Category: personal

Rethinking Reenacting Redux

On By kittycalashIn Art Rant, Living History, personal, Philosophy, Reenacting2 Comments

Some of you may recall my friend from the antediluvian age, Dread Scott. He was in town briefly and while I wasn’t able to attend his talk, I got my own special artist’s talk over breakfast.

Scott’s working on a Slave Rebellion Reenactment, (additional info here) so we had a lot to talk about.

Scuffle in the Square, Princeton, 2017. Photo by Wilson Freeman at Drifting Focus Photography

He had some great questions about what we do, and why we do it, especially around Princeton, and in talking about my end goal (getting the public to understand how the past informs the present), I said something about how in Newport in 2014, the cars disappeared and we forgot we were in the present.

Scott’s great reply was about keeping the present present, occupying two time periods simultaneously, to recognize that the past made the present. I know that seems obvious, but it isn’t always when we’re out in our funny clothes. It’s another layer of interpretation that we can build onto our reenactments and recreations, particularly when we are trying to talk about slavery. Slavery built the institutions we have today– like Aetna Insurance and Georgetown University– so if we acknowledge our surroundings in a place like downtown Princeton or Newport, we can talk about more than just the moment we are recreating.

Some of us seek historical transcendence. Some of us enjoy a social experience. And some of us seek ways to connect the present to the past in ways that help us understand how we got here, and how to make a better future.

The more I contemplate what matters to me, the more I think I’m seeking that last more than I am even transcendence.

Circles and Lines

On By kittycalashIn Events, personal, Research2 Comments
Merrymaking at a Wayside Inn, watercolor on paper by John Lewis Krimmel. 1811-1813. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 42.95.12

By some miracle, I did not have the Polecats in my head all weekend, despite spending most of Saturday only dancing. It has been some time since I danced (February’s adventure notwithstanding) and after two hip replacements, my Giant son is correct: I’m still re-training my muscles. My feet remember more than my hips do, but at least some of my muscles remember!

The Commonwealth Vintage Dancers Regency Weekend was this past weekend, and while I could only manage Saturday (Sundays are for chores when you’re expecting houseguests for Easter), I had a wonderful time and sincerely hope I can retain what I was taught. The company was very friendly and quite genteel, though I can report that I did experience a variety of partners, and, in one unfortunate case, became so confused I had to step out of the dance entirely. (Mixed rhythms and mixed-up steps became far too jumbled in my poor brain.)

The Five Positions, from An Analysis of Country Dancing, T. Wilson, 1811.

The entire day reminded me strongly of being in a novel, or, as Drunk Tailor said on hearing the description, a movie. Let us merely note that some gentleman are more enthusiastic appreciators of music than others, and that a partner can be left feeling a bit flung about in some of the figures that involve the mouliner. My rusty memories of French came in handy: mouliner and mill connect easily enough for me (seen here, in Prince Kutusoff) and the Boulanger made much more sense when I connected it to mixing bread dough. Hey– whatever gets you through the set without stepping on your own, or anyone else’s feet!

I’d like to think I will remember something of this business the next time I get to dance, whenever that may be. The patterns can be found on line in manuals (as in this description of Sir Roger de Coverly) with some occasional, bearable, videos— and, as always, resources close to home.

Next time: the dress. Until then, I’m posting more on Instagram.

History Hurts

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Fail, History, Living History, making things, personal10 Comments

We have been here before: terrible stays, stays in need of minor mods, and “it isn’t history till it hurts.” New this past weekend was the Busk Bust Blister (Bursting) which didn’t make History hurt, but sure did bring a sting to the wind-down afterwards.

 

Insides!
I was determined, and now they are bound.

These new stays are, so far, the best I’ve ever had and well worth the blood, sweat and swears it took to make them. Gowns do seem to fit better over these stays; they held up well at muggy Monmouth and in polar Princeton, but the last two rounds at Ti left me feeling like I’d taken a hoof to the ribs.

What gives, kidneys? At least this time I made it past Fort Ann and all the way into a private room in Glens Falls before I had to free the sisters and release the lower back.

IMG_7298

But this time, there was a bonus: the previously indicated Bust Blister. On the left side (I’m right handed), I developed a fairly robust .25” x .125” blister that crowned the top of a nearly 2” red mark, mirrored on the right by a less red and slightly less long mark. The culprit?

The Busk of Doom, of course.

 

dscn4568

Strictly speaking, I should not sport a busk when I desport as Captain Delaplace’s serving woman, or as a refugee cooking up the last of the bread, eggs, and milk. I’ve earned these marks and (potential) future scars by dressing above my station, and need to adjust accordingly.

Step one: Rounding down the busk edges (now in the capable hands of Drunk Tailor).
Step two: Foregoing the busk when working.
Step three: Wearing partially-boned stays when working.

Two is the easiest; three is the hardest. Which do you think I am, therefore, actually contemplating as a necessary next step?

But of Course: Step Three, Pathway to Finger Cracks and Stained Stays.

d'oh! surgical tape made this *much* better later.
d’oh! surgical tape made this *much* better later.

Fortunately I have people close to me who will ensure that I work through steps One and Two before embarking upon step Three, but I certainly want to know more about (and will look much more closely at images of) working women in the third quarter of the 18th century. My suspicion is that women who are performing labor that requires movement– up and down before a fire, back and forth across a floor, bending over a tub– may not be wearing stays made in exactly the way high style stays are made for ladies who bend over an embroidery hoop, glide back and forth across a ballroom floor, or move up and down the stairs of a well-built home they supervise.

Or my busk pocket is too big, my busk edges too square, and my actions too fast and continuous.

Paul Sandby. At Sandpit Gate circa 1752 Pencil, pen and ink and watercolor. RCIN 914329
Paul Sandby. At Sandpit Gate circa 1752
Pencil, pen and ink and watercolor. RCIN 914329

What are these women wearing? They certainly look fully boned. What can I change to make my stays work better for working? No matter what, where there are variables, there are experiments to run, and that’s what really makes history fun (even when it hurts).

A Saturday in Salem : Jane Austen Ball

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events, History, personal5 Comments
Closure: green silk satin ribbon.
Closure: green silk satin ribbon.

With many thanks to the Quintessential Clothes Pen, I was not dancing with myself Saturday last at the Jane Austen Ball in Salem. I was there on a bit of a whim, knowing that the ball happened in February and looking for something to do on a winter weekend– and, as it happened, I actually had a dress to wear. Of course, it wasn’t finished until Friday night, although I had worn it in December for a photoshoot.

Dressed for the weather: I only seem to wear this pelisse in February.
Dressed for the weather: I only seem to wear this pelisse in February.

In the past year+, I’ve been trying to do more and regret less, which seems a bit contradictory: if you do more, might you regret more of what you do? The trick for me, especially in dealing with my baseline high-anxiety self, is to do more things that seem scary but are actually fun.* That’s how I found myself traveling up to Salem between snowstorms to stay in a tiny little room in a historic hotel. It’s a pretty quick ninety-minute trip on a good day, but I know myself well enough now that staying overnight is the safer, less-stressful option for an excursion like this.

Salem on a snowy Saturday was busy, streets crowded with people as I walked to the old Town Hall, feeling very much like a character in a novel. (Having just finished Remarkable Creatures, the scenes of Elizabeth Philpot walking in alone London came to mind as I did attract some attention in my pelisse and bonnet.)

Old Town Hall, Salem, MA
Rustic Dance After a Sleigh Ride, 1830. William Sidney Mount MFA Boston 48.458

The Town Hall was crowded; I arrived a little late, as dancing was beginning under patient and direct tutelage, so I had the pleasure of watching several dances before I joined in. While not everyone was wearing early-Federal/Regency clothing, the crowd still provided an excellent sense of the social mixing and festivity of a scene from the past.

Unforgivable hotel room selfie to record the dress
Unforgivable hotel room selfie to record the dress

Joining in was even better, to be in the swirl of people and skirts, to pay attention to my feet– my shoes were a little slicker than I would like– and to count the rhythm of the music. While I spent years in ballet class, it is true that those years were surpassed by years in mosh pits and on dance floors of questionable clubs. Country dances made me think of four-dimensional math, with the patterns made by the combinations of active and helper couples, the reversals of direction, and the changing positions of partners: it was like being a living fractal.

*With some exceptions including rollercoasters and sky diving.