Diamond K Folk Art Online Academy

 Puffed Silkes~ 17th Century Inspired Padded Silk Interiors

Class begins 1 April!

Class Login information was sent last week in the emails, so if you are new to the Online Academy, you should have your particulars in hand. If not, there are links in the body of the email, so check your spam box. If it's still not there, email me and I can resend it. I have had students email me with their excitement to start, and let me say, I am just as excited. I cannot wait to see what ya'll create!

If you are interested, please click the tab for the Online Academy at the top of the page here to learn more about the class. This is a 3 month long course that I keep adding to, because hello~ I want your interiors to look FABULOUS!!!! Not just a casket interior~ but any box interior. The photo above is just an example of what you will be able to accomplish. The box on the left is the box I started out with, and the result is on the right. Some of the bonus lessons include how to make custom compartments, the 17th c technique for integral hinges on interior doors, and making velvet-lined ring compartments.

Class is work at your own pace.

Class starts on Monday~ but you don't have to! You can download and start when you are ready. (Though there is so much eye candy and inspiration in the history lesson one cannot help but get super jazzed about all the possibilities!!!!!!!)

Will this mean I will only be available to you to help you during course time?

Absolutely NOT. I know who is in class. If you download your lessons and get started a month from now~ or a year from now, it makes no difference to me.  I am here to help guide you through your process as long as I am still living!

Course material is written and downloadable in full lesson pdf's, with supplemental videos. I myself have Viasat internet and am not able to stream, so I try to keep videos short and to the point.

This course does not include instructions on how to make an octagon configuration interior.

Octagon interiors will be covered in my upcoming class~ Through The Looking Glafs~ 17th Century Inspired Mirrored Interiors

A Road Trip to Wa D.C

 To Study A Truly Magnificent Gummed Silk Casket

at The Cotsen Textile Traces Study Center

I was thrilled earlier this year when a post popped up on my Facebook page about a micro exhibit at the George Washington University Museum in Washington D.C. that included this casket. The last location I had known of it was when it was sold at a Christie's auction in 2001. 

I have been looking for it to pop up ever since, and finally, I know where it went! It was purchased at Christie's by Lloyd Cotsen(president of Neutrogena Corporation), who traveled the world collecting textiles and embroideries with the goal of making them available for public study & education. When he passed away in 2017, he bequeathed his collection to the George Washington University Textile Museum. They in turn created the Cotsen Textile Traces Study Center within the museum, to house only the pieces of his collection. 

I had a long history with this casket before I ever met it in person. I have a few pics from the 2001 auction along with a 1929 image of it with the garden displayed at the top of the pillars that I studied heavily when I was researching & testing my gummed silk techniques. There is only so much one can glean from a photo though, and honestly, I was not confident I would ever see it publicly again. 

I made an appointment to study it in person and it was not disappointing in the slightest. We made some new discoveries, like finding writing on the bottom of it....and I could finally see all of its elements up close. It was a super fantabulous study session and I am happy to say that it will not be the last time we are together~ Watch for some fun things happening with this casket & the Cotsen Textile Traces Study Center in the future!

This casket is unique because the interior is one large mirrored cavity whose sole purpose is to house a wonderous, over-the-top, three-dimensional flower garden made of gummed silk. 

I have studied the Victoria & Albert Museum's casket T.23-1928 in person(above), which is another garden casket, but as you will note, it is more formal~refined and dainty...what I think of when someone says an 'English Garden'. This garden includes pressed paper, wax & gummed silk among other things.

 The Queen's Casket at Windsor with the shepherdess on top is three-dimensional, but all of its elements are needlelace and not gummed silk, so I do not place it in the same category as the garden caskets.

The Cotsen garden casket, as I refer to it, (T-1084a-b) is a wild naturalistic garden situated on a removable ground pad of thick green plush velvet stitch. Each and every flower or fruit the eye can see has been made of gummed silk. Forms of wood and wooden beads have been used as the bases for the fruits, there are some silk-wrapped purls used for foliage, and the center stamens of the honeysuckle are exquisitely fashioned from real feathers.

Though now (hopefully temporarily) stuck in place, the bottommost wooden tray slides out from its fitted slot and can sit atop the pillars. The garden can then be placed on top of the tray and be displayed with the lid open and front fully shut, as seen in the 1929 photo.

There are so many different flowers, I took a zillion photos and after two hours was still seeing new things I had missed seeing before. One can easily just get happily lost in this piece. When the mirrors were new, the garden would be reflected back from every angle and it would have looked like it could go on and on forever!

There is a pear tree in the center, and strawberries along this edge of the garden. The seeds are a bullion stitch over the gummed silk covered form. 

Each flower has been carefully recreated from gummed silk~ with the thickness of the sheets varied for the size of the flower. My favorite though is by far the honeysuckle shown above. The centers are the most tiny, delicate little feathers.  I think it's time to take my gummed silk skills a step further into the third dimension....keep a watch on this space!

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