Picture credit: Ashley Trainor. Used with permission

Picture credit: Ashley Trainor. Used with permission

This ladder back chair, owned by Pierre Deyo in his lifetime and by the Deyo family until 1926, is thought to have been built between 1650 and 1700, making it older than the United States.

It is a heavy, large wooden chair in the ladder back style. The style was popular in the Middle Ages all the way through the eighteenth century (“Ladder Back Chair”). It has a tall back with four slats. It has a seat of rush, painted black. The seat is caving inwards, and is fraying towards the front of the seat. The right leg has some scratches on its finial. It is made of a pale wood, such as oak or pine, with a shellac finish (Giese).

Picture Credit: Ashley Trainor. Used with permission

Provenance

Pierre Deyo, one of the original patentees of New Paltz, was the first owner of this piece.  It is thought to have been built between 1650 and 1700. He most likely would have bought it from a local craftsperson. When Pierre died in 1708, his land and estate was split between his four sons, Abraham, Christian, Pierre, and Hendricus (“Deyo Family Papers”). This item was considered part of the Deyo household, included within Deyo’s grandson Peter’s will in 1791 (State of New York). The chair remained in the Deyo family up until it was purchased by Historic Huguenot Street from the Andrew LeFevere Deyo estate shortly after his death in 1926.

Narrative

Pierre Deyo (ca 1648-1708) was one of the twelve patentees of New Paltz. Along with the other members of the Deyo family, he was incredibly involved in the community, as evidenced by their extensive collection of records collected and maintained by Huguenot Street. This chair, which today has a home in the Abraham House, is older than the United States, and remained in the Deyo family about as long. The ladder back style—which was ubiquitous at the time—is older still, thought to have originated in Europe in the Middle Ages (“Ladder Back Chair”). The simple, but enduring, style is now very much desired by collectors today, which is a testament to how well-crafted these chairs are.

This style also reveals an important aspect of New Paltz life at this time: their Protestant religion. Protestants tended to favor simpler, less ornate pieces which were more functional than beautiful. The Huguenot settlers were practitioners of a late ancient Christian asceticism. According to Richard Finn, in his book Asceticism in the Graeco-Roman World, this Protestant asceticism is based on Greek morality, and that

Virtuous living is not possible when an individual is craving bodily pleasures with desire and passion. Morality is not seen in the ancient theology as a balancing act between right and wrong, but a form of spiritual transformation, where the simple is sufficient, the bliss is within, the frugal is plenty (94).

Later on, the Deyos and other important families of New Paltz would obtain the more ostentatious and beautiful furniture of the Federalist and Victorian eras, but the desirability of the furniture shows that there is an enduring appeal towards this aesthetic.  Simple objects and simple homes speak to the fast held beliefs of these people—further evidenced by the plain decoration of the rebuilt French Reform Church.

The chair’s craft is also derived of the area. According to woodworker Bob Giese, the piece would have been made out of wood that could be obtained easily and locally; it is thought to be pine, oak, or perhaps maple. Additionally, is has been finished with shellac, which could be made by mixing tree resin and alcohol; as shellac has a shelf life (albeit of months or years), and requires skill to apply, Deyo himself was likely not the one who made the piece, but rather, a skilled local artisan.

This piece would most likely have sat by the fireplace in one of the few rooms of the Deyo home. After a long day of work, it would have been a comfortable place to return to and to unwind. Possibly, it could have been sat or worked on by a slave—Pierre owned at least one, as evidenced by a receipt in the Deyo family papers from 1694.

References

Deyo Family Papers. Huguenot Historical Society, 1998.

Finn, Richard. Asceticism in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Giese, Bob. Personal interview. 18 April 2017.

“Ladder-back Chair.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 21 December 2006.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/ladder-back-chair

Roth, Eric. “History of New Paltz”. New York History, no. 4, 1989.

Ulster County Office of the Surrogate. American Record Series A.:-Wills, Volume II. State of

New York, Ulster County, 1905.

I debated whether or not to write an analog post about a turntable or writing in a journal. As I write in a journal quite frequently, and rarely have time to sit and listen to my weird little record player, it seemed only natural, if a bit cliche.

I don’t have a large vinyl collection. I have about six or seven old albums. For this project, I decided to listen to the one I am proudest of, Jefferson Airplane’s debut album “Jefferson Airplane Takes Off,” which I found in a consignment shop for four dollars. Along with my Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young live album, it is my favorite.

The turntable I own is one of those five-in-one gadgets that plays albums, tapes, CDs, radio, and MP3s. However, it looks quite retro, and is not portable in the least, so I rarely use it. In fact, most of the time my PS4 sits on top of it, so wanting to listen to music takes a little rearranging of my dresser.

While the album is in good shape, it is just a hair warped. Compared to, say, the “Worst of Jefferson Airplane” CD I own, the sound is hardly crystal. The fact that the music is slightly off key is kind of irritating, actually. However, like David Sax writes, it does evoke a peculiar aesthetic, which is helped along greatly by Jefferson Airplane’s very classic rock sound. It makes me want to go to parties in the 70s where the houses have bead curtains. It sounds like smoke and driving around in the rain.

I tend to listen to most of my music on the commute to school or work. I usually listen to the radio, or the same three or four CDs in my car. As Sax comments, analog music takes work. There’s no “pause” if you have to get up and leave the room. The album needs to be flipped, or changed, and is kind of hard to store. However, albums like this tend to have a deeper consistency of sound. There are thematic arcs. Songs bleed easily into one another, occasionally sharing the same beginning and end notes, providing a strange and thorough narrative smoothness.

Weirdly, CDs don’t really do this. Panic! at the Disco’s first album, “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out,” plays with it, as do others, but more and more new albums are just disjointed singles crammed onto one disc, even though CDs and vinyl are theoretically the same when it comes to their contents.

Vinyl sounds more like captured time, I think, and David Sax acknowledges that in The Revenge of Analog. It makes me weirdly nostalgic for something I never lived through, which is a bizarre and kindly disorienting sensation.

This ladder back chair, owned by Pierre Deyo in his lifetime and by the Deyo family until 1926, is thought to have been built between 1650 and 1700, making it older than the United States. Picture credit: Ashley Trainor

This is a heavy, large wooden chair in the ladder back style. The style was popular in the Middle Ages all the way through the eighteenth century. It has a tall back with four slats. It has a seat of rush, a common plant used in weaving, painted black. The seat is caving inwards, and is fraying towards the front of the seat. The right leg has some scratches on its finial. It is made of a pale wood, such as oak or pine, with a shellac finish.

Picture credit: Ashley Trainor. Used with permission.

The chair’s craft is derived of the area. The piece would have been made out of wood that could be obtained easily and locally; pine, or oak, or perhaps maple. Additionally, it would most likely have been finished with linseed oil, which was the custom of the time, as well as shellac (which could be made with tree resin and alcohol). Tar could also be used, but this was mostly used for shipbuilding, and would not likely be used for crafting furniture.

This style reveals an important aspect of New Paltz life at this time: their Protestant religion. Protestants tended to favor simpler, less ornate pieces which were more functional than beautiful. Later on, the Deyos and other important families of New Paltz would obtain the more ostentatious and beautiful furniture of the Victorian era, but the desirability of the furniture shows that there is an enduring charm to this aesthetic.  Simple objects and simple homes speak to the fast held beliefs of these people—witnessed by the plain decoration of the rebuilt French Reform Church. It was less about beauty, more about God and community.

Pierre Deyo, one of the original patentees of New Paltz, was the first owner of this piece.  It is thought to have been built between 1650 and 1700. He most likely would have bought it from a local craftsperson. When Pierre died in 1708, his land and estate was split between his four sons, Abraham, Christian, Pierre, and Hendricus. This item was considered part of the Deyo household, included within Deyo’s grandson Peter’s will in 1791. The chair remained in the Deyo family up until it was purchased from the Andrew LeFevere Deyo estate shortly after his death in 1926.

The shellac on the chair shows that the craftsperson wanted to ensure that the natural beauty of the wood to come through. Shellac does have a shelf life (albeit of months or years), and requires skill to apply, so the reader can infer that Deyo was not the craftsperson, but rather some other local woodworker.

This piece would most likely have sat by the fireplace in one of the few rooms of the Deyo home. After a long day of work, it would have been a comfortable place to return to and to unwind. Possibly, it could have been sat or worked on by a slave—Pierre owned at least one, as evidenced by a receipt from 1694. A piece like this was quietly handed down from family member to family member, until it finally found its way back to Huguenot Street.

This is the violin that I played throughout middle and high school. It has followed me through a lot of life changes, and seen me through all sorts of concerts (including two musicals and three very stressful solo events). I received this violin in 2007, when my rent-to-buy program had accrued enough credits. We purchased it the D&M Music store in Pleasant Valley, NY.

According to the label on the inside, the violin was manufactured by Stefan Ulrich in June 2007 in Romania. I tried to find a website, to try and see the history of what Stefan Ulrich does, but a Google search only brought up scores and scores of people trying to sell off or buy the instruments. Apparently, Stefan Ulrich is a very popular instrument crafter, and relatively inexpensive, making the instruments easy for parents or guardians to purchase for their children.

Moreover, when I looked on D&M’s website to try and find more information, they came up relatively blank. D&M is a company that focuses solely on middle and high school students, so they’re not as picky with quality, apparently. I couldn’t even look at any of the models of violins on the website; all I saw under the violin category were accessories. It’s possible that D&M no longer does the “rent-to-buy” program. Aside from going all the way to the shop in Pleasant Valley, I may not be able to find anything about my instrument.

Presumably, it was made by a Stefan Ulrich craftperson in Romania, and then shipped to the US by plane. It was purchased by D&M in 2007, and soon after bought for me. It seems that, unless you have a truly valuable, rare instrument like a Stradivarius, its ownership is largely lost. The saying that my high school orchestra director is true–unless it costs $1000 or more, a violin is worthless. Apparently it’s worthless to history too, objectively speaking.

But my violin is not worthless to me–though the fact that it’s been sitting quietly in my closet since the beginning of college says otherwise. It is something that I could pass on to someone else if I saw fit. It’s seen a lot of change in my life, and even though I don’t know much about its history, it knows about mine. Since I’ve had it, its strings have been changed multiple times, its case fell apart, and the bow it came with cracked. Its bridge still sometimes slips from the pressure of the strings. It’s got a sticky layer of rosin on its front that never seems to come off cleanly.

I do think it’s funny that this little violin is more well-traveled than I am. And I may never be able to find out more about who made it. Unlike mass-manufactured products, though, there is a certain intimacy and expertise required to make something like this. Maybe that’s why I feel more close with this piece than with the game or mask I wrote about.

Final Fantasy XV was my “happy” object from the beginning of the semester. I decided to take a closer look at how it functions as an object.

Game cases have two main functions: to attract potential players, and to protect the delicate contents inside. Square Enix, the publisher of the game, is pretty good at the former: the art on the color is lovely and holographic, and there’s a sleeker, sophisticated inner black cover. It’s worth nothing that the North American version of the cover is much less sentimental than the Japanese version of the cover, which has the four friends featured in a much warmer, more brotherly pose.

As much as I tried looking through the little pamphlets and fine print on the case and disc, I was unable to find any information on the manufacturing of the physical disc and case itself. Presumably, it was made in a factory somewhere, stamped in a mold in translucent blue plastic. The disc was made in a factory too, and branded and coded. Everything about this item was made to be mass-marketed; the quality of the case, the contents inside, even the game code itself. It’s not meant to be unique, or anything other than a container for the story coded onto the disc. From the factory, it was then shipped by plane or boat or car to the store where it was purchased. From there, it was then taken to my house. I did not lay hands on the object from the moment of its creation until it was given to me as a gift.

This adheres to the Marxist idea that workers and purchasers are alienated from the items that they buy. Something like this was most likely made by a person in a foreign country for starvation wages; its design, while artful, is meant to be uniform to all the other copies of the game. I find this ironic, because one of the main aspects of the game is connecting with your friends on an adventure.

With the advent of digital technology, a gamer doesn’t even need to buy the physical copy of the game in order to experience it. There is no disc to protect; the code is transmitted right to their system. Soon, the physical disc will cease to exist, and these will most likely become strange curious, or occasionally, the odd drink coaster.

In a strange way this leads to the alienation of art from people, too. If a piece of art is not necessarily physical, does it affect us the same way? Of course, one could argue that, by looking at a TV or holding a controller, there’s still a tactility to it. I do find it unsettling that, despite the thousands of hours poured into creating this game, the most covert artists of it are hidden from existence.

This is a Venetian-style mask my mother bought when she worked at Spirit Halloween. It currently hangs on a curtain rod in my bedroom, and its color scheme matches the rest of its surroundings.

The mask is relatively cheaply made, fashioned from a plastic mold and artificial feathers. Two almond-shaped eye holes were cut into the mask; the left eye hole is the only part of that side of the face. Most of the mask is sea-foam green; the paint has been artfully cracked. Some of the paint has brownish discoloration as well. I can’t remember if the mask was originally like this, or if it’s due to the cheap paint oxidizing.

Silver is a big component of the mask as well. The right eye is painted completely, with a border of swirls which protrudes from the surface. Other swirls are on the cheeks and forehead. The lips are painted silver too, giving the mask a creepy smile. Nostril holes provide the wearer somewhere to breathe through. The face has a rounder, feminine look to it.

Next to the right eye are several layers of feathers; all of these are artificial by touch. Peacock feathers are arranged in a set of three, with blue feathers as a background; all of this is held in place on the back with hot glue and white felt. On top of this is a plastic blue diamond bead, which has holes on either end for string. If you look closely, you can actually see the blob of hot glue holding the diamond in place.

In lieu of feathers, the other side of the mask has black and silver looped trim. This trim covers the rest of the mask, and feels somewhat itchy to the touch. It is held in place with a thin layer of transparent glue, which can just barely be seen around the edges.

The mask has a relatively thick, stretchy elastic band around the back, in order for the mask to be worn. Like the feathers, it is held in place by glue and white felt, in order to provide a level of comfort to the wearer, I suppose.

The back  of the mask is white, and it has a matte texture to it. The “forehead” of the mask, while not painful to wear, protrudes far into the hairline. It has sat in my room for so long that it does not have any kind of scent to me. While trying it on, the wearer quickly notes how awkward it is to breathe, and how much heat quickly builds up. It seems almost as though the piece functions as wall art, rather than a piece to be worn as part of a costume.

From far off the mask appears beautiful and eerie, but up close you can see how cheaply it was produced.

Despite it being integral in our culture, we are not really conscious of our need to have a dwelling in order to have agency. This notion, I feel, is both an ancient one and a new one. It appeals to our instinct to have a safe place to stay, free from rivals or enemies who may jeopardize resources; it is a new notion due to changing ideas of what constitutes a home and an abundance of material objects.

But it’s not far off the mark. In America, as well as in other Western countries, it’s seen as a sign of independence when a young adult leaves their parents’ home for their own dwelling. In fact, it’s often touted as a necessary milestone to becoming a “real” adult–along with working, driving, and completing higher education. Even if the dwelling is not owned by its resident, having a space of one’s own is seen as crucial. College freshmen tend to feel an incredible freedom when moving into their dorms for the first time–despite the presence of RAs who essentially take up the role of parents.

But I’d never given much thought to how ownership plays a role in how much agency a home provides. Numerous pieces of media treat this theme, including Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street. Families who cannot own their home tend to feel as though they are inferior to those who do; Miller defines this cultural stigma in his book Stuff. Within The House on Mango Street, the protagonist, Esperanza, has recently moved into her family’s first owned home. She dreams of the ideal suburban home, but the house that they’ve purchased is a bit run down. Over the course of the story, Esperanza seeks independence and autonomy, which she repeatedly defines to herself as owning this ideal home; even at the end, when her definition of “home” has started to change, she still craves this ideal.

It is possible to achieve true agency without owning what our culture believes is the “true” home? Does it have a lasting, long-term psychological impact? Miller’s examination of the Trinidadians seems to draw this conclusion. Or is the truly damaging aspect the enculturation which makes us believe these things are necessary for survival?

Perhaps there is no real answer. That, or the answer is too subconscious or insidious to put into words. I can, however, relate to what Miller writes about; as a woman in her 20s still living with her parents, I feel that without my own dwelling I am not quite “grown up”. Moreover, my friends and I all have dream homes which we feel will grant us happiness–even though theoretically it should be the people in the homes that give us this happiness. Miller speaks to an idea also mentioned in The Comfort of Things; our relationships to things (including, in this case, homes) deepens and is in fact necessary to have relationships with other people.

Due to a strenuous work schedule, I was not able to actually empty my whole bookshelf and go through each item. Instead, I focused on the top bookshelf, where I seem to keep most of my plays and books that I classify as “reference.” Like most English majors, I have more books than I have space for, and the thought of parting with any of them is just as painful as pulling teeth. However, for the sake of this exercise, I decided what I would “keep” and what I would “discard” based on the KonMari method mentioned in The Life-changing Magic of Tidying up.

On this shelf I have 51 items; 49 books and 2 objects. I have read about or drawn in about 45 of the books. The other 4 were given to me, and I simply wasn’t interested. However, the thought of parting with any book was almost too much to bear, and like KonMari mentions within the book, I was tempted to riffle through the pages to remember what the contents were. It was actually difficult simply to hold the book in my hands and think about whether or not it made me “happy.”

(I think the concept of  happiness as pertaining to books is so subjective. A book can make you cry your eyes out, and still cause you to love it. I tended to think of “happiness” when it came to books as a book or play that moved me in some way.)

Going through the books also caused a deep sense of nostalgia, especially because the shelf contained yearbooks from my secondary school years. Again, I had to try hard not to confuse this nostalgia for “joy”, and try not to go through the books and read the inscriptions inside. Thinking about what really caused “joy” was hard, and in the end I only really had about 9 objects that made me objectively “happy” to look at.

The “keep” pile

These contained the most sentimental value, and the plays that I enjoyed most out of my collection. Likewise, in this pile there is a precious book that my one of my teenage best friends gave to me on my sixteenth birthday. But I did not “hold” onto it because of the nostalgia, but because the thought of that friendship gave me joy, and therefore the object imbued it.

The “discard” pile

On the other hand, naturally the discard pile was much larger. Most of these things I cared very little about, even if I had enjoyed the story at the time. A lot of these were plays I’d had to read for a class, and according to the KonMari method they had therefore “fulfilled their purpose in [my] life”. Not that any of these works were necessarily bad, but they did not provide as moving an emotional experience (either during the deliberation process or at the time I’d read them) as the objects in the first pile.

I find the KonMari method fascinating, but I’m not sure it would be very effective for me. As idealistic as it is to think about having as few things as possible, someone like me can’t simply get rid of books. It is food for thought, though, that I continue to cling to books that didn’t necessarily have a great weight to them.