Let Me Brooch a Topic: Cameos as Sculpture

Are there any coincidences in the world?

Well one would tend to think no, especiallu not if

a) you watch any TV shows starring Kiefer Sutherland
b) you watch any doomsday movies
c) you watch any romantic comedies
d) you stay still now and then and pay attention...

Since I have partaken in a+b+c with some regularity in my life and am now, at 50, suddenly partaking in d, I am, too put it mildly, gobsmacked by all of the coincidences/connections that I keep running across now that I am paying attention to things!  I am like the newly pregnant woman who believes that suddenly EVERYONE got pregnant in July of 1991!

What is even worse, you all are here and I cannot help myself from sharing all of these newly discovered interesting "coincidences"!  

Today's post ties my sitting room curtains with some old cameo brooches I have with the book I am reading about Americans in Paris with New York City and New Hampshire!  If you knew me in real life - this post is pretty typical of every conversation I ever have with friends at a dinner table.  My mind is a bit of a mexican jumping bean.

What started this?  Well actually, it was me beginning my 2012 spring cleaning in early January of 2013.  Oh you read that right!  My house has been "cleaned" weekly during that last year, but the deep cleaning (where you take everything out and clean and organize) did not not occur last year.  My husband and I were simply too busy in our jobs.  Now that he is semi-retired and I am home on my self-imposed leave, I have been doing two years worth of spring cleaning.  It is very therapeutic to do manual labour and if this was summer, I would be out in my garden up to my armpits in good dirt as well!

So there I was in the old secretary in my hallway, cleaning out all of the cubbies - old cards, old cheque books, etc, when I came across the two ties for the curtains which are in my sitting room.  Surely every one has one of these kind of cupboards?  Mine is a beutiful old secretary desk that I inherited from  my great-great aunt, but the beauty of its outside belies the chaos of its insides...

The curtains I refer to currently hang straight - we have never used the ties to tie them back when they are open - but I thought to myself "Wendy old girl, either toss 'em or use 'em - they are no good here."  So I brought them out.  I didn't have any of those fancy little hardware thing-ys to put on the wall to hang them off, so I thought I might simply pin them all in some way. 

Then it hit me - I had recently come across two old cameo brooches in my jewellery box, inherited from my Mother, when I was digging out other jewellery to take to get fixed.  Wouldn't they look delightful pinning the ties to my curtains?  They weren't being used in my drawer and cameo brooches are not particularly worn with great regularity, at least around here.  Did it matter that the brooches didn't match?  Not to me!

Don't they look nice? Like they should have always been there.

I am sorry to say that I pinned them up and didn't look all that closely at them.  But some things WANT to be noticed.  And they will ensure that they are.  And this is where these coincidences come in.

Fast forward two weeks.  I am continuing to work my way through The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by David McCullough.  I know I have harped on this book before, but I cannot help myself - I am learning so much and right now, a lot of what I am learning about are the soon-to-famous artists who went to Paris to study in the late 1800s.  I think all history books should immediately be thrown out and David McCullough should write and teach the rest.  I know this will be a big job for him since he is in his late 70s, but he is an american treasure and he brings history alive as I have never experienced history bought alive by a book.  Every night at dinner I tell a new story about the chapter I have read the night before, so family is also reading the book vicariously through me!

I know: I digressed.  Anyhow, this week I am reading about Augustus Saint-Gaudens, a penniless youth from New York who went on to be arguably one of the, if not the, greatest American sculptor of his generation.   You can see his work in many major monuments:

His very first commission of Admiral Farragut of Civil War Fame, located in Madison Square, which I have determined I must visit while in NYC, given how much I have read about the artistic and physical creation of this statue:

Standing Lincoln in Lincoln Park in Chicago

Okay Wendy, sort of interesting you think (or maybe not!), but what struck me most was that Saint-Gaudens began his artistic career as an apprentice to a cameo-cutter in New York City, his talent soon surpassing his master's.  And this experience as a cameo cutter, the details and the intricacies, is said to have informed and bettered his subsequent work as a sculptor.

Now I freely admit that I have never ever thought about who made those vintage cameos I have had in my possession (I in fact even have a few more tucked away unworn as well).  For some reason, I never considered them as art.  But of course, once you start looking, how could you not?  The work to carve these little cameos is no different than the work of any sculptor and I have long admired similar visages on vases in museums around the world.  To think of a young man of 13 sitting for hours at a bench carving out these little delights humbled me.    And made me go back and look at the cameos I had in a completely different way.

Saint-Gaudens went on to have a celebrated career and McCullough's description of the work involved in creating the artist's first statue, the Farragut, was inspiring - I shall never look at a bronze statue in a park the same way again.  I am sure that Kathy could speak to all of this much better than I, since she does sculpt as well as paint, and I thought of you a lot while I was reading this chapter, Kathy!

So I am determined to visit Admiral Farragut when I go to NYC.  But in further research, it turns out that Saint-Gaudens, when he moved back to the US, moved to a bucolic farm in New Hampshire and it is now an historic site near the Village of Cornish.  Which is only about 8 hours from where I live and which has over 100 of his smaller works on display.  You know what that means: another road trip this summer!

But now I must turn my attention back to the cameo brooch for a moment:

Some can be very intricate and beautiful:



Source: here



Source

 They typically portray greek-like images and can be arved of shell, gemstone, or lavs like the cameo above.

I tried to find a new cameo pin to purchase for you all from a reputable store so we could ensure we were getting the best quality money can buy.  I couldn't find a cameo brooch at Tiffanys online, but that good old Canadian stalwart, Birks, has come through and how:

The site says: Large scale cameo pin, trademarked Birks, handmade bezel setting in 18 karat yellow gold featuring a shell cameo measuring 59 x 45 mm (low relief, modern theme, average detailing). Late 20th Century.

$1,500.00 CAD

I think she is quite lovely and when I look at her I am ever-mindful of the hours that went into her creation.  At that price I can sadly not purchase one for each of you, but if you would like one you can order it here.

How about you?  Do you own any cameos?  Do you wear them?  Have you been to any of Augustus Saint-Gauden's statues or his home in New Hampshire?  Or like me, is Mr. Saint-Gaudens a new discovery?

Today we have the blizzard.  Barry somehow did not believe that the storm was coming.  He will regret that later, since he left the car in the driveway, not the garage.  After 28 years of marraige, you learn to drink your coffee and be quiet about such things, especially if you were the one who happened to suggest it be moved the evening before...
This will be a good Saturday to continue to go through my closet and do some more reorganzing and purging.  And who knows what will come of that? What other coincidences I will come across?  The greatest gift of this leave has been re-discovering that there is a whole world out there.  We miss too much of it when all we do is work.  At least I missed too much of it.

I will also be looking out the window a lot, looking past my little cameos, at the lovely artistic show Mother Nature is putting on for me. 

Have a great Saturday and Stay Safe out there!  Mind those shovels!