Fantastic

I have been photographing part of the Brooklyn Museum's extensive costume collection this month, while my friend Lolly is away at an artist residency in Rochester. I was very flattered and happy to take over while she is away. Clothing and accessories are a magic window into the lives of people long since gone. I have been shooting ladies folding fans, which are especially intriguing because this is an item that has essentially disappeared. I can't even imagine that a fan would help that much on a hot day here in NYC, but I think they were just as much a tool for communication in times when the social rigors were much more strict than today.

This feathered fan from the late 1800s looks like an animal to me, or a sea anemone.