Rachel E. Pollock's Blog: La Bricoleuse aggregate and more..., page 15

Supernaut ready! How I use the BioVYZR to teach

Make FAN-tastic & Durable Folding Fans for All Occasions!

Author Chat: "A History of the Theatre Costume Business"

Should I get an MFA? || Pros, Cons, & Caveats for Artists

CosTube Symposium 2021 - August 19-22!

   

In less than a month, the CosTube Symposium is happening on YouTube, Instagram, and Discord! 

Members of the CosTube community will release new video content on costuming and related topics, including premieres and both livestreamed and pre-recorded panels of international guests, throughout the four-day event. 

Instagram events include themed hashtags like #CoSyHatGala, a celebration of millinery and headdresses that I'm hosting; and a Discord server for participants will facilitate conversation, socializing, and networking.

You don't need to register and it's free to participate! Follow the CoSy Facebook account to receive more information--the symposium schedule will be released on August 4. 

I'll be sharing two videos--How to Alter a Bra for Fit and Support, and a prerelease conversation about our forthcoming book, A History of the Theatre Costume Industry--as well as hosting two Instagram events and being part of two panels.

And if you're busy during the symposium itself, all the video content can be viewed after the event on YouTube indefinitely (unless individual creators choose to take it down).

Book Review: Queering the Subversive Stitch

I was absolutely thrilled to receive a review copy of Joseph McBrinn's new book, Queering the Subversive Stitch: Men & the Culture of Needlework, published by Bloomsbury.

McBrinn excavates the history of needlework, embroidery, knitting, and other textile arts in Western cultures, seeking evidence of male practitioners. In antiquity, garment work and needlecrafts were not so starkly gendered as they became under Victorian societal judgements. 

No one will be surprised that this book illuminates how hypermasculine sensibilities have conflated needlecrafts and fiber arts with femininity to the detriment of both female and male artists/artisans working in the medium. Scholarly, well-researched, academic in tone--read it if you want to get pissed off and cross-stitch a bunch of revolutionary samplers. 

Queering the Subversive Stitch features full-color illustrations of embroidery examples, photographs, and more.

Top Five Blog Posts - 15th Anniversary retrospective!

 

 June 15th marks the 15th anniversary of La Bricoleuse! 

LB started out as a blog over on Livejournal (2006-2017), relaunched here on Blogspot, branched out to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram, and finally expanding to a YouTube channel in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In that time, i've worked on the production of costumes for Playmakers Repertory Company, the Utah Shakespeare Festival, the Carolina Ballet, the Public Theatre, Parsons-Meares Ltd., the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Shilling Shockers television show, Troika Entertainment, the Museum of Science Fiction and more. 

Posts from this blog about that work have led to articles published in journals like HATalk, Stage Directions and Theatre Design & Technology. Our research on 3D fabrication for costume production was featured in 3D Printing Basics for Entertainment Design by Anne McMills (2017). I wrote a chapter for the anthology, Theatre Artisans and Their Crafts. The book A History of the Theatre Costume Business: Creators of Character (co-authored with Triffin and Gregory Morris) will release September 30, 2021!

All in all, it's been a great fifteen years.

In this piece, let's look back at the top five blog posts since 2006!

1. The #1 blog post of all time across both blog platforms is on Dye Vat Sourcing . This question gets asked all the time in Facebook groups, Reddit communities, Discord channels, old-school email discussion lists, you name it. Someone gets the funding for a dye vat and realises they have no idea where to buy one. I've yet to make a YouTube video on this topic yet <adds to list> but I did create content on how to clean a dye vat and basic operation training. 
2. Popular blog post #2 is How to Alter a Bra for Better Fit and Support . This post began as a Twitter thread that blew up and went kinda viral (meaning like, a couple thousand Likes, not like, millions). So, I wrote a blog post about it and THAT blew up with views and some great extensive comments. I'm happy to say that I'll be releasing a video version of this post on YouTube as part of the Costube Symposium, August 17-22! Mine will come out August 22.

3. My #3 blog post feature is Leather Straps and Edge Binding. Back at the turn of the millennium, I worked a couple summers as a femme-garment patternmaker for a custom leather studio that catered to the New England kink community. As such, I learned a LOT about production methods for high-quality leather garments and gear, techniques I teach my graduate students in my "masks, mascots, and armor" class. I also filmed a video version of this post for YouTube.

4. Popular blog post #4 is Resources for Working with Esparterie/Spartre/Willow. Why my blog ranks so high in Google searches on the terms for this rare millinery material is a long (but interesting!) story. If you're intrigued, you can watch the recording of a 2020 conference presentation I gave in 2020 on the material and the inspiring milliner with whose legacy I've been entrusted, Madame Sheeta's Esparterie. If you just want information on the material, check out the blog post linked above. Or, if you're a visual learner, you can skip to the last chapter of that Sheeta video! 

5. The fifth and final popular blog post I'll feature is Ask La Bricoleuse: Design vs. Production MFA Programs. This is part of a series of "frequently asked questions" posts I first shared in 2006, about costume-focus graduate study in the US. The series was so popular that I reposted a revised edition of all of the posts in 2019, of which this linked post is the most visited. I'll be launching a series of video versions beginning in July (2021).

There they are, the top five blog posts from fifteen years of La Bricoleuse! Thank you so much for reading, watching, and commenting on every incarnation of this resource.

Please join me Thursday June 17th at 3pm EDT for my Anniversary Party! I'll be streaming live on YouTube from my home studio, eating snacks and looking back at the past 15 years, taking questions from the chat and hopefully seeing many of you there. Drop in, say hi and have a drink or a snack with me!

 

The old blog on LiveJournal - 2006-2017

A History of the Theatrical Costume Industry is Available for Pre-order!

 

 Our book is up on the Focal Press website for pre-order!

Triffin Morris, the head of the graduate program in which I teach, and her journalist husband Gregory DL Morris, have spent over a decade researching A History of the Theatrical Costume Industry: Creators of Character, a history of the professional costume makers of the 20th century. When I had the opportunity to write some section drafts for the book in the summer of 2020, I leaped at the chance! 

You can read a synopsis and chapter list at the link above, as well as pre-order the book, or--even better--do so through your local independent bookstore! (That's probably the most helpful, because it puts us on their radar and they might choose to stock it.) I wrote most of the chapter, "A Stitch in Time: the early designer-drapers" and portions of the chapter, "The Coming of the Continentals: light hands for ballet and opera."

The 232-page book--releasing on September 30, 2021--will include 159 full-color illustrations and photographs. We're planning some book parties post-release, so I'll share more info on those when I get it. Triffin and I will also be filming a book preview panel

If you're on Goodreads, please add it to your Want to Read shelf here!

If you're on Litsy, please add it to your To Read shelf here! (I'm trying to figure out how to get them to reorder the authors, since as of this posting, they have me listed first instead of third, which is not accurate.) 

Next time you're at your local library (or your college library if you're in school), request that they purchase a copy. Library sales are golden!

Book Review: Felting

Felting by Lynn Huggins-Cooper is an interesting new book out through Pen & Sword Books on the history of the felting practice. 

This title will be of particular interest to contemporary and theatrical milliners/hatters working in the medium. There are several chapters devoted to the technological process and shift in methods/purposes for felting throughout history.

Other aspects of interest: there's a lengthy section of interviews with artisans working with the process/medium, and helpful "how-to" chapters concerning the difference between wet felting and needle felting. There's also a helpful directory of suppliers.

If it sounds interesting, check it out or request it at your local library!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

YouTube channel details!

Riley enjoys video content! (He can't read.)

In part inspired by the pandemic forcing theatre and education to navigate streaming/digital delivery otpions, I'm experimenting with a video platform. For the foreseeable future, most of my new how-to and behind-the-scenes costume production content will be videos and streams on my YouTube channel, also called La Bricoleuse. There are also fun things like costume donation unboxings, movie trailers for my classes, and versus vids.

 This blog will still feature book reviews, conference reports, and other content where a text article is more appropriate.

Join me on YouTube and let me know what you think!