THE VORTEX
Look into the center of the mirror to gaze through the research up Eliza Jumel’s red pannier, suspended from a plaster medallion of her own facial profile in relief. Madam would have thoroughly approved. A selfish exhibitionist, incomparably wealthy, possessed with that illusive combination of exquisite taste and a shrewd business sense that eludes so many. And she succeeds despite the disadvantage of being born poor and female in a brothel in 1775.
Maybe she succeeds because of what she knows, which is what educated men aren’t taught. As the “Founding Fathers” were busily burnishing their own legacies so were Eliza and the other women in this exhibition, through iconic taste, mastery of their materials, design that succeeds and fashion.
The historian attempts to understand history by getting as close to the source as possible, hopefully without letting the scholarship get in the way. To bring the character alive one is mindful of keeping the emphasis on the significance of spirituality. Preoccupied in an ordinary academic historical pursuit of documentary evidence, witnesses and legal documents leave evidence from past lives in isolation. The facts don’t add up to the truth.
Baudrillard wrote that the speed society moves at had destabilized the linearity of history. “In the Enlightenment, universalization was viewed as unlimited growth and forward progress. Today by contrast, universalization is expressed as a forward escape.” Or, as in a vortex, Escape Velocity.
Accumulation of selected research documents from various archives sewn with silk to Madame Jumel’s red pannier suspended from a plaster ceiling medallion created directly from the profile of Madame Jumel. Mme. Jumel Ceiling Medallion conceived & executed by Lucia Del Sanchez. Sewn by a team of talented Vortex collaborators.