Workshops

Talks on the English Regency period, ie the time of Jane Austen

La Belle Assemblée, July 1820.

Ladies’ Magazines of the Regency Period
Learn what a woman of the Regency would be reading to keep abreast of social and political news, fashion, literature, and theatre. The most popular magazines of the day including the Lady’s Magazine, Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, La Belle Assemblée (shown here is the July 1820 issue with its original covers), the Lady’s Monthly Museum, the Gallery of Fashion, and Le Beau Monde) will be discussed in terms of packaging, circulation numbers, content, editorial direction, etc. Copies of many of the magazines, both bound volumes and individual monthly issues in their original covers, will be on hand for close examination.


Derby Scent BottleMy Lady’s Boudoir

This is primarily a show-and-tell presentation featuring many of the objects from Candice’s Collections. Concentrating on items found on a lady’s dressing table as well as various fashion accessories, the presentation includes scent bottles (such as the Derby porcelain scent bottle shown here), vinaigrettes, cosmetic cases, jewelry, fans, purses, quizzing glasses, and shoe buckles. Candice will explain the historical context of each group of items and describe how they were used. A PowerPoint presentation provides detailed images of the items as well as paintings and fashion prints that show similar items in use.

fashionRegency Fashion
Using fashion prints from her collection, Candice will provide an overview of the types of clothing worn during the Regency, for various occasions or activities, including day wear, evening wear, and specialty fashions such as court dress, riding habit, and mourning dress. Terms such as undress, half dress and full dress will be explained and illustrated with prints. Popular types of outerwear will also be showcased, including pelisses, spencers, mantles, and shawls. The general evolution of style will also be discussed, including changing waistlines, hemlines, and trimmings.

accessoriesRegency Fashion Accessories
Using detailed images from her collection of fashion prints, Candice will provide an overview of fashion accessories used during the Regency. A thorough examination of bonnets will describe the different types, and will trace their rather dramatic evolution during the period. Other accessories discussed will include shoes, shawls, gloves, parasols, muffs, reticules, and jewelry.

Valentines of the Regency Period
Candice will give a brief history of the valentine card, focusing primarily on the valentines of the Regency period: puzzle purses, elaborate cut-paper valentines, elegantly painted love letters, printed designs with beautiful cameo-embossed borders, cobweb valentines, delicate paper lace, and more. Candice doesn’t collect Regency valentines, but she does collect 19th century American valentines, and she will bring lots of examples to show how they evolved from those created during the Regency period.

Shades, Shadows, and Profiles: Silhouettes During the Time of Jane Austen
Candice will provide a short history of silhouettes, known as shades in Jane Austen’s time, and their various techniques (scissor cut, hollow-cut, painted). Some of the most famous professional “profile miniature” artists will be singled out, as well as a few famous amateurs. The various Austen family silhouettes will be discussed, including two purported to be of Jane herself, and what is known about each of the family “shades.” Candice will bring many examples of silhouettes from her own collection to provide a closer look at some of these miniature treasures.

Mourning practices During the Time of Jane Austen
Candice will explain the guidelines for full mourning and half mourning, in terms of dress and behavior, and conventions for curtailing social activities; rules for court mourning; the differences between private and public mourning, and private and public funerals. Examples of Regency mourning jewelry from Candice’s collections will be available to view.

Writing Workshops

The Power of POV: Using it to Bring Characters to Life
This workshop, for beginning to intermediate writers, will present some basic skills for using deep 3rd-person point-of-view to bring characters to life, including some common pitfalls to avoid. This will not be a “To Head-Hop or Not To Head-Hop” workshop, but will instead focus on how to make the most effective use of POV in deepening and enriching characterization, how to REALLY get inside, and stay inside, a character’s head.

Developing Characters Through Backstory
In this workshop, Candice explains how to create characters with consistent behaviors and consistent actions/reactions based on their backstory. The backstory provides information about the past that helps to understand the psychology of the character in the present. It provides insight into the motives and actions and responses of the characters. Specific influences in the past create a very specific character in the present. Candice will demonstrate how to create a backstory chart that helps to understand (or predict) the behavior of the character.