Angie Reed Garner ([info]angiereedgarner) wrote,
@ 2007-03-08 13:34:00
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moving on to Leslie Hall
(If you are wondering why I keep typing instead of making the paintbrush go, I have the flu. Both shall pass, probably at the exact same time. Fevers make me beery and chills make me type faster to get warm.)

Moving on from Justine Kurland (still happy to discuss, but anyway), I am countering with the midwest diva, Leslie Hall.

A screenshot from her Gem Sweater Project:



And here she is on YouTube.



She has music and posters and t-shirts and my favorite a 3-postcard pack of the Mobile Museum of Gem Sweaters, for $2.25.

[info]chitinous started this whole thing, and I'm really grateful. You midwest people who knew and did not tell me about Leslie Hall-- well, I'm just so happy to know about her now.

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[info]chreebomb
2007-03-08 08:49 pm UTC (link)
oh HELL YEAH. now that's what i'm talking about! 8-)

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-09 01:04 am UTC (link)
I feel all renewed.

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[info]nunofthat
2007-03-08 09:24 pm UTC (link)
Isn't she great? I'm hoping to take my flaming gay boyfriend to see her next month, and can't wait.

I hope you'll feel better soon. I am now in bed for the fourth day in a row, and it's sick sick sick.

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-09 01:05 am UTC (link)
Oh wonderful. Pls. report. I need to figure out my best shot at seeing her. She is about 250 miles/3 megafarms away.

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[info]tuatha242
2007-03-08 10:11 pm UTC (link)
I saw a You Tube with her as a guest on a midwestern tv show. I love it..She's taken those horrible 80's Granny sweaters (that i would toss when
gifted with them) and turned it into an art form. Total Performance art, old school.(and much nicer than sitting with a dead rabbit on your lap for 3 days).

Get well!! Spring is coming!

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-09 01:06 am UTC (link)
Spring is coming! And with it... ALLERGIES! ;)

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[info]tuatha242
2007-03-09 01:15 am UTC (link)
it's springy here and to my delight i seem to have manifested new and exciting allergies:( Still i remain positive:)

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-09 01:21 am UTC (link)
Seems like with age they get worse or better. Mine are getting worse!

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[info]tuatha242
2007-03-09 01:26 am UTC (link)
My family gets weird food allergies with middle age..i don't seem to have any horrible ones..but my son got the shellfish allergy around 19..no one ghas gotten that one til they were at least 40 before this. I didn't have any allergies besides dustand mold untoil about 15 years ago..then it was grass..then i moved across country..no allergies..Then 3 years later, i got the grass allergy and a few others. One was to a plant that everyone uses out here for landscaping..society garlic. It smells like mold to me and gives me the worst headache and congestion in just a few minutes.

My husband will see it and immediately walk in the opposite direction with me..or shut the car windows when it's on the side or middle divide.just lovely.

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-09 01:33 am UTC (link)
Ugh on those food allergies, and they can be really threatening, right?

My folks are in the Ohio valley, which is supposed the be the worst place in the US for allergies-- something to do with the river and I don't know what. My partner used to go down (as in, down onto a mattress) on day three of every single visit. Now he topples over only about half the time. I just drudge on, miserable, unless I really get a snoot full of something.

And that is probably TMI, but misery loves company. Thank you for being mine. :)

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[info]tuatha242
2007-03-09 04:26 am UTC (link)
Anytime:)

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[info]catbirdgirl
2007-03-08 10:32 pm UTC (link)
I love justine kurland but I just don't GET leslie hall.

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-09 01:07 am UTC (link)
I'll probably do a post about why I juxtaposed the two in a few days, depending on how my flu resolves.

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[info]liveavatar
2007-03-08 10:35 pm UTC (link)
Thank you for that YouTube link! All I'd seen about her until now was the photos of her collection of gem sweaters, in the context of naive art. She is clearly Not Naive, and now I love her even more.

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[info]liveavatar
2007-03-08 10:43 pm UTC (link)
And she's going to be in town at the Hemlock Tavern in a couple of weeks! (wriggles happily)

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-09 01:09 am UTC (link)
Oh it is some smart stuff she is doing.

OH I wish I could catch that show there.

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[info]petienka
2007-03-08 10:41 pm UTC (link)
LOVE Leslie Hall. LOVE her. My 10 year old daughter and I both huge fans....

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[info]petienka
2007-03-08 10:43 pm UTC (link)
(uh, I missed the word 'are' in there somewhere)

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-09 01:10 am UTC (link)
I want Leslie Hall stuff. I am glad she is ready to sell it to me. I want to hear more of what she has to say.

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[info]petienka
2007-03-09 01:48 am UTC (link)
Indeed, we want Leslie Hall Stuff. At 10, my daughter totally 'gets it', and it's terrific fun for the two of us to have this shared interest -- singing the songs to each other and all the little inside jokes. Thanks, Leslie, for making me a better parent (salute)....

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-09 01:54 am UTC (link)
That is amazing, that her art can work that way. Thank you!

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credit where credit is due:
[info]chitinous
2007-03-08 11:37 pm UTC (link)
I need to pass the credit on to [info]lizsybarite and [info]kaffeesuchtig for hosting their annual Ugly Sweater Party (and can you imagine if you guys all combined your festivities to include mid-air coconut slicing while dressed in unflattering knits??), and [info]fj for telling me about the Gem Sweater video.

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Re: credit where credit is due:
[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-09 01:14 am UTC (link)
Thank you, for there is credit to go around.

I've never had the context ~not~ collapse on me while trying to wear a gem sweater-- people mostly think I must like such sweaters in a straightforward way. A party like that would be The Best.

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[info]chitinous
2007-03-08 11:39 pm UTC (link)
p.s. speedy recovery!

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-09 01:14 am UTC (link)
Thank you. :)

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[info]artworkslive
2007-03-09 02:19 am UTC (link)
thanks for this, oh, so....twisted link.

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-09 12:11 pm UTC (link)
Welcome!

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[info]elusis
2007-03-09 05:22 am UTC (link)
I am a Leslie Hall hater. :(

I don't understand her, I don't like her, and I don't see her as a fashion icon - I see her as more of the same "fat people are ugly/crazy/wacky but not BEAUTIFUL" stereotyping. I noticed this "CRAZY fat person" image among a number of the women reference in the fat icons discussion a while back, and it depressed me. :-/

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-09 12:11 pm UTC (link)
A hater! That's pretty intense.

Are you from the midwest or have you ever lived here?

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[info]elusis
2007-03-10 01:01 am UTC (link)
I grew up in Southern Indiana my whole life. Which is one reason she's so distasteful to me - she looks like a million moms, schoolteachers, church ladies, etc. I saw growing up and knew I didn't want to be like.

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[info]niyabinghi
2007-03-09 03:03 pm UTC (link)
Yikes -- being from the Midwest, but have never heard of her before, thankfully. (Sets out strands of garlic to ward off Ugly Sweaters.....)

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-09 03:09 pm UTC (link)
She just nails it. She could not be from anywhere else. The details are so carefully perfectly right, and her physicality.

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[info]niyabinghi
2007-03-09 06:04 pm UTC (link)
??? You're saying that tacky women in ugly sweaters don't come from every part of the country?

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-09 06:32 pm UTC (link)
We have a big disconnect going, so I will try to be very clear.

Specific to the midwest-- I could do a thousand words alone on her pomp, how carefuly she has styled it to show the brown roots and where they transition to the blond highlights, and how incredibly important that blondness is here, and what a key marker of status/belonging those blond-brown roots and blond highlights are. It is really important to have those brown-blond roots here, and it is even more important to get those highlights-- it shows you know where your allegiance lies.

And how this is all about race/ethnocultural id in this part of the country. The accepted ethnocultural range of appearance here is so, so narrow. And she is Displaying it, showing just how it is marked on women by women, in a way that challenges the whole freaking thing.

Gem sweaters are one of the few ways you ever see middle-aged women busting out even a little-- the kind of thing you might put on for New Years with the family, or you could sport a Christmas variant around the holidays.

Brilliant femme clowning-- a form of truthtelling.

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[info]niyabinghi
2007-03-11 03:54 pm UTC (link)
Wow. That's sure a whole lot of reading into some ugly sweaters. (?) Is that woman even for real? I guess I should go watch the video.....

It seems like there's a whole lot of stereotyping of blondes, the midwest, and overblown clothing choices. Have you ever been to a black church on any given Sunday and seen the women in some of these outrageous hats? I happen to like hats more than gem sweaters, but I could see someone else writing a similar entry about black women in their sunday hats, and that would get a lot of peoples' ire up.

And how this is all about race/ethnocultural id in this part of the country.

Not sure what you mean by this. "The Midwest" has very large populations of black people, hispanic people, etc. Even small towns around here are changing, as more and more Mexican immigrants come here to live.

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-11 06:08 pm UTC (link)
I'm sorry for offense. I get it you are angry. Satire and parody can hurt.

In response to your other points, I don't have anything else to give to you. At this point I fear we differ too pointedly on how we frame the issues and the discussion.

I suspect if we talked a long time we might come out with a strong common understanding, but I have not had good experiences at all in trying to do this via the net.

This is due doubtless to my own limitations. I am not able to convey my personal background and present circumstances, my goodwill, and my commitment to the effort well enough to offset the acute challenges of engagement with difficult differences. The result for me without exception has inevitably been rupture of relationship. And this is not why I'm here, to say the least. I value (our) connection.

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(Anonymous)
2007-03-11 06:37 pm UTC (link)
Well first, I'm not angry. Just wanted to point out those things I pointed out. (Hey, I'm blonde middle-aged Midwesterner). And then I realized I should watch the video after all. So she is a parody, and the video made me laugh, while cringing to some extent, but another part of me was happy to see somebody take on those gawd-awful-ugly-gem sweaters. (especially as my evil SIL likes to make, wear, and give them as gifts.) Ha!

I'm just not very big on academic jargon, which sometimes I think ends up being a nice distancing mechanism from the experience of thing, whether art, comedy, drama, etc. I'm glad this woman did this, it was pretty funny, I felt, especially for the gem-sweater-hater ilk, of which I don't mind saying I'm part of.

But I'm glad we had this conversation.....it's made me think some more about black church womens' hats, which often can be entire pieces of artwork on their heads. And then the thought of finding out about doing some portraits of some....

My apologies for sounding strident, I should have put in a disclaimer on that.

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[info]niyabinghi
2007-03-11 06:41 pm UTC (link)
Oops, that was me.

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-11 07:44 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for more about where you are coming from.

Gem sweaters are "say-something." I am curious about what they mean for the people who make/wear/give them.

I think Hall is trying to make some of that meaning explicit-- if gem sweaters could talk.

I wonder when your SIL busts out a gem sweater-- what message is she sending and to whom?

I guess if she is your evil SIL, it might not be something you want to contemplate. Please consider yourself totally off the hook.

At least where I am living, only little girl gymnasts/twirlers in parades are allowed to wear glitter/bright color/extravagent luxury fabrics-- as they get older they are expected to wear more colors that are either more sober (band uniforms) or pastel. And by adulthood, it is a total lockdown. Gem sweaters seem like some kind of attempt to get some of that back, some freedom from the rules. Or tap into that vitality. It seems important that gem sweaters are totally unsexy and while they are flamboyant they are not really exotic/othering.

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[info]nine_ah
2007-03-11 12:48 am UTC (link)
Wow!!! She's a genius! Thanks for posting!!!!

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[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-11 01:28 am UTC (link)
:)

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remembrance of gem sweaters
[info]zentient
2007-03-15 12:59 pm UTC (link)
Amazing to have complete sweaters. No dry cleaner would clean them. They were difficult to wash and reshape, and the color easily faded. A few gems would fall off and ruin the thing, sometimes they came with a plastic bag with extra gems for repair. They were one of first items of clothing to come in plus sizes.

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Re: remembrance of gem sweaters
[info]angiereedgarner
2007-03-15 03:01 pm UTC (link)
Did you click on over to her site? She has something like nine galleries of sweaters. I love the titles she gives them.

I am keeping an eye out when I thrift, but no luck and your comment suggests why-- they are fragile.

I wonder if the plus sizes were because they had/have more of a a grass roots origin-- women make them for themselves/each other, so making the larger sizes is a no-brainer.

I think it takes a lot of confidence to wear them-- they are feminine in a loud way but don't define the waistline so cut right thorugh the thin=beautiful-and-permitted-to-be-decorative equation.

I think there is something slightly subversive (good) about them- it is like they are an in-joke between women-- hey, I could act up at any moment, we all could.

Did they branch from the fifties twinset cardigan sweaters with the delicate beadwork? For the "I'm not a sweater girl any more" set!

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