Rachel E. Pollock's Blog: La Bricoleuse aggregate and more..., page 37

how do you put your boots on?

I was talking to a friend the other night about the writing of The Decadence Papers (the novel for which I'm currently seeking literary representation), how it came about in the first place and what my motivations were and are WRT it as a piece of literature, and i thought perhaps i might share some of that here in the blog.

See, when i first wrote the first draft of it, i really only wanted to see if i COULD write a novel. I’d written short stories and essays, but nothing long-form. A friend of mine, Trystan L. Bass, had just turned 30 and shared a goal-list she’d made at 20, entitled “Things to Do Before I’m 30.” It was a fun idea and made me wish i’d made such a list. Trystan had done a lot of the things on hers, but one thing that jumped out at me was “Write a novel.” And i thought to myself, “I may not have made a long list to work on, but i do want to write a novel before i’m 30.”

I had no idea how, or really what it was going to be, but i’d been writing these little short stories and character sketches based on people i knew in the clubs, and the novel developed from there. I figured i should “write what i knew,” and since at the time i DJed several nights a week at goth/fetish/gay nights around Boston, what i knew was club culture.

I did finish it before i turned 30, and then i put it aside. I could tell that it needed major revisions and rewrites, but i had no clue how to do such a thing, so i just walked away from it. I started taking writing classes. I went to grad school. I wrote a bunch more short stories, essays, three more first drafts of other novels, and a masters thesis. And then, like i said in a prior blog post, Lou Reed died, and i reread my draft of The Decadence Papers, and yeah, it needed major work, but I also felt driven to do that work.

See, something that had struck me in the intervening years was the dearth of any fiction that actually depicted what went on in goth clubs at the turn of the century. That whole nightlife subculture was so vital and so fascinating. As the goth scene grew and expanded and transformed, it began to overlap into other nightlife cultures--goth nights at fetish clubs, goth nights at gay bars, goth nights in drag-show venues. And it struck me that no one had written that world from the inside in long-form fiction, except as convenient set-dressing.

Sure, you can find a whole host of novels in which there are random characters who are “the goth one,” though they are usually characters who are still in high school, and the generic goth club has practically become a cliche setting for genre pulp and supposedly-edgy paranormal YA. But it’s as if the whole subculture, in literary terms, exists only as a backdrop against which OTHER dramas play out.

Vampires fight werewolves...in a goth club!

A misunderstood teen discovers she has magic powers and must fight the forces of darkness...in a goth club!

A sadistic serial killer stalks sexy artist chicks...in a goth club!

But the clubs i DJed in for years and years? Well, maybe some LARPers played out games in them in which “vampires” fought “werewolves” using Rock-Paper-Scissors, but really, the clubgoers weren’t overwrought teenagers or murdering sickos--they were fascinating people with actual human dramas and problems and loves.

In the cultural soup of a goth club like Manray in Cambridge or Neo in Chicago, you could find astrophysicists hanging out with high school dropouts, and they might be discussing Nietzsche or they might be telling fart jokes. You’d meet people of every conceivable sexual orientation and gender identity, and ranging in age from late teens to retirees. People of many different cultural and ethnic and religious background mixed freely in those places, and folks who’d grown up dirt-poor became the friend or lover of someone with significant wealth.

And where was THAT in a novel? Because if that’s not a pretty amazing playground for fiction-writing, i don’t know what is. Sure, i’m down for reading a paranormal romance in a goth club, or a schlock horror pulp in a goth club. But i wanted to write about the reality of those places.

When your social life becomes your job, how do you cultivate meaningful friendships? When your biology doesn’t reflect your gender identity, how do you share that fact with your new girlfriend? When you move in a subculture that celebrates death, how do you legitimately grieve the overdose of a lover?

These are some of the things my characters struggle with. They might spend their lazy afternoons reading about the predatory vampires of Anne Rice or the Endless of the Sandman universe, but really, they put their boots on just like everyone else--one foot at a time.

Spoonflower tour with the Playmakers Summer Youth Conservatory

My current gig is to serve as the costume shop manager for the Summer Youth Conservatory at Playmakers Repertory (the company for which i serve as the crafts artisan throughout the regular theatre season). The conservatory is our summer program for middle school and high school students, a five-week program during which we rehearse, open, and run a show with the full support of the theatre's resources--costume stock, Equity stage managers, the scene shop, etc.

This summer we're doing H...

Writing Process Blog Tour

So, my super-fantabulous, brilliant colleague and fellow writer Margaret Peot tagged me in the Writing Process Blog Tour. Margaret is a supremely talented artist, illustrator, costume painter, and author, and one of my favorite people in all of New York City. Y'all will recognize her name because I’m always pimping her most recent book, The Successful Artist’s Career Guide, every time she does a giveaway, because I seriously wish that I’d read the thing when I was like,...

Book giveaway: My parasol textbook!

I'm doing my first-ever book giveaway over on Goodreads, three copies of Sticks in Petticoats: Parasol Manufacture for the Modern Costumer ! The giveaway is open for entries from now through midnight on Wednesday, July 9, and is open to Goodreads members who are US residents.

I wrote the book in 2007, because when i developed the graduate level course i teach in costume accessory production at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, i knew i wanted to include a parasol project, but...

Exhibit: Costumes of Downton Abbey at Winterthur Museum, Delaware

At the end of last month, i took a train trip up to Wilmington, DE, to take in the current exhibit at Winterthur Mansion and Museum, Costumes of Downton Abbey. The exhibit runs through January 4, 2015, and costs $20 to attend in 2-hour timeslots. Your admission buys you access to all the rest of Winterthur's galleries, grounds, and the mansion itself for the day you attend the DA exhibit and the day after. And, after the exhibit closes in January, it'll be moving to Biltmore Estate in...

MFA graduates' capstone projects: Part Two of Two

Recall from my prior post that we had FOUR students present their final creative draping capstone projects this spring, and i've got more photos to share. This project is the final one of their graduate career--it's got to be something with significant structural/material challenges, and these two are our newest-graduated drapers. (The prior two in the earlier post were crafts-focused students.)




Leah Pelz reproduced a design from the revived House of Worth, 2012 Spring/Summer collectio...

MFA graduates' capstone projects: Part One of Two

We had FOUR students present their final creative draping capstone projects recently, and i've got some fun photos to share. This project is the final one of their graduate career--it's got to be something with significant structural/material challenges, and they really run the gamut.



See the dress on the right, the fancy-dress fan costume?
This was the research image that Adrienne Corral (MFA '14) proposed for her capstone project.



Front view of Adrienne's project.


The fan mechan...

Class projects: the rest of the complex projects!

Here's part two of my Masks & Armor students' final projects! Some totally mindboggling stuff here.



Remember these pauldrons from the first round of images? Second-year grad Denise Dietrich made the rest of Jaime Lannister's armor, primarily using Wonderflex and leather.


Second-year grad Colleen Dobson took her inspiration from Lord of the Rings , and created this leather breastplate.




First-year grad Katie Keener created this quilted armor, a "Coat of 1000 Nails," using...

Class projects: more simple armor and a couple complex projects

So, i think i've mentioned before that my students do a simple and a complex armor project in the last part of the semester. These are sort of rough definitions, usually the simple projects are just smaller in scale or less complicated in materials used. I posted a while back about a few of the simple projects, and today i have a few more of those to share, as well as a couple images of complex projects (with more to come tomorrow as well!).




Hardened leather vambraces with wing/flame detai...

Masks & Armor class field trip: Armory of Dr. Eric Juengst

Last week, we had a special treat in my Masks & Armor class: we had the opportunity to visit with Dr. Eric Juengst, a colleague here at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a maker of actual metal plate-mail armor!

One of my students, Denise Dietrich, discovered Dr. Juengst's work through a mutual friend, who had shared with her this video:



I reached out to Dr. Juengst to see whether he'd be willing to meet with us, to talk a bit more in-depth about his methods and al...