"Shiplap isn’t a neutral material"
May 6, 2021 6:52 AM Subscribe
From writer Anne Helen Petersen: “Prophets of Place: Centering Waco in the Shiplap Frontier of Fixer Upper” is truly my platonic ideal of an academic article: deeply interdisciplinary, beautifully written, accessible and rigorous. It’s the work of Ph.D. student Rebecca Lea Potts, and I was thrilled when she agreed to talk more about her route to this work, Texas, her mini-shiplap dissertation, and the sort of Christian music that you JUST KNOW is Christian.
Text below is from the interview with Rebecca Lea Potts, linked above: While making my way through Union, I realized that I could reconcile both parts of my professional life—construction and religious studies—in and through my work. Now I study religion and the built environment, focusing particularly on the landscapes, materials, histories, and aesthetics of the US Southwest.
... Unlike “theater of suffering” programming (Extreme Makeover, Queer Eye, Queen for a Day), Fixer Upper does not demand tales of woe or performances of dissatisfaction as payment for the clients’ “dream home.” In Fixer Upper, the logic of tragedy and failure that underwrites makeover programming is moved from individuals and their bodies and placed on and in the architecture of the home. The suffering subject is subsumed by the dilapidated house; the physical structure is made to perform the labor of exposure and crisis that is usually demanded of the guest/client/beneficiary. Fixer Upper allows the house itself to bear the woeful weight alone. The physical condition of the closet—too small, poorly lit, wrong location, moldy—takes the place of the client’s skeletons.
By arguing that Fixer Upper functions in a framework outside that of the typical suffering subject of reality TV, I am not implying that it disinvests from the logics of reality, makeover, and lifestyle television, which characterize social welfare as increasingly privatized and reliant on individuals and companies rather than the government. Fixer Upper and Chip and Joanna Gaines certainly promote and extol the neoliberal fantasy of the self-reliant, self-disciplined citizen. But the wild success and fandom surrounding Fixer Upper is due in part to the affective, narrative, and material differences with which Jo and Chip wield their distinct brand of “compassionate conservativism” to take government down to its studs. As I put in the article, in reality TV defined by individual transformation, the self becomes sovereign; in reality TV defined by renovation, the self becomes settled. ...
... Shiplap isn’t a neutral material. It carries with it a very specific maritime commercial past, namely the history of capitalism’s birth in the wake of the slave ship.
Text below is from the interview with Rebecca Lea Potts, linked above: While making my way through Union, I realized that I could reconcile both parts of my professional life—construction and religious studies—in and through my work. Now I study religion and the built environment, focusing particularly on the landscapes, materials, histories, and aesthetics of the US Southwest.
... Unlike “theater of suffering” programming (Extreme Makeover, Queer Eye, Queen for a Day), Fixer Upper does not demand tales of woe or performances of dissatisfaction as payment for the clients’ “dream home.” In Fixer Upper, the logic of tragedy and failure that underwrites makeover programming is moved from individuals and their bodies and placed on and in the architecture of the home. The suffering subject is subsumed by the dilapidated house; the physical structure is made to perform the labor of exposure and crisis that is usually demanded of the guest/client/beneficiary. Fixer Upper allows the house itself to bear the woeful weight alone. The physical condition of the closet—too small, poorly lit, wrong location, moldy—takes the place of the client’s skeletons.
By arguing that Fixer Upper functions in a framework outside that of the typical suffering subject of reality TV, I am not implying that it disinvests from the logics of reality, makeover, and lifestyle television, which characterize social welfare as increasingly privatized and reliant on individuals and companies rather than the government. Fixer Upper and Chip and Joanna Gaines certainly promote and extol the neoliberal fantasy of the self-reliant, self-disciplined citizen. But the wild success and fandom surrounding Fixer Upper is due in part to the affective, narrative, and material differences with which Jo and Chip wield their distinct brand of “compassionate conservativism” to take government down to its studs. As I put in the article, in reality TV defined by individual transformation, the self becomes sovereign; in reality TV defined by renovation, the self becomes settled. ...
... Shiplap isn’t a neutral material. It carries with it a very specific maritime commercial past, namely the history of capitalism’s birth in the wake of the slave ship.
I liked this one a lot - read it last night, and forwarded it along to my partner, which is rare for everything but Sam Irby's newsletter. The connection between shiplap and narratives of improvement and the slave trade is a juicy one, and while I am trying not to give present-day permutations of christianity more of a foothold in my life than they already have, this one was worth it to me.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 7:32 AM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Lawn Beaver at 7:32 AM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
There will be some people, I'm sure, who get all sneery about "whatevs, I don't want to have to think about the cultural ramifications of my damn wall treatment, it's pretty and I like it so there". For them, there is another front which may steer them away from shiplap - it collects dust and gunk like whoa.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:33 AM on May 6, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:33 AM on May 6, 2021 [7 favorites]
I think this article is a bit 'out there'. I enjoyed the journey but I'm not sure I agree it's correct.
I could easily write the exact opposite narrative: That renovation shows are so popular because the amount of new home building has slowed to a crawl - many of our parents probably purchased brand new spec houses built at the bare edges of the prairie. There was no builder conflict there either. They were bought not unlike cars.
We don't want to live at the bare edges of the prairie like our parents- we want to live where there is old life and history (and generally built on the backs of slaves like most of the bad old days). But the only ones we can afford are old, cheap, and worn out, and hence we have to waste our time and money fixing them.
The Gaines are not pioneers either - they are copying the 'fix up the areas around downtown' model and applying it to Waco. If you go to the small towns in Texas that have not copied this model (I drive I40 a lot) they are depressing places. There are abandoned silos in every small town. So I don't buy that part. If they wanted to push some 'settler narrative', wouldn't they set up on the edge of town? Why would they buy downtown?
I also think 'in the world of the show' is doing lots of heavy lifting, considering it's a TV show and mostly fake.
Also shiplap became popular because people have been pissing on plain drywall for 40 years. It's been a low-class material (compared to real plaster walls or decorated real wood walls) since it was created. What was popular before shiplap? Covering drywall up with thin veneer board that looked like a fancier wood.
Now the religious stuff I have no idea about - Waco is a weird religious town in that dancing was still banned while I was in high school in the 1990s. The unbanning was a national story! From that perspective, they don't seem ultra religious to me, but I never paid that much attention in church when I was a kid so I don't see the signs.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:56 AM on May 6, 2021 [12 favorites]
I could easily write the exact opposite narrative: That renovation shows are so popular because the amount of new home building has slowed to a crawl - many of our parents probably purchased brand new spec houses built at the bare edges of the prairie. There was no builder conflict there either. They were bought not unlike cars.
We don't want to live at the bare edges of the prairie like our parents- we want to live where there is old life and history (and generally built on the backs of slaves like most of the bad old days). But the only ones we can afford are old, cheap, and worn out, and hence we have to waste our time and money fixing them.
The Gaines are not pioneers either - they are copying the 'fix up the areas around downtown' model and applying it to Waco. If you go to the small towns in Texas that have not copied this model (I drive I40 a lot) they are depressing places. There are abandoned silos in every small town. So I don't buy that part. If they wanted to push some 'settler narrative', wouldn't they set up on the edge of town? Why would they buy downtown?
I also think 'in the world of the show' is doing lots of heavy lifting, considering it's a TV show and mostly fake.
Also shiplap became popular because people have been pissing on plain drywall for 40 years. It's been a low-class material (compared to real plaster walls or decorated real wood walls) since it was created. What was popular before shiplap? Covering drywall up with thin veneer board that looked like a fancier wood.
Now the religious stuff I have no idea about - Waco is a weird religious town in that dancing was still banned while I was in high school in the 1990s. The unbanning was a national story! From that perspective, they don't seem ultra religious to me, but I never paid that much attention in church when I was a kid so I don't see the signs.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:56 AM on May 6, 2021 [12 favorites]
My wife (and me, to a lesser extent) were featured in an HGTV show (long defunct) called "New Spaces." This was around 2002, and I cannot find it anywhere online, unfortunately. What a learning experience!
We were living in a condo in an old 1912 high-rise building in the Printer's Row area of Chicago. The building was a modern miracle when it was built; 20 stories tall and three sets of elevators. It's known as the "Transportation Building" as it was originally built for office space for various businesses associated with shipping, transportation, etc and was 1 block away from Chicago's original main train station which dates to the Civil War (Dearborn Station, which still stands as a small shopping center and houses a Jazz lounge and other small businesses, but long ago all the train tracks were removed and relocated to Union Station). The Transportation building is also famous for being where Elliot Ness (The Untouchables) had his FBI office which largely dealt with various smuggling, sex trafficking and other criminal doings (Al Capone and the like) associated with the train station. When it was built, the area was the sleazy Red Light district, full of brothels, gambling dens and taverns which preyed upon naive arrivals to the New Western city that Chicago was back then.
Anyway, we had a "major" (but small compared to most of the show's projects) renovation planned. My wife has owned a successful small commercial (hotel) Interior Design business for over 20 years. So when we were approached (the production company simply cold-calls every designer in the area), she had almost the entire thing completely planned out and ready to go. She agreed to let the show film in our home and we received zero compensation for any of it other than "promotional credit" at the end of the show and her business was named a few times during the episode.
This turned into a month and a half long pain in the ass. They had to stage lighting, cameras, electric, etc, etc in our home for a long, long time. They had to apply darkening film to the windows so the shots would turn out OK. We were on the 18th floor with tons of sunlight. The producers faked a narrative where my wife was "figuring out how to do all this stuff" with the help of the contractor. This was all a lie. She had the project 90% planned before the cameras showed up. The show turned the contractor (male) into the "lead" character who helped "guide us through the process." They shot us at a marble/stone yard "choosing" the materials for our counter when my wife had already specced out all our choices weeks before. Same with picking floorboards, colors, etc, etc, etc. My wife had this all in her head and 90% on paper but the show made it into "a married couple learning how to do all this stuff." My wife's business projects are ALL far larger and more complex than our tiny 2-bedroom renovation—and did not need guidance on any of this stuff. The contractor WAS hired by us to organize and carry out the demolition and installation, but he was in no way our "guide" to the process. I don't blame the contractor as we basically just all played along and did what we were directed to do. The episode even had a scene of the contractor showing plans my wife had made herself—explaining and talking through these plans with us!
On top of this false narrative, the realities of timing made the project go longer than it needed to. Again: It was a giant pain in the ass, though mildly interesting to take part in. I would not recommend anyone go along with one of these things if the opportunity arrives. We did get some free pizza they ordered for the crew a couple times. Seriously: that was our ONLY compensation.
.....
Interesting notes: this production company made all their shows in the Chicago area. 95% of the projects took place in various unrecognizable suburbs that represented "Anytown, America" to disguise the fact that the show was so hyper local. One of the producers told us that they like to schedule a couple small, quick projects like ours almost as insurance. They know they can get in, get out and have 22 minutes of content for an episode. With these kinds of shows not offering ANY compensation or financial help, often the larger suburban projects would get caught up and stall for one reason or another: financial or health problems with the owners, even a sudden divorce. They need a beginning, middle and end for each 22 minute episode and they lose money if a project stalls out or holds up for too long. If they can't get a good ending, all their time and money put into the starts and middles of projects goes in the toilet. A project like ours, relatively small (and well planned by the owners ahead of time) is an easy lay-up for them.
Somewhere, buried in my stuff, there's a burned DVD of this episode. It was fun to show to friends and families. But... just don't ever do it. Trust me.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:28 AM on May 6, 2021 [56 favorites]
We were living in a condo in an old 1912 high-rise building in the Printer's Row area of Chicago. The building was a modern miracle when it was built; 20 stories tall and three sets of elevators. It's known as the "Transportation Building" as it was originally built for office space for various businesses associated with shipping, transportation, etc and was 1 block away from Chicago's original main train station which dates to the Civil War (Dearborn Station, which still stands as a small shopping center and houses a Jazz lounge and other small businesses, but long ago all the train tracks were removed and relocated to Union Station). The Transportation building is also famous for being where Elliot Ness (The Untouchables) had his FBI office which largely dealt with various smuggling, sex trafficking and other criminal doings (Al Capone and the like) associated with the train station. When it was built, the area was the sleazy Red Light district, full of brothels, gambling dens and taverns which preyed upon naive arrivals to the New Western city that Chicago was back then.
Anyway, we had a "major" (but small compared to most of the show's projects) renovation planned. My wife has owned a successful small commercial (hotel) Interior Design business for over 20 years. So when we were approached (the production company simply cold-calls every designer in the area), she had almost the entire thing completely planned out and ready to go. She agreed to let the show film in our home and we received zero compensation for any of it other than "promotional credit" at the end of the show and her business was named a few times during the episode.
This turned into a month and a half long pain in the ass. They had to stage lighting, cameras, electric, etc, etc in our home for a long, long time. They had to apply darkening film to the windows so the shots would turn out OK. We were on the 18th floor with tons of sunlight. The producers faked a narrative where my wife was "figuring out how to do all this stuff" with the help of the contractor. This was all a lie. She had the project 90% planned before the cameras showed up. The show turned the contractor (male) into the "lead" character who helped "guide us through the process." They shot us at a marble/stone yard "choosing" the materials for our counter when my wife had already specced out all our choices weeks before. Same with picking floorboards, colors, etc, etc, etc. My wife had this all in her head and 90% on paper but the show made it into "a married couple learning how to do all this stuff." My wife's business projects are ALL far larger and more complex than our tiny 2-bedroom renovation—and did not need guidance on any of this stuff. The contractor WAS hired by us to organize and carry out the demolition and installation, but he was in no way our "guide" to the process. I don't blame the contractor as we basically just all played along and did what we were directed to do. The episode even had a scene of the contractor showing plans my wife had made herself—explaining and talking through these plans with us!
On top of this false narrative, the realities of timing made the project go longer than it needed to. Again: It was a giant pain in the ass, though mildly interesting to take part in. I would not recommend anyone go along with one of these things if the opportunity arrives. We did get some free pizza they ordered for the crew a couple times. Seriously: that was our ONLY compensation.
.....
Interesting notes: this production company made all their shows in the Chicago area. 95% of the projects took place in various unrecognizable suburbs that represented "Anytown, America" to disguise the fact that the show was so hyper local. One of the producers told us that they like to schedule a couple small, quick projects like ours almost as insurance. They know they can get in, get out and have 22 minutes of content for an episode. With these kinds of shows not offering ANY compensation or financial help, often the larger suburban projects would get caught up and stall for one reason or another: financial or health problems with the owners, even a sudden divorce. They need a beginning, middle and end for each 22 minute episode and they lose money if a project stalls out or holds up for too long. If they can't get a good ending, all their time and money put into the starts and middles of projects goes in the toilet. A project like ours, relatively small (and well planned by the owners ahead of time) is an easy lay-up for them.
Somewhere, buried in my stuff, there's a burned DVD of this episode. It was fun to show to friends and families. But... just don't ever do it. Trust me.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:28 AM on May 6, 2021 [56 favorites]
It sounds like y'all have read the fucking article (TFA), which is awesome. I encourage folks to read the full article for a variety of reasons. I loved it because:
1. I am not am academic. Academic approaches to nearly anything scare me away but this topic was accessible to me because I love renovation porn (as I call it). I stopped watching Fixer Upper because I always knew what was going to happen: A. A bunch of walls would be pulled down. B. A kitchen island would be added. Etc. I switched to Home Town partly because that show does not seem to insist that every fucking thing, including reusable things, be torn down and replaced with new stuff.
2. I am a backslid Baptist. I did not know there could even be an intersection that involved home renovation TV, religion, history, and architecture.
3. I know that renovation porn is scripted; that seems obvious (thanks for the confirmation, SoberHighland!). But I had never thought about “theater of suffering” TV programming like Queer Eye compared to home renovation shows. That's fascinating to me.
TL;DR: There is plenty of interesting stuff not touched on in the FPP. Enjoy, disagree, discuss! You know, or not.
posted by Bella Donna at 8:36 AM on May 6, 2021 [11 favorites]
1. I am not am academic. Academic approaches to nearly anything scare me away but this topic was accessible to me because I love renovation porn (as I call it). I stopped watching Fixer Upper because I always knew what was going to happen: A. A bunch of walls would be pulled down. B. A kitchen island would be added. Etc. I switched to Home Town partly because that show does not seem to insist that every fucking thing, including reusable things, be torn down and replaced with new stuff.
2. I am a backslid Baptist. I did not know there could even be an intersection that involved home renovation TV, religion, history, and architecture.
3. I know that renovation porn is scripted; that seems obvious (thanks for the confirmation, SoberHighland!). But I had never thought about “theater of suffering” TV programming like Queer Eye compared to home renovation shows. That's fascinating to me.
TL;DR: There is plenty of interesting stuff not touched on in the FPP. Enjoy, disagree, discuss! You know, or not.
posted by Bella Donna at 8:36 AM on May 6, 2021 [11 favorites]
What Bella Donna said! This is why I instantly bookmark anything AHP puts out there. Her content is always gold.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 8:40 AM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 8:40 AM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
(I did RTFA and I agree my comment wasn't exactly on topic. Just thought it would make an interesting story in relation to the OP. Delete it if it's too much of a tangent)
posted by SoberHighland at 8:40 AM on May 6, 2021
posted by SoberHighland at 8:40 AM on May 6, 2021
The connection between the show, the historical housing of the community, and the grievous history of that community that the show elides is clear.
I'm wondering, though, whether the connection between shiplap, the material, and sail-powered trade, specifically the slave trade, goes any deeper than the the name. I've helped build small wooden boats and seen big wooden ships in repair, and certainly there's no place for that material in their construction. Was is just named because of the slight resemblance to the way wooden ships are planked?
I should also ask if it matters. perhaps the name, combined with the sense of historical reference, give the material problematic associations whether or not it played any actual role in the maritime commercial past.
I wonder if there is any architectural or design style available that's actually free of that painful historical association. The sleek and minimal-ish style most available today seems, to me at least, a derivative of the international style beloved by many totalitarians. Bauhaus carries reminders of the abusive sanitarium. And anything from before then seems like a deliberate effort to recall a time when some ancestors might, we hope and imagine, have lived comfortably, but only because so many others were immiserated.
posted by CHoldredge at 8:53 AM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'm wondering, though, whether the connection between shiplap, the material, and sail-powered trade, specifically the slave trade, goes any deeper than the the name. I've helped build small wooden boats and seen big wooden ships in repair, and certainly there's no place for that material in their construction. Was is just named because of the slight resemblance to the way wooden ships are planked?
I should also ask if it matters. perhaps the name, combined with the sense of historical reference, give the material problematic associations whether or not it played any actual role in the maritime commercial past.
I wonder if there is any architectural or design style available that's actually free of that painful historical association. The sleek and minimal-ish style most available today seems, to me at least, a derivative of the international style beloved by many totalitarians. Bauhaus carries reminders of the abusive sanitarium. And anything from before then seems like a deliberate effort to recall a time when some ancestors might, we hope and imagine, have lived comfortably, but only because so many others were immiserated.
posted by CHoldredge at 8:53 AM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
I could easily write the exact opposite narrative: That renovation shows are so popular because the amount of new home building has slowed to a crawl - many of our parents probably purchased brand new spec houses built at the bare edges of the prairie.
Depends a lot on where you are. In the northeast, midwest, maybe CA, yeah. But there are a lot of places with explosively metastatic suburbs like, say, Dallas/Fort Worth or Toronto, where [sagan]millyuns and millyuns[/sagan] of people are living in new-build spec houses carved out of the edges of, in those cases, farmland.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:08 AM on May 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
Depends a lot on where you are. In the northeast, midwest, maybe CA, yeah. But there are a lot of places with explosively metastatic suburbs like, say, Dallas/Fort Worth or Toronto, where [sagan]millyuns and millyuns[/sagan] of people are living in new-build spec houses carved out of the edges of, in those cases, farmland.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:08 AM on May 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
If they wanted to push some 'settler narrative'
I don't think that's quite what the article is getting at. When the article is talking about settler narrative, it's how The Gaines Universe is a continuation of what we do as a nation: Tell a story of how colonists came to this wilderness, settled it, and "created" civilization. The story basically ignores the people and cultures who had preceded them and were pushed out by them. Taking over downtown and reshaping it to your tastes could be seen as a modern version of it.
posted by ghost phoneme at 9:20 AM on May 6, 2021 [11 favorites]
I don't think that's quite what the article is getting at. When the article is talking about settler narrative, it's how The Gaines Universe is a continuation of what we do as a nation: Tell a story of how colonists came to this wilderness, settled it, and "created" civilization. The story basically ignores the people and cultures who had preceded them and were pushed out by them. Taking over downtown and reshaping it to your tastes could be seen as a modern version of it.
posted by ghost phoneme at 9:20 AM on May 6, 2021 [11 favorites]
I wonder if there is any architectural or design style available that's actually free of that painful historical association. The sleek and minimal-ish style most available today seems, to me at least, a derivative of the international style beloved by many totalitarians. Bauhaus carries reminders of the abusive sanitarium. And anything from before then seems like a deliberate effort to recall a time when some ancestors might, we hope and imagine, have lived comfortably, but only because so many others were immiserated.
Probably not. Totalitarians themselves are sort of split between classicism (Hitler, Trump, Franco) and modernism (USSR, fascist Italy). Within the US, anything Federalist or Georgian will bring up associations with slavery (actually kind of appropriate callbacks for buildings that reference Rome and Greece?). A lot of styles were developed with certain humanistic ideals that were later subverted by regimes adopting them as a house style, like I'd think the modernist ideal would have a bit in common with the early Soviet communist ideal, but how the Soviet regime worked out undermines it.
posted by LionIndex at 9:22 AM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Probably not. Totalitarians themselves are sort of split between classicism (Hitler, Trump, Franco) and modernism (USSR, fascist Italy). Within the US, anything Federalist or Georgian will bring up associations with slavery (actually kind of appropriate callbacks for buildings that reference Rome and Greece?). A lot of styles were developed with certain humanistic ideals that were later subverted by regimes adopting them as a house style, like I'd think the modernist ideal would have a bit in common with the early Soviet communist ideal, but how the Soviet regime worked out undermines it.
posted by LionIndex at 9:22 AM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
SoberHighland, my comment was *not* a sideways poke at your excellent commentary, which I enjoyed very much.
posted by Bella Donna at 9:28 AM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Bella Donna at 9:28 AM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
I read for the bit about "Praise music" that has the serial numbers filed off, and was kind of surprised. I thought it was going to be more about the "Christian Rock" side of things. Because do you know what I listened to for the first time in my 20s and asked "Why are you playing Christian Rock??"?
KISS
I mean I'd seen the makeup and the posters and the shirts and all the satanic-panic scolding around them, but the music is 100% in the genre of Christian Rock Adult Contemporary Muzak. I was expecting GWAR or something!
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 9:29 AM on May 6, 2021 [16 favorites]
KISS
I mean I'd seen the makeup and the posters and the shirts and all the satanic-panic scolding around them, but the music is 100% in the genre of Christian Rock Adult Contemporary Muzak. I was expecting GWAR or something!
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 9:29 AM on May 6, 2021 [16 favorites]
just when I thought I could not possibly derive an ounce more of pleasure from this post/thread.. rum-soaked space hobo draws the connecting line between Christian Rock Adult Contemporary Muzak and KISS. The line is writ large and neon, yet I've never seen it till now. You do the lord's work, thank you.
posted by elkevelvet at 9:39 AM on May 6, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by elkevelvet at 9:39 AM on May 6, 2021 [11 favorites]
Thank you so much for sharing this. I thought it would immediately devolve into the churchy side (admittedly an easier subject to write on and has been done many times) but I really enjoyed the construction/materials content!
I also enjoy Home Town because of their reverence of original design and styles. I have a gentleperson's wager with a friend that Erin and Ben will eventually open their own church, and I do wonder if they'll send their kids to their beloved town's public schools, but as long as you don't follow their instagram accounts (Erin gets her feelings hurt very easily/Ben is very very very USA USA USA), they are a delight.
posted by kimberussell at 10:09 AM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
I also enjoy Home Town because of their reverence of original design and styles. I have a gentleperson's wager with a friend that Erin and Ben will eventually open their own church, and I do wonder if they'll send their kids to their beloved town's public schools, but as long as you don't follow their instagram accounts (Erin gets her feelings hurt very easily/Ben is very very very USA USA USA), they are a delight.
posted by kimberussell at 10:09 AM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
I don't understand the supposed link between shiplap the building material, and the history of slavery. "Shiplap" doesn't have anything to do with how ships were planked. Maybe I'm being too literal?
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 11:35 AM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 11:35 AM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
"Shiplap" doesn't have anything to do with how ships were planked.
I was confused by this too. My grandfather worked in one of the last wooden ship wharves (wharfs?) in the States building lapstrake clinkered minesweepers. All his colleagues were decendents of vikings building boats in the centuries-old manner, and look nothing like those walls. The pictures look like beadboard panelling? Like horizontal wainscoting? Beads were added to interior panels to play with the light as gaps would open between panels as seasonal climate caused the wood to shrink and expand.
posted by St. Oops at 12:17 PM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
I was confused by this too. My grandfather worked in one of the last wooden ship wharves (wharfs?) in the States building lapstrake clinkered minesweepers. All his colleagues were decendents of vikings building boats in the centuries-old manner, and look nothing like those walls. The pictures look like beadboard panelling? Like horizontal wainscoting? Beads were added to interior panels to play with the light as gaps would open between panels as seasonal climate caused the wood to shrink and expand.
posted by St. Oops at 12:17 PM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
"Shiplap" doesn't have anything to do with how ships were planked
According to a blog post called The true history of shiplap, before Chip and Joanna, produced by a shiplap vendor:
An ancient boat unearthed in northern Europe more than a century ago is the earliest example of clinker construction that uses overlapping wood planks called lapstrakes – a precursor to shiplap that created a watertight seal. The Nydam was a 24-meter long rowboat with 15 sets of oars that was built around the year 320, way back when Constantine was Roman emperor!
In the centuries that followed, the practice of overlapping wood planks to keep out moisture evolved and produced shiplap. Technically, shiplap consists of boards that overlap at rabbeted edges to create a snug, watertight fit. It became a common exterior siding material for barns and sheds.
The blog post includes an image of an old ship using the shiplap technique. So maybe ... not all ships use/used shiplap but some slave ships and others did.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:19 PM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
According to a blog post called The true history of shiplap, before Chip and Joanna, produced by a shiplap vendor:
An ancient boat unearthed in northern Europe more than a century ago is the earliest example of clinker construction that uses overlapping wood planks called lapstrakes – a precursor to shiplap that created a watertight seal. The Nydam was a 24-meter long rowboat with 15 sets of oars that was built around the year 320, way back when Constantine was Roman emperor!
In the centuries that followed, the practice of overlapping wood planks to keep out moisture evolved and produced shiplap. Technically, shiplap consists of boards that overlap at rabbeted edges to create a snug, watertight fit. It became a common exterior siding material for barns and sheds.
The blog post includes an image of an old ship using the shiplap technique. So maybe ... not all ships use/used shiplap but some slave ships and others did.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:19 PM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Forgot this part: Eventually, shiplap found its way indoors, but not as a decorative element. It was never intended to be exposed. Instead, shiplap was placed over top of a house’s framing to create a smooth backing for wallpaper and other interior wall coverings.
I'm thinking modern shiplapping used in interiors probably and understandably looks different than what was used originally on ships but is rooted in that history.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:22 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm thinking modern shiplapping used in interiors probably and understandably looks different than what was used originally on ships but is rooted in that history.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:22 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
I think that elides a difference between shiplap and lapstrake construction; from the way it's written, it's not clear that shiplap was, actually, ever used on boats.
Not sure that I'd take a marketing document as a historical source, and it's very hard to find examples of hulls that are shiplap and not lapstrake; see a conversation here; apparently the veracity of Chip and Joanna is... doubted.
posted by sagc at 1:24 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Not sure that I'd take a marketing document as a historical source, and it's very hard to find examples of hulls that are shiplap and not lapstrake; see a conversation here; apparently the veracity of Chip and Joanna is... doubted.
posted by sagc at 1:24 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Which is what I now see you were saying; I still suspect that lapstrake construction is what most people are thinking of when they compare the siding to boats.
posted by sagc at 1:26 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by sagc at 1:26 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Totalitarians themselves are sort of split between classicism (Hitler, Trump, Franco) and modernism (USSR, fascist Italy).
Mussolini had a foot in the classicism camp too, being fond of imagery of Ancient Rome in propaganda and State pageantry. Even the name comes from the facses. But this is not to gainsay the importance of modernism in their movement; consistency was never a strong point of fascism.
posted by thelonius at 2:10 PM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Mussolini had a foot in the classicism camp too, being fond of imagery of Ancient Rome in propaganda and State pageantry. Even the name comes from the facses. But this is not to gainsay the importance of modernism in their movement; consistency was never a strong point of fascism.
posted by thelonius at 2:10 PM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Shiplap and lapstrake are definitely not the same, but regardless, slave ships used neither, as far as I'm aware. All large European vessels of that age were conventionally or carvel planked.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 3:27 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 3:27 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Not only does shiplap have nothing to do with shipbuilding, it came along pretty late in the day to be linked to the slave trade. The author seems to be talking about fieldworker (slave, tenant, free) housing in her article, but even that is seldom shiplap, mostly just butted together boards. Early 20th, late 19th C. houses used shiplap for cheap construction, but this was after mechanization of board manufacture.
posted by CCBC at 4:00 PM on May 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by CCBC at 4:00 PM on May 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
To late to edit. I came across this in EmpressCallipygos' link:
posted by CCBC at 4:10 PM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
...traditional shiplap has a rabbet (or groove) cut into the top and bottom, which allows the boards to fit together snugly, forming a tight seal. These days, however, when people talk about shiplap, it’s almost always shorthand for the visual style: Long planks, usually painted white, mounted horizontally on the walls.So, what is referred to in the article? The traditional thing or the current style? Either way, linking to slavery is a bit much.
posted by CCBC at 4:10 PM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
> Seriously: that was our ONLY compensation.
I'm curious... why *did* you guys choose to do the episode? You knew going in there was no compensation... was it just because you thought it'd be fun, and underestimated the costs to you?
posted by lewedswiver at 4:43 PM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm curious... why *did* you guys choose to do the episode? You knew going in there was no compensation... was it just because you thought it'd be fun, and underestimated the costs to you?
posted by lewedswiver at 4:43 PM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
I think by “shiplap” she’s referring to a style as a shorthand, and then about how that style relates to and evokes ideas about America, Texas, and houses that have ties to slavery. It could be more clearly described, but I don’t think she’s at all saying shiplap as used in interior design today is the same physical construction as slave ships. I want to read her original article because this interview seemed to be edited for length in a way that skipped over stuff.
posted by sepviva at 5:32 PM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by sepviva at 5:32 PM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
"Prophets of Place" refers to a correspondence between current and "plantation" aesthetics (including "whiteness" in the form of whitewash, which I think is a bit over the top.) The article has this curious bit:
Shiplap tells the modern story of capitalism’s birth in the wake of the slave ship. A globalizing, Christian Europe built these ships to “save” the people and places of the Americas and Africa by converting them into cargo organized along a newly imagined racial-spatial axis, in which whiteness was closer to godliness. Shiplap’s plantation aesthetic illustrates McKittrick’s assertion that plantation logic “emerges in the present both ideologically and materially” as a “persistent but ugly blueprint of our present spatial organization that holds in it a new future” (3, 10). The monstrous materials of our history are refurbished into a new orthodoxyposted by CCBC at 6:31 PM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Clapboard is what it is when clinker-built / lapstrake ship construction goes on the side of a house.
I wonder what the history of the term "shiplap" is. Not in my etymological dictionary, and online sources don't go into why it got applied to rabbetted planks.
posted by away for regrooving at 8:46 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
I wonder what the history of the term "shiplap" is. Not in my etymological dictionary, and online sources don't go into why it got applied to rabbetted planks.
posted by away for regrooving at 8:46 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
I’ve lived in old houses my entire life (which my percents were always fixing up) and have dedicated my career to building. I had never heard of shiplap before Fixer Upper. Near as I can tell, it was a regional practice in lieu of lathe and plaster walls.
The adoption of shiplap as an adornment in modern homes around the country makes no damn sense because it is then divorced from the original context and reason for existence. It’s just ornament for the sake of ornamentation, which I abhor. Almost as much as the stupid inspirational phrases that often painted on them.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 9:30 PM on May 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
The adoption of shiplap as an adornment in modern homes around the country makes no damn sense because it is then divorced from the original context and reason for existence. It’s just ornament for the sake of ornamentation, which I abhor. Almost as much as the stupid inspirational phrases that often painted on them.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 9:30 PM on May 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
Shiplap is the new popcorn ceiling.
posted by Brachinus at 5:21 AM on May 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Brachinus at 5:21 AM on May 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
Depends a lot on where you are. In the northeast, midwest, maybe CA, yeah. But there are a lot of places with explosively metastatic suburbs like, say, Dallas/Fort Worth or Toronto, where [sagan]millyuns and millyuns[/sagan] of people are living in new-build spec houses carved out of the edges of, in those cases, farmland.
Only about 1.5 million single-family homes are built a year in the entire US. Considering the US population like 330 million, that's a pretty small ratio of new home owners.
Taking over downtown and reshaping it to your tastes could be seen as a modern version of it.
But see, I disagree that this what they are doing. They aren't 'taking over' downtown, they are purchasing abandoned buildings. I'd agree that if they were taking over via direct governmental interference, or if even if they were bulldozing these buildings for shrines to themselves, they would be 'taking over'. But keeping the old buildings is about as far from 'colonizing' and erasing history as a place that is meant to be lived in deserves.
This is where I have a problem with neo-liberal (in specific reference to Waco and Waco alone, also). I mean that the author considers it nothing more than a 'pit stop' between Dallas and Austin, and the fact that the government literally killed a bunch of people including children there for accusations of crimes that a current US Representative is accused of (though fewer counts) - all this points to a government that has failed Waco. They built a highway through town that caused downtown disinvestment (not the Fixer Upper couple) and killed a bunch of people, which isn't good for the towns' reputation.
I'd go it alone too if that was how the government treated me.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:31 AM on May 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
Only about 1.5 million single-family homes are built a year in the entire US. Considering the US population like 330 million, that's a pretty small ratio of new home owners.
Taking over downtown and reshaping it to your tastes could be seen as a modern version of it.
But see, I disagree that this what they are doing. They aren't 'taking over' downtown, they are purchasing abandoned buildings. I'd agree that if they were taking over via direct governmental interference, or if even if they were bulldozing these buildings for shrines to themselves, they would be 'taking over'. But keeping the old buildings is about as far from 'colonizing' and erasing history as a place that is meant to be lived in deserves.
This is where I have a problem with neo-liberal (in specific reference to Waco and Waco alone, also). I mean that the author considers it nothing more than a 'pit stop' between Dallas and Austin, and the fact that the government literally killed a bunch of people including children there for accusations of crimes that a current US Representative is accused of (though fewer counts) - all this points to a government that has failed Waco. They built a highway through town that caused downtown disinvestment (not the Fixer Upper couple) and killed a bunch of people, which isn't good for the towns' reputation.
I'd go it alone too if that was how the government treated me.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:31 AM on May 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
Shiplap may have a complex past in actuality, but for most people it’s just wood paneling that’s appealing in a Pinteresty aspirational way. Is it still as colonial turned 90 degrees and called wainscoting? Does a chair rail absolve our sins?
popcorn ceilings
Abominations. Yet somehow knockdown wall texture persists.
(It’s landlords as always)
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:13 PM on May 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
popcorn ceilings
Abominations. Yet somehow knockdown wall texture persists.
(It’s landlords as always)
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:13 PM on May 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
I stopped reading the article when I got to the shiplap bit because it completely failed to join the dots between ship construction and what in my country is called tongue and groove. Were ship construction techniques used in domestic architecture at that time? Is tongue and groove how ships were built? Is there intention there in modern usage? I have to hope this was all in many chapter of thesis that that they didn't get to talk about. But for something that was centred in this post's framing and the interview it was pretty weak. The stuff about house renovation show's moral framework was cool though.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:33 AM on May 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:33 AM on May 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
Tongue and groove (with its lengthwise tab and slot) is a little different than shiplap (one edge is beveled high and the other low and the overlap). But there are some styles of “shiplap” sold that fit so exactly that they look less nautical or crafty than some tongue and groove, and more moderne. Like a Gap store.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:32 AM on May 8, 2021
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:32 AM on May 8, 2021
Popcorn ceilings and textured walls help mask shoddy drywall work. You can bet that 99% of the time the work was done as fast and cheaply as possible.
posted by cmfletcher at 10:57 AM on May 8, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by cmfletcher at 10:57 AM on May 8, 2021 [4 favorites]
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