The Grand Tour

 

In the days of the Bluestockings, it was customary for all well educated men of means to take an extanded tour of the continent to complete their education. Some bold women joined in the fun and would travel to France and Italy, reporting their observations of foreign sights, customs, and people to their families and friends back home. Travel was an indespensible part of a liberal arts education, seeing the great cities and artistic accomplishments of the Renaissance, enjoying more liberal society, and getting into a bit of mischief were all part of the Grand Tour.

 

It is in this great tradition that I am entering my own Grand Tour. Three weeks of journeying to The Netherlands, London, and Paris to add to my own education and make my Bluestocking foremothers proud. So after not sleeping for basically 24 hours on planes, trains, and a serious dose of jet lag, I have arrived in Groningen, Netherlands, a University town in the far north of the country. It has the kind of expansive history that we in America can only read about. Many of the main buildings in town were built in the 1400s, and that was only after the first couple attempts burned down or were destroyed in various wars. We climbed the tallest tower in town, called the Martini Tower (as it is part of the church of St. Martin) and were treated to this fantastic view of town…

 

  View of the Grote Markt from Martinitoren.

 I’ve also treated myself to a Dutch tradition by drinking some jenever and gin, which is a traditionally Dutch liquor. Jenever is like the ancestor of gin, and they still make it here as it is part of their cultural history. So I raise my Dutch Jenever and Tonic to this upcoming adventure! 

 

Cheers, 

American Bluestocking

 

Edited with BlogPad Pro

Bluestocking Outing: The New York Public Library

 It’s feeling like Spring in New York City and it sounds like birds singing and 8 million sighs of relief. Wandering with the rest of the Vitamin-D deprived multitude in Midtown, I came upon The New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwartzman building.

New York Public Library Stephen A. Schwartzman Building

Bordering on Bryant Park at 42nd and 5th Avenue, the building’s facade is a well-known architectural icon as a gorgeous example of the Beaux-Arts Architecture style. Founded in 1895 by an agreement to consolidate two major privately owned libraries into a free public library. This was at the turn of the century when New York had recently established itself as a cultural and economic center, comparable to Paris and London in size, wealth, and international influence.

Many people congregated on the sidewalks, taking photos with the iconic stone lions that flank the building, some wearing shorts, a little too eager for spring. Inside was relatively quiet. Handfuls of people milled about, admiring the building, the exhibits, and, I’d like to imagine, reading about the NYPL’s history, though more likely just consulting their travel guides as they tried to agree whether to go to Sprinkles or Magnolia for cupcakes.

I had come to check out the exhibit “Printing Women”, a collection of examples of prints done by women from the 16th and 17th centuries. Displayed along two upper corridors, the collection included portraits, classical scenes, horticultural studies, landscapes. Sometimes the works were originals, but more often, printmaking was the art of replicating well known portraits or paintings so that they could be more widely circulated in print.

Original bluestocking, Angelica Kauffman was a painter, socialite, and female founding member of the British Royal Academy. She printed this self-portrait, which is part of the collection at NYPL.

Suddenly a person could see prominent works of art replicated in print, could see what politicians, artists, or historical figures looked like without having the means to purchase and own the original paintings. It was an accessible art, and women were becoming part of it.

Most of the women artists were aristocrats who learned the trade from their fathers, brothers, or husbands, as art was one of the acceptable domains of an accomplished lady. I also took particular pride in the fact that the prints were collected by a woman, Henrietta Louisa Koenen, in the late 19th century (perhaps proof to the world today that women giving opportunity to other women will be rewarded by history).

I wandered the building after I had finished exploring the exhibit, thinking about the idea of accessibility. It was one of the founding principles of the New York Public Library, as well as one of the benefits of the printmaking art form I had just seen so many examples of. Giving more people more access to the materials and resources that were so often considered to be the property of the elite has been a resounding theme throughout history in the realms of politics and culture. This building is for us, the people of New York, and the many people who visit our city for the same attractions that drew us here in the first place. It is a marble temple dedicated to history, literature, the humanities, and our collective citizenship. And it doesn’t exist behind an iron gate. It is free and available to all of us…one of the many gifts we unwittingly inherited when we came to this great city for all our diverse reasons, pursuing our myriad dreams.

Happy adventuring,

American Bluestocking

Bluestocking Musings: The Life of A Wandering Bluestocking

Let’s review. After traveling to England for a semester abroad, I was inspired by my spiritual fore-sisters who sought knowledge and inspiration and intellectual stimulation before it was really possible or proper for a woman to pursue such things. I was inspired to record my own journey in seeking these same things, which became this blog.

Elizabeth Montagu was the leader of the Bluestocking Society, where ladies who didn’t suffer fools could get together for a chat.

Since January, I’ve been wandering. I took an opportunity to act in a play, and that decision started a half-year adventure of departures and arrivals in different cities, all determined by rehearsal dates and show schedules. This year, I’ve lived in New York for 2 months, Cleveland for 2 months, was a vagabond for a month, and am just beginning the next two months of living in Boise. In some ways feel like I’m on hiatus from real life. My usual support system is thousands of miles away. A new one has crystallized, but I am constantly feeling the anxiety of the temporal nature of my new reality.

And this is the life I have chosen for myself, to pursue a life in the theater. And while I know that pursuit can and will take many shapes in the course of a life, right now it means constant change. So I am trying to be at peace with this change of place, change of people in my daily life, change of self.

But being the bluestocking girl I am, I feel lucky to be currently surrounded by creativity. I have no responsibilities other than to do that one thing that I love to do more than anything in the world—put on a play! And that is a rare and privileged thing in the life of any creative person. So I want to take advantage of this gift and fill myself up as much as possible while I have the opportunity to do exclusively that.

So far that has meant reveling in things like…

…this view during rehearsal (yes, this really happened). And I’ve been doing yoga and meditating…like, on a regular basis. And spending time outside, riding my bike and hiking and seeking out the natural beauty of this place. I jumped in a freezing cold lake the other day and felt great about it.

For a girl who has lived in New York for almost 6 years and who loves nothing more than being inside museums and theaters, this feels very…not ME!

But the truth is that ME is only partially my habitual tastes. It’s also where I am now, who I choose to spend my time with, what I choose to do with my time, what I think and worry about and what I don’t think and worry about. The problem with thinking about this part of my life as a hiatus is that it casts my experiences, musings, relationships, and changing perceptions as part of UN-reality. But this is my life, my REAL and ONLY life, as transitory and unusual as it may seem. And so I am simply living differently for the moment, and trying desperately to be living in that moment.

You can take the Bluestocking Girl out New York City, but you can’t take the Bluestocking out of the Girl.

-American Bluestocking

Bluestocking Outing: Museum of the City of New York

Happy [Belated] 2015! American Bluestocking has an exciting year in store…she’s hitting the road between March and July to follow her heart’s passion…performing Shakespeare! So she will have to find what cultural and intellectual fascinations are to be found in cities other than her hometown, New York.

If you’ll recall, readers, this Bluestocking Girl started her blog as a way to motivate herself to take advantage of the fabulous City of New York, in which she lives. So when she woke up this morning, her impending departure from the city motivated her to go out and revel in New York City!

My costume to Mrs. Vanderbilt’s 1883 Fancy Dress Ball! Too bad she decided to go as Electric Light as well…how embarrassing!

I headed straight for the Museum of the City of New York, where an exhibit called Gilded New York seemed to be right up my tree-lined, cobblestoned alley. The “Gilded Age” of New York was between the 1860’s and the early 1900’s, and is so called because it was a time of huge expansion of industry and growth in the arts in America, especially among the wealthy. I spent some time admiring some Tiffany and Co. baubles and dreaming of the day that I will discover a time machine so I can go to just one fancy dress ball and drink champagne from a dainty coupe glass!

But that’s not even what I want to write about…

For a girl who loves her city and is about to leave it for a little while, what I needed was a dose of Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao’s New York: Assembled Realities. Liao creates amazing panoramic photographs of the city by photographing huge views multiple times over the course of a day and then digitally compositing them into a single image, which can look like this…

Luna Park, Coney Island, Brooklyn. 2010.

The prints are huge and vibrant, and while they are composites of many different images and so not strictly documentary, they capture the spirit of the city probably better than any one individual photo ever could.

Flatiron Building, Manhattan. 2011.

And while he captures sweeping views of the skyline and central park, many of the photographs that captured my attention the most were scenes of more ordinary existence. Or maybe the way that ordinary life exists all around even the most austere and breathtaking sights. It reminded me, most of all, that I’m not having a fling with New York anymore…we’re in it for the long haul (5 years so far and going strong…most days). The real New York doesn’t look like a postcard or a historical landmark isolated in beautiful pristine stillness. When I photograph New York, so often I try to crop out what is ugly, or just ordinary. I think we all want to Instagram “perfect” moments in time without the noise, but we can’t expect life to really look like that, or we’ll never see the beauty in what’s actually in front of us. Of course I admire cityscapes of grand architectural marvels in front of beautiful clear skies, without the tourists in cargo shorts strolling past or the construction site blocking the view. But New York encompasses all of these things and lots more in between. And I think you really become a New Yorker when you can see all the beautiful, crazy, tragic, ordinary, awe-inspiring, gritty, diverse, electric ways that New York exists all at once and love it because of and in spite of all these seeming idiosyncrasies.

On The Way, Staten Island Ferry. 2012.

So basically what I’m saying is….New York City, will you be my Valentine? Because I think I love you.

-American Bluestocking