Crafting Readers

Items

• A Scarf as Protection and Solace / "The Common Life (for Chester Kallman)"
  In my own practice, crocheting is a forgiving and gifting type of art. The scarf is inspired by the quiet comfort and support that the home offers Auden and Kallman. Further, the scarf is a physical barrier from the cold, as if shielding the wearer from more harm than just strong winds. The embrace holds in the warmth of their closeness even when they are far apart. The movements of crochet are fluid and natural, yet they take a mechanical type of repetition that requires a slowing down and stopping of my daily life to perform. The scarf’s red and blue pattern suggests a warm inside and a cold outside. These dichotomies connect to the poem, which evinces an appreciation of the home and a confidentiality about the relationships cultivated inside it. Wearing the homemade scarf suggests a similarly dichotomous message: despite displaying a façade, only the wearer and the giver know the true character and experiences of their relationship. NADYA BREMNER ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: My inspiration for the scarf emerged out of a brainstorming session on crocheted objects that I believed would fit into Auden and Kallman’s home. Crocheting a scarf evokes imagery of a quiet home, a serene room warmed by a fireplace and by the love running through the halls. Gifting a crafted object is like giving a piece of yourself over to the receiver because of the time and effort that went into the gift’s weaving and knotting. This act of crocheting felt parallel to the intention behind W.H Auden’s “The Common Life” because the poem was a gift to Kallman to encapsulate their life inside the home together. The scarf lies close to the mouth and around the neck, hiding and concealing the words and secrets of the wearer. Auden teases the reader about this secretive nature by taunting that Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t know much past “a quick glance / at book-titles [that] would tell him / that we belong to the clerisy and spend much / on our food. But could he read / what our prayers and jokes are about, what creatures / frighten us most, or what names / head our roll-call of persons we would least like / to go to bed with?” (Auden, 27- 34). As a piece of apparel, however, the scarf shows the outside world a glimpse of the wearer’s personality. I wanted the scarf to be a different medium for the concept of concealing the precious and personal moments shared within the home, while still exhibiting a facet of the self through stylistic choices. Then, through the scarf-making process, I gleaned more about the type of homely acts that bring you closer to the people around you and the type of comfort that would spur the writing of a poem, or the making of a scarf, to demonstrate gratitude to this person. I have had trouble finding critical reviews about the publication and information about the reception of Auden’s “The Common Life” at its time of release in 1963. However, much of the information on Auden and Kallman as partners is contradictory and converging. Many outlets present the two men as only working partners and colleagues, while others reveal the romantic nature of their relationship alongside their collaborations as artists. Despite the truth or the realities of the two men’s relationship, “The Common Life” depicts a closeness to and a familiarity with one another that hold love and affection unbeknownst to the outside world. For the couple, the home they shared would be where they were able to express themselves freely without input and threats from bigoted outsiders. The home is a place of refuge and comfort for its residents. The house holds the power to keep outsiders away and allows free expression of the self within its walls. While the poem calls upon the reader’s own inclination to their house, the home that Auden and Kallman relied upon was necessary for their wellbeing and relationship. I read an interview conducted by Polly Platt in the spring of 1967, when Platt visited the home that is described in “The Common Life”. The interview was brief but connected with the points made within the poem, with a few interjections from Kallman himself. The interview was an informal view into the life of the men inside the house, with Platt joining Auden and Kallman in their routines of doing crosswords and taking tea. Platt received a tour of the home: “The poet smiled with the memory of last night’s dinner, declined to describe it, and opened the door to the guest room. This space that he had called the “shrine to friendship” held two simple iron beds, two windows to the woods outside and in the corner a crucifix. A great orange cat was curled up on the floor” (268, Platt). This quotation displays Auden’s ability to represent the home as more than a resting place—that is, as a symbol of the men’s relationship through the meaning attributed to even the most mundane of features. The interview concludes with a drawing of Auden’s home in Austria, demonstrating the influence that the space holds over its visitors and suggesting why the house was such a prominent figure in Auden’s writing. The implicit query about the nature of their relationship (platonic or romantic?) does nothing to discredit the connection between Kallman and Auden, as connection and closeness are not exclusive to particular kinds of relationships. Nevertheless, my final project was not to discover the truth of their relationship but to imbue a physical object with the same feeling that reading this poem evokes within me. Further, the use of the home as a vessel for this knowledge is what drew me to the poem in the first place and what my continued study has been focusing on– not others’ perceptions of Kallman’s and Auden’s relationship. The scarf thus became my own method of imbuing a crafted object with a sense of belonging. In my previous projects for this course, I spent my time trying to make an object that would resonate with a feeling of familiarity and safety that a home produces for its residents. The types of crafts that we experimented with varied from paper quilling to embroidery to typesetting. I looked to resources on the history of crocheting and crafting to connect its historical roots to the types of experiences that I embarked on this semester. The article “'Use Your Hands for Happiness': Home Craft and Make-Do-and-Mend in British Women's Magazines in the 1920s and 1930s” by Fiona Hackney in the Journal of Design Rings aided the comparison between my own crafts and the history of female-led creating as signs of homemaking. While the idea of women as homemakers can have restricting and misogynistic tones, I found that reading about crafting as a way to express a belonging in the home suggested Auden’s appreciation for his own space. Hackney writes, “A home craft feature in Woman assured that ‘although men don't like fripperies and modern rooms scorn odd bits and pieces, both will accept joyfully this distinguished chair back in crisp crochet’. Not just an antimacassar, this example of hand work symbolized women’s skills, tastes and values, smuggling these back into the modern interior under the guise of ‘distinguished’ design” (Hackney, 29). The change from seeing crafting objects as frivolous decor to viewing them as pieces of art helped construct my own view of the scarf as more than a piece of apparel. This idea of rebranding and revitalising craft culture connects with changing crochet from a purely functional art to a source of decorative and personalized gifts. During the crafting process for the scarf, I spent a lot of time thinking about the poem as an art form that is meant to be read, shared, and seen. Yet Auden manages to reveal his feelings for Kallman without divulging the true nature of their relationship—or any true experiences they had within the home’s walls. For example, in the paper module, I created a linocut based on the line “every home should be a fortress, / equipped with all the very latest engines / for keeping Nature at bay,” which refers to using windows and glass as physical barriers from the cold and judgemental outside world (Auden, 60-62). A scarf, however, is a handmade object that is a portable tool for keeping its wearer protected from the elements. The scarf becomes a portable memento of the safety that the home brings to the men. Auden proposes an idea of what makes a home rich, not in the monetary sense but in the sense of a richness of life and of fulfillment. The idea is familiar in the lines “the homes I warm to, / though seldom wealthy, always convey a feeling / of bills being promptly settled / with cheques that don't bounce)” (10-13). Making a scarf connected with this idea of wealth in my own consideration of what luxury is: for me, luxury has never been about having the most expensive possessions but about the possessions I do keep holding an importance based on their origins. Crocheting a scarf or receiving a made item, even if the scarf or item is not crafted of the most expensive yarn or perfect stitches, imbues the object with a value that is unmatched by fame or status.
• The Wars Within / "The Bell Jar"
  My crafted object, titled "The Wars Within," captures the essence of Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar. Inspired by Plath’s sketch bearing the novel’s title, the lino print of shoes, a traditional and often critiqued symbol of femininity, pairs with a carefully typeset quote from Chapter 15. This pairing amplifies the novel’s exploration of identity and autonomy, underscoring the protagonist’s battle against societal constraints and the conflict between external expectations and internal desires. A dynamic collage surrounds the linocut and the quotation, adding further depth and dimension to the piece. This layered design evokes “the wars within,” symbolizing women’s dual struggle: resisting patriarchal values imposed by society while looking inward to confront and reject these forcibly ingrained beliefs. The composition of the crafted object bridges the novel’s critical investigation of psychological and societal conflict, inviting viewers to reflect on the enduring relevance of these struggles in the pursuit of self-determination. KALEV ADLER ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, the American writer and poet’s only work of fictional prose, offers an evocative exploration of madness and the oppressive effects of social expectations on women. Deeply rooted in Plath’s own experiences, the novel reflects her struggles with major depression, suicidal ideation, and time spent in psychiatric institutions. Driven by a desire to articulate these experiences relating to mental illness, Plath published The Bell Jar in January 1963, just one month before her tragic suicide at the age of 30. At the heart of the novel lies the metaphor of the bell jar, a suffocating, transparent enclosure symbolizing Plath’s and her protagonist Esther Greenwood’s sense of isolation in mid-20th-century America. For the past three months, I have immersed myself in creating a crafted object inspired by Plath’s text. The project and process culminated in The Wars Within, a mixed-media piece combining linocut, typesetting, printing, and collage, deepening my comprehension of Plath’s work and its enduring themes. By creating The Wars Within, I realized the true extent of Plath’s investigation into the suffocating aspects of life for women in 1950s America, a period synonymous with conformity. Through my crafting, I gained a newfound perspective on the psychological toll of cemented cultural conventions directed at women and the struggle for autonomy in a world designed to confine. As author Janet Badia discusses in the first chapter of Sylvia Plath and the Mythology of Women Readers, titled “‘Dissatisfied, Family-Hating Shrews’: Women Readers and the Politics of Plath’s Literary Reception,” Plath “devoted much of her writing time in early 1961 to her novel The Bell Jar. Having contracted for publication in October 1961, Heinemann released the novel in England under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas on January 14, 1963” (30). Plath chose to partner with the London-based publisher Heinemann after facing rejection from American publishers, likely influenced by the underwhelming reception of her earlier poetry collection, The Colossus, published by Alfred A. Knopf. Upon its initial release in England, literary critics met The Bell Jar with “a reception nearly as unremarkable as the one The Colossus had received” (Badia 30). It was only after her death that the novel started gaining traction, and, in 1971, eight years after Plath’s suicide, The Bell Jar finally made its way to the United States. In “A Note on The Bell Jar (1963),” Susan J. Behrens explains how “Plath’s mother, Aurelia Plath, and Plath’s husband, Ted Hughes, campaigned against publication of the US edition, … claiming that the identities of persons living and dead would be too obvious (and hurtful) all around” (239). Despite this publication delay, readers who had slowly become accustomed to her poetry in the years following her death flocked to pick up a copy. The delayed American publication coincided with the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s and marked a turning point for Plath’s reception. Readers began to embrace the novel as a foundational feminist text that critiqued patriarchal social politics. Since its 40th anniversary in the US, The Bell Jar has sold “more than three million copies” and been taught in classrooms worldwide (Gould). My creation, The Wars Within, allowed me to profoundly engage with Plath’s The Bell Jar, reshaping my understanding of its themes and the lived experiences it portrays. At the heart of my mixed-media craft object is a linocut of shoes, an object traditionally linked to femininity, highlighting the societal values and ideals imposed on women in 1950s America and beyond. This linocut not only symbolizes these oppressive expectations but also Esther Greenwood’s struggle to break free from them, as shoes can represent movement and the march toward a liberated future. To further connect my work to the novel, I incorporated the poignant quotation “because wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar,” capturing Esther’s inescapable sense of entrapment (Plath 236). The Wars Within, especially the collage elements, vastly enriches my dialogue with The Bell Jar by visually layering Plath’s protagonist’s multifaceted constraints. The fragmented domestic images, such as a set dinner table and a mother holding her child, underscore the overwhelming pressure of social models that historically and ridiculously defined a woman’s worth. These elements, deliberately fractured and overlapped, mirror Esther’s fractured psyche, symbolizing her mental disarray and rebellion against the relentless demand to conform. Through the combination of these images, alongside the quotation from the novel and the lino print design, the crafted object encapsulates Esther’s desire to reject social expectations and her inability to escape their pervasive influence. This interplay echoes Plath’s metaphor of the bell jar, with its transparent yet impenetrable walls, as the collage creates a visual representation of a world that defines and traps. Craft or multi-media object? Linocut, typesetting, or print? Choosing the correct term to describe The Wars Within is no simple task. While I previously referred to the collage elements within the object, The Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) 1919 definition defines collage as “An abstract form of art in which photographs, pieces of paper, newspaper cuttings, string, etc., are placed in juxtaposition and glued to the pictorial surface; such a work of art” (“Collage, N”). Therefore, to provide details of the history of my chosen craft practice, the term “Collage” accurately summarizes the process, the amalgamation of the linocut, typesetting, and printing of text onto one pictorial surface. Freya Gowrley, in the introduction to Fragmentary Forms: A New History of Collage, highlights that collage “is an art form that has been produced across regions and cultures since the invention of paper” (9). Yet, despite its diverse and widespread practice throughout history, collage has often been narrowly defined, focusing predominantly on works from the West and their association with the rise of modernism. Gowrley recounts the example of Jane and Mary Parminter, who used collage as a decorative technique in their 1790s home, A la Ronde. Nevertheless, she notes that “thanks to the low status occupied by women’s craft practices in the art-historical canon, collage produced before the birth of modernism has consistently been overlooked in histories of the genre” (9). Instead, the invention of collage was often attributed to figures such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque (9-10). This exclusionary framing mirrors Plath’s The Bell Jar, where deeply entrenched hierarchies subdue women just as the hierarchies embedded within art history diminish the influence and existence of early collage artists (10). Through its design and symbolism, The Wars Within challenges these hierarchies, pushing back against the limitations imposed on women and craft practices. As Hinda Mandell describes in Crafting Dissent: Handicraft as Protest from the American Revolution to the Pussyhats, “Craft can be accessible and complex, unique and diverse, intensely personal and powerfully linked to the greater world—just like the people who choose it to harness their own activist power” (xiii). Therefore, collage, and crafting as a category, is “a tool that transcends geography and time. It is a tool of change—and for change” (xiii). Creating The Wars Within has significantly intensified my appreciation of collage as a medium for artistic and social critique. Through its ability to contrast, fragment, and reconstruct, collage captures the essence of dissent, offering a powerful way for artists and makers to challenge established norms. Throughout the semester, I have developed a profound appreciation for the parallels between the act of crafting and Plath’s narrative of confinement and rebellion. The process of assembling disparate elements into a cohesive whole allowed me to reflect on Esther Greenwood’s internal struggle to construct an identity beyond the rigid confines of societal expectations. By immersing myself in the physical act of carving the linocut, arranging the collage, and typesetting the quotation, I engaged directly with Plath’s themes, experiencing firsthand the tension between self-expression and a lack of control over the outcome. As a medium and a metaphor, collage powerfully underscores the novel’s critique of the restrictive roles imposed on women while simultaneously offering a space for redefinition and reclamation. The Wars Within serves as both a tribute to Plath’s work and an exploration of the enduring struggle for autonomy and self-definition, demonstrating how the concept of making fosters understanding and provokes meaningful dialogue. Through this project, I not only came to understand the timeless relevance of Plath’s far-reaching critique but also recognized the transformative potential of crafting as an act of resistance.
• "A terrible newspaper headline" / "The Bell Jar"
  This artificial newspaper reconstructs the clippings that recount Esther Greenwood’s suicide attempt in Plath’s novel. For the collages, I took the newspaper images described alongside the headlines in the text and portrayed them in a conceptual manner that incorporated the novel’s central themes. I typeset the headlines by hand, printed them on UVic Libraries’ Vandercook printing press, and then scanned everything to arrange it digitally into the form of a 1950s newspaper’s front page. Crafting this newspaper urged me to meditate on the symbolism of print media in The Bell Jar, as Esther struggles with her ambitions for the future, her mental health treatment options, and the social demands on young women to be modest and domestic as well as sexually enticing. This newspaper represents Esther’s metaphorical bell jar and the media’s reality-distorting role in producing and maintaining that bell jar. BECKY TURNER ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: Using methods of collage, typesetting, and digital arrangement, I crafted this 1950’s newspaper that recreates the clippings recounting Esther Greenwood’s suicide attempt in Plath’s novel (The Bell Jar 198–99). The crafting process reminded me of the subjectivity of media; every decision I made—about type font, which magazines to use, and which images looked best together—influenced the overall presentation and its perception by viewers. Typesetting was very enjoyable, but it brought to mind the invisible decisions that go into the production of a text. To Esther, her portrayal in the magazines told her she was nothing more than a “scholarship girl” in fancy clothing (198). Much of Esther’s sense of self is tied to the magazines, newspapers, and tabloids she reads, which contributes to her distorted perspective of reality. In collaging the images, I had the opportunity to think about the pressure on women to be attractive, healthy, happy, and maternal—or, in other words, to be the perfect housewife. By synthesizing these demands into the collages, I created a newspaper that represents the reality-distorting, metaphorical bell jar over Esther’s head. Through my crafting journey, I explored the history of printing, the origins of collage, and the connections of these crafts to The Bell Jar and Sylvia Plath’s own life. Historically, printing was a field dominated by men. Women were told that their “professional incompetence,” both physically and intellectually, barred them from being able to compose lines of type or operate a letterpress (Betts 21). This rationale was completely false, as the records we have of women in printing prove that they had no such problems (21); however, because women were rarely allowed to be in official unions or have their printing recognized, there is a historical lack of these records documenting women’s work (Battershill 13). When women were allowed into the occupation, it was often because their husband or father had died, and someone was needed to replace them (12–13). Moreover, women were rarely paid fair wages (Betts 23). As printing became more automated, it developed a reputation as an artisanal craft (141) for the women “who were denied access to [it] for centuries” (13). The modern letterpress community relies heavily on group support and sharing to preserve the knowledge needed to restore and operate machines. Today, we can learn how to engage with this historically masculinized craft in a feminist, amateur way (Battershill 10). Through engaging in the generative printer-press relationship that is inherent in the use of a letterpress (Betts), we can honour our own participation in the process and the legacy of women forgotten by history. A collage is “a work made by assembling various forms to create a new whole” (Adibi 1). It was invented alongside paper itself, but since then has utilized many crafting forms beyond paper, including painting, wood work, architecture, and music (2–5). Nowadays, most collage work is conducted by hobbyists. Collaging requires its creator to trust the process and take risks as they paste images together. It is a messy, imaginative, and inspiring process that opens up pathways to think about images and themes in texts and the ways in which they can be portrayed. This form of invention boosts self-confidence and creativity (7), and allows for the creator to develop a more critical view of spaces (13). It also led to the art of décollage, in which layers are torn away to reveal something underneath. In décollage, the artist must trust themselves to rip and tear the paper to reveal a better final image. The idea of stripping away parts of oneself can be either toxic or empowering, in the same way that pasting layer upon layer can create either a beautiful culmination of art or a mess of secrets. In this way, collage becomes a metaphor for growth, development, and the formation of identity. Sylvia Plath was a talented American poet who struggled with her mental health, and one month after releasing her first novel, The Bell Jar, she killed herself (Poetry Fndn 4). The novel was originally published in 1963 in England under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas.” Plath’s mother fought the publication of The Bell Jar in the United States until 1971, fearing that it would upset those who had inspired characters, and some accounts say that even Plath did not think of the novel as serious work (Smith 92). Once it did become available in the US, the novel quickly rose on the New York Times best-seller list and has remained popular since then, although the initial reception in England was only modest (93–94). Plath discusses gender roles and social expectations for a young woman’s career, relationships, and sexuality through a realist lens that accounts for the sociopolitical world of the 1950s. As feminist reviews of these concepts became more popular, Plath’s own life was conflated with that of her protagonist (95). Her suicide greatly influenced this reception of her book (Poetry Fndn 6). Feminist interpretations of the novel as a biography, as well as psychoanalytical readings, were not without merit, as Plath’s writing illustrates her struggle with depression. At the age of 20, she attempted to kill herself by swallowing sleeping pills (4). She survived and was treated with electroshock therapy, just like Esther in the novel. Mental health aspects aside, the novel expertly describes the pressures of “the mutually exclusive options of career and marriage/motherhood” in the 1950s and ‘60s (Smith 99). Plath likely experienced many of the same internal and social conflicts as Esther. There are four collages included in my mock newspaper. The first, under the headline “SCHOLARSHIP GIRL MISSING. MOTHER WORRIED,” is described as a “tarty” photo of Esther in her scholarship-money clothes, looking false and extravagant (The Bell Jar 198). The deconstructed face represents the lack of clarity and connection Esther feels with herself. Each of her idealized features is the epitome of beauty on its own, but together they form a monstrosity. The subtitles allude to her dissatisfaction in striving towards the unattainable ideals of womanhood. In another magazine from her time in New York, Esther looks as glamorous as the other girls in the program as she wears an evening dress and drinks a fancy cocktail (207). However, the image is posed and false, for she comments earlier that it is the sort of photo that would make everyone think she “must be having a real whirl” (2). The other collages employ ransom note-esque qualities with their cut-up letters. This technique draws attention to the demands that society makes of young women, and their harsh, threatening quality, such as the emphasis on marriage as the ultimate goal in the second collage. Esther worries that “maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterwards you went about numb as a slave,” for this is the image of marriage that surrounds her (85). The third collage contributes to Esther’s glorified perception of her disappearance with its storybook image of a search party in the woods, and the last collage deals with her suicidal tendencies, using the motifs of inadequate healthcare and escapism. “Crazy,” with a giant question mark, embodies the question marks that are “all [Esther] could see” at the end of the novel (243). She is healed, but will she stay that way? Her body is represented by a mummy that is interlaced with features of the ambulance; in this way, Esther becomes her own saviour. “I am, I am, I am,” declares “the old brag of [her] heart,” illuminating Esther’s resolution to continue despite everything (243). In creating this newspaper, I was able to understand the influence of the media on how mental health, social ideals, and stereotypical demands are depicted to the public. I came to appreciate the invisible efforts required to produce print media and the rich legacy behind such media. The precise order and organization of typesetting juxtaposed with the chaos and ongoing process of collaging reveal the different ways that form can relate to content. As Caroline Levine suggests in “The Affordances of Form,” we can understand the unpredictable consequences and reader interpretations of different forms colliding (8). I hope that in my exploration of media and social themes in The Bell Jar, I have guided readers to an understanding of issues from the 1950s that are still present today. Returning to the question of The Bell Jar as an autobiography, we might now consider Levine’s idea of treating “fictional narratives as productive thought experiments that allow us to imagine the subtle unfolding activity of multiple social forms” (19) and imagine Plath’s novel as the experimental representation of social conventions that she observed in her own life.