It is our great pleasure to share a recent interview that we conducted with a dear friend whose outstanding collection of antique samplers is showcased on the well-known and highly regarded website, antiquesamplers.org.
The stated mission of the website is “to foster the study of, and education about antique samplers in their historic as well as needlework context,” and the contribution this site makes to the field cannot be overstated. On a personal note, she is generous, thoughtful and intelligent, evidencing serious dedication to the field and an engaging sense of humor. She is also a compassionate and philanthropic supporter of the arts in a variety of areas and a talented needlewoman herself. This interview provides fascinating insights into the collector and her samplers.As she maintains a desire for anonymity, we refer to her throughout as AS.O, referring of course, to the website.
MF&D: Your website is certainly an enormous contribution to the sampler world; the community of sampler making and collecting, and the education of collectors, and we’re delighted to have you here for this interview and to share some of your thoughts with us. To begin with – what got you interested in collecting samplers?
AS.ORG: Well, I think it started because my mom taught me to do needlework when I was a little girl, so it’s always been a part of the culture of my life. I’ve taken needlework classes and been a member of guilds and so forth, and I don’t think I ever thought about collecting needlework per se, but my mother would be quick to tell you that I collect collections, and she’s not wrong. I was learning to play the harp, and Amy [Finkel] had a sampler with a lyre on it and I thought “I could have that. I can afford that that. That would be a very cool thing.” And that was the first sampler I bought.
And then I’ve always liked Scottish things, although not for any specific reason, as I have no Scottish heritage. I had contacted Amy about wanting to get a Scottish sampler and she sent me pictures of two really different samplers, one is Christina Forrest and the other one is Christian Macvean, and they’re both up on the site. And I thought, “well I can’t decide, they’re both fabulous,” so I took those both and the rest is history… 700 samplers later…!
MF&D: So speaking of 700 samplers, your site is a catalog of your collection, really, and with that it informs everybody else, but you don’t have all of your samplers up yet; is this a goal?
AS.ORG: That is a goal, yes. I have a few samplers that I bought over the years on eBay for one reason or another that are really in awful shape, and I them have in a box for teaching kids, they can really be manhandled and if they get more shredded I don’t care, so they might not be put on the site. And there are some samplers that I feel keep getting bumped to the bottom of the list because they’re perhaps less interesting and genealogy isn’t available on them and so they get bumped down the list, but my goal is to have as many up there as possible and to keep continually updating the research on them.
MF&D: You mentioned you collect other things as well.
AS.ORG: Well, I collect needlework tools and I also collect antique buttons, and so they’re all kind of related to this. However, I found that when I got to collecting samplers, the fact was that I could do lots of genealogical research and I just love giving these girls dimension. It makes me feel like we are giving a little girl a second life by identifying where she was born, knowing that her father was a watchmaker, and that they lived here and then she married this man and he owned the woolen mill. It’s kind of like writing a story and its true story; so I find that really exciting.
MF&D: Along the same lines, specifically when looking for a sampler, what draws you to a given sampler?
AS.ORG: Sometimes it’ll be the verse, sometimes it’ll be where the girl’s from; if it’s Scottish I have to decide “I’ve already got one from there, do I need another one?” There are specific elements; I love the sun and moon and sky on samplers and when I see them I kind of keep going back to that sampler. I love a lot of florals on samplers and you don’t always see that, but then I also like the really quirky, folky ones that have odd depictions; I mean a depiction of Napoleon on his camp bed, or a picture of Tom Thumb. Clearly these are evidentiary of what was in the current events of the day and I love seeing those replicated, the opening of the bridge over the Menai Strait, for example. This was a big deal that they built this suspension bridge, important enough that a whole group of girls did a group of samplers with a very detailed depiction of it… and then there’s the needlework itself of course.
MF&D: As we’ve discussed, you have a large collection of Scottish samplers, so what draws you to Scottish samplers as opposed to samplers from any other country?
AS.ORG: I think primarily the fact that the samplermakers give us so much help in tracking their genealogy because of the Scottish customs, there’s the naming custom where the first son is named after the paternal father; the second son is named after the maternal father. And they used so many initials; they frequently even put their parents’ names on a sampler. The women maintained their maiden names. So then it makes the potential for finding where they’re from easier, and Scotland is a small enough country that my goal is ultimately to get a sampler from every shire in Scotland .
MF&D: Do they keep good genealogical records in Scotland?
AS.ORG: Yes, excellent. There’s a website called “Scotland’s People.” In the past, if you wanted a copy of some information, you used to have to pay £10 and they would send it to you and it would take about a month or so. Now it’s all online and you can just go in. You have to pay for it, it’s not a free site, but you can get a print of the actual handwritten page from the parish records; whether it’s the marriage or the birth or whatever, and that to me is what’s really cool, because that’s where you find out that Peter Wilson was a watchmaker. I really like that.
MF&D: Yes, the sleuthing involved.
AS.ORG: I very much like the sleuthing. And I like the Scottish girls; a lot of them have a really fun kind of folky quality to them, and I enjoy that aspect of the Scottish samplers.
MF&D: Do you have a favorite sampler? Not necessarily Scottish.
AS.ORG: It’s an interesting thing, but I get asked that question a lot, and the truth of it is I have a group of samplers that I would call my favorites. The other one that I always love is the latest sampler; the one I just got is always my favorite. I have a couple; I probably have about 10 samplers that would qualify as favorites. I have an American sampler that actually had a clock from birth to death. This sampler is ginormous, it’s probably 36 by 48 [inches]. and it’s rows and rows and rows and rows and rows of alphabets and then over here towards the bottom there’s a verse, and there’s all the genealogy stuff, and then in this one corner is an amazing clock, and it’s done sort of like a sun dial. It has the baby born and then it has children playing with a kite, then the marriage and then the coffin over here, and it’s all pictorial. It shows you where you’ll be, if you look at where you are on this chart, presuming that you’re going to die when you’re 70, as that’s what it says on it.
MF&D: As you had mentioned, you do a lot of needlework yourself and, in part, that drew you to collecting samplers. What types of needlework do you do?
AS.ORG: My favorite is canvaswork. Doing needlepoint and a lot of the same stitches that the sampler girls do on their pieces, but done on fine canvas, on congress cloth, which is 24 count. I also like working on linen and I like doing reproductions, and I’ve taken a lot of classes. In fact women who’ve helped me with a lot of the antique samplers that have to be conserved and remounted I met through the Embroiderer’s Guild, and they all do reproduction samplers. It’s kind of cute because of working on my samplers, now when I go into needlework shops and look at the kits for the reproduction samplers it’s if we’re jaded because they don’t look like the originals.
MF&D: So you allow certain pieces of yours to be reproduced?
AS.ORG: Yes, I have one person, Margriet Hogue, The Essamplaire, who is the only one I’ve given permission to reproduce my samplers.
MF&D: What makes you choose which ones will be reproduced?
AS.ORG: I let her choose. I think there are ones that would be wonderful, but Margriet knows the best marketing tools, so I pretty much just let her do what she wants.
MF&D: Regarding samplers having their own personalities and histories, do you feel in that respect any downside to reproducing a piece, as they were somewhat personal?
AS.ORG: Well there are many people out there who would love to own samplers and they can’t afford to buy them. So by being able to make a reproduction, it’s their way of having one. You get into such an interesting thing there too, with a reproduction sampler. If you have one you’re reproducing and some of it’s missing, do you chart the part that’s missing to say this is how it would have been? It becomes an interesting dilemma; do you make it historically accurate to today, or where it was in the beginning? I think it serves people who just want antique samplers but can’t buy them.
MF&D: As far as collectors are concerned and in regard to collecting antique samplers, or collecting in general, is there any advice you would give to them?
AS.ORG: I think that a lot of people think that they can’t collect because it will cost too much. I think its fun to start with small things. Certainly there’s a lot of needlework that can be collected, and other things as well, but you don’t always have to buy the best and the most expensive. It is fun to look on eBay and to look elsewhere and just try to learn as much as you can. There are a lot of disreputable people out there who are selling things on eBay, so you do have to have some knowledge. Someone that’s just starting may not want to spend quite so much money; but certainly buying from a dealer is the safest way because then you are buying their reputation and the security that what they are selling is what it is. You can’t pay enough money for the value of that. But for somebody who just wants to start out, there are some ways that you can find things that are less expensive. Some people might say “Oh M. Finkel & Daughter, that must be expensive” but even within the context of what’s available from you, there are some modest priced pieces, and almost anybody can afford to own a piece. And it really is like owning a piece of history.
MF&D: You know at M. Finkel & Daughter, we are very aware of how condition affects values of samplers. You said you have some pieces that aren’t in great condition, and that they’re good study pieces, which we understand. But from a collector’s stand point what would you say about the importance of condition?
AS.ORG: You can’t say enough about that subject. I think that often this is one of the reasons that samplers from a dealer are going to be more valuable. Some dealers are cautious about condition and also about conservation. They’ll have done the conservation work for you; it’s going to be stabilized if it needed it and you’re not going to have to do anything. But I’ve also bought a lot of samplers from dealers who aren’t that careful. Particularly as I’m trying to collect a sampler from every shire in Scotland, I’ve run into a lot of samplers that really need a lot of stabilization and work, and I don’t mind that. I bought a pair of samplers that were done by sisters, and by a quirk of fate I learned there was a sampler made by their third sister. The dealers that I originally bought the two from didn’t buy the third one because it wasn’t in as good condition and they didn’t want to deal with it. It ended up coming to me through another dealer around the bend. And for the three sisters to be united, I wouldn’t have cared if she had holes up one side and down the other on something like that because the family’s back together!
MF&D: What does the future hold for your collection?
AS.ORG: I’m hoping someday to afford to have my samplers be in a physical museum-type setting, and there’s a plan in the works for doing that. My plan would be for the collection to be where it can be studied. That’s really the only condition I’m putting on the group of people that I hope to take on the responsibility of it. If someone wants to study 18 th century Scottish samplers, they will be able to make an appointment and the samplers will be pulled out of storage for them. I would hate to see them put where nobody would ever get to see them. I think that’s the main reason I created the website, as well, so that people can study and learn from them.
Speaking of the world, we know you have a lot of subscribers to your website, what percentage resides outside of the U.S.?
AS.ORG: I’d say close to 25%. I was really surprised at the number of people we have from France, England, Denmark, and from India, Japan, New Zealand, Australia. It’s been fun. We got a letter from a woman in France, written in French bemoaning the fact that our information wasn’t available in French, making it difficult for her to read.
MF&D: In which case you’d have to make it available in every language.
AS.ORG: Right. And then it was kind of cute because my nephew is French-Canadian and he’s married to a French woman. I had her write the response, so then we could send the woman in France a proper French response saying “well at least you can enjoy the pictures.” But it’s a little more than we can do to translate the site.
MF&D: We know you are interested in educating people about samplers. Would you ever consider writing a book?
AS.ORG: You know I think that there are a lot of people who are more scholarly and have done the research in specific directions like Gloria Allen with Maryland samplers and now DC samplers, or Naomi Tarrant, who I keep hoping is going to finish one of these days soon on Scottish samplers; she doesn’t just want to do a catalogue of Scottish samplers, she’s taking a specific line and developing it. I think there are researchers out there that are doing that. I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea, but I would want to write more like a storybook. I think it would be fun to pick a sampler and to evolve almost like a children’s story about the young girl who made it. That’s something I’ve thought about doing and that would be fun to do. That’s more my speed. But I’m happy to contribute to all these other researchers with what I’ve got, the samplers that I own; make available the information that I have.
MF&D: I know that I haven’t touched on all aspects of your site, but I think that you as a person are so fascinating, and I’m glad that I got to talk to you. Are there any other subjects or questions that you would like to talk about?
AS.ORG: No, I think I appreciate more than anything the feedback that I get from people on the website. We have a Spanish member who told us that on one of my Spanish samplers I had the name wrong. Having done no research on Spanish samplers I didn’t understand the Spanish naming traditions, and I was thrilled to death to have that information. Something that you and Amy suggested was a great idea but because I’m so accustomed to dealing with people who do reproduction samplers, I hadn’t thought of it: that in the glossary we should have diagrams of the stitches, so that somebody who is coming at it strictly from book learning and still loves the samplers will know what the stitches actually look like. When I’m talking about a long arm cross stitch or a herringbone stitch they have no idea what I’m talking about, so they’d have a drawing of the stitch. I love receiving information like that, and ways that we can make the site more interesting, more accessible and more educational.
MF&D: We can’t thank you enough for your time today and for all you’ve contributed to this field.