Jehossee Rides Again: Part Two

Yes, I had WAY too much fun with the mannequins. Ahem. Moving along...

On the day of the set-up, assembling and dressing the mannequins required about 3 hours of work. At least half of that time was spent trying to figure out how to cram the arms into the sockets, followed by trying desperately to keep the arms from falling back out of the sockets. Dressing a mannequin with a full compliment of limbs requires skill and coordination. I do not possess these qualities, so I had to rely upon profanity and non-traditional dressing procedures that resembled the Heimlich Maneuver.

Boobs. They happened.

Every garment presented a new challenge. The most difficult was the Harriet Aiken dress, which had to be arranged on one of the lovely boobalicious mannequins. These mannequins belong to a nice, modern design firm which uses them to display nice, modern clothing to represent the nice, modern feminine ideal. Which meant that the nearly 6-foot tall mannequins had 25-inch waists and 38-inch bosoms. I had already decided to display Harriet in a seated position, if possible. Luckily this was the ONLY posture that allowed the dress to close at the waist and sit more or less correctly on the form around the... intrusive interior objects.

 Before the nerds among us get bothered by the sight of the 1849 dress arranged on the 1880's love seat, you should know that this was for an 1863-themed event. Bwahhahaha!!

None of the mannequins was designed to "sit," so this was an engineering marvel. Ultimately, Harriet was jacked up in a sitting position through the artful use of a fleece blanket from my car, three books that I relocated from the library shelves and one of her own legs.

The rest of the garments were arranged on the standing mannequins, with an eye towards giving them a "reason" to be wherever they were. The dress below was oriented next to the pianoforte as though the intended wearer (French Governess Pauline Boudet, in theory) was at attendance on a pupil.

I really did not want to have the mannequins lined up in the hallway, or clumped in a convenient corner. It was my hope that as people wandered through the house on the day of the event, they could catch glimpses of the garments in a "natural" setting. (However natural a gaggle of decapitated plastic women can be.) Despite the invitation to display the clothing and address the tour groups about it, I wanted it to be in the background. People came to see the house, not my stitchery. And truly, since I designed every garment to be as close to average day garb as possible for the intended wearer, the clothing made more sense "walking around" than it ever could have in a glass box.

 Plus, it was fun spooking people. (Including myself). Walking quickly from one room to the next was a perfect recipe for "finding" one of the mannequins unexpectedly. As I look at these pictures, I can still hear Pearl the housekeeper screaming as she came around the bottom of the steps...

 What mannequins, Pearl?

Next time: A little less talk and a lot more of my mother in a polyester dress!

Jehossee Rides Again: Part One

So lately, I've been doing a lot of body dismemberment and relocation. This requires the use of black trash bags and a can-do attitude.

Come with us, Alison.... it's just on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge...

The curator of a local historic home invited me to bring the Jehossee exhibit to roost for a while to coincide with their annual celebration of The Last Meeting of the Confederate Cabinet. (Yes, the capital letters are necessary. I live in the South.) She felt that it would lend a bit of intimacy and social context to the event, which is largely militaristic and political in its modern re-creation.

And I felt like it would be fun to hang out in such a classy joint without being asked to leave by the police.

The house, called the White Homestead, is lovely. Like many gracious old homes, it has lived many lives and boasts several additions which were added under the auspices of various generations since the late 1830s. The center of the home is generally fashioned like a Victorian parlor and dining room, with four bedrooms above.

You can practically hear your grandmother crow "WIPE YOUR FEET!!" can't you?

I decided to set the clothed mannequins up as though they were inhabitants of the home. This required actually finding mannequins. And this is where my dress-form/mannequin/stuffed corpse luck turned around. The family that owned this home for much of its existence are also the local mill owners from years gone by. And business is still good. Their current operation is locally based and boasts a "creative" facility which doubles as an archive for the family business.


And did I mention? They have mannequins. NICE mannequins. With hands and feet and improbably huge boobs. Which I guess they need for "creative" purposes back at the factory.

  She's got leeeegggggsssss! And she knows how to uuuusssse them!

Having the mannequins was amazing. Putting the d@$* things together was a different story. They were delivered to me in three contractor-size trash bags with various, unlabeled body parts grouped together. I said many a silent prayer of thanks for the years I wasted  spent playing Tetris on the family IBM Compatible. Assembling the new Team Jehossee would have been much easier had I not been terrified that I would make one false move and accidentally destroy the irreplaceable French gaming table, or whatever.

And did I destroy it? No!

It was like that when I got there.

Slowly bringing the house down to my personal standards of cleanliness...

Despite a healthy amount of anxiety and pretty much no clue how I was going to do what I wanted to do, set-up went astonishingly fast. I was motivated by the assurance that it had to be done that day, no matter what and that children would throw rocks at me if I failed. 

So basically, it was Middle School all over again. 

Coming up: Part Two! And more of this:

Jehossee Installation: Part Two

UPDATED

Sorry for the occasionally poor picture quality! I really wanted to finish this entry, but I don't have access to all of my personal photos yet. Consequently, some of these pictures are... "borrowed." They will be replaced in the near future. In the meanwhile, no, it's not your monitor. Squint with enthusiasm!

 From left to right: cotton roller-print dress for an 8-12 year old slave girl from the Aiken's Charleston home; Henrietta Aiken's plaid silk bodice and skirt trimmed; an antique chemise, c. 1855-1870 inscribed "Belle Canting"; a muslin chemise on a linen cord, meant to represent a plain variation of the shift a slave may have worn; cotton sateen pantalettes.

I was interviewed by a Highly Respected Local News Source* last week as part of the ongoing small-town fanfare and relentless opportunities for self-ridicule that keep coming my way these days. It was pretty awesome. I've been in the paper before, but always as a gaping bystander to a horrific accident, or a gaping bystander to a carnival freak, or a gaping bystander to a parade of carnival freaks that lead to a horrific accident. So this was new. Mainly because I knew that there would be cameras in advance.

*the only newspaper in town.

The story came out this week. It is a very nice little piece complete with pictures of the exhibit and an online video clip of me rambling incessantly about chemises, flopping my hands around like oxygen deprived fish and occasionally, opening my eyes.

Yes. So this is what I look like when I have been given time to prepare AND pose. 

Photographer: "Just act naturally!" 

Me: "Hurrrrrrr!! Chemise."

Where did we leave off? Let's see... I moaned about the Cranky Ladies and... well, that was pretty much it. Onward and upward!

Everything was set up on the first day, except Harriet's dress. There were several reasons for this, all of which revolved around the fact that the bloody thing wasn't done yet. Luckily, I finished it in time and set it up hours before the reception on my own dress form, Headless June.

 Harriet's blue silk taffeta striped dress, derived in style from an 1849 fashion plate reproduced in C. Willett Cunnington's English Women's Clothing in the Nineteenth Century. The chemisette and sleeve inserts are antique originals from my own collection.

The obvious advantage to using Headless June was that I knew the dress would fit, and that there was almost no chance of needing a tetanus shot before the evening was out. Damn you, Jangles...

The exhibit was comprised primarily of the garments I made, liberally seasoned with surviving extant artifacts and garments, and informative placards.  The total list of items ultimately included over 30 handmade garments, augmented by an antique chemise, quilted petticoat and quilted vest and the chemisette and sleeve inserts displayed with Harriet's gown. Additionally, I filled two cases with reproduction and antique shoes and  stockings, and a small collection of 1840's women's periodicals.

 This was taken right before I filled the cases and walls with insipid little informative signs. So imagine this, only more cluttered. From the top moving clock-wise we have an 1849 "Godey's Lady's Book," an 1847 "Sharpe's London Magazine," an 1846 "Ladies Wreath," and a single May, 1850 issue of Godey's.

 Overall, the experience has been really good. I have been genuinely shocked at the level of interest that people have expressed, both as fellow costume enthusiasts and local history buffs. Is the exhibit perfect? No. But it's better than I ever could have expected. And it may have a life outside of this first showing. A few of the local historic sites have contacted me about setting up parts of the exhibit for smaller events throughout the summer. 

 People milling around, trying to act like this isn't THE GREATEST THING THEY'VE EVER SEEN IN THEIR WHOLE LIVES, EVER.

Numerous people have suggested that it would be wise for me to build my eventual master's thesis upon the Jehossee project. I can certainly see the wisdom in doing that... in theory. But I really think that it is time to move on.

Hopefully to something even more conversationally awkward! 


If you have waaaaay too much time on your hands and are interested in a) stalking me or b) hearing what a public school education and at least two personality disorders can do for your public speaking skills, check here or here.

Jehossee Installation: Part One

 My life has not been my own for quite a while now. As I occasionally lament, the Jehossee Plantation project (start here and here if you enjoy redundancy and whining) has for much of the past 9 months, sucked the very life from my feeble, pasty body leaving a pock-marked, increasingly wrinkled, red-tressed husk in its wake.

But now! I'm back. Or getting close to human again, at any rate.The project was technically submitted for a grade before Christmas, on the basis of what I'd finished at that point and an additional written assignment. The delay in the Archives building opening to the public allowed me to drag out the last of the sewing far past the end of the semester, well into this here glorious new year. (Yaaaay, procrastination!!) But all dawdling must eventually culminate in days of frantic activity, and thus the installation day was upon me.

The artist in repose. Actually, I have no idea what I'm doing here. Arranging the burlap. On the floor. With a lingerie hanger. These are troubled times we live in.

I was met in the Archives by a motley crew of donated* dressforms upon which I was expected to perpetrate my grandeur and awesomeness. As I wrestled with them in turn, I came to understand their quirks and gave them names to ease the process and offer a more focused outlet for my invective. The names were easy to remember because they were generally rooted in the unique psychosis/ deformity of each of the Cranky Ladies. (See what I did there?) They were respectively, "Charcoal Charlie," "Jangles," "Crunky Brewster," "Kevin" and "Assless Boobs On A Stick."

*abandoned

The dressforms really were in hilariously bad shape. They all were either rusted into useless heights or worn out so that the gears no longer functioned. Even after being bludgeoned into seeming submission, they continued to flop around in obscenely inviting postures and made the kinds of noises I associate with orgasms amoung the elderly.

 Charcoal Charlie in action. This was the dress form that greeted me when I first arrived and began setting up. I was told that she was tragically burned in a house fire... 40 years ago. This was by far the nicest of the dressforms.

I have no idea what I expected. I've never set up an installation of anything before, (unless you count my canned goods, which I delight in maintaining as though there is a small but proud Grocer who lives in my pantry) but this was quite a challenge. My school's new Archives is a thrice-remodeled building which was recently beautifully furnished with new display cases. (All of which were too heavy to move, so a lot of the creative decision-making on how to arrange the cases themselves was taken out of my hands.)

 You can see Assless Boobs on a Stick chillin' out there behind Jangles, who is sporting Pauline Boudet's fan-front dress. Those sad little calico piles on the floor behind her? That's the last 9 months of my life.

The rest of the materials at my disposal amounted to the fore-mentioned Cranky Ladies and an assortment of used coat hangers and duct tape. All of which I used, mainly on each other. Luckily, I managed to cram most of the dressforms into the lovely, insanely heavy mahogany cases that lined the walls. In order to disguise the fact that no two of them could stand up straight (except Kevin, who was technically, literally a MANnequin) I decided to arrange the garments with some subtle suggestions of natural movement or posture. This worked out well, and prevented the whole mess from looking too formal or staid:

 

Crunky Brewster turned out to be preggers! Congratulations, CrunkyBrewster!

Because I have lots of problems with being too formal and staid.

Installation day was about 3 weeks ago, and at that time Harriet's dress was not yet finished. So for Part Two, we'll explore that and oh, so much more!

Let's meet the girls!

For clarity for anyone interested, this is the list of "subjects" that will be... a-dressed? for the Jehossee project. (I love a pun, I do.)

"A"- An infant under the age of 1 which resides on Jehossee Island and is possibly the daughter of D.

"B"- A little girl aged 3-6 whom is a full-time resident of Jehossee.

"C"- A little girl aged 8-12. She is a resident of the Aiken's primary residence in Charleston and may be the daughter of E.

"D"- A woman aged 15-35 who lives and works full time on the Jehossee Island plantation.

"E"- A woman aged 40-60 who lives and works full time at the Aiken-Rhett home in Charleston. She may be a housekeeper or the like. She always travels with the family when they shift households.

"F"- A woman aged 60+ who lives full time on Jehossee. She may be responsible for the nursery or sewing room.

Harriet Aiken- William Aiken's 36 year old wife and the mistress of Jehossee Island Plantation.

Henrietta Aiken- Harriet's daughter, aged 12.

Pauline Boudet- A 20 yr old free French immigrant who may act as a ladies maid to Harriet and/or teach French to young Henrietta.

The project is meant to represent "a day" in 1850 on Jehossee  Island with regard to the plantation. The point is to demonstrate as accurately as possible the types of garments worn by each individual at each age and responsibility level. The lettered women and children represent slaves owned by William and Harriet Aiken. Their names are not provided because their names are unknown. I felt that it was in extremely poor taste to "assign" arbitrary names to people who actually existed. They do represent real people. The 1850 census lists all of the slaves that worked on Jehossee Island by gender and age. The letters are for clarity and organization for my sake.

The three free, white women, Harriet, Henrietta and Pauline are known by age and name. Pauline immigrated to Charleston in 1850 and was listed as a resident in the Aiken household in Charleston that year according to the census. I decided to go with all females because otherwise, the project would have been truly unweildy in the time that I had to work with. And because I really didn't want to have to learn to make pants.

So now we're all on the same page when I start whining about "B's damned shift" or whatever.