Tag: interpretation

Fine Art Friday

On By kittycalashIn History, Living History, Research
Sketching a Cottage, Sept 29, 1816. Watercolor by Diana Sperling
Sketching a Cottage, Sept 29, 1816. Watercolor by Diana Sperling

In a mere four weeks, I will pack the Subaru and head west into New York State as so many Rhode Islanders have before me. And while I will have clothes suitable for the time of the RI Quaker Migration, I will be leaving not to found a more utopian society nor to seek my fortune on a farm. Instead, I’ll be joining some dear friends for a weekend sketching party (minus the horse and carriage).

This new enterprise has required some additional research, and while I look forward to painting miniatures at some point this summer, I suspect this venture will be a simpler proposition. A new dress and apron are the least of my worries: brushes, watercolor boxes, sketchbooks, pencils and pens all require research just when I should be thinking more seriously about the way the Revolution played out as a civil war in New Jersey.

Anne Rushout, ca. 1768–1849, British, 3 sketchbooks of 82 drawings by Anne Rushout (B1977.14.9506-9587), 1824 to 1832, Watercolor on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Anne Rushout, ca. 1768–1849, British, 3 sketchbooks of 82 drawings by Anne Rushout (B1977.14.9506-9587), 1824 to 1832, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Still, the Yale Center for British Art has rarely failed me: a simple search for sketchbook turned up a catalog record for three sketchbooks of 82 drawings by Anne Rushout. These are lovely, well-executed landscapes in a fine British tradition, far more sophisticated than Diana Sperling or Sophie DuPont– I fear I will closer to Sperling and DuPont when I take up sketching again, and can at least console myself that my wonky drawings will be part of a fine tradition of ladies’ accomplishments.

Man and cat, 2004
Man and cat, 2004

The Yale Center for British Art also has a nice Romney sketchbook for Paradise Lost, which demonstrates the cartoon-like nature of preliminary drawings (and I mean cartoon in the old sense, not the Animaniacs sense, though the uses are related). And as I sew my dress of unmatched checks, I have art programming to entertain me: Fake or Fortune, thanks to a tip from Ms B, has provided happy, envious hours of conservation labs, artists’ colourmen, and auction rooms. Vicarious delight, indeed.

Wicked Inspiration

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

You know that musical? The one you can’t get tickets to unless they were willed to you by your grandmother because she was lucky enough to stumble out of the Tardis right at the box office on opening day, but had to buy them for, like, six years from now, and they’re actually for the Kansas City production? The one in which the founding fathers are, you know, brown? My friends and family assumed I’d hate the whole idea, but I don’t. Like so many people, I love it, and not just for the music, though my preferred method of psyching myself up for GeeDubs1790 or What Cheer Day is listening to the Stones or the Beastie Boys all the way up.

So, what then, interests me in “Hamilton,” and why do I think it relates to interpretation? This: the way that the show filters the concerns of the late eighteenth century through the lens of the twenty-first could make for enlightening listening.

My Shot gives me goosebumps: why? Is it because history and civics are finally sexy?

Maybe. But “Hamilton” as a whole, per Rebecca Mead in the New Yorker, “is a hymn to the allure that America promises the immigrant who aspires to reach its shores; it is also an argument for the invigorating power that this nation’s porous borders, and porous identity, have always offered.”

Porous identity. That’s part of why I’m fascinated. But just as “Sleep No More” and Occupy Providence (really really) were partial inspirations for What Cheer Day, “Hamilton” strikes me as the kind of production worth paying attention to. No, I am not suggesting that the paunchy reenactors start channeling their inner Biggie, though I might well pay to see that.

No, what I’m suggesting is that we reconsider what it is we’re doing out there on the field and in the historic houses, and not just what but how and why. Hamilton takes an unexpected approach to history and it’s going gangbusters, while Amazing Grace tanked. So it’s not about the costuming authenticity, though I implore you not to give that up. It’s about the passion. It’s about coming at things sideways.

What makes you love doing laundry, drilling with precision, telling local gossip, making soap, or whatever it is that you love best about your place in the past? Why does all this matter to you so much? What is it that we can learn about today as you teach us about the past? Let loose that love and passion, share those insights, and ten to one you’ll have more fun and excite more visitors.

Maintain an Even Strain

On By kittycalashIn Art Rant, Events, History, Living History, personal5 Comments

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Dude: I am conflicted. There are folks out there doing excellent work, but after reading some recent posts around the interwebs, I kept thinking, “Stockholm Syndrome much?”

I’m as much of a narcissist as the next person, and I think I recognize some of the folks being called out in various places for being critical of women’s roles in living history events. So, organize my own events? Come up with my own things to do?

Cool: challenge accepted.

I am, in fact, throwing down for the pleasure and pain of running a farm in late June. No, I didn’t organize it, but I was asked to take on a challenge and I have accepted, roping my favorite tailor into the effort as well. It’ll mean a bunch of studying, but in a pinch, I can always clean the house. We can rake, make refugees stay in the yard, and try as hard as we can to keep Quakers from putting radical ideas in the slaves’ heads. I think it will be hard, unpleasant, and uncomfortable—and that’s what I don’t like about the suggestions in the otherwise honestly well-intended and meant-to-inspire posts.

Playing at Quadrille. Oil on canvas by Francis Hayman. Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery
Playing at Quadrille. Oil on canvas by Francis Hayman. Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery

They’re so nice. They reinforce women’s subordinate roles in the past and present. Children’s activities? I might die, really, I might. If that’s your bag, go for it, please! We need it. It’s simply not something I can do.

No more can I talk about What People Wore. It’s not that I don’t care (y’all know I do) but that I want to move past the surface.

It’s not enough just to look great.

The Heir: Tom Finds New Wealth. William Hogarth.
The Heir: Tom Finds New Wealth. William Hogarth.

Dive deep: find the dirt. Find the hard stuff. You don’t have to be nice. That’s my personal problem with what I’ve been reading: between the lines I keep hearing a voice suggesting that we be nice girls, that we simmer down. No, I’m sorry. I can’t. Reader, if you can, go for it.

But if you can’t, I want to tell you: Keep pushing. Keep asking. Keep speaking up. Challenge the status quo. Our Girl History did a great post on Well Behaved Women, and I fully support the work people are doing to represent the Well Behaved and the marginalized (shout out to the veteran with the knife-grinding cart: well imagined, sir!).

Russell, John; The Blind Beggar and His Granddaughter; The Bowes Museum;
John Russell. The Blind Beggar and His Granddaughter, oil on canvas, 18th century. The Bowes Museum UK.

Bring it. Bring the ordinary.

But if you can’t be ordinary or run the children’s games or be subservient or show how women dressed, that’s okay. For the love of god, someone, be desperate.

Be hungry, be angry, be resentful, be religious.

Whatever you do, don’t be afraid to speak your mind.

Providence, After Dark

On By kittycalashIn Events, History, Museums2 Comments

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Yes, I like to burn my candle at both ends: let’s get that out of the way up front, as I admit that yes, I am recovering from strep throat contracted a mere week before the evening program, and that immediately after said program, I hopped on the night train to Virginia for a quick vacation.

I walked to the train station, and was struck by the contrast between the closeness of the house lit only by [LED] candlelight and the openness of a city incandescently bright. I’ve walked Providence streets at night for decades, and never appreciated street lights so well until I knew the city didn’t have oil street lights until 1820.*

The LED candles aren’t as bright as real candles, but they’re safer and come remote-equipped.** In the end, I ordered a total four dozen, forgot I’d ordered four dozen, and requested only six dozen AA batteries (each candle takes two), so spent the late afternoon scrounging power sources. With this many candles, we were able to put eight in the Waterford crystal chandelier in the formal parlor, and watch the light play upon the ceiling, even if the room wasn’t fully illuminated.

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We kept the hallways and central stair lit for safety, and gave guests or groups of guests battery-powered candles to carry as they made their way through the house. (All sixty-plus spots on the two tour slots were fully booked.) Downstairs, each of the three docents from our study group interpreted a room: Mrs JF in the dining room, talking about dining and entertaining; Mrs MF in the formal parlor talking about sin, crime, and control; and Mrs AB in the informal parlor talking about novels, music, and family gatherings.

Upstairs, the Director of Education, Ms T, took over one bedroom where she talked about sex and I took another to talk about bedtime, bedding, bedbugs, vermin, chamber pots, and hygiene. Of all sixty-plus visitors, only one, a young man, asked about menstruation. Perhaps the rest were too overcome by the thought of Hannah Glasse’s bug bomb (ignite a pound of brimstone and a Indian pepper in a tightly closed room, exit quickly, and leave it for five to six hours) to ask more intimate questions.

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It was a popular program, and I can imagine doing it again. It does make me wonder about a What Cheer Night, and what that could be like; how far can we push the ways we use a historic house and its contents, when it’s only one day a year?

*It took until 1822 to get a sidewalk committee to concern itself with smoothing the rough patches and straightening the paths; we could use a reconstitution of that committee, thank you.

**Yes, I believe the site manager feels like Dumbledore every time she uses the remote, though she is not yet saying “Nox” as she wields it.