March 25--Barbara Lewis inventively combined her crocheting and macrame skills to create unique fashions, wall hangings and other works.
One example of her fresh approach to craft and fashion was a crocheted bikini she designed and made that was worn by a model pictured on the cover of the July 1969 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. The green yarn suit was an early take on the idea of a "string bikini."
Julie Dale, who featured some of Lewis' work in her New York shop, Julie: Artisans' Gallery, said she was "entranced" when she first saw slides of some of Lewis' pieces.
"She was an individual using a traditional skill, macrame, which she was applying to a new form -- which was basically body art," Gale said. "She was an individual creating one of a kind or limited edition pieces which were definitely meant to be worn."
Lewis, 77, who first gained attention for her work as Barbara Baumann, died of liver cancer in her Evanston home March 13, according to her husband, Benn Greenspan.
She was born and grew up in New York's Greenwich Village, where her father was a furrier and her mother a master patternmaker.
"There was a lot of creativity around the household," her husband said.
Lewis started knitting as a teenager, he said. Years later, during outings to a park with her children, Lewis met another mother who crocheted. Each learned the other's skill while their children played.
"If she learned how to do something, it was her way to figure out what to do with it," her husband said.
What she figured out to do with her new crocheting skills was to make clothing. She started with a mostly open mesh cover-up for a woman to wear over a bathing suit. In those days, her pieces were marketed under the brand name, Barbara.
It was the late 1960s and early '70s and people were experimenting in all kinds of ways. Lewis used traditional skills to create unconventional clothing. She made pants, tops, vests and even bikinis by crocheting and macrame, a traditional sailor's art of fancy knots and cords.
Family members said she made crocheted bikinis for a number of celebrities and had her work featured in several magazines.
"All kinds of rules were being broken as to what was art, what wasn't art. What she did was very reflective of the time," Dale said. "She was an extraordinarily pivotal person in terms of what turned out to be my life's commitment."
After a divorce, she began producing her art using her maiden name, Barbara Lewis. By the early 1970s, she had added wall hangings to her repertoire, selling some to a wholesale furniture gallery. By 1976, she was married to Greenspan and moved with him to Evanston.
Her largest wall hanging, a piece called "Aeolus" and representing the mythical wind god, is 13 feet long and 7 feet high and was made for a Virginia hotel.
She began doing commissioned work, making wall hangings for area clients. She also made macrame covers for Torahs, sacred Jewish scrolls, for two local congregations, according to her husband. The covers typically are made of velvet, Greenspan said, but Lewis was commissioned to make special macrame versions for Congregation Solel in Highland Park and for Emanuel Congregation in Chicago.
Lewis shifted to smaller objects, including jewelry, in the 1990s and 2000s, according to Greenspan. One recent piece was a necklace of beads with a small pouch in the form of a rainbow trout of macrame.
Lewis had a knack for finding buyers, her husband said.
"She did have a quirky talent for connecting with people," he said. "She was a really creative person."
Lewis is also survived by a daughter, Jennifer Baumann; sons Jeremy Baumann and Isaac Greenspan; a sister, Nancy Lewis; a brother, David Lewis; and three grandchildren.
Her son Paul Baumann died in 2006.
A celebration of life is being planned for August.
Graydon Megan is a freelance reporter.
