Costumes 1 - Smocks and Frocks

Monday 4th February 2013 at the Museum Resource & Learning Centre, Friars Street, Hereford.

We looked at the work of Mary Bufton and the life of the sempstresses of that era (she was active in Hereford in 1830s/40s). Our two objects borrowed from the collection were a sample man's smock and Mary's wedding dress. We found these very inspiring and among other things, we wrote SMOCK acrostics, anecdotes and memories of smocks or shirts and our own versions of modern wedding vows.

It is unusual to see a working class wedding dress as poorer women tended to wear them out - wedding dress to day dress to cut-offs for new clothes until the fabric was completely used up.  This blue cotton dress survives because Mary was fairly well-to-do and could evidently afford to keep her wedding dress.  It's good to remember this when one thinks of the terrible lives lived by many women employed in the clothing trade. 

The poet Thomas Hood famously wrote a lugubrious ballad called "The Song of the Shirt" which had a huge influence in its day.  A short sample will suffice:

The poem was published anonymously in the Christmas edition of Punch in 1843 and quickly became a phenomenon.

With fingers weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread –
Stitch! Stitch! Stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang ‘The Song of the Shirt!’

To cheer us up we then read a parody of this poem attributed to Walt Whitman and published a year later.  He called it (inevitably) "The Tale of a Shirt". 

It begins:

A love-ly maid named Sally Stitch
   I once did sure-ly know,
Who made things for the tailor men
   And made them "very low."

And ends:

Had that sweet girl worked less, and not
   Got into such a pucker:
She might have lived this day, instead
   Of being a gone sucker.

Weddings past and present were discussed - Mary's blue patterned cotton dress seems unlike the modern traditional white dress - invariably plain fabric - and that may have something to to do with Wilkie Collins' "Woman in White" that started such a craze for white dresses. 

The Guardian website has a wonderful collection of modern wedding poems chosen by Carol Ann Duffy. Visit -  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/23/wedding-carol-ann-duffy-poetry

Here are samples of two of them:  

Alan Jenkins
The Sailor's Vow

The life I spent so lavishly
Before we met
Seems one long night, in memory,
Of sea-fever and sea-fret –

Which led me here, to you, to this:
Our haven below decks.
You anchor me, I you, with a kiss 
(Though the coast is strewn with wrecks).

 

Ian Duhig
Bridled Vows

I will be faithful to you, I do vow 
but not until the seas have all run dry 
etcetera: although I mean it now, 
I'm not a prophet and I will not lie.

To be your perfect wife, I could not swear;
I'll love, yes; honour (maybe); won't obey,
but will co-operate if you will care
as much as you are seeming to today.

I'll do my best to be your better half,
but I don't have the patience of a saint;
not with you, at you I may sometimes laugh,
and snap too, though I'll try to learn restraint.

We might work out: no blame if we do not.
With all my heart, I think it's worth a shot.

Apparently it was common practice for Herefordian men to wear a smock when they got married and the tradition continued until fairly recently. Hard to imagine but then the tradition of kilt wearing on formal occasions is still a strong one in Scotland.

This is my last post for this series but I have handed the baton to the splendid Sara-Jane Arbury who is continuing to rifle the costume collection with the help of Althea Mackenzie.  I would like to thank Althea for her expert help and great enthusiasm for the project. 

I'd also like to thank once again Catherine Willson, Sam Craig, Siriol Collins and Jacki Addis whose help and support have been invaluable.

Segments is sponsored by Ledbury Poetry Festival.  http://www.poetry-festival.co.uk/

Ceramics 3 - Victorian kitchens and patent cookery aids

We had a frivolous time considering the triumphs and disasters of the kitchen.

Our Victorian forebears had no microwaves, induction hobs or electric gadgets of any kind BUT they had Grimwade's Quick Cooker (no pudding cloth required) and Sam Clarke's "Fairy" Pyramid Food Warmer - price 6 shillings; and many other wonderful inventions to ease their culinary burden.

This moving poem is an example of copywriting at its finest:

These words are inscribed on the "Fairy" and must have brightened many a long, dark night...

And as if this wasn't enough we also had Penelope Shuttle's poem, In the Kitchen, to inspire us. It begins:

A jug of water

has its own lustrous turmoil

The ironing board thanks god

for its two good strong legs and sturdy back

Then we moved on to the exciting subject of puddings and Grimwade's splendid "Quick Cooker" which has a rather nice string guide ...

and many other splendid features.

And of course, considering the pudding at this time of year led on to that famously meagre pudding served up by Mrs Cratchit in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". 

Mrs Cratchit left the room alone -- too nervous to bear witnesses -- to take the pudding up and bring it in... Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper which smells like a washing-day. That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that. That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered -- flushed, but smiling proudly -- with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quarter of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Charles Dickens – A Christmas Carol, first published by Chapman & Hall on 19 December 1843. 

Mrs Beeton had things to say about the British appetite - basically it seems to translate as "quantity is far more important than quality".                                                                                           

Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management

“General observations on puddings and pastry”

1178. HOWEVER GREAT MAY HAVE BEEN THE QUALIFICATIONS of the ancients, however, in the art of pudding-making, we apprehend that such preparations as gave gratification to their palates, would have generally found little favour amongst the insulated inhabitants of Great Britain. Here, from the simple suet dumpling up to the most complicated Christmas production, the grand feature of substantiality is primarily attended to. Variety in the ingredients, we think, is held only of secondary consideration with the great body of the people, provided that the whole is agreeable and of sufficient abundance.

We also discussed and wrote about our intense love-hate relationships with kitchen gadgets. There is definitely a "lustrous turmoil" in our feelings about kitchens, food and gadgetry. 

I hope that your puddings are both abundant and of excellent variety. 

Our thanks go to Catherine Willson and all the other staff at the Museum Resource and Learning Centre, Friars Street, Hereford. 

Next year - Segments will be borrowing from the Costumes Collection.  We start again on Monday February 4th -  All are welcome. 

Segments - Ceramics 2 All On A Plate

What are plates for?? 

A whole lot more than a surface to help us on days when the kitchen floor is not so clean that you can eat your dinner off it. 

The Museum kindly lent us two English Delft plates in shades of mainly blue and yellow and a lovely Chinese porcelain plate with gold fish. A bit like these.

Poems we were inspired by:

A Stick Insect's Funeral Poem

Carol Ann Duffy - co-written with Ella Duffy

Goodbye, Courgette

insect pet........

This poem referred back to our previous session that featured insects on ceramics and I have Sam to thank for introducing it to us.

It's amazing how poignant the death of even a scratchy pet can be ...

The poem below linked in with the Chinese plate and the Carol Ann Duffy theme

that seems to have emerged. 

We all loved this one:

A Goldfish

Carol Ann Duffy

I bought, on a whim, a goldfish for a good girl.

It swam in an antique bowl in the kitchen there,

creative among the lentils and the marmalade.....

This symbol means abundance of gold, making the Goldfish a popular symbol in the Chinese culture. One of the most popular New Year's images is a child holding a large goldfish and a lotus flower which brings both wealth and harmony

The goldfish (jinyu 金鱼) is a symbol for wealth because its first character (jin 金) means "gold" and its second character (yu) sounds like jade (yu 玉).
Goldfish also symbolise abundant wealth because the first character (jin) means gold and the second character (yu) has the same pronunciation as the word for "abundance" or "surplus" (yu 余).

Plate proverbs:

All state, and nothing on the plate.French Proverb

When there is little bread at table put plenty on your plate.Italian Proverb
No one knows what the dinner was after the plates have been washed.Danish Proverb
Better a dove on the plate than a woodgrouse in the mating place.Russian proverb
Your friend will swallow your mistakes, your enemy will present them on a plate.Arab Proverb 

I think I like the fourth one best and we challenged the group to write a short story using one of these as the title. There are plenty more out there..

 It’s All in a Name  - Yvette

Perhaps the most difficult thing was watching these poor creatures swimming aimlessly in polythene bags.

Lights created the orange glow, even though the translucent scales were becoming dull in such an artificial environment.

All the children were allowed to do was look, wondering which one they could call their own.  After all they pleaded to their mother it wouldn’t take up much space.

Together the children were worthy of ‘union’ status and several ping pong balls later, not to mention more cash than an aquarium of fish, they proudly held their bags of fish aloft.

Everyone gathered around the newly acquired bowl ~ freedom of sorts for the little creatures.  Through the alphabet the naming process commenced but by the time they had reached ‘S’ the names came slower.  Smurf seemed a good name and then in triumph a little voice announced SMINE ~ and so it came to pass that Smurf and Smine mouthed OMG every time they circled.

Next time - December 3rd. Ceramics in the Kitchen - we have some splendid patent domestic cookery aids.

On the subject of beautiful design Sonia produced this inspired by William Morris:

Segments - Ceramics 1

Cream seems to be our theme.  I selected two cream jugs from the collection this time and this proved to be a rich source of creativity!

First a moment of innocence: 

The Cow 

Robert Louis Stevenson

The friendly cow all red and white,

     I love with all my heart:

She gives me cream with all her might,

     To eat with apple-tart.

She wanders lowing here and there,

     And yet she cannot stray,

All in the pleasant open air,

     The pleasant light of day;

And blown by all the winds that pass

     And wet with all the showers,

She walks among the meadow grass

     And eats the meadow flowers.

The cow creamer jug was quite charming and we wondered if the cream went down its legs ..(it doesn't).  We wrote acrostics on CREAM which revealed a deep inner conflict between health and hedonism.

The second jug was a tiny Worcester jug with fanciful flowers and insects painted on it.  With paired this with the poem "Bees" by Carol Ann Duffy. It begins:

  

Bees Carol Ann Duffy Here are my bees, gold blurs on paper, besotted; buzzwords dancing their flawless airy maps. Here are two of the responses: Yvette Red, Round and No Spots Here is my poem, which I’m writing not knowing this little creature; It’s red, rouge, rose, tinto Oh! Yes red It’s round and makes no sound Wings gossamer thin Delicate, yet cutting like jets through the air It lands, red and round Silently upon it’s prey How else would it stay Ember red, eager for the kill Gently creeping on a delicate leaf And I wonder does it every sleep? In life’s cycle it’s time is short May be we should take note of how this silent little thing All red and round Fills life with endless beauty As though it has a duty to astound the human race Perhaps I should have spotted That it is not But that would be too easy as it could have been A lady of the winged variety Sonia Blue Haze Here is my fairy damsel fly                                          Blue haze of flight Filigree fantasy in the light Into the deep periwinkle of thought – sought, fought brought into the lace, place, taste of the nectar of life spilled into the ink of all I think. We also looked a the Arts & Craft movement led by William Morris: “If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and libertarian socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement. He founded a design firm in partnership with the artist Edward Burne-Jones, and the poet and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti which profoundly influenced the decoration of churches and houses into the early 20th century. As an author, illustrator and medievalist, he helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, and was a direct influence on postwar authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien. He was also a major contributor to reviving traditional textile arts and methods of production, and one of the founders of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, now a statutory element in the preservation of historic buildings in the UK. The theme of beautiful and decorative led to this: Strength in Stitches Yvette An army camp without power, unthinkable, unbelievable but what about the man or men who made it happen?  At 4 am one dark and dank evening the lights could be seen burning outside the military church in Aldershot town.  There, sweat pouring down their faces, could be seen the team of electricians snipping and clipping wires while the generator coughed and splattered.  Not a battle tomorrow but a royal visit!  No excuses, no problems could be presented, this was the military and everything must run like clockwork.  The man in charge would bear the brunt if their majesties were in anyway inconvenienced. Stresses such as these lead to a man’s demise and not many months later my father in law, who was that man, had a complete nervous breakdown.  Not now the man who fixed but the man that needed to be fixed!  So this harsh and sometimes overwhelmingly strict world gave way to hospitals and the quiet realisation that he would never be the same again.  The beautiful tapestry that now adorns my wall is therefore quite special.  He became adept at needlework and the country cottage with its perfusion of flowers and the path leading to the door of a thatched cottage is a tribute to a man’s life.  I often think that the stories that are locked behind the closed door of that cottage are so very far from the military but encapsulated for all time.