The Mantle She Wore

Mary Hertert, Anchorage

“Consider the octopus and the oil. She is protected by black ink – but this is not her ink and she is fatally mistaken.

Consider our cloth. Polyester has replaced silk, cotton and wool for our garments. Our mantles are made of the chemicals ruining our environment. We may be fatally mistaken.

Consider the mantle of oil that chokes our land fills in the form of the throw away garments made of polyester. Oil has replaced silk as the world’s economic engine and vanishing are the weavers, spinners, dyers and sewers. We may be fatally mistaken.”

Mary Hertert operates Color Creek-Fiber Art, an open working studio where she both indulges in and teaches the art of dyeing textiles. She knows first hand how today’s textiles have changed in ways that make it convenient to throw away rather than mend and re-dye as ways to extend a garment’s life.  The domestic uses of spinning, weaving, dyeing and sewing are less a matter of function and more a matter of craft and art. Our desire for convenience will continue to enforce dependency on oil and the machinery it drives.