Domestic Lace making and the Social Fabric of the Italian American Community in Corning

For Immediate Release
January 21, 2008


WHAT: Exhibit opening: Lace, the Spaces Between: Domestic Lace making and the Social Fabric of the Italian American Community in Corning
WHEN: Friday, February 22, 2008 7 PM
WHERE: The Benjamin Patterson Inn Museum
59 W. Pulteney St.
Corning, NY 14830
CONTACT: Jessica Cunningham, Corning Painted Post Historical Society, 607.937.5281
Connie Sullivan-Blum, The ARTS of the Southern Finger Lakes, 607.962.5871 x222

Lace, the Spaces Between:
Domestic Lace making and the Social Fabric of the Italian American Community in Corning

The Corning Painted Post Historical Society and The ARTS of the Southern Finger Lakes invite the public to share the joys and hardships of the Italian American immigrant experience through the practice of lace making. Lace, the Spaces Between: Domestic Lace making and the Social Fabric of the Italian American Community in Corning opens at the Benjamin Patterson Inn Museum, 59 W. Pulteney St, on Friday, February 22, 2008 at 7:00 P.M., and runs through December 19, 2008.

Domestic handmade lace is a metaphor for the Italian American experience in Corning. It symbolizes cultural continuity as well as the cultural disruption of assimilation. It carries social meanings about the role of women, beauty and cleanliness, the home, the immigrant experience and tradition. Rejecting domestic lace is a means of embracing modernity, and assimilation into the dominant culture. The material properties of lace reflect this. Lace is, in the words of one woman, “threads hanging in air.” It is connection through cotton thread as well as the absence of connection expressed in the negative space of lace patterns. Lace is a way to tell the particular story of Italians in Corning and the common story of change through immigration and between generations.

Jessica Cunningham, director of Corning Painted Post Historical Society, is excited about this exhibition. “This exhibit not only shows the beauty of lace as art, it is also a story of change in a close knit community.”
This exhibition is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. Additional funds were also provided by The Elmira-Corning Community Foundation, Corning Inc., and LaVere Media.


For more information please call the Corning Painted Post Historical Society at 607.937.5281 or The ARTS 607.962.5871 x 222.