Emilie Heidemann
Art on display at Afterlives: Material Stories from the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection.
Pieces collected by Helen Louise Allen are highlighted along with contemporary works responding to them.
A 2005 black gown made of 40 pounds of river rocks and lead weights. Red mittens with tassels from 1950s Norway. A large 1956 Frank Lloyd Wright-made screen print on linen in earthy tones. A 20th century Chinese indigo robe with intricately sewn designs. An early 1900s Hungarian camisole embroidered on cotton, and a 2024 binder cover made in response to a question of “What did trans-masculine people wear as undergarments during the Edwardian era?” And butterflies, butterflies, and more butterflies.
These are some of the 40 textiles displayed as part of the UW-Madison’s Center for Design and Material Culture’s first spring semester exhibition, Afterlives: Material Stories from the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection. Most of the pieces in the exhibition are part of Allen’s collection, while others are textiles UW-Madison students created in response to other objects in the archive. It’s on exhibit in the Lynn Mecklenburg Textile Gallery, 1300 Linden Drive, through May 11.
Allen, a prominent textile historian and UW-Madison professor who died in 1968, collected textiles during her world travels and transformed them into sources for teaching and research, says exhibition curator and CDMC executive director Sarah Anne Carter. Allen’s original collection of 4,000-some objects has been augmented by UW-Madison professors, researchers, alumni and other staff; it now contains more than 13,000 textiles spanning 16 centuries and 108 countries.
Judith Neal of Oconomowoc, Allen’s first cousin twice removed, was at the exhibition’s opening reception on Feb. 13. “I didn’t know her,” says Neal, but from what she was told of her relative, who died young at age 55, “She had no fear. She just went. She was curious about everything.”
Women didn’t travel much in the early 20th century, notes Neal. “My grandfather was amazed because there weren’t other women doing that. She was such a force of nature. Through her collection there’s just so much we can learn.”
Neal said her favorite object in the collection is the Hungarian camisole, as it reminded her of her wedding dress that was made in 1913 — “my grandmother Ellen’s dress.”
The camisole is displayed next to a modern take on the garment made by Noa Rickey, UW-Madison master of fine arts degree candidate. “Through extensive research and close examination with other garments, I discovered that they incorporated both handmade and machine-made lace,” writes Rickey in their artist statement. “This period represents a transitional movement in history — a bridge between the handcrafted traditions of the past and the industrial age. I see this historical shift as parallel to my own identity, which spans the spectrum between male and female, embracing a non-binary experience.”
A silk robe from Turkmenistan.
Silk embroidery decorates a silk robe from Turkmenistan.
The butterflies, printed or embroidered on some of the exhibit’s works, became the Afterlives exhibition’s theme.
“In pulling out some of the objects that were compelling, one of the things [my team and I] kept noticing were the butterflies,” Carter says.
To Carter they symbolize metamorphosis and the new life that begins for textile objects when they are added to the collection. And every object has a tale to tell.
“One of the things that I think about a lot is the idea that these objects have their own lives,” says Carter. “We think about these objects as moving through time in a different way compared to how we might. Some objects have a very long life and they can outlast us.”
