Closet Archaeology: part 4, Fossil Garments

Many of my Fossil Garments were in the show, but you've seen those in previous posts, so I won't repeat them now. Here are some that you haven't seen:

There's an open suitcase holding doll clothes. The piece above it, Fossil Garment #9, (23"h x 21"w) is made with deconstructed doll clothes.  

In this one, I sewed the clothing sections under a layer of fabric (dyed brown), used discharge paste to highlight the embedded forms, and added patches to repair the holes. Meanwhile, resting in the corner, is Embedded Fossil (33"h x 23"w):

This is the wall adjacent to the Road Cut of Dresses. The drying racks hold delicate slips and blouses arranged as if they were ghosts, holding onto the rods and reaching up to the art. 

Fossil Garment #4 (37" x 24") A lovely old blouse, reconfigured with underlying crochet. The 'head' is just a flap which hung down in back (like on a little boy's sailor suit), but I've turned it around to suggest...regret. The one pincushion buried deep in her heart, the other flying off, the arms wrapped tightly across. In a Broadway show, long ago, I saw an actor expressing grief with a striking pose of lowered head and crossed arms, and that position has surfaced more than once in my art. Here, the garment sits on a dark background of embedded crochet, with round doily craters in the stark moonscape. 

So why does one garment wind up exploding in a burst of red scissors and Cinderella handkerchiefs, while another is grief-stricken on dark crochet? No, I don't plan out a piece and find the garment that fits my vision. I hold the garment, and wash it and iron it (which lets me truly get to know it) and try to hear what it has to say. On some level, I am collaborating with generations past, with the women who created these garments and doilies and lace. And while I don't believe that there's anything supernatural going on, clothing does hold memories.

Mending Fossil (50"h x 32"w) also known as the Queen of Mending on some of my earlier lists. I love the way clothing can be opened up to suggest the human form. Here, the back has been folded up to reveal the empty neck opening, while the sleeves have been moved  down front, implying folded hands. This background has the same repair language seen on my Mending Marker, a few posts back. 

Overgrown Fossil (68"h x 49"w) was covered in a previous post, but since then, I've found a picture of the original nightgown, newly washed and deconstructed, showing all the unfolded patches:

And there's a story behind that cover photo:

Now, getting the cover of Fiber Arts was a very big deal. The editor called me just as I was working to finish the exhibit. Was she calling because of the 5 different portfolios I had sent? No, but someone she knew had seen my work and mentioned me. Could she have some new photos of certain pieces? Of course! Could she have photos of the exhibit I was installing? Absolutely! My right arm? Sure!

That was THE most stressful week of my life. I was working on the exhibit, and taking more and more photos, and cropping them and fussing with them.....and my computer died.  

I did not behave well.

Somehow, it all worked out.