Monday's Millinery Musings: The Poetry of Hats

BY GUEST BLOGGER JENNIFER

There are so many wonderful comments that have been made about hats over time. Here are a few matched with hats I have made.

"Milliners never seem to have any difficulty discovering geometrical shapes wholly unknown to mathematicians." - Evan Esar

"I myself have twelve hats, and each one represents a different personality. Why be just yourself?" - Margaret Atwood 

(This is my beautiful sister-in-law, Tracy, modeling the hat she wore to the Saratoga racetrack)

"Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her: if you can bounce high, bounce for her too, till she cry, Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you!" - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

"The hat is not quite sensational enough. Add a mass of black veiling..." - Christian Dior

"I wear a hat when I go shopping. I get better service." - Mademoiselle Staffer

Monday's Millinery Musings - Goofball Photography

By guest blogger Jennifer
Jennifer's Etsy Store

Look what Ruth has given me to play with! Cool, huh? Don't you want one?

Oh what is it?

This is a light box that is going to make my life easier. With some coaxing it will pretend to lie flat only to spring back in my face menacingly. Other than that it is a nice pet. I can drape an antique linen sheet inside and take "studio" style photos of my hats and accessories. As you can see, now that it's summer I have moved my operation outdoors to a temporary work space under the arbor. In the winter I'll set this up in the dining room and shine opposing light sources into the box. It will look like a dog box with aluminum earmuffs.

I'm having a big laugh about my abilities as a photographer. You would too if you could see some of the goofy get-ups, props and make-shift lighting I've been forced to in the name of learning to take photos for my Etsy shop. Etsy is an on-line artist's marketplace and every item listed in the shop requires FIVE, not one, photos. This can be a challenge for the photographically impaired.

In an odd way I feel somewhat successful in this pursuit. So far, I can use my dinky, pocket-sized digital Konica Minolta (formerly used for hiking trips) on the automatic setting. If there is one technique, it's that I crawl all over the subject and shoot it from as many angles as possible: here and there, near and far, this way and that.

With the help of my geriatric Mac and woefully outdated iPhoto software I can operate 2 magical buttons to great advantage: CROP and ENHANCE.

When a decent photo accidentally appears I am crazy with happiness.

It seems to me that we all have so many gifts within us.  Often just a good play day can give a strong glimpse into what we are capable of doing on our own.  For me, it has happened around photography. I surprise myself at times and that is a beautiful thing.

At the end of the day, we always know so much more than we think we do. 

It's June 21, and the first day of summer. Have you surprised yourself lately?

Monday's Millinery Musings - A fatal fascination with feathers

By guest blogger Jennifer.

I was once in the San Francisco airport on the way to boarding gate 23 when I came across a number of glass cases filled with hats - new and old, vintage and Victorian. Hats! I was in heaven until my eyes fell upon one particular picture hat. It was a large brimmed felt in a dusky hue, the brim edged in silk, and all around the crown in a veritable morgue lay several dozen preserved hummingbirds. I stared in fascination at their tiny dried bodies, their feathers still glowing with traces of rich color after nearly a century. I could imagine when the hat was new the hummingbirds artfully wired in such a way as to make them seem to hover lightly about the hat in and amongst the velvet leaves and satin ribbon.
But, I must tell you, I felt sad about them.

Hummingbird

Feathers have held sway the imaginations of people throughout history - from Aztec kings with their sweeping capes of hummingbird and quetzal feathers, Wahgi tribals of Papau New Guinea and their red and black feathered ceremonial headdresses, to La Belle Epoque ladies in picture hats elaborately trimmed with the extrordinary emerald, spice, blue, yellow and cream plumes of the birds of paradise, or mountainous froths of pink or purple tinted ostrich feathers.

Lesser bird of paradise

Resplendent Quetzal

Although La Belle Epoque, a brief and frivolous time, covered only the first decade of the Twentieth Century it was long enough to nearly bring to extinction numerous species of exotic birds worldwide.  The demand for elaborately feathered hats, boas, fans and aigrettes (feathered hair combs) was unprecedented. Huge quantities of feathers were imported from the Americas, South Africa and all corners of the British Empire. Most of the feathers found their way to Paris, where there were 800 plumassiers, feather-making workshops, which employed nearly 7,000 people. Feathers were very big business and the cry for more and more exotic feathers could not be satisfied.

Osprey

Finally, dawn broke in the minds of some - including Britain's Queen Alexandra who agreed to ban ladies from court who wore osprey feathers in their hats - and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in England and the National Audubon Society in the United States came into being. Their mission then and now is to conserve and protect bird populations worldwide. They have done well for the birds.

Ostrich

Today there is one plumassier left in Paris, M. Andre Lemarie whose mother started the business over 100 years ago. I imagine every so often Monsieur Lemarie opens the tattered tobacco colored boxes and looks lovingly at the long saved and treasured birds of paradise and osprey feathers among so many rare and fine feathered treasures that make up his vast collection.

Marabou Stork

Hatmakers everywhere still love feathers, but we have learned to use farmed ostrich, pheasant, duck and cockerel feathers - and to great advantage. Milliners have always been able to adapt to change, and indeed welcome it.

Blue Bird of Paradise

Monday's Millinery Musings - Ganesh - In praise of a Sturdy Hat

By guest blogger Jennifer.

Jennifer's Etsy Store
One September, in the dead of night, the nearly 300 year old Valley Oak that had stood watch for centuries on the northwest corner of our property mysteriously split down the center of its trunk, pulled apart by its own massive limb, and came crashing down to the ground.

Half of its huge canopy covered our front garden and the 2 lane road in front of our house. It took a back hoe, 6 chain saws, 2 dump trucks, a chipper and 15 burly fellows 2 hours to remove this one limb. A few weeks later a similar crew came and spent all day cutting down the remainder of the tree.

No person or creature came to harm and no property was destroyed. It was miraculous. It was grace.

In the very heart of the wreckage, buried in the fallen canopy, clamly sat Ganesh, our beloved garden protector, who is carved of soft Indonesian tufa stone. In Hindu mythology Ganesh is the destroyer of evils and obstacles to seekers on the spiritual path. He stands at the threshold of new beginnings and captures all difficulties with his noose. His blessings include all manner of success, knowledge and wisdom.

His elephant head denotes wisdom, his trunk OM - the primordial sound that brought all creation into being, his body represents the earthly lives of human beings (he has a big pot belly!). He is humble enough to ride the lowest creature as his “steed” - a mouse. Ganesh is very well loved in India. And, you may have guessed already, Ganesh wears a hat!

 

Our Ganesh was not unseated by this calamity of the tree falling but rather watched calmly from atop his stone seat. The only damage to our garden aside from a few crushed plants, was to Ganesh’s hat - the spike on top of his ornate helmet was snapped off, so cleanly in fact that Dave was able to glue it back invisibly. No harm done!


Over time our garden has become more beautiful as it bathes in the new found sunlight. The olive trees and lavender have come into their own and the Calville d’Hiver heirloom apple espalier is taking off. The roses, once struggling to grow and bloom in the dappled shade of the oak tree, have shot up and out, the Nearly Wild and Knockouts exploding into a joyful pink riot of blooms each spring.

And the birds are back. The blue jays and towhees often sit on Ganesh’s fan-like ears (he is all ears to our petition!). They sharpen their beaks on his spiked helmet. Ganesh sits at his ease, ready in a moment to rise and protect the garden and all beings who enter it. He is never without his hat.

Best wishes and a happy spring to you!

Monday's Millinery Musings - Travelling between worlds

By guest blogger Jennifer  
Jennifer's Etsy Store

The title of Ruth's blog, "Inside the Artisan", has always given me pause.  So the other day I asked myself what in the world was inside of me when I made this beret and why do I like it so much and wear it more than any of my other winter hats? What's going on "Inside the Artisan"?

It got me to thinking about the famous British milliner, Stephen Jones, http://www.stephenjonesmillinery.com, who when asked where he gets the inspiration for his astonishing hats, replied simply, "I live my life and make a hat out of it." With this in mind, I wondered about the source of my own inspiration for the kelly green beret. I discovered it is exactly as Stephen  Jones said. It comes directly from daily life, as you will see.

I haven't always been a milliner. I was at one time a professional baker and baking is still very much a part of my life. Without meaning to, I made of fulled strips of wool jersey something akin to flakey pie crust around the edges of the beret.

When I make ginger scones the batter is patted into a round and cut out in sections exactly like the top of the beret, then baked on a stone until they are golden and irresistible.

It came as a delightful surprise when the connections were made between baking and hat making - the unconscious freedom of creativity to move between worlds without our intervention but definitely for our benefit. I wear this hat often because it so perfectly reflects a meaningful aspect of my life, not to mention that it is warm and comfortable and soon it will be Saint Patrick's day and I will be safe from pinches.

What is something you do normally that finds its way into your art and expresses itself in a fresh, new way? How does your creativity travel between worlds?

To celebrate the happy marriage of baking and millinery I'd like to share with you my favorite ginger scone recipe:

 

Turn oven to 425 degrees

2 c flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tb baking powder
1 Tb sugar
1/2 c unsalted butter (1 cube)
1/2 to 1 c crystallized ginger, chopped (being a fan of ginger I always use 1 c and it's the perfect amount)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 c  milk ( a little more if the dough seems dry)
1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix the dry ingredients together. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the pieces are about pea size or smaller. Add the chopped ginger. In another bowl mix together the egg, milk and vanilla. Stir everything together until it is just mixed and avoid over-mixing. Flour your hands and the counter. Shape the dough into a ball. Pat the ball with your hands until you have a round disk about 1 inch high. Using the beret top as the example, cut the dough into wedges - in half, quarters, eights. If you like, you can brush the tops of the scones with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the scones are lovely, golden and you want to eat them.

Note: These scones are so good with a pile of fresh, ripe strawberries. And cream if you like it.