Donated clothing documents labor behind Adirondack agriculture
By Tom French
Walking out of the Great Hall at the Wild Center onto the accessible Pond Loop, I was taken aback when I first encountered the gray T-shirts, plaid flannels, coarse Carhart’s, and denim blues of the “Clothesline: Food, Fiber, Air, and Soil” installation. They lined the path for dozens of yards, wrapping Greenleaf Pond, dipping between posts and weaving between, behind, and over wild flowers, grasses, and trees.
Due to shorter posts on the Greanleaf Pond Bridge, Wisconsin-based Artist Brenda Baker utilized lighter clothing such as t-shirts in vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows. Another section of the installation can be seen in the distance on the right. Photo by Tom French
I didn’t think a clothesline could evoke an emotional response, but this isn’t any ordinary clothesline. These clothes have character and each tells its story – literally, with a paper tag shaped like an old-fashioned shipping label that indicates the owner, where it’s from, and the significance of the article. Green tags include a QR code linked to a short video about the farm where the clothing spent its days. The Wild Center’s website also reproduces the information through virtual tags that flip when moused over.
When I first approached Brenda Baker, the Wisconsin-based artist behind the work, she said, “Our food system has all this hidden labor and the installation highlights that hard work and shows the contemporary cultural history of the Adirondack regenerative agriculture community. The tags tell the stories of how difficult farming is financially, about getting up in the middle of the night to birth sheep, about patching jeans because new clothes are expensive, and the importance of family in fourth- and fifth-generation farms.”
Wisconsin-based Artist, Brenda Baker, explains one of her favorite items, coveralls from Courtney Grimes-Sutton of the Mace Chasm Farm in Keeseville. On the tag, Grimes-Sutton wrote, “I bought these coveralls at age 20. Farmed hard in them for 10 or so years, maybe more. Wore them to many a protest, from pro-small ag Farm Bill Demo to 2017 Women’s March to Black Lives Matter demo more recently.” A custom label with a QR code to the exhibits webpage was sewn into each piece and can be seen on the collar of the t-shirt on the right. Photo by Tom French
One of Baker’s favorites was used not only for farming, but at farm rallies, the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, DC, and Black Lives Matter protests. Another was hand sewn by a young girl’s mother and stitched with her name on it.
“It all speaks to the community here and the vitality of this place.”
Gathering garments
Lillian Dechene was the project manager for the installation. “I drove around to local farms in St. Lawrence, Essex, Franklin County, and the Champlain Valley region. I collected clothing from farmers, maple tappers, beekeepers, and any local agriculturalists to document their story on regenerative and sustainable farming. I wanted clothes as dirty and torn as possible.”
The Wild Center also set up five drop off locations throughout the North Country. “People could go to their farm stand or farm store and just drop off a piece of clothing and fill out a tag”
The installation includes all types of clothing including a bee suit and single gloves because “some farmers always use one hand for certain work.” Photo by Tom French
Stephanie Ratcliffe, The Wild Center’s Executive Director, was familiar with Baker through a leadership program for museum professionals. Baker is Vice President of Exhibits, Facilities, and Strategic Initiatives at the Madison Children’s Museum.
“We were at a retreat in Salt Lake City with an event where people were showing another side of themselves. She shared photos from her installation in Madison, and I was like, ‘That’s amazing. Just brilliant in how it connected with the farmer in such a meaningful way.’ When we started working on the Climate Solutions Exhibition, it just made sense to have an art installation that brings attention to local and sustainable food practices and the importance of the people that feed us.”
An artist’s ongoing tradition
Baker has been creating site-specific installations for more than 25 years. “I’m interested in taking art outside of a museum setting and working in public spaces, whether that’s a farm field, a downtown farmers’ market, a forest, or on a frozen lake. I love making art part of life – something you can happen upon.”
The Clothesline is not Baker’s first clothesline installation, but it is perhaps the most evolved. The idea began as a one-day, 800-yard installation for a sustainability bicycling event. Next was Monday is Wash Day – an ambitious, three-quarter mile clothesline across a farmer’s field with over 900 pieces of clothing.
“I collected clothing from the farm community by going to churches and libraries and talking about what I was doing. I knew the wind would be strong, so I did a combination of sewing and safety pins for strength and clothes pins for the authentic look. It was part of a bi-annual festival in Reedsburg, Wisconsin, called the Farm/Art Dtour – a collaboration of artists working with farmers to get people to think about the landscape in a different way.”
“The Clothesline: Food, Fiber, Air, and Soil”, an art installation at Tupper Lake’s Wild Center, wraps Greenleaf Pond to raise awareness of the hidden labor behind food production and the importance of sustainable agriculture in the North Country. Each article of clothing includes a tag with information about the items agricultural history. Photo by Tom French
Sewn-in stories
Baker considered collecting stories for the farm field installation, but with over 900 pieces, it was insurmountable. “I realized the stories were as important as the visual effect, so for the Wild Center installation, we made the tags to collect the rich stories and histories – a play on the museum practice of collecting objects from the past and labeling by item number and provenance.”
The Wild Center clothing also has custom labels sewn inside of each piece with the QR code to the Wild Center webpage. “When the clothing goes back to the community, the stories will still be on the Wild Center’s website” – a link to the history of the piece.
The Clothesline has about 150 items, with 80 cataloged on the Wild Center webpage.
The process began months in advance with the collecting of clothes, and Baker didn’t know what she would find when she started hanging the items. The subtleties of the site are an inspiration too.
“The fun with installation art is figuring out how to respond to the environment. Here I’ve been noticing all of the colors of the Wild Center’s landscape, and they’re all represented in the clothing on the line. I knew I would have mostly browns, greens and blues with the heavier clothing, but I wanted to do something over the bridge for visibility. When I realized the bridge posts had to be shorter above the railing, that’s when the reds, yellows, pinks, and purples of the t-shirts, socks, and small items became obvious.”
Lighter items can be pinned, but heavier clothing is sewn onto the line to keep it in place. Baker is confident. “Nothing will fall off the line.” She used six-pound fishing line and recommends a small needle. “Otherwise, it’s too thick to make it through the fabric.”
Wisconsin-based Artist, Brenda Baker, sews clothing onto her art installation on a rainy Monday in June at the Wild Center in Tupper Lake. Lighter items can be attached with safety pins, but heaver clothing is sewn with six-pound fishing line. Clothespins are attached for authenticity. Photo by Tom French
Making art from farms and forests
Baker has done several agricultural-themed installations for the Farm/Art Dtour, including wrapping corn cribs with fabric matching the landscape. Lit at night, “it was like this beacon of light on the hill from far away.”
She also creates sculptures from the remains of invasive plants. “Land restoration is part of the process – clearing the land of the invasive species and then using that material in making a sculpture. Sometimes even putting it back in the land as a different form.”
A piece she did in Germany utilized the invasive Japanese knotweed. “Working with the forestry department, we ended up clearing the whole county for the project.”
Missae Libre is exhibited in the Ziegelei Museum in Kaufungen, Germany, but sometimes the art sinks back into the landscape, such as Seed Pod at the Lynden Sculpture Garden in Milwaukee. “It’s been on their property for eight or ten years, and it’s just slowly decomposing and returning to the earth.”
The installation’s future
The fate of the Wild Center’s Clothesline is yet to be determined. Current plans are for it to be disassembled this fall, but in a way that sections can still be exhibited in other places next year and perhaps beyond at individual farms or farmers’ markets.
Tupper Lake’s Wild Center as seen from Pond Loop where Wisconsin-based Artist, Brenda Baker, has installed The Clothesline: Food, Fiber, Air, and Soil, an installation highlighting the hidden labor behind food production and the importance of sustainable agriculture in the North Country. Photo by Tom French
I would love to have it in places where a lot of people could drive by and see it,” Ratcliffe said.
For Monday is Wash Day, it was announced on local media that all the clothes would be available for free “starting at 8:00 in the morning.” Baker arrived at six to discover that people had come the night before, and two-thirds of the items had already been claimed.
“A pair of overalls had been lovingly patched for 45 years, and I just wanted to hang those somewhere, but they were gone by the time I arrived.”
The Wild Center was named “Best Science Museum” in USA Today’s 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards in February. It also became a Smithsonian Affiliate in April. It is open daily from ten until 5 from Memorial Day through Indigenous Peoples’ Day and on weekends and holiday weeks during the winter. See the Wild Center website for full details.
The Clothesline: Food, Fiber, Air, and Soil will be on display through the fall.
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