This is a scene from the Prestonpans Tapestry. It depicts a
battle that took place in 1745; it was made in 2010.
Does that surprise you? Probably. We tend to think of
embroidery, and of sewing in general, as quaint, outdated, not to be taken
seriously. But in fact, sewing has never been taken seriously as an art form,
and it should be.
Part of the reason it has never been taken seriously is
simply because it has never been confined to an elite group. It has always been a
necessary part of the lives of even the poorest people, and it is traditionally
considered “women’s work.” (Most—though not all—of the embroiderers who worked
on the Prestonpans Tapestry are women.) It’s not that sewing is a mere craft
and not an art, and therefore it was consigned to women; rather, sewing was
consigned to women, and therefore it was considered a mere craft. But it’s
2019, so let’s take another look. Are there any other reasons not to consider
sewing an art?
Obviously not all sewing is art, and not all artistic sewing
is great art. Mending a garment is as pragmatic as painting a house wall (although
both can be done with neatness and elegance). The average cross-stitch design
has, perhaps, the artistic value of the average napkin doodle. But, by the same
token, the Prestonpans Tapestry has the artistic value of any gallery painting.
Functional objects
When we move away from tapestry and embroidery to aspects of
sewing such as garment design and construction, things get a little more complicated.
There is a qualitative difference
between a sewn object and a painting or symphony: most sewn objects are
functional (garments, furnishings), while most paintings are, apparently, not.
A valid question would be, why does our definition of “fine
art” exclude functional objects? We could probably circle right back into
classism here, but I don’t think that would completely cover it. There really
is a qualitative difference between, e.g., sculpture and architecture, between objects
that have a use and objects that don’t. What is very hard for me to see,
though, is why objects that have a use should be considered somehow lesser. If you need to make a
distinction between the “decorative arts” and the “fine arts,” go right ahead—as
long as this distinction is analogous to that between painting and music, between
different types of equally valid artwork.
The special beauty of sewing
Indeed, the decorative arts can have a kind of elegance not available
to the fine arts, precisely in the appropriateness with which they fulfill
their function. A beautiful garment that is also amazingly comfortable, a
beautiful building that is also exquisitely livable, a beautiful dish that is
also incredibly useful—the external constraints of human bodies, needs, and
uses don’t limit these artworks, they prompt extraordinary design that has a
beauty all its own.
A further reflection: the boundaries between functional objects
and other objects are sometimes much blurrier than they initially seem. Take a
mural (I’m looking at one right now). It’s a painting; it’s primarily
decorative, right? But it also functions as being
a wall. Sure, you could have the wall without the painting—and we could all
wear burlap sacks every day. But what fun would that be? The art isn’t in the
fact that you put paint on a wall or cloth on a body; it’s in the way you do it
and the beauty of the result.
I’m not saying that my sewing projects are the equivalent of
the Sistine Chapel ceiling; they’re more the equivalent of a painting of a
horse that a relative did at a community arts class, and now you have to keep
it around because your relative did it. But that’s not because sewing isn’t
art. It’s just because I’m not all that
good at it yet.
(...Well, as to that, you’ll have to judge for yourself when I
post pictures of my work!)
