Month: May 2012

The New Installation of the Old Barnes

On By kittycalashIn Museums

Today’s New York Times contains a front-page article on the new location of the Barnes Foundation that can be summed up as, the Barnes, Only Better. Intriguing.

I followed the story of the Barnes and the orphan court case because many of the arguments took place at the time my employer was considering the dastardly act of deaccessioning and selling a piece of furniture to generate endowment funds. The Barnes is also one of my favorite places to visit when I go to see my mother, who lives in Merion Township.

The Barnes has a fascinating history, given that the founder, Dr. Barnes, had stipulated that the collection never be moved, loaned, or reinstalled. Moving the Barnes out of the restrictive environment in Lower Merion Township therefore required, in essence, breaking Dr. Barnes’s will. The legal implications of donor intent vs. long-term museum health were what interested me in the Barnes case, but there’s so much more to the Barnes than museum legal studies.

More, as in Glackens. Bellows. The Cezanne-versus-Renoir matchup. The Barnes was a quirky installation of wonderful paintings, icons, juxtaposed with metalwork, kind of primitive Pennsylvania furniture, and African art. Barnes’s installation was saturated in its time period, like walking into every essay, article, and art history book you’d ever read on the Moderns. I’m looking forward to visiting the new-old installation when I go to Philadelphia in June.

Museum Madness

On By kittycalashIn Museums

Or, why it has been hard to think about reenacting, cooking, sewing, or much of anything this week.

Technically, I work for a historical society, not a museum, but the madness is pretty much the same, just with more books. It’s a fun season, when the visitor numbers at both the museum (school groups and conferences) and the library (genealogical tourists) are ramping up, construction has begun, and the fiscal year is ending and the new year’s budget in planning.

It’s a lot to have going on at once. We also just had two positions open up in the library, so there’s been a lot of filling in as the receptionist and the page, and interviewing candidates for the positions.

To all this, add rain: this is when Providence is at its wettest, and while the weekend looks to be lovely, yesterday was drenching, with thunderstorms. As a result, the “pit” outside the library basement door flooded, and overflowed into the basement. That led to wet-vacuuming and the arrangement of a sump pump for the pit. As my Buildings and Grounds Super was arranging the cords and preparing to plug in the sump pump, he slipped and fell 12 feet into the pit.

I got the call in a meeting with the Executive Director and Director of Finance, and ran back to the library. My guy was OK, and they hadn’t called an ambulance, despite clear instructions. Instead, one of the Librarians took him to the quieter hospital in a better neighborhood. He’s OK, if by OK you mean alive and walking and talking.

He’s not OK, in the sense that he broke his arm at the wrist, seriously bruised his shoulder, hit his head, and will be in a cast for 6 weeks.

If that wasn’t madness enough, here comes the cherry on top: the cleaning assistant has left for Las Vegas for two weeks, trying to break into comedy. So we have a plan to hire someone else we know temporarily.

One of the visitor services managers at the museum, though, has made it plain that she doesn’t see why the B&G Super won’t be back in and working by Friday, Mondy at the latest. I’m looking forward to explaining that we don’t expect a man who fell 12 feet into a concrete pit to come straight back to work with a broken arm, though I know her initial reasonableness and expression of concern will be followed—quickly—by temper-tantrum demands for all the tiny fallen sticks on the lawn to be removed posthaste.

Perspective, folks: safety first. We have to fix the pit problem. It functions as a fire exit from the basement, so we can’t cover it up. It’s behind a fence, so in theory it’s protected. Clearly, though, something has to be done. And not just picking up sticks, or finding the genealogical records.

Seasonal Eating

On By kittycalashIn Food, Reenacting

When there is a weekend event, I have to start thinking on Wednesday about lunch on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday is the more troublesome day, because there won’t be much time on Saturday to prep for Sunday: the work has to be done now.

This is not so much fun when you’re still trying to work out lunches and dinners for the regular 21st century week.

One solution, based on suggestions made for Battle Road this year, is pasties. They’re delicious and easy to carry, keep well, and are very satisfying. They’re also a meal that can be made with seasonal ingredients, like those outlined  in The compleat housewife: or, Accomplished gentlewoman’s companion, Cookery, etc. by Eliza Smith, 1742.

She presents a Bill of Fare for May that includes:

Chicken pye and a grand sallad might work, if the pretense is that I’m visiting camp. The Battle Road pasty filling was made as follows:

  • Olive oil
  • 1 poached chicken breast, diced (a whole does well for 4 -6 people, half for 3 or fewer)
  • 1 small onion, diced
  • 1 parsnip, scrubbed and sliced
  • 1 carrot, ditto
  • 1 small to medium red potato, cubed
  • 1 apple, cored and cubed
  • Small handful dried cranberries
  • Herbs de Provence, generously applied
  • Salt & pepper to taste
  • A little water
  • A little milk (optional)

Poach the chicken breast the day before, when you are making the crust. I use Martha Stewart’s perfect pâte brisée, but a Joy of Cooking crust works just as well. I toss into the water a bay leaf, a celery stalk top, an old carrot, and slice an old onion—we usually have scraps about from previous meals—and boiling these vegetables with the chicken breast tends to make the meat taste better.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Heat a little oil in a skillet and add the onions and the herbs.
When the onions are soft, add the carrot, parsnip and potato.When these are just beginning to soften, add the chicken and dried cranberries.  Add just a little water—you want the filling to be a little dry so it does not soak the crust—and the apple.
Taste for seasoning and adjust.
Stir and cook over medium heat until all ingredients are hot and the root vegetables only medium-soft. Remove from heat.

Divide the pastry crust into as many balls as you will make pasties; from a double-crust recipe, you can make at least 4 good-sized pasties.

Roll the dough into circles and add filling to one side (you’ll make a semi-circle heap of filling). Wet the edge of the circle with a brush, and fold over the crust, pressing edges together with a fork. Some people have the skill to make a twisted, decorative edge; I don’t. Brush the top of the pasty with water or milk for a brown crust. Poke several steam vents in the top with a fork, or slit with a knife.

Bake at 350 until the filling bubbles and the crust is browned, about 30 minutes. Let the pasties cool, wrap in paper and tie with string.

Extreme Something

On By kittycalashIn Reenacting
Continentals advance at Ft Lee

National Geographic’s Extreme Reenactor aired Thursday night and we watched with a kind of…intrigued horror.

It was a reality show with wool and black powder, and as much as the men boasted that they were getting as close as they could to experiences of the soldiers, they didn’t seem all that different from us in the Rev War reenactments. There’s a bottom line, a wall of time: you cannot re-create the past.

I can no more truly start a day over, go back downstairs and re-create the moment of making coffee this morning than I can re-create an 18th century experience. There’s no way to truly re-live a moment or a feeling or an action. You’ll never get it exactly right—and that may in fact be the point.

We are always experimenting. Perhaps the best re-enactors are the ones continually seeking to polish their impressions, expand their knowledge, attempt something new. Maybe encouraging growth, renewal and on going research is more important than delineating the lines between the mainstream, the authentic, and the hardcore or progressive re-enactors.

That’s probably just the museum professional in me talking…

There’s an interesting, if slightly old, study of re-enactors done by the NPS that explores some of these questions for the RevWar time period.