The Silver Twin's ...Place... In New England Decorative Art - Part Three - "Wander and Wonder"

The Silver Twin's ...Place...

In New England Decorative Art

Part Three

"Wander and Wonder"

            Returning... with enhanced senses of wander and wonder... and with these, too, bringing enhanced senses of... expectations and qualifications... to the Silver Twin’s Place ...homestead site... I

            Open my eyes

            And mind

            To the

            Art.

            That is there.

            The creepy apology of “I like going in old attics”... that suffices to lay down... the lay antiquarian ‘enthusiast’ (“buff”)... is not good enough

            Especially these days

            Of jaded

            Of the

            Old New England “Yeah, yeah”.

            They be.

            “They no longer see?”

            You ask if... I say.

            Yes... and of the sorts that I have already spoken; the coffee can of clothespins...

            Was the woman’s art (Part Two).

            It is art still in my eye.  (I keep my eye fresh).  (“Yes I do”).

            But the ‘they’

            Have gone away.

            I poke this.  Merely a step into the homestead’s ‘attached shed’ (running between the back or ‘kitchen’ door.... “OUT” to the barn.  Hanging there

            Without a care

            Is an old

            “Yoke”... once worn by a (young) man... for eleven generations (!).  The Jaded ‘they’ walks... right... by... that... “these days”.  “CANNOT SELL THEM” they say... in their special antiquarian way

            That typically translates ‘all that be’ of ‘homestead’ “ATTIC” into

            “Cash” (“money”) (‘coin of the realm’ value).

            I always thought you would anyway... and when ...I... look back over the forty years YOU have ‘been at this’... I do have affirmation

Of my qualifications

            Of my expectations

            FOR YOU to be exactly

            “THAT”.

            Go away.

            Go out behind the wood pile and pee.

            Then get back in your truck and

            Go away.

            I, for my part (in the shed) have already found a jewel and show now... how to see it; expectations and... qualifications.

            “Be that there handmade here (at this homestead) and hung there?  For how many generations ‘hung there’?  Yes we know that now.  One man one day two hundred years ago made that one day once one only ...with his hatchet.

            Had fun enough doing that he did... that day.  “Task” it was “They needed one”.

            For what?

            “Well woman... well water... carry that”... and it is STILL all up hill from the spring

            On the hillside of the Silver Twin’s Place.

            But they ‘could also’

            In (Maple) sap season ‘carry those’ sap ‘buckets’.  The colloquial name sticks there:  I am highlighting the Colonial New England ‘Sap Yoke’.

            But darling... that is just one short part of one short season of one short work.  Many times in the late summer or late fall... or late spring... “one of the BOYS” “came out” to the “MEN” with the yoke on and carrying their... “noon time meal”

            Have you ever had a ‘noon time meal’.

            I suppose it depends on where... and how... “you grew up”

            In New England.

            So already I’ve found three seasons and/or daily uses meaning the old yoke ‘saw service’ daily with.... “What about the WINTER?”.  No... not much there; “IT” “hung in the shed” for “that” (winter)?  Oh no... they DID, on the good days (storm free), “CUT” down below the pasture and... out came the yoke with the ‘noon time meal’.  Again.  The boy wore snowshoes.  So did the men

            Have you ever ‘cut’ (trees down with a chain saw) wearing snowshoes?  I didn’t think so.  If you do sometime happen to, you’ll have revised qualifications and expectations of your ‘noon time meal’.

            Let your hand reach out and touch the old yoke.  The man who made it... with his hatchet... has been dead for two hundred years.  This is the only yoke he ever made.  He made this one.  It ‘passed’ in the shed... of the Silver Twin’s place for eleven generations.  Now someone is going to buy it from me and ‘hang it in’ their ‘camp’?  “Not unless it’s cheap”.  They assure me.

            “Are not we in a Bastard after all”.  It is easier for one to just put this all down and “GO” to the .... and “BUY” one of those; a pair of camouflaged pattern printed camp “water buckets”

            “But where are your yokes for sale?  Sir?”

            “OH WE JUST USE THE BUCKETS AT CAMP.  WE WANT THE YOKE FOR DECORATION”.

            Well you cannot have it.

            Mary Earle Gould in her “EARLY AMERICAN WOODEN WARE” ‘touches’ “sap yokes’ very slightly in her ‘sap’ sections (pgs. 104-106, 185-187).  She has two photographic illustration of ‘sap yokes’ too.  And then she moves on.  One has to explore for more than ‘a little’ in an effort to find “treatment” (qualification, expectations and... affirmation) of “sap” yokes.  That’s okay... for I already said... “go away”.  If one does go to doing this effort one will find a time travel helps.  Back one should go to the nineteen seventies when

            Discovery was made

            By such and such luminaries as Eric Sloane; who illuminated mysteries from a homestead past... upon New England coffee tables (“I WONDER WHAT HAPPENED TO THOSE BOOKS?”)

            “I KNOW HE HAD A (sap) YOKE IN IT” (his books).

            But when you get back there (1970’s) LOOK AROUND.  One funny one once upon a time...

            ...I find the curious gallery show:  “AMERICAN DESIGN IN THE RUARL NEW ENGLAND HOME”.  And in its critical write up it includes an old yoke hung as sculpture on a gallery wall: “gives a large space to a sap yoke dated 1850 which came from along the Maine New Hampshire border near Crawford Notch.  An important of seasonal and hard use, the yoke has been through a lot and we can see something of its history by looking at its layers.  It was repaired once by ‘sewing’ a split off piece along the length with leather thongs.  The repair would have been preferable to carving out a new yoke.  Later it was painted blue, a beautiful flat medium blue, leather and wood.  Later yet it sat unused, probably in a barn and was chewed a little by mice.  It is still perfectly usable although the left shoulder needs a new rope and hook.  Now it’s on the wall (hung as sculpture)”.

            Opening that essay the writer states, of the rural New England design premise, “The show is a disturbance to the plasticity and controlled desperation of daily life:  ...Where are such manifestations of unabashed originality and individuality in our own rural life?”.

            Care to go inside an old shed and find out?  After discovering the old yoke hanging on the wall for service, take it ‘down’ and look at it.  Wander and wonder it.  For yourself.  Not for dollars.  Not.  That is right:  JUST “not”.

            Why?  Because it (the old yoke) is better than you are.  It is that simple.

The Silver Twin's ...Place... In New England Decorative Art - Part Two - "Aware Sense"

The Silver Twin's ...Place...

In New England Decorative Art

Part Two

"Aware Sense"

            The family name; “Silver”, must be explained.  Originally, during the Colonial Wars, 1750-1760, the male head of household was “an Armstrong”.  Of... English... Colonial... ‘settler’ ‘family’ in the “Dover (New Hampshire) area”.  By the Revolutionary War decade, the Armstrong Colonial settlement family had dispersed ‘along the coast’ (north of Boston) with this settlement dispersial including a ‘handful’ of ‘young’ Armstrongs who were in ‘military service’ in the ‘interior’ of

            Maine territory

            North to the St. Lawrence River and “into” Canada.

            One of them ‘coming back’ (from Canada) came back in the winter on snowshoes with his Native American wife, an “Indian Princess”... it was always told.  She, of “Great Lakes” “Huron” (?), came south, on snowshoes, in the winter, from Canada, “to Maine”.  She, not speaking English and being

            Among those English who could not read and write nor communicate in any Native American “tongue” found the mutually adopted title (name) given her of “SILVER” to be the awkward-but-it-works “NAME” of “HER”.

            This “Silver”; her name, came from her being a Native American woman who, of her dress, wore “silver”.  What this ‘silver’ was ...WAS true silver metal.  The ‘silver’ was small (one inch or one half inch diameter) round open circle (“trade”) “ring brooches”; little (tiny) silver “trade” pins... that were gathered by barter and ‘pinned’ on clothing, usually as decoration AND as display of wealth.  Little rows of silver ring brooch pins.  Having MANY and MANY MORE ‘pinned’; the ‘more rich’ one is.  A ‘few only’ means ‘not rich’?  No.  Few is what most ‘had’.  So... there come... “Silver”.  “She” from her silver trade brooch hoard, pinned on her clothes for display, became the ‘title’ (name) “Silver”.  And of her husband too.  Because... “SILVER”...; everyone understood who this was; who these people called “Silver” were.  That is that; how “Silver” of “Silver Hill” at the top of “Silver Hill Road” and the “Silver Twins Place” (farm).

            Came to be titled.

            This Native American silver name source tale too... helps to explain this Silver homestead settlement... by qualifying.  “Expectations” are explained meaning that for this family to ‘settle’ ‘there’ and ‘homestead’ as a family there, with the ‘very little’ and ‘very small’ (Part One) was not, in fact, “that”.  The homestead settlement was actually perceived to be ‘very big’ and to have ‘a lot’.  It is ‘expectations’ that determined the perceptions of ‘qualify’.  Does this affect the “Silver Twins... place... in New England Decorative art?

            Yes it does, especially if one is perceptive enough to acknowledge that ‘these people’ actually felt themselves to be ‘very well off’.

            What am I going to do now (these days)?  Should I get a metal detector and hunt the Silver Twin’s place site in a wilderness effort to “FIND” a one half inch silver trade brooch dropped and lost on the hillside site in the mid 1770’s?  I know people who ‘do that’.  They would ‘do that’.  They would

            Find that?

            I don’t think so.

            I did know one of those idiots to “FIND” the “SITE” of the (maple syrup) “SAP HOUSE”.  He “FOUND” a “BURIED” clump of mold cast lead sap spiles... just off the lower left corner of the ‘pasture’ (Part One) just past the “break” in the stonewall and ‘into the woods’

            “IT (the ‘sap house’) MUST HAVE BEEN RIGHT THERE”.  For the well over one hundred and fifty years that it was

            “Used”.

            Addressing the sap... spiles... I ...open up a view for you (Part One).  This buried clump of cast lead (pot metal?) is a ‘came up the hill’ (manufactured and imported) design form that came from a ‘went down the hill’ raw natural resource (cut down trees) that was bartered.  These spiles, too, are ‘late’ in the homestead’s settlement (1880-1920’s).  Before... and from the ‘earliest’ settlement period... maple sap gathering to produce ‘maple products’ (syrup and sugar)... the “TREES” were “TAPPED” and upon each tapped tree, a ...carved (whittled) wood... (legend favors ‘maple wood’; the ‘maple touching maple’ legend school of maple syrup purity, but my working discoveries of hand carved wooden sap spile hoards show white pine as the ‘usually used’ wood)... spile was inserted into the tree to ... drain the sap into the sap collection “bucket”.  What kind of wood or even the ‘they are wooden sap spiles’ are NOT my denotations here.  What is my notice is that the hand carved wooden spiles come from the ‘made right here’ group (Part One) of homestead settlement design forms:  A homestead tree was ‘tapped’ and a single hand whittled wooden sap spile was inserted in the tap hole and... the tapping man moved to the next tree and repeated the action.  After ‘sap season’ the spiles were collected (the hole plugged) and they, as a cluster were ‘put away’ until ‘next season’.  These wooden spiles, one for each tapped tree, were carved ‘together’ so sort of ‘look alike’ (show the carver’s hand).  “NEAT HUH”.  

Well... expand the view.  This carved sap spile cluster was... used for years (decades) with only minor supplemental influence... THAT IS VISIBLE TO THE KNOWING ‘design sensitive’ EYE (“aware sense”) right away.  For example, a ‘broken’ or ‘lost’ spile was replaced, usually ‘in the field’ by a whittled replacement... often times made decades after the original spile was carved AND this replacement often was carved by someone of several generations ‘later’; a ‘different hand’.  DO YOU SEE that I am saying that in addition to being a ‘made from there now’ homestead design form that TOO... this design form alters through time and the alterations are visible to the eye when one inspects the cluster of ‘old hand carved wooden sap spiles’ “FOUND” in an old New England homestead?

            At the moment of writing this essay, I have no cluster of old whittled wooden sap spiles that I have found in an old New England homestead... to show off the homestead whittled design form cluster.  I have found many clusters and... sold them all.  I sell them after looking at them... all.  This last ...is... ‘just for me’.  Most ‘do not’ ...any of this.  I advise.

            Helping me today is a similar cluster of homestead wooden ware that, although of a much later era, does ‘do the same thing’ when one is looking at it and looking for design, art, design influence, art design type, singular art design expression and... a wholeness of aura of all that upon such New England homestead clusters.  It is a very simple design form too so this allows one to ‘get it’; understand the broader applications... more easily... I hope.

            I present an “old” coffee can, a ‘pre-zip code’ vintage 1950-60’s Maxwell House “Good to the Last Drop” two pound “coffee can” (no lid) filled with FIFTY ‘wooden clothespins’.  I found this ...classic design form... relic... in an estate contents clean out.  I knew what it was right away so... did not only not throw it out but sensitively preserved it for ME... as what it is...; a real true expression of old New England homestead ‘estate contents’.

            What this is... is what exactly it is:  A ...probably 1950’s New England housewife’s “TIN” of “CLOTHESPINS” that she used to “HANG OUT THE LAUNDRY” outside in the yard.  FIFTY clothespins.  Many “alike” but some odd wooden ones too AND some ‘newer’ wooden ones TOO and... all together in HER CAN that she used so was “the way I have it”; an expression that becomes an art expression within the design forms of coffee cans (coffee cans have a one hundred and fifty year design history) and clothespins (having too the same design history length... if not longer) inclusive of her tweaking her design during the several decades (many decades) she ...and/or... later generations USED THEM.  I may empty the coffee tin, sort and line up the clothespins, commercially evaluate them and... only too...

            SUDDENLY REALIZE THAT THIS WHOLE “THEY” (clothespins in the can) is their true expression; true human expression (having humanity AND humility), when... and only when... the pins and the tin are together... “as she intended” them.  Am I saying this unit is art?

            YES.

            DO YOU GET IT (see it)?

            It is not a big design recognition leap but this leap opens up a very broad view plane (Part One) when one looks at ‘old New England homestead design, it’s history and heritage.

            I am saying that here one finds a woman’s expression of her humanity by her ‘combine’ art design (tin and clothespins) ‘signiture’.  Of HER.  Through her.

            Coffee can filled with her (50) clothes pins.  Can I bring you a more wondrous art gift?

            NO.

            The old coffee can filled with clothespins becomes beautiful... and stunning

            Art.

            I will now take this ‘aware sense’ back to the Silver Twin’s homestead and look around to see more of the homestead’s ... singular... place... in New England Decorative Art.

            But one final notice on the whittled wooden sap spiles.  How many “did he make”?  How many whittled wooden sap spiles did (does) one man make in his life time?  One man whittles one spile for one tree... once ... with that crafting only ‘supplemented’ over ...six or seven... subsequent generations of ‘one man’ who, too, use those same spiles.  So... one man whittles sap spiles that are used by seven men over ...seven generations.  This establishes ‘sacristy’... obviously... but too... reveals ‘actual production’.  The actual production of ‘things’ found in old New England homesteads that are, too, New England Decorative Art... is an important

            “Aware Sense”

            For one to self-develop

            Too.