~ERL / A$AP Rocky / MET GALA QUILT / YO, DIG-GITTY !!! THE FINAL BREAK-DOWN !!!
OK, SO HERE’S THE FINAL GONNA-BREAK-IT-DOWN / YO, DIG-GITTY !!!
ART LOVERS TAKE / ON . . . THAT SLIGHTLY RAW, WILD, YET MUTED MULTI-COLOR, TINY FLOWER DANCING PRINT – GLOBAL-AUDIENCE-REACHING / HISTORY-MAKING / MET-SHAKING / JUST AWESOME !!! VINTAGE THRIFT SHOP / PROBABLY BARGAIN BIN FIND !!!
AMERICAN AS PIE DIY, AS LOW-FI AS THEY GET, EVEN SLIGHTLY SEEDY, BUT TURNS OUT TO BE – FASHION NIGHT’S KNOCK-OUT LOOK – AMONGST A SEA OF CONTENDERS & SOME EVEN BASICALLY NUDE / THIS ERL / A$AP Rocky – MET GALA QUILT- DRAPED ON THE SHOULDERS OF A RAPPER WITH THE CUTEST SMILE & HAIR – SWEPT BY & JUST CAUGHT THE ETHOS, & TOOK . . . SAIL. LIKE A CHILD’S LULLABY.
SOOTHING EACH & EVERY ONE OF US, WITH ITS NEWFOUND RECOGNITION, AND HOPEFUL SWAGGER.
just ONE word ‘wraps’ – it up, and . . .
that word – would be: ‘VERNACULAR’.
up from the streets / just like the amazing creative / artist / musician who wore it.
A$AP Rocky in his ERL / found vintage ‘Puff’ quilt / at the recent MET FASHION GALA.
image via Instagram @highsnobity
if you refer to it just as a ‘quilt’ / as everyone from the ERL founder himself, to the Brooklyn artisan guy who got to repair it, and make a custom backing – with which to (garment) line it, to the entire media talking heads who covered it, but who don’t know a knitting needle – from a crochet hook, let alone a specific quilt ‘genre’, / and, just call it: ‘magic’, you are so missing the point.
this quilt was, just simply put: the runt of the quilt-making lexicon / the runt of the litter . . it was highly unlikely to have set foot in the MET, let alone a Folk Art Museum, unless said venue had a small niche for . . lowly ‘arts & crafts’ & family projects, of yore.
I mean maybe eventually, like in a hundred years. and then, just out of curiosity, and for the record.
talk about . . . vernacular / folk art, and hobby – all in one ‘loser’ breath.
this quilt was:
~most likely,’Appalachian’ basement – DIY !!! I haven’t seen any up here in the North East (?).
~btw ‘Appalachian’ said here, with a great deal of respect. early mountain quilting, is quite renown / those old timers have an amazing legacy – that goes way back. they were mostly focused, just eking out a subsistence living . . providing, originally / all hand-stitched functional, utilitarian / farm quilts, for their neighbors. with young children helping out, starting in early, learning the skills.
but, with a rich individuality & great, great needle skill, much like their country music. ditto children learning.
~but these ‘Puff’ quits were by the 1970s / with the advent of factory-made bed covers / Mother-&-young-kids craft / family project – DIY !!!
~these ‘Puff’, or ‘Biscuit’, or even ‘Bubble’ quilts – had become by this time / more of a ‘hobby’ project / the old skills & patience, and time, need / had been lost. it was all about cutting out simple square shapes, sewing them together on 3 sides, followed by the super easy fun of ‘stuffing’ – the resultant ‘Puff’ pocket, and then simply assembling the over-all grid.
-following a straight-forward ‘template’, that indeed we can see here, in this ERL / A$AP Rocky quilt. ~probably straight out of the pages of your average ‘Womens Craft Magazine’, found monthly in the supermarket aisle.
~a template quilt. to be followed. and strung together, and not deviated from much.
~if you look into blogs on the web, writers recall working on them, with their mothers, and sisters, stuffing the ‘puffs’ – with old pantyhose. busy, and happy.
~yet they were mostly successful as ‘projects’ / they were not really comfortable, let alone snuggly, truth be told. too heavy. too bulky. too stiff. too much fabric.
~today they are mostly made as small baby ‘rugs’, gentle things babies can be placed on, where they can roll around a bit, but not too much, among the gentle cushioned pockets, but also not get – too far off.
~but back, to the older full sized ones / their lumpy fate was finally, to be, not even wanted / even as low-fi ‘hobby’ quilts / they got no respect – and after a generation or so, families were happy to discard, or ‘donate’ them to thrift shops, which in turn dumped them into the $1 bin.
~I doubt if Eli Russell Linnetz paid even, much more than $3.50 / for his ‘Puff’ quilt, in which he was to find so much delight & new inspiration, and the resultant recognition.
sometimes, it just takes another person’s genius / and . . vision. sometimes it just takes a talented person – from another cultural background, to see the truth in our own eccentricities.
yet, this was to be the beginning of the new – American Quilt revival !!
interest in everything DIY, hand-made free-will expressive, or simply decorative / and yet functional, sparked after Woodstock, after the 60s . . . after ‘The Age of Aquarius’ !!
and, there was no going back. and, to prove it /
we have quite the DIY culture today, don’t we. from Granny Squares, to BODE, and back.
interest in all things DIY, hand-made & functional, yet individually expressive – have made made a tremendous renaissance.
this ERL / A$AP Rocky Met Gala quilt was at – that very tipping point.
there’s . . the magic.
and, yet for all its humble origins,
when A$AP Rocky sashayed down that Met Gala red carpet, on Rhianna’s arm, draped in this almost ‘generic’ mass of . . cheerful, craft project color, with the big 3-D puffy pockets, like nothing so much as . . . big textile ‘Chinese dumplings’ – everybody, but everybody caught . . the vibe.
A sense of warmth / an emotional support – that would / could envelop you, soothe, empower, and protect you. all in a great big bubble – of gentle / popping fun.
it was all about the industrious, thrifty voices of our proud American past – a rallying call to arms / our kind of arms – the ‘creatives’ ones.
afterward:
in fact I was going to title this little essay:
‘AGE Of AQUARIUS, not’
vs.
‘Age of VERNACULAR, yes’.
but luckily, I decided maybe I had better look it up first / see what ‘cosmic’ era, this is anyway ?
& GUESS WHAT . . . . EVERY-BODY !!!!
ROCK – YOUR BODY !!!
WE ARE . . . APPARENTLY, JUST ENTERING – A NEW AGE of AQUARIUS !!!!
SO, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, not !!
it seems we are to be in a hopeful cosmic vernacular ‘corridor’.
that the ‘vernacular’ / up from the streets / self-taught, and driven from with-in, and in turn / from within our wider community, propelled by a strong creative drive / will rule.
it’s also supposedly hitting real hard, real, real, super powerful hard / because they say this ‘2021 Age of Aquarius’ is super rare / as it involves / a meeting of 2 STRONG PLANETS, specifically: “a great COSMIC conjunction of Jupiter & Saturn” / that only comes round – every 800 years.”
so, yeah. magic. might be the word that comes to mind. as in a spectacular & happy leap of faith / that lands just right / in a sheer moment of creative thinking / setting all things right – and moving forward with more wisdom, and kindness / and creativity.
if, only.
even among quilts – there is a . . . ‘hierarchy’.
there are quilts that are so skillful, so splendidly colorful, so visually inventive or spiritually compelling, or that are such well pieced historical records, or personal poems . . . that they are cherished, and wrapped in tissue, and only taken out – on holidays, and handed down from generation to generation, with care and pride / until usually, or hopefully, ending up in a museum collection that will not only care for, but share them.
A$AP Rocky’s ERL quilt / was quite – the opposite. totally vernacular in voice,
its composition was generic, following a simple ‘template’ / lifted from a women’s handiwork supermarket magazine.
I’ve been reading about Leonard Cohen, lately.
he said: “there is a crack in everything, and that’s how the light gets in.”
A$AP Rocky in that old, lumpy vintage / not so skillful, not so unique quilt, was just that primordial crack & everybody could feel the light.