Welcome to the Freak Show

Alexis Fair, a masters candidate in the Cooper Hewitt/Parsons program, sat down with me to talk about the Weeksville Heritage Center. Which she covered in a course on period rooms. Founded in 1838, Weeksville was the second largest free, African American community in the U.S. in the pre-Civil War era. The settlement was named for James Weeks who, along with a group of African-American investors, acquired property in the area. Weeksville was almost lost to history when urban development threatened to erase the physical memory of the historic community. A grassroots effort to document the history of Weeksville and preserve the remaining properties emerged in 1968 through the leadership of local historian James Hurley, Dr. Barbara Jackson, and artist and activist Dr. Joan Maynard (the found Executive Director). Today Weeksville stands as a multi-dimensional arts and cultural space. The Hunterfly Road Houses are New York City landmarks and have been listed on the National Register of Historic Place since 1989.Here are some of the links for the places, people, and articles discussed. Twitter: @DecArtsPodcast Department of Cultural Affairs, Chakaia Booker Heather Lynn McDonald’s thesis on The National Register of Historic Places and African-American Heritage Brooklyn Life, Seán Devlin

I interviewed Kara Nichols about Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color which starts this Friday, May 11 and runs through Jan. 13 at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in NYC. Kara worked on this exhibition for her curatorial capstone at the Parsons/Cooper Hewitt graduate program. Saturated explores various aspects of color and how color theory can be translated into the visual applications of design. The exhibition was co-curated by Susan Brown, associate curator of textiles and Smithsonian research librarian, Jennifer Bracchi. This exhibition expands on “Color in a New Light,” which was curated by Jennifer and presented by the Smithsonian Libraries at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. from January 2016 to March 2017. Through these nearly 200 objects and books on display in Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color, the show will explore both the complex nature and the beautiful presence that color reveals through design, art and in our everyday lives. Saturated - Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. As always pictures will be up on the Twitter page @DecArtsPodcast

This week JT McParlin is back on the podcast to talk about Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange (1971). As always pictures will be up on the Twitter page @DecArtsPodcast

This week JT McParlin was on the podcast, he is a Masters candidate at the Parsons Cooper Hewitt Program, and we are talking about the Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). We were planning on also doing a later film by Kubrick as well, A Clockwork Orange (1971), but we ran out of time so stay tuned for that episode at a later date. As always pictures will be up on the Twitter page @DecArtsPodcast 2001: A Space Odyssey in Retrospect

Kayla Seifert (from the Contemporary Painting episode) is on the podcast this week to talk about the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book and the transformation after WWI when cookbooks began to be mass produced. As usual all images will be up on the twitter page @DecArtsPodcast Better Homes & Gardens Handyman's Book, 1957

Sylvia Ferguson (from the Henry Dreyfuss episode) is on the podcast this week to talk about entertainment, ethnography, and eugenic displays at the World’s Fair. As usual all images will be up on the twitter page @DecArtsPodcast Here are some of the links for the videos and articles discussed. National Fairground and Circus Archive, “History of Side Show Exhibitions and Acts - Research and Articles,” National Fairground and Circus Archive - The University of Sheffield. Crockett, Zachary. "The Rise and Fall of Circus Freakshows." Priceonomics.Little Miracle Town Pamphlet

Sydney Friedman (from the Bersa pattern episode) is back this week to talk about the Jogbra. Which came about at a time when Roberta “Bobbi” Gibb ran in the 1966 Boston Marathon when women were not allowed to and she didn’t have a sports bra. Billie Jean King is named Sports Illustrated’s first ever Sportswoman of the Year and played Bobby Riggs in the infamous ‘Battle of the Sexes’.Here are some of the links for the videos and articles discussed. Florence Williams, “The Athletic Brasserie,” 99% Invisible. Title ix Gary Singh, “Stripped,” Metro Santa Cruz, February 16, 2005 Smithsonian Jogbra Archive

The DecArts podcast is back! I am excited to start the year off with an object. Hannah Winiker comes on to talk about bandboxes. For anyone who isn’t familiar with bandboxes they are functional and decorative objects that held men’s collars and other fashion accessories. They represent a bridge between the handmade process of producing and the industrial process of manufacturing by machines that occurred in the 1800’s with the Industrial Revolution, which is around the time when the bandbox peaked in popularity,1820-1845. Physically, bandboxes are round or oval in shape and range in size and covered in wallpaper, or “paper hangings” as they were known then.Here are some of the links for the videos and articles discussed. HANNAH’S OBJECT OF THE DAY BANDBOXhttps://www.cooperhewitt.org/2014/08/14/documenting-u-s-history-on-a-carryall/https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2014/11/17/bandboxes-get-political/https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2015/04/09/american-bandbox/https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2015/07/17/walking-beam-sidewheeler/https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2016/01/21/of-the-stovepipe-variety/https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2017/05/04/making-history-claytons-ascent/https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2018/01/11/please-do-feed-the-squirrels/ THE ETUI

This week I interview Noelle Kichura, a Masters candidate at the Parsons/Cooper-Hewitt History of Design and Curatorial program, about her proposed thesis.Here are some of the links for the videos and articles discussed.HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE ESSAY GETTY CONSERVATION TALK ON VILLA SAVOYE MARY MCLEOD LECTURE Links to publications PRIVACY AND PUBLICITY, COLOMINA CHARLOTTE PERRIAND, MCLEOD LE CORBUSIER, SBRIGLIO Also check out Gwendolyn Wright's "Domestic Architecture and Cultures of Domesticity" in Design Quarterly, House and Home (1987)

This week I talked to Molly Martien, a Masters Candidate at the Parsons-Cooper Hewitt program for History of Design and Curatorial Studies. She wrote a paper that she will be presenting at the MAPACA conference in November on SNCC and 1960’s design.MAPACA: https://mapaca.netSNCC LIBRARY LEGACY PROJECT: https://library.duke.edu/slpSNCC DIGITAL GATEWAY: https://snccdigital.orgSNCC LEGACY PROJECT: http://www.sncclegacyproject.orgFREEDOM RIDERS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/freedomriders/