Kristen Miller Zohn, Curator, The Columbus Museum, was the speaker at a Friday afternoon session. Her topic, "Tokens of Imperfect Affection: Portrait Miniatures and Hairwork in Sense & Sensibility," was a wonderful, highly informative look at the history of these artforms from earlier times through Jane Austen's era. In the centuries before photography, these were a means for people to remember loved ones. We asked Kristen to share some of her experiencs at this year's AGM. Here are her comments:
At last year’s JASNA AGM in Portland, the Fort Worth coordinators showed a wonderful “mash-up” of scenes from Sense and Sensibility adaptations and Western movies. It was so well-done that I could tell that the 2011 conference was going to be outstanding. I had just received word that my paper proposal had been accepted, and I was incredibly thrilled to be on a line-up that included scholars whom I really respect, Peter Sabor and Juliet McMaster, as well as the Austen adaptor-extraordinaire, Andrew Davies. Moreover, I was going to be able to share the experience with my mother and three good friends, who were all planning to attend.
From the moment we arrived at the registration booth on Wednesday to receive our beautiful bags full of gifts (perfume, home décor, and cd’s) to Sunday morning’s wedding brunch for Marianne and Colonel Brandon, the Fort Worth conference fully lived up to our expectations. As an art historian and lover of culture, I enjoyed the special classes that dealt with the arts and culture of the Regency period: English Country Dancing, silhouettes, and embroidery. As an amateur scholar of Austen’s books, I valued the plenary and breakout speakers from whom I learned about S&S as a “problem” novel, how speech is used by silly characters, letter writing in her works, and how she includes the sister arts in S&S. I was honored to give a breakout session on the history of portrait miniatures and hairwork in which I explored examples from Austen’s life and works and investigated their inclusion in the novel. I had been told by AGM coordinator Cheryl Kinney that 80 people had signed up for my session, and it was enjoyable to share this particular interest of mine with a room full of appreciative listeners.
An undeniable highlight of the conference, however, was meeting and spending time with Andrew Davies. I was excited enough when I saw him in the lobby on Wednesday; I thought it was exceptional that a Saturday plenary speaker was planning to attend the whole conference. His lecture was enlightening and entertaining. For instance, we learned that in his adaptation of Emma, if you look closely you can see that the “baby” niece is played by a bag of beans, as all of the infants they tried to use were terrified of the actor playing Knightley. After the lecture, he was signing autographs and allowing people to take pictures with him, which my group did. One of my friends asked him if he was planning to attend the ball that evening, and he responded that he had been signed up for the poker tournament, instead. However, he did show up at the ball, and she got to dance Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot with him. It was a surreal experience to do the same dance as Elizabeth and Darcy in his Pride and Prejudice adaptation. I got to dance with him, too, as did one other of our friends. He was not as well-practiced as we were (having been to three dance classes at this AGM alone), but he showed great spiritedness in dancing, anyway. We had post-ball drinks and conversation with him in the hotel bar, and were able to speak with him about some of his experiences in adapting 18th and 19th century novels.
We are looking forward to next year’s AGM in Brooklyn, and it would take a city that spectacular to even try to outshine Fort Worth.
Kristen Miller Zohn
November 2011
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