Lynelle Barrett: Portfolio

Daedalian Adventures

The road ahead is rarely straight…

By Lynelle Barrett

Ik werk, jij werkt, zij werken

After months and months of waiting for my paperwork to move through various government agencies, I am finally enrolled in school to learn the Dutch language. It started with a phone call from a counselor from the school. Was I available the next day to attend a class? It was a more advanced class, but I had tested well on reading comprehension. Would like to try it? I was afraid that if I refused, it might be months before they called again.

So the next day I attended a class with a roomful of people from all over the world…all already comfortable enough with Dutch to engage in full conversations. The teacher was nice about it, but it was obvious that the class was much too far along for me to catch up. I was told it was much harder for English speakers to learn Dutch. As soon as a Dutch person hears an English or American accent, they will switch to speaking English. Then I was treated to an impersonation of an American trying to speak Dutch. It sounded like a weird John Wayne impersonation. Gee…thanks…so glad I came.

So I was put in an easier class that was also already in progress. The textbook for the class has 15 chapters and the class was already on chapter 11. The teacher decided I should start on chapter 5. So at home, I worked like mad to review all the exercises in the first four chapters. The hardest part is that all the explanations of the grammar rules and instructions for the exercises are in DUTCH….the language I am taking these classes to learn! So before I can even do the exercises, I need to sit with my Dutch/English dictionary and look up all the words I don’t know. People from all around the world need to use these books, so I guess it makes sense. But it does make it very frustrating to get started. So you can imagine what it’s like, here is a rule for spelling plurals from my grammar book:

“Woorden met twee verschillende medeklinkers aan het eind en woorden met twee verschillende klinkers in het midden: blijven hetzelfde en er komt ‘en’ achter.”

And for even more fun, the textbook is full of encouraging statements. For example, "Het participium van onregelmatige verba moet je leren. Er zijn geen regels.", which means, ”The participle of irregular verbs you must learn. There are no rules.” Hmmm, if there are no rules, anything goes…right? Wrong. Next contestant, please.

About a week and a half ago, another group of beginners was added to the class. Now I have students at the same level to work with. Class discussions are much more fun. For four hours a day, I struggle along with my classmates from China, India, Iran, Morocco, Italy, Poland, Egypt and Khazikstan. Most of the other students speak some English, but I have to think back to my high school French to speak with the Moroccan women. Other than the limited Dutch we know, they only speak Arabic and French. Valeria from Kazakhstan speaks Russian, so we are reduced to our primitive Dutch skills.

Because we don’t know enough words, Jeroen, one of the teachers said we are speaking with our hands and our feet. Mohammed from Eygpt showed us how he orders coffee with milk. He mimed pouring the coffee from the pot to the cup. Then he used his fists to milk the teats of the cow. Debora from Italy says that because Dutch has a lot of sounds in the back of the throat (imagine a cat coughing up hairballs), it is not a language…it is a throat infection!

The best part of school is the cross-cultural exchange. Everyone is curious about the culture and views of the other students. Last week our teacher, Petra, went to give a test to the more advanced half of the class and left my group to discuss our lesson. Of course we never discussed how to buy train tickets or give directions in Dutch, but we did try really hard to use Dutch for most of the conversation. Abderrahim from Morocco (Mr. Charisma) was fearless even though surrounded by women. We discussed whether men are more inclined to romance in eastern cultures and warm climates. Then we discussed whether men really prefer to think about just the sex part or whether they like to think about the romance part too. (Good news…he says men do like romance.)

Even though the students in the class come from different cultures and have different religious views, there are some things that bind all of us together. It is easy to find common ground. We are all struggling to feel like part of our new community. We all have families that we love. We all want love and romance. We all want to have fun and be happy. These things translate into any language.

Lynelle Barrett is residing in The Netherlands, where everyday she puts her book bag on the back of her bike and rides to school with the other kids…just like she did in fifth grade.  Check out photos and notes of her adventures on her website at: http://spaces.msn.com/lynelleinholland

Daedalian Adventures

The road ahead is rarely straight…

By Lynelle Barrett

Expat’s Inferno

Plot Overview

Traveling through The Netherlands, Lynelle has lost her path and now wanders fearfully through Government Bureaucracy. The sun shines down on a Dutch Residence Visa ahead of her, but she finds her way blocked by three beasts - Immigration Authorities, Paperwork and Indifference. Frightened and helpless, Lynelle returns to Leiden. Here she encounters the ghost of Rembrandt, the great Dutch painter, who has come to guide Lynelle back to her path, to the Residence Visa. Rembrandt says that their path will take them through Hell and that they will eventually reach Heaven, where Lynelle's Future In Holland awaits.

Rembrandt leads Lynelle through the gates of Hell, marked by the haunting inscription “abandon all hope, you who enter here”. They enter the outlying region of Hell, the Ante-Inferno, where the souls who in life could not commit to either America or Holland now must run in a futile chase after a blank Visa Application Form, day after day, while hornets bite them and worms lap their blood. Lynelle witnesses their suffering with repugnance and pity. The tram then takes her and her guide to the Aliens Police Headquarters, the real border of Hell. The First Circle of Hell, Limbo, houses artists and writers, and many of the other great minds of antiquity, who did not reside in their homelands. Lynelle continues into the Second Circle of Hell, reserved for the sin of WanderLust. At the border of the Second Circle, the monster Civil Employee, lurks, assigning condemned souls to their punishments. He orders them to take a number and wait, indicating the bustling waiting area. Inside the Second Circle, Lynelle watches as the souls of the WanderLustful swirl about in a terrible storm of Documentary Evidence. Lynelle meets Gabriella, who tells her the story of her doomed love affair with Amsterdam.

In the Third Circle of Hell, the Hungry For Adventure must lie in mud and endure a rain of Denials and Appeals. In the Fourth Circle, the Greedy For Euros and the Freeloaders are made to charge at one another with giant bags of €2 coins. The Fifth Circle of Hell contains the Integration Process, a swampy, fetid cesspool in which the Reluctant spend eternity struggling to learn the Dutch language. The Vocationally Challenged lie bound beneath the water, choking on Curriculum Vitae.

The Sixth Circle of Hell houses Applicants Waiting Approval. A deep valley leads into the Seventh Circle of Hell, where those who have filed Written Complaints spend eternity with their blood boiling. Rembrandt and Lynelle meet a group of Case Workers, creatures who are half man, half slug. These souls must endure eternity in the form of trees to make up for the reams of paper they have wasted.

The monster, Application Fee, transports Rembrandt and Lynelle across a great abyss to the Eighth Circle of Hell, known as Evil Pockets; a circle divided into various pockets separated by great folds of Money. There Public Servants are forced to walk with their heads on backward, to watch their backs. The Policy Makers sit trapped in a pit of vipers, becoming vipers themselves when bitten; to regain their form, they must bite another Policy Maker in turn.

Rembrandt and Lynelle proceed to the Ninth Circle of Hell through the Giants’ Well, which leads in a massive drop to File For Renewal, a great frozen lake. The giant, Endurance, picks Rembrandt and Lynelle up and sets them down at the bottom of the well, in the lowest region of Hell. In Begin The Whole Process Again, applicants stand frozen up to their necks in the lake’s ice. In Change Your Purpose Of Stay, the applicants stand frozen up to their heads. Lynelle next follows Rembrandt to the lowest depth. Here, those who would like Permanent Residence Status spend eternity in complete icy submersion.

A huge, mist-shrouded form lurks ahead, and Lynelle approaches it. It is the three-headed giant Politics, plunged waist-deep into the ice. Rembrandt leads Lynelle on a climb down Politics’ massive form, holding on to his frozen tufts of hair. Eventually, the travelers reach The Local Pub, the river of forgetfulness, and travel from there out of Hell and back onto Earth.

Lynelle Barrett is residing in The Netherlands, where she tries very hard to be a good representative of America…in spite of bureaucracy. Check out photos on her website at: http://spaces.msn.com/lynelleinholland

Daedal \'dē-d’l\ adj skillful, artistic, ingenious

by Lynelle Barrett

The Unfortunate Effects of Champagne

A Separate Sphere: Dressmakers in Cincinnati’s Golden Age, 1877-1922

October 14 to January 4

Cincinnati Art Museum

www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org

Imagine that the year is 1903. You are a young woman attending her engagement ball. You are wearing a lovely new gown, made for you by a Cincinnati dressmaker known for her fine craftsmanship. The gown is made of silk, embellished with gossamer layers and encrusted with beads and paste jewels. You are a vision of beauty on the dance floor.

Now imagine how you, bound by corsetry and weighed down by layers of undergarments, will sweat. The layers of gossamer fabric will get snagged on furniture and jewelry. The beads and jewels will also get caught up and tear the fabric, pull off or break when you sit on them. Adoring family and well-wishers will dribble champagne on your skirt when they embrace you. Now, imagine yourself putting your lovely gown, a memento of a special day, in storage for 100 years.

Fast forward to the year 2003, the location is the Cincinnati Art Museum. A Separate Sphere, a new costume exhibition, will open on October 14, 2003. A collection of over 60 garments created by gifted Cincinnati dressmakers will go on display, accompanied by educational tableaux. After your exercise in imagination, you can guess how much work might be involved in making all those garments fit for exhibition. Preparing the garments and mannequins for this show has kept me busy for the last two years.

“How Do You Think This Fit Together?”

Since conservation of the garment is the first priority, the curator will decide what repairs will be done to restore it. The object is not necessarily to make the garment look like new again, but to bring it as close to its original condition as possible without changing or removing its components. This often means some detective work, like looking for evidence of original stitching, looking at folds in the fabric for placement of pleats or gathers and figuring out where hooks are missing. Sometimes research is done by looking for fashion illustrations of similar garments to help with decision making.

“Wow, That Must Have Been A Great Party!”

There is often significant fabric deterioration on parts of the garment. Dresses worn to balls and parties may have fabric damaged by sweat under the arms. The sugars in spilled wine and champagne oxidize over time to become “party stains”. One of the problems that is particular to late 19^th century dresses is called shattering. Silk taffeta used for linings was often treated with mineral salts to make it crisp. Over time, these salt crystals slice the fabric into shreds. Much of the restoration work on garments with this problem consists of adding another layer of lining to encase and protect the original lining or reproducing the missing parts to simulate the original.

Beads often are missing or broken, especially in areas like cuffs, hems and necklines. To get as close to the original parts as possible, there is a stock of bits and pieces from old garments. Bins of old lace, buttons, beads, ribbons, feathers and silk flowers provide trims and embellishments of similar age and workmanship.

If Only It Was This Easy To Change Size In Real Life

Since dresses in the museum collection need to remain as close to their original condition as possible, they cannot be altered to fit the mannequins. The solution is to size the mannequins to fit the dress. Using buckram (a fabric stiffened with glue), muslin, batting and fiberfill, the mannequin’s shape is padded to fill the garment. The padding is covered in slippery nylon to allow the garment to slide over the mannequin easily. Reproduction petticoats are made to simulate the undergarments originally worn to create a fashionable silhouette.

Hair Today, Recycled Tomorrow

To complete the look, a period hairstyle is created out of paper. A hairstyle is chosen by researching fashion illustrations from the same year as the garment. Then it is sculpted from heavy white paper and glued to the mannequin’s head. White is used for the mannequins and the hair so that they do not detract the viewer’s attention from the garment.

Some ensembles have accessories like hats, parasols and purses. These objects are from the museum’s permanent collection. Gloves, however, are from a stock of gloves kept for display purposes. Since mannequins cannot wiggle their fingers to put on a glove, the gloves usually need to be slit and then sewn onto the hands.

A Thing Of Beauty Is A Joy Forever

When you attend the exhibition, hopefully you can see it with new eyes. The dresses were beautifully made in their day. Now you can appreciate how much time, effort and loving care it took bring them each back to their original splendor.

Lynelle Barrett is working furiously on A Separate Sphere opening at the Cincinnati Art Museum on October 14. Her work outside the museum includes decorative painting for interiors and designing art-to-wear.