Gentle Arts Press
From: http://www.biddingtons.com
Quilts: History in a Textile: An Interview with Bryce Reveley
Editor's note: Biddington's interviewed Bryce Reveley owner of Gentle Arts, a textile conservation service in New Orleans, at a lull in a practice for a Mardi Gras Ball in 1998. Mrs.Reveley's two daughters had reigned as Mardi Gras queens for the prior two seasons. Mrs. Reveley thinks of textiles both analytically and historically.
RB: Do you have a personal definition of quilts?
REVELEY: Quilts are like hanging history. I see more in quilts than most people do. To me, an old quilt is like an old book. And I can read the quilt the way most people read books.
RB: How do you mean?
REVELEY: A quilt can tell a person a lot about his ancestors. They reveal a lot about the social and economic climate of the times. If, for example, quilts were made of flour sacks or old clothing, it would tell us the family was probably economically strapped. Quilts made with finer material, such as linen, was evidence of affluence, usually.
RB: But were quilts made to show affluence?
REVELEY: Actually, most quilts were made for utilitarian purposes. Only a tiny percentage was made for competition. About 85 percent were made to keep people warm.
RB: And the remaining percentage of quilts?
REVELEY: Since you are totaling the percentages, I would say the remaining were made for decoration and pleasure.
RB: Can you tell by looking at a quilt who used it?
REVELEY: I can usually look at a worn quilt and tell if a man or a woman slept under it. Most men in years past had beards and a beard grizzled the fabric of a quilt giving it a brazed look.
RB: We always hear about quilting bees. Were all quilts made like this?
REVELEY: A lot of quilts are made by more than one person. Quilting bees were very popular social events for women in past years. But making quilts can also be a solitary art. I can tell by the stitching if one person made a quilt or if many hands contributed to it.
RB: I notice you are moving between the present and past tense. Are quilting bees still popular today?
REVELEY: Very much so. Although, I don't know that people think of them as quilting bees.
RB: What do you like best about quilt restoration?
REVELEY: The fun of my work is to take a little bit of information and to try build on that information.
For example, this particular quilt I am working on today is white on white called trapunto. It is a quilting technique that uses padding; it's very intricate work. Trapunto was in vogue during the 18th century and first part of the 19th century; it fell out of favor around 1830.
In this trapunto quilt, the center of each quilt has a floral medallion, a kind of rose compass from which a field of flowers spread. The person making the quilt was a master quilt maker who quilted about 13 stitches per inch--that is very fine, demanding work. It took time patience and a great deal of preparation.
All kinds of wondering go on within me when I'm working on any piece of material. For this particular piece I want to know, for example, if the quiltmaker was a happy person or sad and if she preferred one quilt more than others. I would like to know what it was like to work under the conditions that existed back then. Did she stitch by lamplight or did she spend all those sewing hours beside a fireplace? I try to guess all the answers. If only this quilt could talk.
RB: Do you always carry a quilt with you?
REVELEY: No, I don't usually carry something this large, but I'm almost always restoring something.
RB: This piece seems quite light weight for its size.
REVELEY: Yes, it's a summer quilt. Quilt weights vary depending on the part of the country where they were made. A summer quilt in Vermont is about the same weight as a winter quilt in Mississippi. A very light quilt--such as this one-- would have been a deliberate attempt to make a summer quilt.
RB: Besides trapunto what are other quilt types?
REVELEY: The basic quilt types are:
applique in which one piece of fabric is stitched on top of another;
pieced quilts in which patches of fabric are stitched directly to one another;
strip quilts in which rectangluar pieces of fabric are stitched together.
There are people who like to quilt, and people who like to piece. Few like to do both.
RB: Do you have a favorite quilt story?
REVELEY: Several years ago a church in a small Louisiana town wanted to celebrate the 100th anniversary of their church. For this event they chose to restore an antique quilt that had been placed in a storeroom and forgotten for decades. The quilt, made nearly a century ago as a fundraiser for the church, was in a tragic state.
My staff and I scoured the countryside for the 144 pieces of antique fabric needed to patch the quilt. We mended the worn fragments of embroidery and repaired the much-faded appliques. The entire job took nearly a year to complete. The quilt was a document of how a community lived. Each patch had a personality all its own. It was a piece of living history--and the townspeople understood its importance.
RB: What advice do you have for the quilt owner?
REVELEY: Use it, appreciate it, but most of all, enjoy it.
From:
http://blog.nola.com/insideout/2007/12/textile_expert_restores_fabric.html
Textile Expert Restores Fabrics And Memories
Textile restoration expert Bryce Reveley has had plenty of work since Hurricane Katrina, helping restore heirlooms that hold memories for the people who own them.By Molly Reid
Staff writer
Saturday, December 15, 2007
THE ARTIST: Bryce Reveley
THE CRAFT: Textile restoration
YEARS IN THE TRADE: 35
WHY SHE DOES IT: 'I like the challenge. It's problem-solving, ' Reveley says.
Textile restoration expert Bryce Reveley seems to function on a perfect synergy of right and left brain activity. Spend some time at Gentle Arts, her Uptown workshop, and as she sorts through racks of fine silks and delicate linens, two intertwined visions of her begin to emerge: One is the meticulous scientist, the master of stain removal, the auction-house appraiser jet-setting monthly to New York. The other is the medieval heroine and Southern belle who plays the harp, makes lace by night and repairs the moldy remnants of New Orleans' most precious objects.
"We deal with a lot of sentiment, and sometimes a lot of guilt. 'This is my grandmother's quilt. Can you fix this hole in it where my dog chewed it?' " Reveley said. The quilt is someone's past in peril, but it is also just a cloth with a hole in it. That's where Reveley seems to find her passion: in the mix of scientific and sentimental rigors of her work.
And the need for such a balance could not be greater than in New Orleans. Over the past two years, she has restored countless heirloom wedding gowns, World War II uniforms, tablecloths, christening gowns and even Rex livery medallions ravaged in the flood. For some clients, those objects were the only things they tried to salvage after everything else was piled on the curb. "It's the only thing they have left, " she said.
Plenty of business
Reveley, who had evacuated to Assumption Parish, began receiving desperate calls from residents after the storm. She reopened her shop in October 2005 to meet the growing demand, and has been swamped ever since.
"We've seen every color of mold there is, " Reveley said.
And for every color in the mold rainbow, Reveley has a solution. The first step, she said, begins with the homeowners and how they treat the textile until it is brought in to her workshop. The best way to offset permanent mold or mildew damage, she said, is to spray the item with original-scent Lysol. After a mildewed item is sprayed, keep it in the freezer in a plastic bag; that will make it easier to flake off the mildew, she said.
Reveley holds a piece of damaged antique embroidery in need of repair.She subjects the textile to prolonged soakings in a water table, a large tray filled with all-natural cleaning solutions. She can patch almost any cloth, but when it comes to getting out a tough stain, restraint and caution are the name of the game.
"The caveat is, though, that sometimes it's just not going to come out, " Reveley said. "But I try to start with a positive approach."
Developing a passion
Reveley grew up around handy women who knew how to mend and make fine cloth, but did not become interested in textiles until she took a lace-tatting course in her 30s, while pregnant with her first daughter. By the time her second daughter was born, the hobby had become a passion. Raising her two young girls during the day, she would make lace at night, the sound of the clacking bobbins weaving a nighttime serenade.
"It was very soothing and it was musical, " said Reveley, who plays harp in the local Medieval and Renaissance music ensemble Musica da Camera.
The turning point that moved Reveley into the professional textile world came when a colleague on her church's altar guild asked if she could re-create an heirloom tablecloth that had been destroyed. While she had the technical chops to make a flawless copy of the cloth's pattern, she could not match its natural yellowish tint. She began experimenting with different dying and color-removal techniques, and the scientist in her was piqued.
In 1981, Reveley took weeklong courses in textile conservation and lace identification from the American Institute of Textile Arts in Boston, and, when her children were older, spent three summers in London earning a certificate from the University of Textiles Conservation.
"I learned a tremendous amount, " she said.
Leigh Reveley works with her mother Bryce in the fabric restoration shop.Reveley opened Gentle Arts in 1983, first running it out of her house and later moving to a workshop on Jena Street. She now shares a building, also on Jena Street, with Arts Conservatory Inc., which restores flat textiles and metal pieces. Following in her mother's footsteps, Reveley's daughter, Leigh, earned a degree in conservation from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and now works alongside her mother.
Jack of many trades
Though Reveley calls New Orleans home and has remained here despite a significant number of out-of-state clients, she is a regular textile expert at Doyle New York auction house. She has appeared as an appraiser on the public television show "Antiques Roadshow" (the American Society of Appraisers created a textile appraisal license for her), and has even served as an expert witness in dry-cleaning litigation cases. The variety, she said, is what keeps her sane.
"I'd go nuts if I had to work on the same thing every day, " she said.
Her left-brain knowledge of textiles often informs her right-brain appreciation of her clients' stories, because she can apply her forensic expertise to understand more about a piece's ancestry than its owners do.
"That's what this is all about: dealing with people's memories, " she said. "I love the stories."
. . . . . . .
Molly Reid can be reached at mreid@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3448.
From: SOUTHERN ACCENTS : SouthernAccents.Com : November 2008
Sheets were not monogrammed in the 18th century. The cross-stitched marking on this coarsely woven hunt cloth was used to keep the set together.
"...Linen threads are spun from the cellulose of the stalk, which conducts water, explaining why the resulting cloth is so highly absorbent. Once the flax is harvested, it is soaked and beaten to separate the woody bark from the interior fibers, which are combed and spun into thread.
This process was mastered by the Huguenots. When they fled France in the 17th century to escape religious persecution, the French Protestants' talent for weaving was disseminated throughout Europe.
This finely woven sheet is from Burgundy, circa 1890.
Bryce Reveley, who specializes in antique textiles at Gentle Arts in New Orleans, says that if the antique fabrics you're drawn to have made it this far and are still in good condition, they will last for years to come. "Linen that was loomed in France at that time was made from the best flax in the world," says Reveley. "Unfortunately, flax no longer grows as tall today because of pollution, so the thread can't be as finely spun."
| COMING CLEAN |
| Don't be afraid to use your linens. "They aren't difficult to take care of," says textiles specialist Bryce Reveley. "Just don't use bleach. Instead, wash them on the gentle cycle with soap flakes. Avoid the dryer." |
| Reveley also suggests air-drying laundered napkins by spreading them on a counter or smooth surface and pressing them flat. Place kitchen glasses on the four corners to keep them in place. "The smoother you get them with your hands, the less likely you are to have to iron them. If ironing is necessary, use a low setting and no steam." |
| For storing large pieces, such as sheets or tablecloths, Gay Wirth of Wirthmore Antiques in New Orleans suggests a time-worn method: folding them in half numerous times and hanging them in a dry place. |
| WHAT TO LOOK FOR |
| Condition your eye. Check hems for frays. Open the cloth and hold it up to the light, noting repairs. If evaluating a set, examine each piece. The closer you get to the bottom of the stack, Reveley says, the more likely you are to find stains. |
| Get the red out. If an item was stained before you purchased it, the stain probably won't come out. But if a guest spills red wine on your antique linen tomorrow, don't throw in the towel -- literally. Pat the stain with lemon and salt, or soak the cloth for a few days in a bucket of water with mild soap, suggests Wirth. Rinse gently without wringing, pressing to expel the water. Lay the cloth over a bush or grass and let the sun's rays naturally bleach it. Repeat the process as necessary. |
| Know what you're buying. Sets sell for more than single items. A set of 24 napkins can go for $650. Add a matching tablecloth and the price can leap to $1,500. A torchon, the drying towel used for glassware and dishes, can fetch around $28. Bear in mind that antique napkins were larger to accommodate the full skirts of the 1800s. Similarly, antique sheets, which sell for $50 to $1,200, don't necessarily fit today's beds. |
From: http://www.neworleanshomesandlifestyles.com
Linens-n-Things
November 1, 2008 12:00 AM
BY: LAURA CLAVERIE, PHOTOGRAPHED BY CHERYL GERBER
Antique linens, lace and other textiles can class up holiday parties and home décor while adding a touch of nostalgic appeal.
Leigh and Bryce Reveley
While cleaning closets last year, I stumbled across three large unmarked cardboard boxes. As I opened the tops, I found a large collection of beautiful old linens –– dinner and cocktail napkins, tablecloths, lace-trimmed bedsheets and hand towels. All of these belonged to my late mother, who was partial to Irish linen and damask (a salute to her Irish roots, no doubt), and my late mother-in-law, who preferred an eclectic assortment of elegant, colorful and festive linens, mostly of French origin.
As I sorted through the boxes, a warm feeling of nostalgia crept over me. I thought of the dinner parties and cocktail parties when these much-loved linens were used and even wondered about my in-laws’ lace-trimmed trousseau sheets, bought more than 70 years ago. I knew most of the linens could be brought back to life or given a different life, and preserving them was a phone call away. Enter Bryce Reveley, owner of Gentle Arts in Uptown New Orleans.
For more than 30 years, Reveley and her small team of textile conservators have preserved lace table linens, wedding dresses and veils and other antique textiles for collectors all over the world. She has been a consultant to the Louisiana State Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Currently she appraises lace and textiles for William Doyle Gallery in New York City and through Gentle Arts.
Reveley’s fascination with lace began as a young child when she watched her grandmother make bobbin lace by hand in her Arkansas home. As an adult, Reveley furthered that passion. Today, she appreciates the intricacies of the art form and its investment value.
“Lace is the last bastion of undiscovered collector’s items,” she says. “There is still great value in lace, particularly if it was made before World War I.”
Before the war, men designed lace and women hand-made their designs from their homes. After that time, the whole industry of handmade lace dried up. Many of the men who once designed lace were killed in the war, and women sought higher-paying factory jobs. With the industrialization of society, homemakers now desired machine-made lace because it was the trendy new thing.
New Orleans has always been a great lace city, says Reveley. For generations, New Orleanians have loved to entertain in their stately homes and relied on their beautiful china, silver and linens to help create an elegant ambiance for their guests.
Add to that the French and Irish roots of much of the citizenry: “So many of the women in New Orleans had family members who still lived in France and Ireland, and they received beautiful linens as gifts from relatives in their mother countries,” Reveley says. “Many New Orleanians still have these textiles as they have been handed down through the generations.”
These heirloom linens could have great value. For example, Reveley recently appraised a Point de Gaz lace handkerchief for a client whose family had had the piece for five generations. The handkerchief, still in its original box, had been used by family brides for decades. Its original price was on the box in francs. She appraised the handkerchief at $5,000.
In another instance, Reveley traveled to a Southern city to appraise a lace collection for an estate. The owner obviously knew the worth of the pieces –– as all were kept in a bank vault. The table linens, wedding veil and other items were appraised in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the heirs were stunned. “What began as a lovely collection for one family became a very nice investment and inheritance,” she says.
Since Katrina and the levee failures, Reveley and her daughter, Leigh, and their small staff of conservators have restored much-loved linens, quilts and other treasured textiles for New Orleanians who know the true value of these fabrics. Some preserved their pieces because of the intrinsic value, knowing they were irreplaceable. Others preserved out of sentiment because the textiles brought back memories of loved ones and great family experiences. “There is no way to place a value on the memories those linens hold,” she says.
My boxes of linens were lovingly cleaned, ironed and prepared for parties I will host in my new home. With each tablecloth and napkin that is placed on the table or hand towel that hangs in the powder room, I’ll think back on the times I shared with my mother and mother-in-law, and I’ll know that, in a small way, they’ll be with me when my guests arrive.