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| Edward F. Maeder. |
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Edward F. Maeder is the director of exhibitions
and curator of textiles at Historic Deerfield, a complex of historic
houses and other buildings in western Massachusetts. Born in Black
River Falls, Wisconsin, in 1945, he had two Swiss grandmothers
who were accomplished needlewomen; his maternal grandmother also
was a trained tailor. Maeder started to embroider at the age of
three, knitted at five, and learned to crochet at seven. Praise
from his precision-demanding maternal grandmother was a constant
source of encouragement.
Maeder has a B.S. in art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison
and a master's in art history in the History of Dress program
at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. After
further textile research in Switzerland, France, and Italy, Maeder
became associate curator of costume at the Fashion Institute of
Technology in New York City and then curator of costume and textiles
at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; he held the latter post
for fifteen years. At the first Convegno on the restoration of
the Sistine Chapel in 1990, he presented his research on the costumes
of the ancestors of Christ. During his tenure as founding director
of the Bata Shoe Museum (home of the world's largest collection
of shoes) in Toronto, he also held a research fellowship in the
costume and textile department at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.
Maeder has taught cultural history at the college level, lectured
on costumes, textiles, and conservation throughout the world,
written many scholarly articles and three books, served on the
board of several scholarly organizations, and dated and authenticated
paintings based on costume and textile information. He recently
completed a piece of whitework for a late-eighteenth-century embroidery
frame that is in one of Deerfield's period houses.
Catherine Leslie: What is your idea of perfect needlework
happiness?
Edward Maeder: Sitting in a comfortable chair on a rainy
day in the fall, with a cup of Blue Mountain coffee from Zabar's,
Saturday at the Opera on NPR, and working on some embroidery
project, either work-related or as a gift for a friend.
CL: Which living needleworker do you most admire?
EM: Kaffe Fassett's brilliant remark regarding "dye-lot
angst" as well as his outstanding contribution to taste in
the textile world pushed him to the top of the chart for me.
CL: What is your greatest extravagance in needlework?
EM: An embroidered coat in eighteenth-century style,
silk on silk velvet that I, unfortunately, never completed.
CL: What is your current state of mind in terms of your
needlework?
EM: It would be nice to have more time to do it. My old
standby—long airplane flights—was spoiled by the security
restrictions. This was especially bad for me as I have always
done a lot of knitting on trans-Atlantic flights. Once I had two
German nuns assist me in rolling up yarn. They later sent me some
photos of the exchange.
CL: Which needlework talent would you most like to have?
EM: Tambour embroidery, for some reason, has eluded me,
but I haven't tried it for many years.
CL: What do you consider your greatest achievement in
your needlework?
EM: The ability to actually "do'' almost every type,
from finger-looping to needle lace and filet netting to tatting.
As a museum curator, it allows me to examine textiles with technical
understanding.
CL: What is your most treasured needlework possession?
EM: A flour sack I embroidered with a figure of a Mexican
in a sombrero next to a donkey with a cactus that I did in 1948
when I was three years old. It was an iron-on transfer from Woolworth's
Five-and-Dime Store. My aunt, with whom I was staying in the country
(because of the polio scare), helped me start this project. We
found it in my mother's dresser drawer when she moved out of the
family home ten years ago.
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Embroidered flour sack by Edward F.
Maeder, age three.
Photograph courtesy of Edward F. Maeder. |
CL: What do you regard as the lowest
depth of needlework misery?
EM: Some large project you offered to do for someone
in a fit of generosity and then had to do it, even though
it was much more work than you thought it would be.
CL: What is your favorite part of your work?
EM: Having the inspiration and assembling the necessary
materials.
CL: What is the quality you most like in a needleworker?
EM: There are several: accuracy, patience, tenacity,
and above all, taste.
CL: What do you value most in your needlework friends?
EM: Their excitement at learning new things from studying
historic pieces.
CL: What is your needlework motto?
EM: It is the same as my life motto: "Make not small
plans, they hold no magic to stir men's souls, and they always
fail.'' I heard this on the radio in 1967 as being the motto of
Mrs. August Belmont II (a great patron of the arts, particularly
the Metropolitan Opera in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries) and I adopted it.
CL: What do you most deplore in needlework?
EM: The idea that so many people think of it as "women's
work."
CL: Who are your heroes in needlework?
EM: The anonymous embroiderers in Paris in the 1730s
and 1740s who stitched small purses with scenes in French knots,
1,500 to the square inch!
CL: What is your greatest fear when doing needlework?
EM: The realization that I have taken on something that
may never be finished.
CL: Which historical needleworker do you most identify
with?
EM: A professional embroiderer in Renaissance Italy (wishful
thinking!).
CL: Who are your favorite needlework writers?
EM: Charles Germain de Saint-Aubin (1721 - 1786) and
Thérèse de Dillmont (1846 - 1890). Both completely
understood the technical aspects of needlework.
CL: What is your favorite needlework technique?
EM: Embroidery and knitting.
CL: What is your favorite needlework journey?
EM: A trip through Lower Saxony in Germany with two colleagues.
We visited Protestant cloisters and museums, examining a particular
type of embroidery primarily used for church altar frontals that
was popular in the late fourteenth century. I was trying to locate
the probable source of a circa 1380 object in the collection at
the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
CL: What is the most marked characteristic of your needlework?
EM: Its diversity.
CL: What do you consider the most overrated needlework
stitch or technique?
EM: Canvas embroidery, which everyone calls "needlepoint."
It can be one of the most beautiful techniques (Kaffe Fassett
proved that) but is far more often ordinary. I should say, however,
that all needlework should be encouraged. It gives people
time to think and reflect, and there isn't enough of that in our
present society.
CL: Where would you like to live?
EM: Wherever I am living at the time is my favorite place.
I've been fortunate to live in England, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium,
France, on both coasts (New York and Los Angeles), and Toronto.
After leaving Wisconsin in 1973 to study in London, my peregrinations
allowed me to experience wildly diverse cultures and needlework
traditions.
CL: How would you like to be remembered?
EM: As a person who loved and understood needlework and
its importance in the history of civilization.
About the Author. Catherine Amoroso Leslie
is an assistant professor in the School of Fashion Design and
Merchandising at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio.
Portions of this interview appeared in the January/February
2005 issue of PieceWork.
Interweave © 2005. All rights reserved.
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