two pieces hit on the issues of emmory,
"woman's work" and femininity in a very effective way.

Elizabeth Licata
Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University
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Kathryn Church wrote:
>
> Greetings List:
>
> Here I go bravely.......
>
> I am a new subscriber to the list attempting to learn about museums and
> exhibitions through monitoring your discussion.
>
> I grew up in a small town in central Alberta, Canada.  Throughout my childhood, my
> mother supplemented the family income by working as a seamstress; she had a
> small but thriving 'cottage" business which she ran from the basement of our
> home.  She kept track of her sewing projects on the empty pages of scribblers
> which her children (me; my three brothers) brought home from school.  She drew
> sketches of the patterns she was using, recorded her clients' measurements and
> pinned fabric swatches to the pages.  In this way, she documented thrity years of
> her worklife.
>
> I left home more than twenty years ago and now work as a sociologist in Toronto;
> one of my areas of specialty is community economic development.  Haunted by my
> mother's business scribblers, I have begun to mobilize a project around the 30
> wedding dresses which are part of her collection.  I am organizing a one woman
> show of my mother's work with this particular "genre" which will feed into a broader
> piece of reserach on gender/feminity.  I have located the women whose dresses
> were sewn by my mother and, in a few weeks, will interview them about the
> creation and meaning of the dresses.  I will also interview my mother and
> interrogate my own childhood memories.
>
> I will also be collecting photographs and newspaper clippings which describe the
> weddings themselves.  I envision an exhibition (and subsequently a book) which
> would include all of these materials surrounded/contrasted by text from the
> itnerviews and other literature which I may want to include.
>
> I have had discussions with a museum network in Alberta about mounting the
> exhibition.  Meanwhile I could use advice (as I am a novice) about getting this
> together and keeping it on track.  Can people direct me to written (or other)
> references which would help me out?  Or people I should talk to?  Any words of
> wisdom?
>
> Kathryn Church
> Post Doctoral Fellow
> Faculty of Social Work
> University of Toronto
> [log in to unmask]