“Sometimes when things are looking up and the weather is invigorating I am overcome by delusions of grandeur and I think it’s a miracle I am still locked into my daily round of household chores, unknown to the world of art, and when this happens I am overjoyed. By myself and by my life, as if that life were a palpable thing — a creature or a treasure I alone possess — and I am filled with gratitude for my freedom, my mobility and the way no one cares where I go or what I think and I tell myself I will one day look back on this spate of time of trying and failing and being committed and know I was happy as clearly as I now know I am coming to an end of it.”
Published by Printed Matter on occasion of the exhibition Pati Hill: My old fur coat doesn’t know me, this booklet excerpts Hill’s unpublished journal The History of Dressmaking, which she wrote between 1972 and 1977. The last chapter of the text, “High in the Sky,” captures Hill’s life ten years after she claimed to “quit writing in favor of housekeeping,“ reflecting on photocopying as well as her time in Stonington (Connecticut), Paris, and a small countryside village with her husband Paul Bianchini and their young daughter. Hill portrays herself and her life—in her distinctive cynical yet tender style—amongst a crowd of picturesque characters: her farmer neighbors in Cerisiers, her husband’s family with whom she experiences the French haute bourgeoisie with a mix of fascination and scorn, and her dog Lucas, who leads her to ponder the platonic nature of emotions.
