On this page I want to introduce you to some of the books and publications I've been working on in recent years.
In the past my interests have been in the area of textiles of Eastern Europe and I have written about these in magazines such as Piecework, Fiber Arts and Threads. I have also published articles in folklore journals and women's art and spirituality journals. I have written several books, described below, written chapters in other books, and, along with others, have been the subject of a PBS video on Eastern European Embroideries.
I have included a brief description of each book, some reviews and data about the book itself. At the lower portion of the page I've described some other books which I found fascinating, books that are currently in press or that I am currently working on and a resume of previously published books and articles.
Links to book sellers and favorite book web pages conclude this page.
GODDESS EMBROIDERIES OF EASTERN EUROPE.
Author: Mary B. Kelly. 1989 Orig Pub. Northland Press. Reprinted 1996 by STUDIOBOOKS, McLean, NY 200 pages, 150 illustrations 10 color plates. ISBN#0-9668929-0-17
Description: "Today the strong powerful goddess figures can still be seen on many examples of Eastern European folk art. In this book, Mary Kelly brings these figures to our attention, introduces the folk life from which they sprang and explains changes in both the goddess motif and its meaning. She unfolds for us rich examples from textile collections in Russia, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia. She describes folk art from Romania and Poland and relates some of her conversations with village folk artists in the former Czechoslovakia. She even shows examples here in the United States from museum and private collections." From a review in Counted Thread, 1991.
Reviews:
"Embroidery is thought to be even more ancient than literature and a perfect medium for preserving visual motifs. The act of embroidery as well as the ritual cloths developed were an active part of Eastern European goddess worship....GODDESS EMBROIDERIES offers wonderful source material, exciting information and a great tale of research and discovery." Feminist Bookstore News, 1991.
GODDESS EMBROIDERIES OF THE BALKAN LANDS AND THE GREEK ISLANDS.
Author; Mary B. Kelly 200 pages, 150 illustrations, 10 full color photographs, maps.
Published by STUDIOBOOKS, 1999. ISBN#0-9668929-0-9
Description: Linked by the Black and the Aegean Seas, the lands of Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece are also united by their strong ritual and embroidery traditions. In a similar format to her earlier book GODDESS EMBROIDERIES OF EASTERN EUROPE., Mary Kelly recounts Bulgarian women's folk rituals and links to the goddess motifs on their textiles She displays 19th century Carpathian motifs and documents their survival today. Traveling south, she visits the Greek Islands and Mainland studying survivals of pagan culture and the folk motifs on ritual cloth and clothing. Techniques, colors, designs and rituals as well as interviews with folk textile artists, this new volume weaves these elements into the story of women's age-old textile traditions in the Greek and Balkan worlds.
Reviews:"Kelly shows how the motifs, rituals and rites of passage remain in many of the modern customs. The designs have remained throughout the centuries and Kelly provides actual drawings, descriptions and photographs to inspire the needleworker and scholar. This beautiful, well-researched, intensely interesting book that I highly recommend to all students of the history of the Goddess, a fitting companion piece to the books of Marija Gimbutas. It will be a joy as well, for craft and needlework historians."
Reviewed in Issue 18 of The Beltane Papers, 1999.
JUST PUBLISHED
GODDESS EMBROIDERIES OF THE NORTHLANDS.
Author; Mary B. Kelly 360 pages, 200 illustrations and photographs, 30 color photographs, maps, index of symbols.
Published by STUDIOBOOKS, 2007 ISBN # 978--0-9668929-4-9
See below for ordering information.
The final volume in the trilogy "Goddess Embroideries" this book presents the story of change and migration in prehistory and our own era in countries bordering the Arctic Circle. In Siberis, along the Silk Road and up the rivers of Russia, migrants moved, carrying with them folk beliefs and symbols on ritual textiles to their new homes in the northlands of European Russia, the Baltics and Scandinavia. Using research, interviews, many photos and illustrations, Kelly makes a case for the migration of motifs from the mountains of northern China to the mountains of Norway.
"I am reading the Northlands book now, and I think it is your best--am really enjoying it. Thank you again for your diligent research and for sharing it with the world through your books and the video. Your work has been my primary contemplative effort this holiday."
From a reader: Bonnie L. Grantham, MS 2007.
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
MAKING AND USING RITUAL CLOTHS
Author: Mary B. Kelly 100 pages with color cover, photographs and diagrams. 100 pages. Published by Studiobooks, McLean, NY 13102
ISBN# 0 9668929 - 25 2004
Learn about the ritual traditions of Eastern Europe - and their use of ritual cloth. Then make one yourself and use it in family or group rituals. You will lean to create important textiles; banners, clothing and cloths which have both beauty and power. With over 50 photographs and illustrations, 10 charts and color photos and detailed instructions, this ho-to-do-it book shows you techniques of stitching, applique and transfer. You can create a little ritual in your life - and the cloths to go with it.
EMBROIDERING THE GODDESSES OF RUSSIA 1995
EMBROIDERING THE GODDESSES OF UKRAINE 1997
EMBROIDERING THE GODDESSES OF SLOVAKIA 1995
EMBROIDERING THE GODDESSES OF THE GREEK ISLES 1998
Author: Mary B. Kelly 30 pages each, Maps, Bibliography Published by Counted Thread Press, Denver, CO.
This series of how-to-do-it books, features Goddess imagery from around the world. Notes on the stitches, material, history of each piece with historic and ritual usage explained. Each booklet has at least 10 full page charted designs of traditional goddess images.
THESE BOOKS ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE EXCEPT THE ONE ON UKRAINE. CONTACT STUDIOBOOKS BELOW FOR MORE INFO.
FOLK DRESS IN EUROPE AND ANATOLIA : Beliefs about Protection and Fertility
Editor: Linda Welters 243 pages maps, Introduction, Bibliography
Published by Berg Press, Oxford, England
ISBN# 1360-466X
Chapter 9 - Living Textile Traditions of the Carpathians.
Mary B. Kelly
Relationships between dress and the body have existed in European and Anatolian folk cultures well into the twentieth century. Traditional cultures have long held the belief that certain articles of dress could protect the body from harm by warding off evil forces such as the 'evil eye,' bring fertility to brides or assure human control of supernatural forces. Ritual fringes, archaic motifs and colors were believed to have powerful, magical effects.
This absorbing interdisciplinary book examines dress in a broad range of folk cultures from Turkey, Greece, Slovakia to Norway, Latvia and Lithuania. Authors reveal the connection between folk dress and ancient myths, cults and rituals, as well as the communicative aspects of folk dress. The intriguing connections between dress and supernatural beliefs of agrarian communities as well as the reinvention of such beliefs as part of nationalism are also discussed.
E.J.W. Barber tells us the Curious Tale of the Ultra-long Sleeve in a chapter which follows this phenomenon from Eurasia to Greece pausing in Russia to relate its appearance in fairy tales. Red fringes which protect as well as intice are the subject of Vesna Mladenovich's chapter on Macedonian Dress.
The Editor, Dr. Linda Welters connects folkdress to woman's reproductive role in Greek villages between 1850 and 1950, while Mary B. Kelly details longevity of millenia-old folk motifs embroidered on Ukrainian folk dress. Protection from harm including the evil eye is addressed by authors Patricia Williams ( Czech and Slovak Wedding, Birth and Funeral Rites) and Laurann Gilbertson (Metal on Norwegian Folkdress). Seen as modern 'string skirts', the fringed belt plays a powerful role in Turkish, Latvian and Greek women's dress traditions, as noted by authors Marlene R. Breu, Welters and Ira Kuhn-Bolsaitis.
This book represents a significant contribution to the growing body of literature on the culutral meanings of dress as well as to material culture anthropology, folklore, art, history, ethnohistory and linguistics.
The book has been awarded in London in November 2000 an honorable mention for the Katharine Briggs Folklore Prize.
OTHER FAVORITE BOOKS;
Below is a description of other favorite books.
TREASURES OF SLOVAKIA
by Helene B. Cincebeaux, 100 full color plates. 50 pages, Published in Slovakia by Neographia Press. 1993.
The author and I spent many happy days roaming around the countryside of Slovakia in along with Helen Baine, the author's mother. This book brings back many memories of that wonderful time. Last summer we revisited some of the same villages with a group of textile experts.
THE CHANGELESS CARPATHIANS : Living Traditions of the Hutsul People.
38 pages, 8 color plates, Published by the Ukrainian Museum, 1995.
This exhibition catalog was produced by the Ukrainian Museum, NYC on the occasion of a photography show in 1995. The show documented a trip that Helene and Helen and I took to the Carpathian areas of Ukraine in 1992 . The catalog has articles by both of us as well as Ukrainian experts and has many color and black and white plates.
To receive a free catalog listing the above books write to STUDIOBOOKS, BOX 5623, HILTON HEAD SC 29938.
To buy any of the books on this page, please click on the Studiobooks button above.
A selected list of publications :
1983. Women's Art Journal. "Goddess Embroideries of Russia and Ukraine."
1986 . Esprit "Ritual and Ritual Fabrics"
1987. Threads "Fabrics for the Goddess".
1989. New York Folklore. "Eastern European Motifs in the Work of Three Women Folk Artists."
1989. Goddess Embroideries of Eastern Europe. Northland Press. reprinted by STUDIOBOOKS, 1996.
1990. Threads. "Russian Batik Artists".
1993 "Goddess Embroideries of Eastern Europe" in Gender, Culture and the Arts, Susquehanna University Press, NJ.
1992 Fiberarts. "Natalya Muradova: Dream Paintings on Textiles"
1995 Embroidering the Goddesses of Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine. Counted Thread Press, Denver, CO
1995 Piecework "A Place to Come To: The Ukrainian Musuem."
1996 Russia,Women,Culture. Ed. by H Goscilo and B. Holmgren, "The Ritual Fabrics of Russian Village Women" Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN.
1997 The Beltane Papers. "Goddess Embroideries of Russia and Ukraine." Issue 13.
1997 Embroidering the Goddesses of the Greek Isles. Counted Thread Press, Denver, CO
1999 Goddess Embroideries of the Balkan Lands and the Greek Islands. Studiobooks, McLean, NY
1999 Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia, Beliefs about Protection and Fertility. Ed. L. Welters,"Living Textile Traditions of the Carpathians." Berg Press, Oxford, England.
2003 Making and Using Ritual Cloths Studiobooks, McLean NY
“Women of the Vlachs; cultural continuity, cutural change.” Lumea Carpatica, #1. 2001. 31- 40.
“Textile traditions of Old Europe.” Textil Forum, May, 2003, 37 - 39.
“Chuvash Pointed Helmets” Chuvash Art, theoretical Questions and History. Vol. V Cheboksary, Chuvashia. 2003.
“Seasons and cycles of Life: Traditional Motifs in Czech and Slovak Textiles.” Slovo, Vol 7, #1. Czech and Slovak Museum,
Summer, 2006.
2007. Goddess Embroideries of the Northlands. Studiobooks, Hilton Head, SC.
NEWLY PUBLISHED... 2007;
GODDESS EMBROIDERIES OF THE NORTHLANDS.
See Studiobooks website BY CLICKING ON THE BUTTON ABOVE, or contact
Studiobooks Box 5623. Hilton Head SC 29938
or email kellym13@juno.com
