The Mystery of the Fan Dance
The theme for “Looking Close on Friday” for the 10th of December is “feathers (black and white)”. In recent months, I have been exploring a new avenue in my creativity, that of portraiture photography. I used my sitter for the “Smile on Saturday” theme of “nose” a little over two months ago, a little over a month ago for “Looking Close on Friday’s” theme of “dots and stripes” and then again a few weeks ago for “Looking Close on Friday’s” theme of “lips”. Now you can complete the image of my elusive sitter, who has agreed to return for a fourth time, and is this time showing us an eye. Put it together with his nose and lips and you almost have a full face… almost! My sitter has kindly shirked his garb completely, or so it appears, and taken up one of my antique fans in a coquettish fan dance.
I love to collect vintage accessories. This includes antique fans. My favourite fans are those from the Victorian and Edwardian era. Fans from these eras are extremely ostentatious and beautiful, but at such advanced age are often very fragile. My sitter holds an ostrich feather and tortoiseshell fan from the early 1900s. The struts are made of tortoiseshell and the fan itself is made from bleached ostrich plumes. Usually, ostrich feathers were bleached to make them white, such as this fan, or to then colour them to match a lady’s outfit. If you do not approve of tortoiseshell or ostrich feather plumes being used for ornamentation, I thoroughly respect that, but please appreciate the fact that this object was created before either you or I were born, in a less enlightened time when it came to the wellbeing and care of our precious animals.
I do hope that you like my creation for this week’s theme of “feathers (black and white)”, and that it makes you smile… maybe even a little cheekily!
In western culture, a fan dance (a dance performed with fans) may be an erotic dance performance, traditionally by a woman, but not exclusively. Beyond eroticism it is a form of musical interpretation. The performer, sometimes entirely nude or apparently so, dances while manipulating two or more large fans that can be constructed from many different materials including ostrich feathers, silks, velvet, sequined and organza fabrics. The unifying factor in all are the spins, or fan staves, that give form to this prop.
The Victorians and Edwardians were very big on catching and displaying animals, be it taxidermy for educational purposes such as those that featured in the first modern museums created in the Victorian era, the big game hunters who sought lions and other exotic animals for their horns, tusks and hides to display, or for Victorian and Edwardian consumerism such as this fan. Four hundred tons of South African ostrich feathers were brought through St Katherine’s Dock in just one year alone, and at a value of four million pounds, were all used for women’s headdresses, hats and fans.
The Mystery of the Fan Dance
The theme for “Looking Close on Friday” for the 10th of December is “feathers (black and white)”. In recent months, I have been exploring a new avenue in my creativity, that of portraiture photography. I used my sitter for the “Smile on Saturday” theme of “nose” a little over two months ago, a little over a month ago for “Looking Close on Friday’s” theme of “dots and stripes” and then again a few weeks ago for “Looking Close on Friday’s” theme of “lips”. Now you can complete the image of my elusive sitter, who has agreed to return for a fourth time, and is this time showing us an eye. Put it together with his nose and lips and you almost have a full face… almost! My sitter has kindly shirked his garb completely, or so it appears, and taken up one of my antique fans in a coquettish fan dance.
I love to collect vintage accessories. This includes antique fans. My favourite fans are those from the Victorian and Edwardian era. Fans from these eras are extremely ostentatious and beautiful, but at such advanced age are often very fragile. My sitter holds an ostrich feather and tortoiseshell fan from the early 1900s. The struts are made of tortoiseshell and the fan itself is made from bleached ostrich plumes. Usually, ostrich feathers were bleached to make them white, such as this fan, or to then colour them to match a lady’s outfit. If you do not approve of tortoiseshell or ostrich feather plumes being used for ornamentation, I thoroughly respect that, but please appreciate the fact that this object was created before either you or I were born, in a less enlightened time when it came to the wellbeing and care of our precious animals.
I do hope that you like my creation for this week’s theme of “feathers (black and white)”, and that it makes you smile… maybe even a little cheekily!
In western culture, a fan dance (a dance performed with fans) may be an erotic dance performance, traditionally by a woman, but not exclusively. Beyond eroticism it is a form of musical interpretation. The performer, sometimes entirely nude or apparently so, dances while manipulating two or more large fans that can be constructed from many different materials including ostrich feathers, silks, velvet, sequined and organza fabrics. The unifying factor in all are the spins, or fan staves, that give form to this prop.
The Victorians and Edwardians were very big on catching and displaying animals, be it taxidermy for educational purposes such as those that featured in the first modern museums created in the Victorian era, the big game hunters who sought lions and other exotic animals for their horns, tusks and hides to display, or for Victorian and Edwardian consumerism such as this fan. Four hundred tons of South African ostrich feathers were brought through St Katherine’s Dock in just one year alone, and at a value of four million pounds, were all used for women’s headdresses, hats and fans.