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Apron Chronicles: A Patchwork of American Recollections, a traveling exhibition of photographs, text, and 200 vintage aprons, will be at the Grace Museum in Abilene from October 7, 2008, to January 9, 2009. Humanities Texas awarded the musum a grant to support two lectures by exhibit curator EllynAnne Geisel to mark the exhibit's opening.
The exhibition features photographs by Kristina Loggia and text by "apron archaeologist" Geisel, the author of The Apron Book: Making, Wearing and Sharing a Bit of Cloth and Comfort. She is also a collector and designer of aprons; one of her original designs was featured on the television show Desperate Housewives. Geisel and Loggia met at the Miss Rodeo Pageant in Las Vegas in 2001. "Apron Chronicles" is the culmination of a two-year collaboration between them.
Contributors to the exhibition include a 111-year-old mother and her only child; a Holocaust survivor; a biology professor from Mali; and a preteen and her grandmother. These women reflect on the memories conjured by these aprons: values and traditions from their youth, relationships with friends and family, opportunities and challenges, as well as modern perspectives on their lives.
The Grace Museum houses three museums—The Art Museum, the History Museum, and the Children's Museum—in downtown Abilene's historic Grace Hotel, built in 1909.
A full-length apron from the exhibition "Apron Chronicles: A Patchwork of American Recollections," at the Grace Museum in Abilene. Photograph courtesy The Women's Museum: An Institute for the Future.
An apron from the exhibition "Apron Chronicles: A Patchwork of American Recollections," at the Grace Museum in Abilene. Photograph courtesy The Women's Museum: An Institute for the Future.