Applications for the Backspace Forward Juried Exhibition of Contemporary Craft are due in just one month! By way of encouraging you in your last days of making, we’re presenting 12 Final Countdown blog posts. Each post will address one of the historical works that are serving as inspiration for this show, courtesy the Manitoba Craft Museum and Library’s collection. So check the blog frequently in the coming month for new posts and perhaps some fresh insight!
And now, without further ado, we bring you #12 || THE SAMPLER…
Andrea Reichert, curator at the MCML, writes of this piece:
Completing a sampler in school was a standard expectation of girls into the early 20th century. Needleworking skills were essential for women, most of whom were responsible for the garments and other textiles in their families. In the most upper class families, the needleworking was sometimes less functional, but often cultivated as an acceptable leisure activity.
This sampler is worked on hand woven linen. The embroidery threads are silk, with the exception of the metallic threads on the sun at the top.
The text reads:
The one thing needful that Good part
Which Mary chose with all her heart
I would pursue with heart and mind
And seek unwearied till I find
To thee o God to thee I pray
Teach me to know and find the way
How all my sins may be forgiven
And a sinner get to heaven
At the bottom:
Ann Elliot Aged 14 years
March the 28, 1811
All “s” appear as “f” in the verse.
Curious…
