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    The Island of Lace: Drawn Threadwork on Saba in the Dutch Caribbean
    The Island of Lace: Drawn Threadwork on Saba in the Dutch Caribbean
    The Island of Lace: Drawn Threadwork on Saba in the Dutch Caribbean
    Ebook259 pages1 hour

    The Island of Lace: Drawn Threadwork on Saba in the Dutch Caribbean

    By Eric A. Eliason and Scott Squire

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    About this ebook

    Nicknamed the “Island of Lace,” the Caribbean island of Saba is the smallest special municipality in the Netherlands. Folklorist Eric A. Eliason, at the behest of the president of the Saba Lace Ladies’ Foundation and Saba’s director of tourism, traveled to the island with the intent to document the history and patterns of Saba lace. Born out of his research, The Island of Lace tells the story of lacework’s central role in Saba’s culture, economy, and history. Accompanied by over three hundred of Scott Squire’s intimate photographs of lace workers and their extraordinary island society, this volume brings together in one place an as-complete-as-possible catalog of the rich designs worked by Saban women.

    For 130 years, the practice of drawn threadwork—also known as Spanish work, fancy work, lacework, or Saba lace—has shaped the lives of Saban women. And yet, as the younger generation moves away from the island, it still survives. Sabans use drawn threadwork to symbolize the uniqueness of their island and express the ingenuity, diligence, bold inventiveness, pride in workmanship, love of beauty, and respect for tradition that define the Saban spirit.

    Along with recording and honoring the creative legacy of generations of Saban women, this book serves as a guide to folk-art lace patterns from Saba so that practitioners can reference and perhaps re-create this work. The Island of Lace is the most comprehensive volume on this singular tradition ever published.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity Press of Mississippi
    Release dateJun 6, 2019
    ISBN9781496823632
    The Island of Lace: Drawn Threadwork on Saba in the Dutch Caribbean
    Author

    Eric A. Eliason

    Eric A. Eliason is professor of English at Brigham Young University. He is author of The Island of Lace: Drawn Threadwork on Saba in The Dutch Caribbean, To See Them Run: Great Plains Coyote Coursing, and Black Velvet Art, all published by University Press of Mississippi.

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      Book preview

      The Island of Lace - Eric A. Eliason

      The Island of Lace

      Saba lace sheets and pillowcases worked by Helenita and Stella Zagers of Hell’s Gate for the Dutch royal family at the birth of Crown Prince (now King) Willem-Alexander on April 27, 1967. Butterfly and Wheel pattern stitching and Butterfly and Wheel borders with Snail corners.

      The Island of Lace

      DRAWN THREADWORK ON SABA IN THE DUTCH CARIBBEAN

      Eric A. Eliason • Photographs by Scott Squire

      UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI • JACKSON

      The University Press of Mississippi is the scholarly publishing agency of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning: Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi Valley State University, University of Mississippi, and University of Southern Mississippi.

      www.upress.state.ms.us

      The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of University Presses.

      Maps courtesy of Julia Crane.

      Copyright © 2019 by University Press of Mississippi

      All rights reserved

      Manufactured in China

      First printing 2019

      ∞

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Eliason, Eric A. (Eric Alden), 1967–author. | Squire, Scott, 1967–photographer.

      Title: The island of lace: drawn threadwork on saba in the Dutch Caribbean / Eric A. Eliason; Photography by Scott Squire.

      Description: Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

      Identifiers: LCCN 2018051030 (print) | LCCN 2018053098 (ebook) | ISBN 9781496823632 (epub single) | ISBN 9781496823649 (epub institutional) | ISBN 9781496823656 (pdf single) | ISBN 9781496823663 (pdf institutional) | ISBN 9781496823625 (cloth)

      Subjects: LCSH: Drawn-work—Saba. | Cottage industries—Saba. | Folk art—Saba. | LCGFT: Informational works. | Illustrated works.

      Classification: LCC TT785 (ebook) | LCC TT785 .E45 2019 (print) | DDC 746.44097297/7—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018051030

      British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

      To the memory of Tina Johnson, Gladys Hassell, and Helen Peterson, leading ladies of Saba lace

      Miss Tina Johnson.

      Contents

      Preface

      Acknowledgments

      Saba Lace History, Culture, and Art

      PATTERNS

      Corners

      Borders

      Pattern Stitches

      Filet Work

      Examples

      Some Observations on Saba Lace Pattern Names

      Profiles

      Bibliography

      Sample pattern by Miss Gladys Hassell.

      Miss Helen Peterson.

      Preface

      The Fruit of Her Hands Twenty Years Later: Progress and Prospects

      At the behest of Angela Johnson, president of the Saba Lace Ladies’ Foundation, and Glenn Holm, Saba’s director of tourism, I traveled to Saba in 2010 to begin work on a new edition of my 1997 book, The Fruit of Her Hands: Saba Lace History and Patterns. I was thrilled to come back as a tenured professor to the first major academic project topic I undertook in 1993 as a graduate student and to return to an island and a people I love.

      The project grew beyond a revised edition into the book you now hold. Saba lace, and the technology available to document it, has developed considerably over the years. Women who were little involved in 1997 are now among its finest and most prolific practitioners. Some even have new patterns named after them—Imelda Peterson, creator of the Imelda pattern, and Marjorie Hassell, creator of the Marjorie, for example. Old patterns continue as well, such as the Wallamina or Wilhelmina, named after a woman whose precise identity even family- and history-minded Sabans have forgotten. This dynamism between traditional continuity and inventiveness, all within the context of customary forms and rules for artistic production, makes Saba lace a quintessential example of folk art and an extraordinary cultural achievement for any place, let alone an island as small as Saba.

      Currently, Saba lace is alive and well. In past years, particularly in 1997, fears about lacework’s demise seemed overblown. But whereas once virtually all Saban women began working lace at a young age, now only the most capable and interested take it up and do so only later in life—arguably stream-lining and improving the art form. Many believed that surely the interest of these women was enough to allow lace working to continue indefinitely into the future.

      However, I missed a crucial fact back in 1997, and Saba lace is indeed facing a potential existential threat. Every single woman who has taken up lace working in the last few decades also worked lace as a child or young woman. These women may have set aside their needles for many decades, but they all had memories of lace working as children. For the first time since Spanish work came to Saba, a generation of Saban women who never worked lace as girls is reaching maturity. Will this generation take up the needle and thread? Will the next? The answers to these questions will determine whether the tradition lives or dies.

      Hope for Saba lace lies with young Sabans like Stacey Simmons. In the 2010s, as an accomplished painter, schoolteacher, and granddaughter to legendary lace worker Tina Johnson, Stacey began attending the Thursday evening Saba Lace Ladies’ Foundation meetings at the Eugenius Johnson Center in Windwardside. She learned how to work lace so she can teach this skill if she gets the chance in the future. This will be extremely valuable to young Sabans in understanding their heritage. Very few, if any, will do lacework as a profession, but if every Saban child again begins to work lace, some may return to it when they are older. The efforts of Stacey and others who bring young people to the Lace Ladies’ evenings are Saba lace’s best hope for the future.

      ERIC ELIASON

      UTAH, 2017

      Acknowledgments

      Special thanks are due to Joyce Todd McCoy, Carol Kounanis, Erlyn and Duane Madsen, and BYU’s College of Humanities, Women’s Research Institute, and Emmeline B. Wells Grant for scholarly and creative works for supporting this research. OKSNA, the Saba Foundation for the Arts, and Dan and LeAnn Eliason supported initial research in the 1990s. Joyce McCoy’s contribution went far beyond even her most generous support; she served as appointment and travel coordinator, fellow ethnographer, encouraging collaborator, and full-on contributor, improving this book in every way possible.

      Mel Thorne, Suzy Bills, Whitney Call, Caitlin Schwanger, Michelle Lyons, McCall Rawlings, and Catia Shattuck of BYU’s Humanities Publication Center helped with copyediting and organizing pattern images. At the University Press of Mississippi, Craig Gill kept the idea of publishing this book alive for twenty years, and Leila Salisbury helped make it happen in its final form. This book is the author’s and the photographer’s third collaboration with the press’s art directors and designers. We would collaborate on a hundred more projects given the opportunity.

      The following people offered invaluable help and advice: Guy and Angela Johnson, Glenn Holm, Tom van’t Hof, Heleen Cornet, Aldrick and Tina Johnson, Stacey Simmons, Senator Will Johnson, Gladys Hassell and her lacework students, Wilma Hassell, Lisa Kleinfeld, Clover Hassell, Julia Crane, David Levenstone, Roy Smith, James Franklin Wilson, Judy Meeks, Katherine Maeder, Anglican Father Peter Ford, Roman Catholic Father Anthon Jansen and Father Dan (for his blessings), Viola and Grace Hassell, and Frank and Norma Hassell. Special thanks are due to Ryan Espersen, a graduate student at Leiden University writing his dissertation on Saba’s history. He carefully read this manuscript and added much information on Saba’s early history, drawing upon data not otherwise available. Of course, any errors are my responsibility.

      Edith Wilson explains her patterns to the author.

      Lacework

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