CELEBRATING FINE CRAFT

ARTICLES: Answering the Siren's Call

Written by: Jennifer E. Salahub, Phd.
September 27, 2006

In summer, Washington is a city of heat and humidity. Yet she is a siren - she calls to visitors - seduces them with her broad vistas of cool neo-classical architecture, sedate Georgian townhouses, and rich collections of art. Even as she saps our energy we revel in unexpected sights from the fireflies in Rock Creek Park to the embroideries on display at the Textile Museum. http://www.textilemuseum.org/.

The exhibition Harpies, Mermaids and Tulips: Embroidery of the Greek Islands and Epirus Region contains over sixty 17th to 19th century domestic textiles, costumes and bedding made by the women who would have used them. Thus they serve as a reflection of the wealth, social position, and aesthetic preferences. At the same time, the exhibition is the visual manifestation of a turbulent history, for these islands were positioned along major trade routes and subject to stylistic influences from the Latin West and the Ottoman East. These are the best of their kind and their aesthetic appeal remains strong: intricately worked silks on linen; whimsical and mythical figures; and breathtaking stitchery. Changes in colours, motifs, and techniques demonstrate in turn Greek, Venetian, and Ottoman influences; nonetheless, there was no total assimilation of the existing culture. Rather local embroiderers appropriated selectively producing their own styles and creating clever
subtexts.

The exhibition is divided stylistically into a geometric style practiced in the Cyclades and Dodecanese and a curvilinear style found in the Northern Sporades, Crete, Ionian Islands, and Epirus region. The latter incorporates more colours, a wider variety of stitches, and a larger repertoire of subjects including musicians, horsemen brandishing swords, flowers, ships and fantastic creatures like mermaids - those half fish, half women who, in Greek mythology, called to the sailors and led them off their course. I was enchanted by stylistic interpretations of the two-tailed mermaid in the Cretan embroideries. She is always part of a crowded composition, worked in non-descriptive colours, and abstracted to varying degrees. She wears a crown and stares out at the viewer, her shoulders and torso frontal, her arms held out at her sides, each hand firmly grips one of her two tails - keeping her balanced - if somewhat precariously. By appropriating this image the embroiderers extended the mermaid's power into their domain; and I was saddened to think that in this foreign setting she seemed somewhat forlorn. It was only after leaving the museum that I realised my error - and the scope of her power - or if she has left behind the shoals of Greek mythology she calls to us every day from urban street corners. And we answer in great numbers! Even as we are drawn to the ubiquitous green and white coffee shops we are responding to the siren call of this tiny mermaid as she appears on the signage and paper cups [Starbucks]. In hindsight, perhaps it was not the call of the city that led me to the Textile Museum - and the two-tailed mermaid. Perhaps it was the siren herself.

The exhibition Harpies, Mermaids and Tulips: Embroidery of the Greek Islands and Epirus Region is at the Museum of Textiles 2320 S St. NW., Washington, DC until 3 September 2006. The160 page exhibition catalogue is by the curator Sumru Belger Krody and is illustrated with colour images and includes a glossary.