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The latest News on Calico Cottage.
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Calico Cottage Quilt and Gift Shop –
A treasure trove of First Nations finery
Source: Iori:wase: News from the Kanien”kehá:ka Nation
Calico Cottage is located on Route 132. Lori Jacobs/Iorì:wase
Lori Jacobs 24.NOV.09The idea started with a piece of cloth, a baby-to-be and a dream, and blossomed into a thriving retail business called Calico Cottage.
Carla Kawannhi (they’re speaking words of her) Hemlock says Calico Cottage originally opened as a fabric / quilting material store in 2000, while she was still a co-owner of Homespun, a specialty and kitchenware store in the heart of Kahnawake. She ended her partnership with Homespun in 2001, and for the next two years, concentrated her efforts on developing a store that specialized in quilting material.
Calico Cottage’s creation is deep-rooted in Iroquois tradition. Calico is a pattern of cotton fabric with tiny flowers, usually used on Kanien’kehá:ka traditional ribbon shirts. [Calico is also the trade cloth described as part of an annual payment from the U.S. government to the Six Nation Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee) as set out in the treaty of peace and friendship signed at Canandaigua, New York in 1794. In token of this treaty the U.S. still gives each Iroquois 3 or 4 yards of calico cloth each autumn.]
The building itself is nestled neatly in what looks like a hamlet onto itself, amongst a backdrop of trees off the bustling Route 132 in Kahnawake. The initial lure of Calico Cottage is it’s storefront dressing – simple country charm – complete with wagon wheels that adorn both sides of the entrance.
Carla took up quilting as a hobby with her first pregnancy.
“It started when I was expecting my first son 28 years ago,” Carla recalls. “A friend of mine told me I needed to make a quilt. I said I didn’t know how. My friend told me it was simple. ‘Buy some fabric, cut it up in squares and put it back together.’ So that’s what I did.”
She created crib quilts for all of her four sons, and started to make baby and clan quilts for family, friends and baby showers.
“Quilting puts me in a peaceful state, a good place,” Carla says. “I develop all my own designs and I never know how a quilt will turn out once it’s started.”
As her sons grew older, she made pictorial quilts and has recently begun to add beadwork to her quilting designs.
Quilting is popular. Quilting ladies from the surrounding communities, with their partners in tow, began to frequent Calico Cottage soon after it opened. Carla says the customers were impressed with the wide selection of fabric, and appealed to many local Kahnawake seamstresses as well. Customers began to ask for dream catchers, moccasins and the like. Carla knew she wanted to expand her business, but wanted her store to be different; her plan was to showcase exclusively Native artists and artisan creations.
With that, Carla and her husband Babe Hemlock took to the road and visited many Native venues and art markets across North America, looking for those specialty items. [Art markets are places where artisans showcase their work and offer unique shopping opportunities to visitors, vendors, gallery and museum owners.] Eventually, Calico Cottage was able to stock the shelves with a wide assortment of Native paintings, prints, jewelry, pottery, sculptures, beadwork, greeting cards, corn husk dolls in Native regalia, clothing, blankets, candles and even native medicine.
But the art markets offered much more for Carla and Babe – like golden opportunities to become part of the artisan world. Carla noticed that although Native-design quilts were usually part of the quilt shows she was attending, they were created by non-Native artists. Carla decided to enter one of her own quilts at the Vermont Quilt Show in 2002. From there, a whole new realm of art opened up for the couple.
Carla has since had her quilts displayed at prestigious locations in the U.S. such as the grand opening of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, a historic museum in Deerfield, MA, the Heard Museum Guild Indian Art Market in Phoenix, AZ, and one of the largest juried Native American art showcases in the world – the Santa Fe Indian Market. Carla referred to it as the “granddaddy of all art markets.”
In 2006, although they were intimidated and unsure that they’d even be considered for Santa Fe, both Carla (quilts) and Babe (cradleboards) decided to enter their work. [Babe’s cradleboard won the 2007 Standards Award for Diverse Arts, Southwest Association for Indian Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico] That was three years ago, and they’ve participated every year since.
In 2008, The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. purchased one of Carla’s quilts.
“It was a tribute to Mohawk Ironworkers, taken from the famous 1932 picture of iron workers sitting on a beam,” says Carla. “I added beads to the men’s silhouettes and used pictures of old New York as the backdrop.” [This same quilt won the Blue Ribbon award at the 2008 Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA) in Santa Fe, NM.]
When it was time to let the quilt go, Carla made sure to take a lot of pictures before she handed it over.
“They told me that was the last time I would ever touch it. I got a little choked up,” she said. The quilt was catalogued, given a tracking number and now hangs in the Smithsonian in perpetuity as part of the NMAI collection.
To end the year 2009, the couple will be taking part in the Smithsonian Holiday Art Market in New York City on December 4, 5 & 6, 2009. Their display will include quilt art, paintings and cradleboards.
Carla plans to expand her native artisan section, continue participating in the art markets and working on new quilts. She also says young people need to have confidence in themselves, their abilities and their dreams. “Don’t say you can’t do it. Pursue it.” You never know where your interests will take you. “Babe and I always had opportunities presented to us,” says Carla, “and it was up to us to open that door or not. We wouldn’t have known we could do it unless we tried.”
Affordable gift prices include candles starting at $2 to beautiful paintings in the $450 range. Open 7 days a week, Monday and Tuesday from 10 am – 6 pm, Wednesday – Friday, 10 am – 8 pm, and 10 am – 5 pm on the weekends. Debit and major credit cards accepted. Calico Cottage is one stop shopping for all your Christmas gift-giving (and gift-getting) needs. Call them at 450.632-7070. Email at carlahemlock@hotmail.com, or check them out on the web at www.hemlocks.net or www.calicocottage.ca.
