What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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8 WHAT'S UP! DECEMBER 26, 2021-JANUARY 1, 2022 Five Minutes, Five Questions Serena Barnett on 'Thrift Style' BECCA MARTIN-BROWN NWA Democrat-Gazette I f your New Year's resolution for 2022 is "reduce, reuse, recycle," then the Rogers Historical Museum has the perfect exhibit to inspire you. Titled "Thrift Style," and organized by the Historic Costume and Textile Museum and the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, both at Kansas State University, and ExhibitsUSA, a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance, the exhibit "illuminates how the 'upcycling' of feed sacks mutually benefited 20th-century consumers and businesses." "With 41 works from patterns to garments, it serves as an example of past ingenuity that can inform today's efforts towards sustainability," says Serena Barnett, museum director. Barnett took time just before Christmas to answer these questions for What's Up! Q. How did you find this exhibit? A: As part of our regular exhibit planning, we stay up to date on what traveling exhibits are currently available from other museums and exhibit companies. We're always looking to find ones with interesting topics that fit with our local history, such as when we came across "Thrift Style" a couple of years ago while looking at the options from ExhibitsUSA. This has been a popular exhibit, touring at museums all around the United States for over a year already. This was the earliest available time we could schedule it to come here. Q. What made it attractive to you for this time and place? A: Like so many towns across America during the 1930s and 1940s, our area felt the economic impact of the Great Depression and then World War II. Families had to find ways of stretching their money and one of the ways was to use feed or flour sacks to make clothing and other household items. Originally, these cotton sacks were plain white, but once sack manufactures learned that their sacks were being used as fabric for shirts and dresses, they began printing designs on them. They even started using a special ink for the manufacture stamps that would easily wash out so as not to interfere with the fabric's print design. Q. Walk us through the exhibit. What will people see? A: Visitors will see a variety of flour sacks that date from the 1930s-40s, each with their own distinctive colors and patterns, and examples of how these fabrics were repurposed into such items as dresses and quilts. Some of the patterns even reflect popular culture of the time. There are sack prints featuring American Wild West themes for children, including the iconic cowboy Red Ryder. Today we mostly associate this character with the famous Daisy Airgun Rifle of the same name. Q. Do you have any This child's dress, c. 1935, is part of the collection from the Kansas State University Historic Costume and Textile Museum on exhibit at the Rogers Historical Museum. (Courtesy Photo/RHM) In the 1930s and '40s, manufacturers who used cotton feed sacks started printing designs on them so they could be recycled into clothing and household goods. These sacks are part of "Thrift Style," currently on exhibit at the Rogers Historical Museum courtesy of Kansas State University Historic Costume and Textile Museum. (Courtesy Photo/RHM) 5X5 FAQ 'Thrift Style' WHEN — 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday through Jan. 19; closed Dec. 31-Jan. 1 WHERE — Rogers Historical Museum, 313 S. Second St. in Rogers COST — Free INFO — 621-1154 or rogershistoricalmuseum.org BONUS — An Upcycling Creation Station from 10 a.m. to noon Jan. 15 will help participants craft a no-sew tote bag from an old T-shirt.