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My great-great-grandmother was a hat milliner in France in the 1800’s. My mother had a great respect for this history and began to collect hat blocks that decorated her home, and I followed in suit. Hat block making was considered a highly skilled trade, and milliners kept their hat block designs a secret from competitors. These vintage wooden hat blocks are carved in the shape of a particular hat that was used to shape and stiffen hat forms. Hats often indicate social status or denote one’s job as part of a uniform; worn for warmth, everyday wear, or special occasions. The beautiful sculptural shape of these hat blocks has always interested me as an art form itself and was my intention for photographing them. Printing them with the Piezography Photogravure process brings the texture and character of each unique hat block into the prints. This is a current and ongoing series.