Month: July 2017

Style Council

On By kittycalashIn Living History
National Gallery of Art furniture gallery, May 2017

One of the critiques leveled at historic house museums is that they’re often “frozen in time,” specifically a particular moment, rather than reflecting the changes that happened over time. This charge is sometimes leveled at period room installations as well, when all the furniture in a room is from a tight time span– a year, maybe five– when for most of us, the furnishings in our homes and the clothes in our closets reflect a number of years, rather than a tight twelve or eighteen months.

So, when we go out “into the field” (or the house or the milliner’s shop or the tavern), shouldn’t our belongings reflect the multiplicity of years of objects? If I’m a woman Of A Certain Age, won’t I have possessions, from jewelry to ceramics to clothing, from multiple decades? Well…. yes and no.

It’s true that as far as we can tell, John Brown moved his 1760 furniture into his 1788 mansion, but we also know he bought new furnishings, including a large (188+ piece) set of Chinese Export Porcelain (see above).

Up-to-date, stylish, expensive: table settings signaled wealth and sophistication as much as clothing and manners, so whatever JB had before 1788, he wasn’t setting his new table with it. What might he (or Mrs B) have done with it? Consigned it to use by grandchildren and servants? Given it to less fortunate relations? Possibly. And if they had creamware, it would not have been singularly out of place in 1788 or 1800 on any table– it was only 40 years old, and heaven knows my “best” china is from the 1930s– but would they have used earlier pottery, even in the kitchen?

All pottery is not the same: North Devon pottery, while imported to North America in the late 17th and early 18th century, is not what you would expect to find in a late-18th century farm kitchen. It’s here, sure, into the mid-18th century, but in 1799, it’s not the form you would expect to see. So what does that mean for living history folks? Does it matter what you use?

You know what I think: there ain’t nothing like the real thing and that means paying careful attention to details. If you’re portraying a camp follower in 1778, or tenant farmer in 1799, you are not likely to have, say, a Jackfield-type figured tea pot, just as you are not likely to have a salt-glazed squirrel-relief cream jug, no matter how much you adore it.

Time and style matter. The people of the past read each other the same way we read each other. Remember Clarice Starling, with her “good bag and her cheap shoes”? Get on a train anywhere, and you can read your fellow travelers: you can guess income and education levels, marital status, and sometimes interests and hobbies if you look closely. You make assumptions about people based on their appearance, whether you’re conscious of it or not– and so did the people of the past. To portray them accurately, and to help the public learn to read the past, the details matter.

Everything Old is New Again

On By kittycalashIn Art Rant, Living History, Museums

I could be making bonnets. I could be applying for moar jobz. I could be finishing the soup that’s on the stove. But instead, I’m annoyed by a museum’s social media posting. For the sake of all that’s holy in history, is there nothing more to an 18th century soldier’s life than his weapon? Now, to the museum’s credit, only 50% of the posted images could truly be said to focus on the musket or some musket-related tool.

But what’s so damned annoying is that the organization in question, all brand-spanking new and on everybody’s “must-see” list, falls back on the same old tropes on social media, which makes me want to know more about their educational mission. If the social media message continues to reinforce the same messages (guns are important) instead of expanding to include a soldier’s daily life, or even his inner life, the public has trouble moving past that simple message to ask more questions.

Museums and their representatives cue the questions visitors ask by framing objects, writing labels, even aiming the lights, to focus on what the museum believes is important. Put guns front and center, that’s what the questions will be about instead of about hygiene, clothing, literacy, or diet.

This image got me really excited, until I read the caption.

“Brick dust for polishing the brass elements on his weapon.” Dammit! It’s not tooth powder!

I understand full well that the museum’s interpretation of our national founding is far more inclusive than many museum visitors have previously encountered. I understand that the educational program currently lacks a permanent director, and is not yet fully fleshed out.

Museums are among the most trusted sources for information. Presentation matters. What museums emphasize matters. If museums — in their exhibits, programs, or marketing– continue to “give the people what they want,” the people will not know that they can want something different, or even that there is something different to want. Inclusivity is constant: in the galleries, in the labels, in the programming, in the staff, and in the marketing (which this museum did, in fact, do, masterfully, at a major train station).

But I’m picking on them for this post because they are the top of the game right now, and if they can do better in the galleries and in the train station, they can do better on social media. They’ve had some of the best female interpreters around working this month and the end of last, and yet the first social media post on that program is of a soldier, and focuses on his weapon. The past– and the present– deserve better.

Flipping a Lid

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Living History, making things

In a continuing effort to simultaneously destroy my hands and make all the bonnets, I set out recently to recreate a bonnet in the Met’s collection.

Silk Bonnet, British, ca. 1815. Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Designated Purchase Fund, 1983 2009.300.1613

It’s a curious thing, isn’t it, with that flipped-up brim? It looks more 1915 than 1815. But a little looking turned up this fashion plate:

Items 2 and 6, while not of silk, show the turned-up brim seen in this example. (To be fair, the original black and white photo suggests some confusion about the bonnet’s orientation.)

My version is admittedly imperfect, but a home-made interpretation that gets as close as I can (for now). I started with a lightweight buckram frame, to which I stitched slim round caning.

The brim is covered in two layers of the copper silk, and edged on the bottom side with the contrasting silk trim. the crown, or caul, is a simple tube gathered to a silk-covered buckram circle. In the absence of matching (or even sort-of-close) ribbon, my choices are to trim what’s left of the fabric and piece it together…. or start an online-ribbon hunt. At least the extant example has ribbon that’s close but not a match, giving me some leeway if I decide to save my hands for other projects and click instead of stitch.

Driving Miss Lady

On By kittycalashIn making things1 Comment
In the midst of loading the moving van, the Giant cut his thumb. 18th century pocket knives are no substitute for 21st century tools.

Or, where I’ve been, what I’ve been up to, and why I haven’t posted.

Six weeks ago, I left the museum where I’d worked since the Giant was a toddler, and the duplex I’d lived in for more than a decade. I spent the next two and half weeks packing up my possessions and pondering the benefits of minimalism.

Three weeks ago, I was southbound on I-95 with my ridiculous cats and an assortment of baggage (of which I have a great deal). It’s such an American act, “lighting out for the territories,” as Huck or Laurie Anderson might have it, setting off for someplace new, spurred by an itch similar to Pa Ingalls’.

Leaving wasn’t easy
for anyone….

After an 8 hour drive that culminated in extreme excitement and some confusion on the Beltway (Why do some Maryland drivers proceed at speed in a travel lane with their hazards on? Why did that truck think we could occupy the same space, when we both have a corporeal presence?), I arrived in different weather to a new home already occupied by two gentleman cats and Drunk Tailor.

People are settling in
getting comfy
and exploring

After three weeks, I am nearly unpacked and nearly back to normal operations. I’ve missed a couple of events, including one in central New York I really hated to miss, and few I discovered at the last minute. Still, I am looking forward to reprising my lament for New England as I travel farther south to once again portray a terrible servant married to another terrible servant.

Summery plans to finish in between stitching for the shop

With any luck, the yarn I’ve ordered will arrive before we leave and I can begin the tedious work of tent stitching a wallet in a Rhode Island pattern to remind me of home.

Until I’m working full time, I’ll be making mitts, bonnets, and boxes both for a future millinery shop of the past and for Etsy. I’ve also got two gowns and two Spencers underway, at least one of which I’d like to have before August.