The Passage Project

The Return of The Passage Project & A New Blog: memory index

My absence from this blog for the past few months is due to a personal project I have been working on, in addition to a seperate blog called memory index that has been tracking much of its progress. Basically, it is a yearlong inventory of items and tasks exploring the past in the modern world, one day at a time. This project is inspired by my ancestors presence in and eventual migration from the American South beginning in the late 18th century. By taking on many of the chores that were surely practiced, the foods that were undoubtedly prepared, and the objects that would have been part of their daily lives, I hope to get to know them better - and perhaps bring a greater sense of simplicity to my life.

The daily posts are organized in the following 5 categories: COLLECT, MAKE, COOK, VIEW, and NATURE.

So please, when you have some time, feel free to drop by memory index and check on its progress. Below are some of the images that can be found there.

Many thanks,

Trina

NO. 5: COLLECT Vintage Chicago Postcards

Row one: Garfield Park, postmarked Sept. 14 1909; City Hall and County Building, postmaked Sept 3, 1914. Row two: Union Station at Canal and Adams Streets, postmarked Sept 6, 1907; Floral scene and conservatory, Washington Park, Chicago: 1910. Row three: Post Office, postmarked Aug 13, 1908; Washington Park, postmarked Sept 30, 1907

They set out for cities they had whispered of among themselves or had seen in a mail-order calalogue. Some came straight from the field with their King James Bibles and old twelve-string guitars. Still more were townspeople looking to be their fuller selves, tradesmen following their customers, pastors trailing their flocks.

-From Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns

No. 22: COOK Recipe for Strawberries and Cream

 

“The first white visitors to describe it found the Barrens, treeless reaches of grassland where in late spring the wild strawberries reddened with juice the travelers’ horses up to their knees…”

-From Harriette Simpson Arnow’s Seedtime on the Cumberland

  NO. 13: NATURE Purple Coneflower

From left: 1951 vintage botanical print of the purple coneflower, echinacea purpurea, native to the midwestern and southeastern United States; purple coneflower heirloom seeds from Seed Savers Exchange.

“God love admiration….I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”

-From the novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker

 

No. 2: COLLECT Kenton County, KY

A weathered, handmade brick, a branch, and courthouse map dividing up the Kenton County property of Congressman Richard French following his death on May 1, 1854. His northern Kentucky homestead totaled over 265 acres. The main family homestead was located on the outskirts of Mt. Sterling, KY.

In November 2010, I traveled to the neighboring cities of Erlanger and Elsmere in Kenton County to research my ancestors who were slaves belonging to the French family. While there, I found the brick and branch on an empty plot of land in a wooded area that is said to have belonged to French and is included in the above map.

“It is disquieting to be in a place where history is so physically present, yet so glaringly absent from people’s consciousness.”

Caryl Philips from his book The Atlantic Sound

Notes from the Diaspora: Lorna Simpson at the Brooklyn Museum; David Hammons at L&M Arts; Cheryl Will's & the Civil War

Please remind me of who I am, 2009. Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum.

Art
New York City

Lorna Simpson: Gathered continues at the Brooklyn Museum. In her latest solo show the artist primarily uses her large collection of mid-20th century found photos of African-Americans  to "explore the artist’s interest in the interplay between fact and fiction, identity, and history." The exhibition runs through August 21, 2011.

Lorna Simpson will be joined by Deborah Willis, Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at New York University, at the museum to discuss Gathered Thursday, March 10 at 7pm. Willis is the author of several books including Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers, 1840 to the Present and Picturing Us: African American Identity in Photography.

Tickets are $10; $6 for members.

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY
718.638.5000
brooklynmuseum.org

 

Untitled, 2010 by David Hammons. Courtesy of L&M Arts.

For all of those who thought they were running out of time to see David Hammons well recieved show at L &M Arts, you have a bit more time: March 4 will be the last day to catch it.

From The New Yorker's review in their February 14 & 21, 2011 issue:

"Hammons’s show is somehow about everything since Abstract Expressionism—his initial inspiration before he launched his long career as a conceptualist guerrilla, surfacing now and then from jealously guarded obscurity with satirical japes, at once elegant and scorching, on themes of racial and social inequality. Now he has achieved a perfect synthesis of his political animus and his aesthetic avidity. Call it Minimalist Expressionism. Nearly every one of these works belongs in a museum, in a room of its own. Any other art juxtaposed with it would curl up and die."   

L&M Arts, New York
45 East 78 Street
212.861.0020
lmgallery.com

 

 

Books
Everywhere

Cheryl Wills is not only an award winning television journalist, she is now an author. Her book Die Free: A Heroic Family Journey traces her family's roots back to Civil War times as she introduces readers to the story of her great-great-great grandfather, Sandy Wills, who fought as a Union soldier.

Her current book tour has taken her to cities throughout New York state, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., and Maryland. Below is a partial list of her upcoming stops:

February 25–27, 2011
Harlem Fine Arts Show Riverside Church
490 Riverside Drive New York, NY  212.870.6700
hfas.org

February 28, 2011
Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Center
Brooklyn, 6pm
1368 Fulton St
Brooklyn, NY 11216
Phone: 718.636.6900
www.restorationplaza.org

March 1, 2011
Wyandanch Public Library
Long Island, NY 7pm
14 South 20th Street 
Wyandanch, New York, 11798
631.643.4848
http://www.suffolk.lib.ny.us/libraries/wyan/

March 3, 2011
Two Steps Down, Co-sponsored by The Center for Black Literature
Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY 6:30pm
240 Dekalb Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11205
718.399.2020

March 4, 2011
LaGuardia Airport, Paradeis Bookshop
10am

March 12, 2011
First Presbyterian Church
Springfield Gardens, NY

March 17, 2011
LaGuardia Community College
Queens, NY 5pm

 

Books From Thomas Jefferson's Collection found at Washington University

 

Image of Thomas Jefferson's copy of Plutarch's "Lives" from Monticello.org.

 

Over 70 books from Thomas Jefferson's vast book collection were recently found at Washington University in St. Louis. While doing research on Jefferson's granddaughter Ellen Wayles Coolidge, Ann Lucas Birle from the International Center for Jefferson Studies learned from a Google search that descendants of Coolidge and her husband Joseph Coolidge donated 3,000 books to the university in 1880. Joseph Coolidge originally purchased the books from Jefferson's estate following the former president's death July 4, 1826.

And how did historians confirm that the books had belonged to Jefferson? Birle said, like many collectors, Jefferson initialed each of his books:

"Jefferson typically marked his books by adding his initial “T” to the I-quire signature, and his initial “I” (for J in the Latin alphabet) to the T-quire signature."

 If you know any about Thomas Jefferson, you know that he was an avid book collector throughout his life. He sold roughly over 6,000 books from his personal collection to the Library of Congress after it was destroyed in a fire set by the British in 1814.

Shirley Baker from Washington University and Birle appeared on NBC's Today Show this morning to discuss the find and brought a few of the recently discovered books with them.

To learn more about the books Thomas Jefferson's collected throughout his life, visit the Thomas Jefferson Libraries Project.

 

I'm in Love: Garden & Gun Magazine

 

 

Picked up the current issue (February/March) of the Southern lifestyle mag Garden & Gun today on my way into work this morning. Must get a subscription soon. It's their music issue and among all the banjo loving artists is my personal favorite: Carolina Chocolate Drops (their album Genuine Negro Jig has been nominated for a Grammy this year for Best Traditional Folk Album).

And for all of those who love all things Kentucky, G&G's August/September issue has a story on the great city of Lexington.

My Quest for Game: Look No Futher than The New York Times Cafeteria

Courtesy of the National Museum of the American Indian

 

For the past six months or so I've been on my very own personal quest to try different types of game. Why? Well, I've been doing a great deal of research into my family history and have become curious about the types of foods my ancestors might have eaten while living in more rural settings in Kentucky and Virginia. While the best game-oriented meal I've eaten so far were the dry-age buffalo steak sliders from the restaurant of the Teton Mountain Lodge and Spa in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I was caught off-guard at work yesterday when the cafeteria at my job  served up roasted venison thanks to guest chef Richard Heltzer of Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. (which I visited for the first time in December). He was in town promoting his new book The Mitsitam Cafe Cookbook: Recipes from the Smithonian Museum of the American Indian. (There was a book giveaway the same day which I sadly lost and pouted about the following day in the office.)

The vension was served with a rosemary demi sauce and was much better than expected, especially because it was being served cafeteria style and not made to order. It did not have the strong game taste imagined it would, tasting more like beef. The meat was cooked perfectly (medium) and appeared to come straight from the kitchen. Seriously good lunch.

Also served with the meal was a side of oyster pudding which I must learn to cook myself. I will be ordering a copy of the book a.s.a.p.

The Miseducation of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, April 14, 1865 - No, Make That 1864

   Courtesy of the National Archives

American history buffs everywhere shared a collective groan today as we learned from a that amateur historian Dr. Thomas Lowry of Virginia tampered with the April 14, 1864 presidential pardon of Civil War veteran Private Patrick Murphy of California who was court-martialed for desertion, according to a press release issued by the National archives. It appears that while visiting the National Archives about 13 years ago Lowry took matters into his own hand with his Pelikan pen and changed the year manually to 1865 on the original document.

And why would he do this, you ask? Attention. Greed. Perhaps a wee bit of crazy. After news spread regarding his "find" he received nationwide attention for locating a document that might possibly be Lincoln's last act as President before his assassination later that evening during a production of Our American Cousin at Washington D.C.'s Fords Theatre.

 

 

 

My Essay Ingredients in the November Issue of Underwired Magazine

 

 

I'm very happy to report that my essay Ingredients appeared in the November issue of Underwired Magazine! This Louisville based publication is beautifully designed and a wonderful read.

 

Ingredients

In my tiny Manhattan kitchen, I laid out the ingredients for Kentucky batter bread using a recipe from The Blue Grass Cook Book compiled by Minnie Fox. Originally published in 1904, it is a tribute of sorts to the black women who worked in the kitchens of Kentucky households as both slaves and domestics. Among the recipes are chestnut soup, chicken croquettes, roasted venison, fried frog legs, string beans, sweetbreads, and strawberry preserves. My decision to cook a traditional Kentucky meal was brought on by memories of my Kentucky-born father speaking fondly of the food of his childhood and my recent introduction to my maternal grandmother’s enslaved ancestors who lived on a homestead outside of Mount Sterling. The news of the restoration of a small, overgrown family cemetery that included an area for slaves populated by these same family members pushed me over the edge. I decided it was time to seek out the Kentucky roots on both sides of my family.  

I decided to start with the Kentucky batter bread recipe because it was the most familiar. The recipe also appeared to be somewhat simple for an entry-level cook, though a lot of legwork was involved. For example, after doing some research I learned that sweet milk was an early term for today’s whole milk. Also, exact measurements were lacking throughout of the recipe so I had to do a balancing act with many of the ingredients and the oven temperature I originally set to 450 degrees. As I clumsily moved along, my mind often wandered. I thought of the of strong, yet overworked hands of an ancestor confidently adding the cornmeal, salt, melted butter, and sweet milk into a bowl without the need to measure, then expertly cracking three eggs before working the ingredients into a thin batter.

I was discouraged from all things related to homemaking at an early age, so my skills on the domestic front are pretty weak. My parents thought it was best that I learn things that would better my chances in the job market rather than at home and I followed them with that line of thinking. While most of my friends took the home economics class offered as an elective in junior high, my parents enrolled me in a typing class because it involved computers and was the lesser of two evils. In college I took an interest in feminist theory and majored in political science. After moving to New York a year after graduation I found it disappointing that so many of my peers who worked as professionals were also skilled knitters.

It wasn't until I reached my early thirties that my negative opinions on domesticity began to melt away. As I read between the lines of the Antebellum-era documents I had collected, I began to get a clearer picture of who my enslaved ancestors were as people. The wills and estate inventories meticulously listing their slaveholders possessions also caused my imagination to run wild with probable scenarios for how the items were used by my relatives: a pitcher filled with fresh water, most likely from a nearby well, was carefully placed beside the matching wash bowl for the mistress of the house; the handsome bedding and blankets that were not theirs to sleep on were scrubbed and boiled in hot water; six silver cups and three silver tumblers were polished twice a year; two bread pans baked in the overheated kitchen; a silver ladle cautiously poured oyster soup into bowls during dinner; the bookcase they dusted was also where they stole a few moments when the house was empty.

As the women spent the majority of their days moving from room to room keeping someone else’s household in order, their children fed the spotted cow that was regularly called on for its milk, in addition to the 100 shoats and three sows that would eventually be slaughtered for their meat. They gathered fruit from the orchard, pulled weeds from the garden, and fetched water for the house that sat on property that once totalled 500 acres. Their husbands harnessed oxen to a wagon so supplies could be carried back from a trip to Cincinnati, while their brothers labored in the wheat fields with shovel plows until sunset before retiring to single-roomed cabins shared with their family. My great-great-great-grandfather would have been among them before being freed in 1856.

This is how I understood my ancestors lives to be as I read through Kentucky courthouse records.

The smell of the baking bread filled every corner of the apartment. When I opened the oven door and noticed it was a few shades darker than it was suppose to be, my heart sunk. As I place the pan on the counter to cool, I held my newfound family in my thoughts. I was not just preparing this meal to enjoy with my dinner, but I was also seeking a connection to them. I felt I was somehow standing in for my long-deceased ancestors, giving them some relief from hours of work. My newly prepared, yet overdone dish was my very small, but sincere contribution. Though the baking didn’t go quite as planned, I am sure they would still be proud.

 

Reading Vintage Kentucky - Seedtime on the Cumberland

 

 

I've been spending a lot of time recently researching my family's history. A few years ago I learned that both sides of my family have Kentucky roots so I've been surrounding myself with all things related to the Bluegrass State. Most recently I started reading a 1960 first edition of Seedtime on the Cumberland by Harriette Simpson Arnow. Much of the book details pioneer life in addition to the native plants and wildlife of the Cumberland River Basin. The area is not far from where many of my ancestors lived so I'm getting quite an education on how they might have lived, ate, and survived.

Art, Mixed Media, and Kevin Busta's Birds on Wire

Kevin Busta's Birds on Wire.

I was immeasurably inspired yesterday when I came across a wonderful profile of Birds on Wire (acrylic on vintage blueprint) by artist and furniture maker Kevin Busta's in yesterday's New York Times. Busta, based in Cleveland, discovered several blueprints that had been discarded in a city dumpster. The piece comes with a hefty price tag (the NYT's reported that the piece is "a 30-by-84-inch photograph printed on an original blueprint for a locomotive engine" and runs $5,200).

I love collecting antique maps, photo (including tintypes and cabinet cards), and other vintage printed material so this really got to me, especially because of the meeting of the old and the new. 

Kara Walker's The Treasure Hunters, courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

David Wojnarowicz's Something from Sleep courtesy of the PPOW Gallery. 

Other works of art incorporating repurposed print materials include Kara Walker's The Treasure Hunters, 2007, (mixed media, newsprint, cut paper on gessoed panel), and David Wojnarowicz's Something from Sleep, 1987-1988 (mixed media).

Genealogy Comes to the Apple Store & NBC: Who Do You Think You Are

I got yet another genealogy fix this week. On Wednesday night I attended the SoHo Apple store's Who Do You Think You Are event. On stage were the shows producers Dan Bucatinsky and Lisa Kudow, plus Brook Shields who will be featured on one of the shows seven episodes.

Shields was by far the most engaging of the three. When discussing what she learned about her family history, she went into great detail about what she discovered and how it changed the way she looked at herself and her family. Not only was she able to trace her ancestry to 950 A.D., she also learned about the troubling times that most likely caused some of the disturbing behavior of family members. She specifically mentioned her maternal grandmother when speaking on the subject.

Though I am looking forward to the series, I was disappointed that the event did not include much discussion about the methodology behind the program's research. Kudrow and Bucatinsky seemed to know little about the actual work the genealogists and historians did regarding the show the two are producing. When asked by someone in the audience about the process, Kudrow seemed to continue to  chant the name of the show's sponsor, Ancestry.com. The presence of an actual historian or genealogist would have been beneficial, but maybe organizers sensed a larger crowd would turn out with a celebrity lineup. The presence of Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak would have been a huge asset, especially because she wrote the companion book to the series. (I got it at work a couple of months ago and can't wait to read through it.)

I'm not expecting this program to be as cerebral as the illuminating PBS series Faces of America with Henry Louis Gates Jr.  But I do expect to be thoroughly entertained by the journey of each guest.