our little obsessions

or, how a little toile can make you happy

taking in the wider scene (2022)

8.22.22. Time for a bit more confessional. During the impossible height of Covid fear and illness and sequestration, I let myself properly indulge in what’s become a private escape on Facebook: pet videos. They are so charming and light and provide an easy smile to lighten the heaviness of what felt then, and can still feel these days, like unrelenting bad news. I wouldn’t call myself obsessed, just charmed. I’ve had help, too. One of the upsides and downsides of social apps is that they immediately start sending you more of whatever you’ve paid attention to. So it is that I’ve spent a few happy minutes every day of the past two weeks getting to watch the slow first steps and swims of Fritz, a newborn hippo at the Cincinnati Zoo. I’m sure I’m not alone. Last year it was baby goats—and not with millennial yogis. Just the goats, frolicking.

I’m writing this to note how easily we can move from distraction to deeper private pleasure. That’s also happened to me recently with the toile art that an old friend, Carolyn Handler, has been sharing on her FB and Instagram feed. I had no idea she was an artist, but she’s clearly found her medium. Or one of them. Her toile art is so terrific, in my personal opinion. I just love it.  Every few days a new piece drops into my Facebook page and I stop whatever I’m doing and smile. Charming, charming, I think. I love how subtle the embroidery designs are, the small details. Carolyn is telling stories in toile, narrating with a stitch here, some color there, some movement, magnifying small moments of life between characters in a scene. She’s playing, and it’s fun.

I liked them so much I thought I’d share here. So, I called her up today to ask her about what she unequivocally admits is her new obsession.

I took to toile like a fish in water, she declares happily.

say it brother! (2022)

Carolyn lives half time in Pauling, NY with her girlfriend of 39 years. (39 years! I think. Jeez, how can we be that much older? NFW—no fking way. But there ya go… yup. And they are quite a happy couple.) She works a day job as an estate and trusts lawyer, and that work demands an attention to patterns that she’s always enjoyed. And repetition; it’s calming, therapeutic. She’s always been creative, but it’s not been as a professional artist. She just gets obsessed with things. In 2010, it was with Boy Scout badges, to the point that she collected 120 rocks from various rivers and painted Boy Scout badges on them. She hasn’t figured out a way to show that work – it’s hard to mount rocks with Velcro–but she hopes to display them in the future. Meantime, toile has seized her imagination.

Toile gives me the same charge as a red car, she tells me. If I see a sports car, I get the same leap of heart that I get looking at toile; it’s a very exciting thing.

Carolyn is quick to credit Richard Saja, for her new obsession. He’s a visual artist who taught a toile workshop she took for a few hours on June 11th. He’s terrific too; I’ve included a link to his work below. He works in different mediums. She learned a few basics, including some stitches and the importance of separating threads of color, not overloading the 24-chenille needle that is recommended for toile embroidery. I’m such a shitty seamstress, she tells me, happily. I was studious about not taking Home Ec. I was not gonna learn how to sew. I cannot sew a button to any degree of… She laughs, it’s a mess.

A great little mess, I think.

Toile, which means fabric in French, is sold in yards. I did a little research on its history before our chat. The fabric can be made of cotton, canvas or muslin or, these days, other blends, that are printed upon with a pretty, colorful pattern or scene, typically flowers or animals or landscapes. Printed toile has its origins in Ireland, but the French elevated it to a royal art. The inexpensive Indian cotton was brought to Europe in the early 1600s by the East India Company and historically served as a kind of cheap first draft brouillon, or rough sketch, a mock-up of a garment that allowed designers and seamstresses to alter a pattern to fit the body before cutting a fabric.

17th-century royalist France was covered in toile, and its popularity spread.  There’s a Museum of Toile in Jouy-en-Josas, France, that presents the history of the first factory established there, back in 1738. It’s not far from Versailles where Marie Antoinette and the Kings of France held their infamous, decadent court balls. My French grandparents and my aunt lived at a stone’s throw from the Versailles Palace for many years; my aunt had a fancy little boutique on Rue Royale in Versailles. I used to lose myself in the over-the-top royalist rooms as a child. It must there that, subconsciously, my own latent appreciation for toile was seeded. Toile later became favored in the American colonies, and became associated with chintz, and the domestic arts.

Fast-forward to today. Toile has had a revival every few decades or years. I was not surprised, but was delighted, to see contemporary artists totally reclaiming the medium with millions of fun toile designs. They include Harlem Toile, a brand and set of designs by the artist and entrepreneur Sheila Bridges. As she states in a web page about the project, ‘As an African-American living in Harlem, I have always been intrigued and inspired by the historical narrative of the decorative arts, especially traditional French toile with its pastoral motifs from the late 1700s.’ She started revising the designs, reimagining the Afro-French and European experience, challenging the whiteness of toile and its royalist history. Think Bridgerton; Sheila Bridges is doing in toile what Shonda Rimes has done for period television narratives of the Regency period. Textile historical redress. The Harlem Toile is fun and makes its historic points, too.

Harlem Toile Fabric - Sheila Bridges (above)

From there, I stumbled upon all the queer toile that’s been created. Some years back, our ACT UP pal, Avram Finkelstein, got into the scene when he decided to print some Tom of Finland scenes on toile for a set of bedsheets. His friends went gaga for that and Avram and his boyfriend quickly launched Dirty Linens as a little popup business, putting Tom of Finland muscular leather daddy-o’s on curtains and cocktails and what have you. By now, Tom of Finland products are as ubiquitous in popular culture as Frida Kahlo or Jean-Michel Basquiat; they’re everywhere. T of F toilette spray is very popular in gay club bathrooms. The French Versailles royals would have appreciated that; they relied on eau de toilette to perfume their lice-ridden wigs and bodies.

(Dirty Linens toile)

Now, back to Carolyn, her early, growing obsession. She’s learning her craft, makes mistakes. I don’t cut it up before I put in a hoop, she says of her creative canvas.  She works on 10-inch segments at a time, using a sturdy tongue-n-groove classic hoop, to stretch the toile tight as a drum. Anything short of that will crimp, she warns. Then the fun begins.

I start with a scene that captures my imagination, she says. Not every piece of toile is equally captivating. I stare at it long enough for it to give me the narrative; I am most moved by the narrative.  From there, she selects her threads – never more than four – and mixing the colors. The whimsy comes from combining thread, she confirms. She’s admittedly a novice; still only knows four basic stitches, but a world has opened for her. She searches for toile that speaks to her.  I’ll never get over my love of toile, she says, smitten. I always love seeing it.

a tisket, a tasket (2022)

I want to know if she’s going to publicly show her artwork, sell it perhaps. I welcome it, she adds of outside interest in her toile. I’m still in my formative weeks and months, she cautions. I just wanna get a little more under my belt.

Just as long as she doesn’t lose the pure joy of the red car, I think, the rush of moving her fingers over the fabric, the pleasure of adding a touch of rouge or a cloche hat to a Victorian lady or the wattle of a rooster. Toile: a love story for the ages.

https://www.facebook.com/carolynbhandler

For more about toile, also visit toile maestro Richard Saja’s embroidered creations at this Etsy story. His work is collected by major museums. He teaches and has a blog.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=richard%20saja%20blog%20&qs=n&form=QBRE&=%25eManage%20Your%20Search%20History%25E&sp=-1&pq=richard%20saja%20blog%20&sc=9-18&sk=&cvid=76E7618FCEF64A52A66D658C2EDD4DF4&ghsh=0&ghacc=0&ghpl=&ntref=1

What’s your little private summer obsession? Tell me everything!