Dress Stories, Collected Memories by Marcia Weisbrot

Marcia Weisbrot: "I have a special interest in celebrating women's lives and history through constructions of paper dresses. This time I have created a book of dresses. … ‘Dress Stories, Collected Memories’ features eight vignettes illustrated with fabric and mixed media collages. Each illustration depicts a unique experience, a memory of the time and place it was worn.
“The cover is entirely hand made with one stenciled dress (and bird!) and added drawing, on Arches paper on a background of Cranfield inks. The structure is an accordion fold with a removable spine that allows for extended display.”
Marcia Weisbrot, introduction: “’Dress Stories: Collected Memories’, emerged from a series of work on paper dresses that I had created. A call for submissions went out to everyone in my contacts asking for an image and text about their favorite dress.
“Over the course of a year a variety of stories arrived. Everyone wrote about a dress they had worn in their past. Clearly, clothing contains memories, holding a sense of place, time, and emotions.
“During the next several years as I started, stopped, restarted, interrupted, disrupted and struggled to complete this book, it became a repository of memories for me as the lengthy, laborious process proceeded, mirroring moments in my life.”
“Mom’s Dress; a Legacy”: At the bottom of the old cedar chest was a shimmering pile of champagne colored fabric. I gasped as I pulled out the dress that my mother wore on her wedding day. ….”