Be back soon!

Sorry for the lack of a Wednesday post!  I just thought I’d check in right now to let you all know that I’ll be taking a short posting break for a week or two while Arthur and I are moving.  We found a great place to live that’s closer to where we work.  We love our little cottage in Petaluma, but it’s time for us to move to a bigger space.  And we’ll be cutting our commute times drastically, which is really nice.  The move will take a lot of time out of our already busy days, though, so I won’t have a lot of time to make blog posts.  I might make one or two just to pop in and show you our progress, so make sure to check back over the next few weeks!

For now, though, here are some great public domain photos from my adventures browsing Flickr Commons.  I’ve been re-reading Anne of Green Gables, so I was drawn to a lot of photos from Canada during the late Victorian/Edwardian eras.  In fact, all of these photos are Canadian except for the one of the beer-drinking chaps (I’m not certain where that photo was taken).

See you soon!

Amber von Nagel

Proletarian

Today I wanted to share some of my Flickr Commons finds with you.  I spent hours browsing through old photos of workers and laborers, probably because I’m always drawn to very proletarian photographs (and literature as well), and because I was thinking about an incredible Sebastião Salgado exhibit Arthur and I saw while we were in Gainesville a few months ago. These photos are all full of emotion and humanity, and that’s why I’m so drawn to these kinds of images.

All the photos here were taken sometime between the late 19th century and the 1940s, and are all public domain.  Notice I was able to sneak in a photo of the construction of a lighthouse…

See you Wednesday

Amber von Nagel

Just beachy

The weather is warming up around here.  Kind of.  For some reason, weekdays have been a little chilly, but weekends have been really warm.  I’ve squandered my beach opportunities for the past few weekends, so I really want to try to get out there soon.  The Point Reyes peninsula is notoriously foggy during the summer, but I’d like to try the Sonoma Coast for once.  The last time I went out there was for a geological adventure.  I went to Shell Beach, which is a rare above-water alluvial fan, so it’s full of rare rocks and minerals like blueschist and serpentine.

I’ve been looking at lots of old public domain photos on the Flickr Commons to get in the mood for an inevitable beach day.  These photos were taken on various dates between the 1850s to the 1930s.

I have a Music and Vintage Friday post scheduled for this week, so be sure to come back on Friday!

See you then

Amber von Nagel

Etsy shop update!

I just updated my Etsy shop with some pieces that are perfect for summer!  Cotton skirts, crop tops, and dresses from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.  Plus a beautiful late Victorian pendant!

1960s cotton and lace crop top
1950s/1960s high waist embroidered skirt (SOLD!)

Early 1970s bell-sleeved patchwork print hippie dress

1950s/1960s daffodil yellow skirt

Late 19th Century pendant

It’s been a while since I’ve updated the shop, so it feels good to get all this great summer stuff in there.  I’m especially fond of that crop top and black cotton skirt!

See you Wednesday

Amber von Nagel

Music and Vintage Friday: Cormorant

I decided to challenge myself this week and put together a vintage outfit that expresses the aesthetic of my own husband’s band, Cormorant.  Since I’ve been with Arthur since the band’s beginning, you’d probably think I’d be able to pull this artistic exercise off easily.  That is definitely not the case.  This was the most challenging wardrobe experiment I’ve ever done, and even though the look is very simple, it took a long time to find the right combination of pieces to form an accurate sartorial statement.  The challenge in this exercise was not in deciphering Cormorant’s artistic statement, but rather in deciding how to express an artistic statement that has multiple layers and crosses multiple boundaries.  I decided that the outfit should reflect just that: the way Cormorant crosses borders of time and region.

The jacket is from the late 19th Century.  The outer shell is still pretty hearty, but the lining is extremely delicate has tons of rips and tears in it.  I chose this beautiful old jacket because it expresses Cormorant’s strong connection to the past (Arthur even wrote lyrics about the late 19th Century for the song “A Howling Dust”).  Plus, its nipped waist and strong shoulders give me a slight birdlike silhouette, which is useful for expressing the image of a cormorant itself.

The dress is fair trade by Global Mamas.  I’ve had it for a few years now, yet somehow have failed to post any pictures of it anywhere.  When it comes to clothing, I rarely buy new, and if I do, I tend to favor fair trade clothing.  I thought this dress would be appropriate because of Cormorant’s exploration of international themes.  Cormorant has drawn inspiration from every inhabited continent on the planet, focusing on themes of exploitation, the struggle for freedom, and social justice (among many others).  This dress was made in Ghana by women who were paid a living wage, given fair work hours, and not exploited for their work.  I think Cormorant would appreciate that.

And the batik print is a little reminiscent of the Metazoa album cover.

See you Monday!

Amber von Nagel

Point Bonita

Now that the suspension bridge to Point Bonita Lighthouse is finally open again, I brought my long-time friend Corrina out to the Marin Headlands for a lighthouse adventure.

Point Bonita is not as remote as some of the other lighthouses I’ve visited.  The Marin Headlands get a lot of San Francisco tourist traffic, since that whole section of the Golden Gate Recreation Area is just one bridge away for all the tourists (and us North Bay people don’t have to pay bridge toll to get there and back, which is nice).

This was my first time visiting the lighthouse, despite having lived in the Bay Area my entire life.  It’s a pretty cool experience.  You enter the area through a gorgeous, rocky tunnel that was dug in 1876.  Along the way, we saw tons of harbor seals on the rocks below the cliffside.  We waited in line to cross the newly-renovated suspension bridge.  It’s really heartwarming to know that all those people decided to take some time out of their days to learn a little lighthouse history.

While we waited, I looked at the area around us.  Under our feet was a concrete foundation of some sort.  Based on the layout of the foundation and the placement on the point, I knew it had to be where the keeper’s quarters once stood.  Later, I heard a docent confirm it.  It’s kind of crazy how familiar I’ve become with light station layouts.

The scenery on the point is totally breathtaking.  There is wildlife everywhere, including pelicans, cormorants, and the previously-mentioned harbor seals.  The wildflowers and rocks are beautiful.  I would totally have a picnic out there if there was room enough.

This light has a really interesting history.  It’s full of construction, demolition, reconstruction, erosion, and other crazy things.  It also had the first fog signal of any lighthouse in California, and was the last manned light station in California.  And it still uses its second-order Fresnel lens to this day!  That’s not common in how lighthouses operate today.  Californian lighthouse history really is fascinating, and I am incredibly fortunate to have spent over a year intensely studying it.

One thing I didn’t know about Point Bonita before visiting was that its rainspouts are shaped like eagle heads.  What a unique embellishment!

It was a joy to visit Point Bonita and I would love to visit again soon.  The tunnel and bridge have limited hours though: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 12:30 to 3:30 pm only.  If you have some free time one of these weekends, I highly recommend making a visit.

See you Friday!

Amber von Nagel

Honeymoon part 1

Arthur and I got married this weekend!  We are totally elated and so full of love.  The ceremony was everything we could have asked for.  In fact, the entire day was perfect from start to finish.  I am so happy to be Arthur’s wife.  He is my soulmate.

I’ll have more photos of the actual ceremony as time progresses.  I have to go through and all the great photos our family members took.  And soon I’ll show you all the ones our friend/professional photographer took!  But for now, I can show you the photos from our weekend honeymoon.

We got married at San Francisco city hall on Friday morning.  Our guests were my parents, Arthur’s mother and grandmother, and our photographer.  Since our engagement, some people have asked us why we decided not to have a big wedding with lots of guests.  Although we love attending those weddings, it wasn’t what we wanted for our big day.  We wanted a small ceremony in city hall with only a few guests.  And we were dead set on going to San Francisco city hall because it is incredibly beautiful (as you will see when I start posting lots of our wedding photos).

After the wedding, we had lunch at the Buckeye in Tam Junction, then we headed across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to a tiny yacht harbor on Point San Pablo.  There, a little boat picked us up and took us to a tiny island in the bay called East Brother Island,  home of the beautiful East Brother Light Station, the gorgeous 1870′s light you see in the above photo.  The lighthouse is now an inn, and we stayed there for the night.

The inn is currently kept by Dina and Peter, an adorable couple whose hospitality, kindness, and mind-blowingly delicious food made our stay truly magical.  We chose to sleep in the room on the South side of the fog signal building.  It was cozy and wonderful.  Those big diaphone horns coming out of the roof are gorgeously loud.  After breakfast the next morning, Peter fired up the old 1920′s mechanism and blasted the old fog signal for us.  It seemed even louder than the modern fog signals I’ve heard.  I loved it.

In my experience talking to people about lighthouses, whenever the subject of East Brother is brought up, people ask me, “is there a West Brother too?”  And I tell them, “there is a West Brother Island, but no lighthouse.”  The island was pretty close to East Brother, and it was populated by lots of birds and harbor seals.  Arthur took a great liking to West Brother because it was covered in cormorants.

We couldn’t have asked for a more enchanting wedding day.  Our entire wedding/honeymoon weekend was absolutely perfect in every way, and we were so happy to start it off with a stay at the gorgeous East Brother Light.  I highly recommend you book a night or two there if you’re looking for a little bit of time away.  You can visit their website here.  Oh yeah, and Dina sells her homemade preserves there.  We got some apple butter before we left.  It was necessary.

See you on Wednesday! I’ll have more honeymoon photos then!

Amber von Nagel

The Beauty of Public Domain

(State Library and Archives of Florida)

I wish I had discovered Flickr Commons earlier. This is one of the goldmines of public domain images on the internet. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed I tend to only post photos I take myself.  That’s probably due to some irrational fear of posting other people’s photos.  But with public domain photos, I don’t have to worry about that!  Here are some images that I find striking (you can tell that my taste is varied in the way of aesthetic and theme).

State Library and Archives of Florida

Bibliothèque de Toulouse

State Library and Archives of Florida

San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives

Musée McCord Museum

Nationaal Archief

National Library of Ireland

The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress

Antique pendant

Hello!  How do you all like my blog’s new look?  I had the same theme for close to two years, and even though I love how it looked, it was not very useful for my image-heavy posts.  It would cut off any of my landscape-oriented shots past a certain size.  This new theme actually shows entire photos no matter how large I want to post them.

Anyway, this post is about the pendant in the above photo.  I got it from a vintage-dealing friend of mine who is a vendor at Chick-A-Boom! Vintage.  It has been a challenge to put a date on this little piece because of its lack of markings, but I’d estimate it’s of Belle Époque manufacture, which would encompass the time between the end of the Victorian and the beginning of the Edwardian era (late 19th Century through World War I).  I must admit, I am better at dating clothes than I am at dating jewelry, but I am pretty sure this sucker is an oldie.  It’s just too Art Nouveau to be from after the first World War!  And I do love Art Nouveau…

See you Wednesday!
Amber R. Nelson

Velvet Victorian

Sometimes I like to challenge myself.  I bought this forest green Victorian capelet from my friend Alison at one of her vintage garage sales.  I couldn’t pass it up.  It was beautiful (and only $4).  But this was in the middle of a stretch of hot weather, and I couldn’t think about wearing it just yet, so I put it in the back of the closet until the time was right.  Well, the weather has gotten cooler (despite a short heat wave we were having for a while), so I decided to give myself a style challenge: how to style a capelet (that’s over 110 years old)!

I decided to be safe and go for all black, since this was my first time styling a cape/capelet.  Once I feel more comfortable styling this capelet, I can venture into bolder color/pattern choices.  I went for a black dress, black tights, and a black shoe.  When wearing antique clothing, I like to try to keep the look somewhat modern, but still influenced by the past.  I chose a super short, fringe-covered dress to contrast the staid look of the capelet without being over-the-top.  I also put a dramatic little pincurl in my hair.  Why not?

Capelet: antique, Victorian, from my friend Alison’s garage sale
Dress: Modcloth
Tights: L’eggs
Rad garden in the background: my landlord’s