Museum Studios Gallery Hosts 'Hat Blocks & Hats' Exhibit

From Wayne Wichern Millinery: This exhibit is a glimpse into the hat maker’s workroom and a demonstration of the process of blocking hats - the forming of felt and straw materials over traditional wood hat blocks.

Hat blocks are “tools of the trade” for the hat maker, but they are not just common workroom tools. They are wood forms, intricately carved and shaped by skilled woodworkers -- they are unique sculptured works of art in their own right.

Wayne Wichern’s exquisite hats will be paired with these unusual wood sculptures from his extensive collection of vintage and contemporary hat blocks.

Wayne Wichern – Millinery Designer, Teacher

Wayne Wichern has carved a curious path as florist, ballet dancer, and visual display artist to create his 30-year career as a millinery designer and teacher. His skills as an excellent and generous teacher are well known in the hat making industry. His design work exhibits an unusual and remarkable range of talent and technique. His innovative hat designs are in collections of the de Young Museum in San Francisco and the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle, WA.

Artist Statement

Hats are a powerful social and cultural marker. In the early to mid-1900’s the daily wearing of hats was a social norm. People rarely ventured out in public without a suitable hat. Today, when you wear a hat you are certain to be noticed. It is always interesting to me to observe the obvious or subtle adjustments of a client’s mental and physical attitude as I set a hat on their head. The hat may well ask for a confident straight-forward comportment or perhaps a more mysterious or mischievous character is requested of the wearer. Thus the “theater of the hat” as each change of hat reveals facets of an individual’s persona.

• Artists’ Opening Reception Sunday, July 23, 2017, 2-5pm
• Closing Reception Sunday, August 27, 2017, 2-4

Photos courtesy of Wayne Wichern Millinery