Opposites in the Art of Sewing by May Musicant
Note by Alice Bernstein. In honor of Mother’s Day, it moves me deeply to publish an essay by my mother, May Musicant, from 1971 about the important subject: sewing. Among my earliest memories are my mother and grandmother sitting at a Singer foot pedal sewing machine, making clothing for our family. Often my mother sang while she sewed, and I can still hear the sound of her lovely voice blending with the mechanical whirring of the machine. May Musicant died many years ago, and I have a feeling of wonder that I, or anyone who knew her, can still think of her in a vibrant, lively way. Later in her life she was an Aesthetic Realism Consultant to women.
OPPOSITES AND THE ART OF SEWING
BY MAY MUSICANT
It is my belief as a person who has the good fortune to study Aesthetic Realism, the philosophy founded by the American poet and educator Eli Siegel, that the principle, “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves," is true! And in surprising ways I have found its truth borne out in the very old domestic art of sewing.
Sewing makes the world more orderly and at the same time richer. Sewing quietly demands my attention and when I approach it with respect, with a desire to learn, both the garment and something central in myself are better off. That is a beautiful fact! Many opposites are made one in sewing. Some, which are crucial, are sameness and difference, tension and ease, separation and junction.
If you examine a piece of cloth and hold it up to the light, whether it is knitted or woven you will see that it is a oneness of sameness and difference. The vertical threads are crossed by horizontal threads. Within the weaving process, the warp or the straight grain, and the woof or the cross grain, make the cloth. The narrow border at the edge is called the selvage. This is the strongest part of the cloth, and it is interesting that this is where the cross grain and the straight grain in a concentrated way, terminate, reverse, and begin again, illustrating that cloth is a oneness of sameness and difference, junction and separation.
To make sure the fabric is strong and at the same time gracefully draped, the straight of grain, the selvage, which runs parallel to it, is used as a guide. This is a basic principle of sewing and it is an important instance of the aesthetic oneness of sameness and difference in reality, and also freedom and order as one thing.
Cloth can be cut in many ways, but the bias cut is the most f1exible and dramatic. A true bias is where the lengthwise threads of the fabric are folded to the crosswise threads, making them perpendicular to each other. This means that when the vertical and horizontal threads meet at a 45 degree angle forming a diagonal, something new happens to the cloth, making it most flexible and easily shaped. It is also the most dramatic, particularly when the cloth is woven with stripes or a plaid.
In the VOGUE SEWING BOOK, Patricia Perry points out:
“Some of the most attractive plaid effects are brought about by cutting the plaid on the bias. The final result is a chevron which is two sets of stripes meeting at identical angles.”
Now it happens the bias is a diagonal line, a oneness of vertical and horizontal, sameness and difference.
There are mathematics and geometry, straight line and curve in the world and they are in sewing, as well as within ourselves. Every person is a oneness of horizontal and vertical. Our bones are vertical and horizontal and our thoughts and feelings can be described as narrow and wide, concentrated and expansive.
In What's There: An Aesthetic Realism Art Inquiry, about the photographs of Lou Bernstein, Eli Siegel discusses the diagonal line in a very exciting way. He says:
"The diagonal is the most successful line, all in all that we have. I challenge anybody who is depressed to wear his hat on the side at a jaunty angle and say ‘I’m depressed.' If you have this slant, it is against complete prostration.”
In my experience I have seen this as true. Our attitude to the world and ourselves is mirrored in the kinds of clothes we choose to wear and the way we wear them. Color and line show emotions and attitudes.
Since humanity's beginning people have been concerned with three basic needs: food, shelter and clothing. The Bible tells how Adam and Eve “Sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.”
And since that far off time, the making of clothing has provided a means of livelihood for millions of people. It has been the cause of much pleasure and pain. The reasons for this go deeper than we know. A poem in the Mother Goose collection goes like this:
"Bonny lass pretty lass wilt thou be mine?
Thou shalt not wash dishes, nor yet feed the swine,
Thou shalt sit on a cushion, and sew a fine seam.
And thou shalt eat strawberries, sugar, and cream."
A girl's head can be turned by such an appeal, and I must say it sounds inviting. Sewing can be a source for leisure and recreation. It can also be a means of exploitation and sorrow. In his poem, SONG OF THE SHIRT, Thomas Hood the 19th century poet, expresses it this way in one stanza:
"Oh Men, with Sisters dear!
Oh Men, with Mothers and Wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out
But human creatures' lives!
Stitch-stitch-stitch.
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
Sewing at once, with a double thread,
A shroud as well as a shirt.”
A person who saw the subject as serious and somewhat ridiculous was the Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle. In Sartor Resartus he relates clothing to legislation. He shows that clothing and fabric are symbolic of ethics and aesthetics; and how man is governed by natural laws and laws of men:
“Already when we dreamed not of it, the warp of thy remarkable Volume lay on the loom, and silently, mysterious shuttles were putting in the woof… For neither in tailoring nor in legislating does man proceed by mere Accident, but the hand is ever guided by mysterious operations of the mind.”
So, as the opposites are in the world, in cloth, they are also in ourselves. We want our lives to be well organized, as we yearn to have our thoughts organized. A woman can use sewing to be separate and dismiss other things. I have done this and I have seen how hurtful it is because it is against the deeper desire to relate oneself and one's skill to the scope and design of reality. Aesthetic, Realism is a means for people to organize their thoughts, through the aesthetic structure of relation. Sewing can be used to strengthen this relation. Every piece of fabric has a right side and a wrong side, as there are the front and back of a garment. They must be organized and joined efficiently.
Generally the complete garment is cut from the same piece of cloth, but often a collar or bodice is cut from cloth of a different color or texture. Front and back are both important. Sometimes the back of a dress can have a detail which seems more interesting than the front. While this adds to variety, it is the front of the garment that is given most detail. Every garment is a oneness of sameness and difference.
I am fascinated by the technical aspects in sewing, and one reason is that I see them as related to my life. For instance, take the family. How the members of a family see each other as separate, will determine how well they are unified. When a mother sees her child as too much of the “same cloth,” there is a bad mingling of separation and junction and often causes pain in both mother and child. Each person wants to be seen as a unique individual yet part of something large—the world itself—not just the closed family circle. In making a garment, each part must be cut separately and related accurately, before it can be joined as a unity.
Tension and ease must work together in order for a garment to fit well. The fullness and tightness around the waist must be comfortable. If it is too tight it may tear, as some people have discovered to their embarrassment. The dart, a short tapered seam so important in the proper fit of a garment, is a oneness of tension and ease. It is a means to maintain fullness and tightness at once in relation to the contours of the body. In machine sewing if the tension of the upper stitches is not uniform with the tension of the underneath stitches, the thread bunches up or pulls unevenly, making the seams clumsy and awry. If the stitches are too loose, the seams will gape.
There must be a good relation of tension and ease in all technical aspects of sewing, just as there must be a good relation of these same opposites in ourselves. Our attitude to the world will determine how at ease we are in it. Mr. Siegel once said, “An idea of heaven is where all the buttons and buttonholes will get together.”
I value the way Aesthetic Realism enables me to relate sewing to my life. In 1969, when the Opposites Company of the Theatre was preparing its production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, based on Aesthetic Realism, I wanted to contribute to their important work. I went to school to learn costume design and in time I became a Costumer Supervisor.
In an Aesthetic Realism lesson on May 2, 1971, Eli Siegel showed how theatre set-design, lighting, and costumes are related to each other and to life. For example he said,
“Sewing is for the purpose of making the world and ourselves more fitting to each other. There is a constant question in art and in life itself: what is fitting? You have an artistic question. What setting is fitting? What lighting is fitting? Fitting has two aspects, 1) the truth aspect; it must be adequate, and 2) it must bring out power. The first thing in food is to satisfy hunger. The second thing is to enjoy it. Food is fitting, but good food is even more fitting. What is fitting is what is related well.”
And then Mr. Siegel said to me,
“Everything must be orchestrated and fit in, Mrs. Musicant. You are looking for a world that fits you, and you want to fit in with the world. Everyone wants that. The problem of getting the right costume and how to make it right is a problem of fittingness.”
I'm glad I'm a student of Aesthetic Realism with Eli Siegel. What I have learned has opened up a new way of seeing myself and the world. I am convinced that people are always trying to put opposites together in themselves. And this is what we are doing when we sew. We want a garment to fit and we want to fit in with the world.
OPPOSITES AND THE ART OF SEWING
BY MAY MUSICANT
It is my belief as a person who has the good fortune to study Aesthetic Realism, the philosophy founded by the American poet and educator Eli Siegel, that the principle, “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves," is true! And in surprising ways I have found its truth borne out in the very old domestic art of sewing.
Sewing makes the world more orderly and at the same time richer. Sewing quietly demands my attention and when I approach it with respect, with a desire to learn, both the garment and something central in myself are better off. That is a beautiful fact! Many opposites are made one in sewing. Some, which are crucial, are sameness and difference, tension and ease, separation and junction.
If you examine a piece of cloth and hold it up to the light, whether it is knitted or woven you will see that it is a oneness of sameness and difference. The vertical threads are crossed by horizontal threads. Within the weaving process, the warp or the straight grain, and the woof or the cross grain, make the cloth. The narrow border at the edge is called the selvage. This is the strongest part of the cloth, and it is interesting that this is where the cross grain and the straight grain in a concentrated way, terminate, reverse, and begin again, illustrating that cloth is a oneness of sameness and difference, junction and separation.
To make sure the fabric is strong and at the same time gracefully draped, the straight of grain, the selvage, which runs parallel to it, is used as a guide. This is a basic principle of sewing and it is an important instance of the aesthetic oneness of sameness and difference in reality, and also freedom and order as one thing.
Cloth can be cut in many ways, but the bias cut is the most f1exible and dramatic. A true bias is where the lengthwise threads of the fabric are folded to the crosswise threads, making them perpendicular to each other. This means that when the vertical and horizontal threads meet at a 45 degree angle forming a diagonal, something new happens to the cloth, making it most flexible and easily shaped. It is also the most dramatic, particularly when the cloth is woven with stripes or a plaid.
In the VOGUE SEWING BOOK, Patricia Perry points out:
“Some of the most attractive plaid effects are brought about by cutting the plaid on the bias. The final result is a chevron which is two sets of stripes meeting at identical angles.”
Now it happens the bias is a diagonal line, a oneness of vertical and horizontal, sameness and difference.
There are mathematics and geometry, straight line and curve in the world and they are in sewing, as well as within ourselves. Every person is a oneness of horizontal and vertical. Our bones are vertical and horizontal and our thoughts and feelings can be described as narrow and wide, concentrated and expansive.
In What's There: An Aesthetic Realism Art Inquiry, about the photographs of Lou Bernstein, Eli Siegel discusses the diagonal line in a very exciting way. He says:
"The diagonal is the most successful line, all in all that we have. I challenge anybody who is depressed to wear his hat on the side at a jaunty angle and say ‘I’m depressed.' If you have this slant, it is against complete prostration.”
In my experience I have seen this as true. Our attitude to the world and ourselves is mirrored in the kinds of clothes we choose to wear and the way we wear them. Color and line show emotions and attitudes.
Since humanity's beginning people have been concerned with three basic needs: food, shelter and clothing. The Bible tells how Adam and Eve “Sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.”
And since that far off time, the making of clothing has provided a means of livelihood for millions of people. It has been the cause of much pleasure and pain. The reasons for this go deeper than we know. A poem in the Mother Goose collection goes like this:
"Bonny lass pretty lass wilt thou be mine?
Thou shalt not wash dishes, nor yet feed the swine,
Thou shalt sit on a cushion, and sew a fine seam.
And thou shalt eat strawberries, sugar, and cream."
A girl's head can be turned by such an appeal, and I must say it sounds inviting. Sewing can be a source for leisure and recreation. It can also be a means of exploitation and sorrow. In his poem, SONG OF THE SHIRT, Thomas Hood the 19th century poet, expresses it this way in one stanza:
"Oh Men, with Sisters dear!
Oh Men, with Mothers and Wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out
But human creatures' lives!
Stitch-stitch-stitch.
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
Sewing at once, with a double thread,
A shroud as well as a shirt.”
A person who saw the subject as serious and somewhat ridiculous was the Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle. In Sartor Resartus he relates clothing to legislation. He shows that clothing and fabric are symbolic of ethics and aesthetics; and how man is governed by natural laws and laws of men:
“Already when we dreamed not of it, the warp of thy remarkable Volume lay on the loom, and silently, mysterious shuttles were putting in the woof… For neither in tailoring nor in legislating does man proceed by mere Accident, but the hand is ever guided by mysterious operations of the mind.”
So, as the opposites are in the world, in cloth, they are also in ourselves. We want our lives to be well organized, as we yearn to have our thoughts organized. A woman can use sewing to be separate and dismiss other things. I have done this and I have seen how hurtful it is because it is against the deeper desire to relate oneself and one's skill to the scope and design of reality. Aesthetic, Realism is a means for people to organize their thoughts, through the aesthetic structure of relation. Sewing can be used to strengthen this relation. Every piece of fabric has a right side and a wrong side, as there are the front and back of a garment. They must be organized and joined efficiently.
Generally the complete garment is cut from the same piece of cloth, but often a collar or bodice is cut from cloth of a different color or texture. Front and back are both important. Sometimes the back of a dress can have a detail which seems more interesting than the front. While this adds to variety, it is the front of the garment that is given most detail. Every garment is a oneness of sameness and difference.
I am fascinated by the technical aspects in sewing, and one reason is that I see them as related to my life. For instance, take the family. How the members of a family see each other as separate, will determine how well they are unified. When a mother sees her child as too much of the “same cloth,” there is a bad mingling of separation and junction and often causes pain in both mother and child. Each person wants to be seen as a unique individual yet part of something large—the world itself—not just the closed family circle. In making a garment, each part must be cut separately and related accurately, before it can be joined as a unity.
Tension and ease must work together in order for a garment to fit well. The fullness and tightness around the waist must be comfortable. If it is too tight it may tear, as some people have discovered to their embarrassment. The dart, a short tapered seam so important in the proper fit of a garment, is a oneness of tension and ease. It is a means to maintain fullness and tightness at once in relation to the contours of the body. In machine sewing if the tension of the upper stitches is not uniform with the tension of the underneath stitches, the thread bunches up or pulls unevenly, making the seams clumsy and awry. If the stitches are too loose, the seams will gape.
There must be a good relation of tension and ease in all technical aspects of sewing, just as there must be a good relation of these same opposites in ourselves. Our attitude to the world will determine how at ease we are in it. Mr. Siegel once said, “An idea of heaven is where all the buttons and buttonholes will get together.”
I value the way Aesthetic Realism enables me to relate sewing to my life. In 1969, when the Opposites Company of the Theatre was preparing its production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, based on Aesthetic Realism, I wanted to contribute to their important work. I went to school to learn costume design and in time I became a Costumer Supervisor.
In an Aesthetic Realism lesson on May 2, 1971, Eli Siegel showed how theatre set-design, lighting, and costumes are related to each other and to life. For example he said,
“Sewing is for the purpose of making the world and ourselves more fitting to each other. There is a constant question in art and in life itself: what is fitting? You have an artistic question. What setting is fitting? What lighting is fitting? Fitting has two aspects, 1) the truth aspect; it must be adequate, and 2) it must bring out power. The first thing in food is to satisfy hunger. The second thing is to enjoy it. Food is fitting, but good food is even more fitting. What is fitting is what is related well.”
And then Mr. Siegel said to me,
“Everything must be orchestrated and fit in, Mrs. Musicant. You are looking for a world that fits you, and you want to fit in with the world. Everyone wants that. The problem of getting the right costume and how to make it right is a problem of fittingness.”
I'm glad I'm a student of Aesthetic Realism with Eli Siegel. What I have learned has opened up a new way of seeing myself and the world. I am convinced that people are always trying to put opposites together in themselves. And this is what we are doing when we sew. We want a garment to fit and we want to fit in with the world.
posted by Alice Bernstein at 9:51 AM
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