Current Exhibition
Thalia Baker: Thalia’s up-cycle, eco-friendly, artist’s emporium
Exhibition Dates: Oct 10 – Nov 8, 2026, 2026
Opening reception: Saturday, October 10, 5-9pm
Gallery Hours Sat. & Sun. 12-5pm
Thalia, a craftswoman highly concerned about waste, has created all manner of sundries from scraps, remnants, buttons, discards, trims and threads dating from the early 1900s through the present. She acquired no new material to stock the Emporium.
Please help Thalia give these materials a new, useful life! Prices range from $1 -$20
Each unique piece brings together fabrics, buttons, trims, threads, and notions that have traveled through several decades—and sometimes several generations—to arrive here. In their new incarnations, these vintage materials get another chance to be useful, beautiful, and appreciated. My hope is that these objects can carry a little bit of their history forward: that something once tucked away in a grandmother’s sewing room, a mother’s closet, or a forgotten sewing basket can find a new life instead of a landfill grave. Give these small acts of resistance against the disposable culture a chance. Mother Earth—and all those grandmothers who saved everything—would certainly approve!
Curator’s Statement: Thomasine Bartlett
Thalia and I came together when I was about 20 – she is a delightful free-spirit, dedicated to pushing the boundaries of conventional behavior; Thalia has considered both burlesque dancing on Bourbon Street and writing porn. In this somewhat performative work, Thalia has become a craftswoman, committed to sewing with scraps and remnants. Her choice has given me the opportunity to more intimately explore the relationship between Art and craft.
While all artists who actually create visual objects employ craft, the craft is generally in support of the larger vision, or the idea, that elevates it (the object/idea/fusion) to Art. In the case of the Emporium, I feel that I am reversing the roles of Art and craft, with Craft (object) becoming primary and Art (the performance) in the supporting role. This reversal has felt a bit slippery and sometimes dubious – I hope the inversion works and remains legible as both Art and Craft.
For more information, please contact staplegoodsnola@gmail.com
Connections: Staple Goods 10th Anniversary Exhibition Catalog
Exhibition catalog commemorates the collective’s 10th anniversary exhibition, Connections (May 2021), and is available for $5.
Curated by Laura Richens. Text by Amy Mackie. Book Design by Tiffany Lin. Printed at Paper Machine.
Participating Artists: Minka/Thomasine, Aaron Collier, Robyn Denny, William DePauw, Abe Geasland, Daniel Kelly IV, Kristina Knipe, J Knoblach, Norah Lovell, Kaori Maeyama, Anne Nelson, Jack Niven, Laura Richens, Cynthia Scott, Sadie Sheldon, Lorna Williams