Réponses pour [Recent Tests- VOL] - New Zealand home textile crafts
Réponses et explications détaillées pour [Recent Tests- VOL] - New Zealand home textile crafts
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[Recent Tests- VOL] - New Zealand home textile crafts
Objects made by previous generations of women should be valued more highly
Domestic crafts do not build monuments to their makers, nor do they create wealth, and too often they have not survived. In consequence, the domestic crafts produced by mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers in New Zealand are often overlooked. But needlework should be preserved, 1for it helps to convey a sense of people's identity and past beliefs in these remote islands in the Pacific Ocean.
Women of previous generations expected to sew; they had to dress their families in an item when few people could afford to buy what they were capable of making. For some women this work may have been unwelcome drudgery, 2but for others it was an opportunity to explore their identities, beliefs and dreams with the only means readily at hand-a needle, some thread, and a piece of fabric.
3Textiles are frustrating to collect. They are fragile; they stain; they develop rust marks; they fray and rot. If they are used, they deteriorate; yet if they are merely stored, the owner does not fully enjoy the pleasure of possession. That is probably why they have not been a popular thing to collect compared, for example, to antique furniture or fine china, which are more durable investments. It is also true that domestic crafts are seldom signed. 4We like signatures because we can more readily assign value-and high prices-if we can identify the maker. But most women at this time would never have considered signing their work. They were not expecting it to be seen outside their homes, where the creator's identity was never in doubt. And they probably did not even expect it to last very long.
5It does not help that such work falls into the category of crafts either, rather than fine arts, because crafts are looked on too often as a poor cousin to true creativity. Worse, they are made in a domestic context, so do not belong in the consciously elevated tradition of craft objects which compete with the arts, such as furniture. If things are made to be useful, especially only within the home and by ordinary housewives, we seem to have agreed they cannot be art. Why not?
6It might be argued that the collector of textiles is a little like an archaeologist. Archaeology is a combination of history and detective work, and it involves treasure that is often beautiful. Likewise, digging for the past is what textile collectors do in junk shops, and the objects they find are a way of understanding the past through physical evidence.
7The domestic crafts of this period, the 1930-1950, cannot be separated from the women's magazines that were so popular at the time. The purpose of these publications was to allow women to glimpse how more prosperous people lived, by showing them photographs of the interiors of their houses. 8In these days before television, magazines provided realistic and achievable inducements to social betterment. In parallel to this, women were provided with much more down-to-earth and useful means of improving their homes in the form of printed patterns, which were readily available from fabric shops at low cost from the 1920s and 1930s onwards. Mostly, such patterns were for everyday items that fulfilled some domestic often keep-officials from their purpose - aprons, tea cosies, curtains, bedspreads, chair covers and the like. With the benefit of hindsight, it is possible to distinguish this regulated tradition of needlework, governed by printed patterns, from the more individual work that women dreamed up themselves and whose form and execution were reflections of their own ideal and imagination. Although both schools have their merits, it is surely the latter tradition that will provide the collector with the greatest enjoyment. 10Most intriguing of all is work which suggests serendipity, even a certain element of chance, the piece having taken on a life of its own, determined perhaps by what resources were available at the time and the skill levels of the item's maker. 9When it comes to needlework, flaws can be enjoyable, even failure may bring pleasure, and in this respect needlework can be contrasted with other art forms, where successful completion is paramount.
11Some people collect out of a sense of nostalgia, a desire to evoke a comforting time that seems gentler than the present. But nostalgia should not always be trusted as it can be a sanitised form of history that blots out harsh reality. However, if a certain degree of nostalgia can be felt for the fabrics of the past, it is because they remind us of the care and attention with which women selected them. The texture of certain abstract patterned fabrics from the 1950s has the power to transport us all back to the dress and fabric shops of that time where women agonised over which choices to make, though they probably loved every minute of it. 13Old patchwork quilts in particular are evocative, because they represent an unknown family's compressed history: pyjamas, ball gowns, smart summer frocks, school dresses, all thrown together, a veritable of decorative traditions, past ceremonies and dreams. 12Women of the past would often keep offcuts their dressmaking and use them for patchwork, 12-13as a means of recording their family's story for others to appreciate.
These may sound like nostalgic thoughts, but we should also remember how hard women's lives were, that family life was not always idyllic, and that having no money was no fun. 14Such fabrics, then, should be seen as a wish for ideals and imaginations, although both something better, a way of daydreaming about a life that would turn out well in the end.
Questions 1-6
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D
Write the correct letter in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet
1What does the writer say about domestic crafts in the first paragraph?
2What is the writer's main point in the second paragraph?
3According to the writer, domestic crafts are not frequently collected because
4What point does the writer make about signatures on textiles?
5What is the writer doing in the fourth paragraph?
6Why does the writer compare textile collecting to archaeology?
Questions 7-10
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-G below. Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 7-10 on your answer sheet.
| A. skilfull | B. creative | C. wealthy | D. practical |
| E. imperfect | F. industrious | G. detailed |
Needlework in the first half of the twentieth century
Women's magazines in this period mainly influenced domestic crafts because of their aspirational character as they focused on the 7 (C) element of society. At the same time, more 8 (D) assistance came in the form of printed patterns. The resulting aprons, and so on, can be contrasted with work that demonstrates the 9 (B) side of the maker of the two traditions, work that is less structured in nature is of greater interest to collectors. Most interestingly, the writer points out that many appreciate work that is 10 (E) and it is this characteristic that is believed to distinguish needlework from other arts.
Questions 11-14
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3 In boxes 11-14 on your answer sheet, write
YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
11
11
Nostalgia can promote an unreliable image of the past.
12
12
In the 1950s, women chose fabric according to its durability.
13
13
Patchwork quilts are only of interest to the makers' family.
14
14
Needlework was a way for women to escape the reality of their lives.
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