Vintage images of color

I love vintage images of people of color. I love vintage images, period, I've gotten extremely into period pierces that are immersed in the trappings and the zeitgeist of a different time, particularly of women. I love the differences in the way they dressed, how they decorated their homes, the music they listened to, it has this beautiful particularity to it. But it's especially compelling to see a woman of color with a sharply classic hairstyle or dress. It's very aesthetic to me, first of all, but it's more than just I find it pretty.

It's a powerful statement against erasure. Media, advertising, whatever until very recently only had white people in it. It's very easy to get an image of periods in the past as very whitewashed. But America had other people in it too, people who wore clothes and did their hair and participated in culture just like everybody else. It's one of the reasons I love the TV show Cold Case, which I am going to have to do a full review of some point. It solves murders from a long time ago, and it encapsulates fabulous period pieces that very often tell the untold, underrepresented stories of marginalized groups-- women, people of color, queer people, trans people. An in doing so, it depicts those people as we very rarely get to see them. Here are two images from particularly good episodes, one of a family that was sent to a Japanese internment camp during WWII, and one of a woman who traveled South to support the freedom schools during the Civil Rights Movement.

I love their vintage hair-- rolled in the forties, styled up and out in the sixties -- and their vintage clothes that are the marks of the time, and all the experiences, through which they lived. Vintage images of people of color, bearing the marks of the time and place in which they live, scream, "We were there! We experienced! The things that were going on then, we went through them! We mattered!" I love how Cold Case depicts this.

And, seriously. Are you going to tell me they're not fabulous?

Seriously. As a side note, go watch Cold Case. Start with this episode, Best Friends, from which that last image is drawn. If it doesn't blow your mind with its fabulousness, well, I don't know what kind of person you are.

Accomplishment chart, 4/26 - 5/2

For the week of 4/26 – 5/2:

Writing
- worked on Elizabeth Loring’s play
- 5 blog entries
- 7 daily Hipster Feminist tweets

Theater
- performed in Carolyn’s directing project
- got The Triumph of Law accepted for performance at the Driftwood Players 4^th Annual Festival of Shorts

Sewing/Costuming
- took up the hem of the lining in the knockoff Atonement dress
- shortened the hanging sash on the knockoff Atonement dress
- put together maid outfit for Mary Stone
- put together day dress for Mrs. Hawking
- put together evening dress costume for Mary Stone
- put together evening dress costume for Mrs. Hawking

Photography
- had Mrs. Hawking photo shoot
- edited one picture into sepia tone from the Mrs. Hawking photo shoot

Media
- Saw “Iron Man 3”

Music
- listened to Ella Fitzgerald’s “Mack the Knife”
- listened to Billie Holliday’s “Strange Fruit”

Physical
- 1 hour-long circuit workout
- 2 ballet classes

Cooking
- made roast Brussels sprouts and almond-crusted tilapia
- made apple and onion chicken and green salad