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Photo by Benoît Paillé
Klô Pelgag: Sorrow, joy, and the bridge between them
Story by Élise Jetté | June 25, 2020
Klô Pelgag's third album begins at what seemed to her, at the time she created it, to be the end of the road. Saddened by a major loss, and caught up in the whirlwind of a career that had become as demanding as it was successful, the singer-songwriter wrote the Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs (Our Lady of Seven Sorrows) album to exorcise her demons, and came out much stronger on the other side.
"An album captures you the way you are right now, and yet you still want it to be timeless. These two views are hard to reconcile, but I thrive on challenges," says Klô Pelgag. Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs, her third album, took shape late last summer, when the artist was coming to the realization that, after L'alchimie des monstres and L'étoile thoracique, she was drawing a blank. She'd given her all, and was left only with a fear of things to come.
"Making an album and embarking on a 300-date tour is bad for your health," says Pelgag. "Some people picture you travelling on this glamorous bus, where, in actual fact, seven or eight of you squeeze into a rented vehicle with stuff hanging over your heads. It's exhausting." Pelgag's stories and images are realistic, because she takes the time to fully immerse herself in her own reality. "Touring was an endless road, and I was left with no mental space in which to do my own thinking."
She ended up crashing, and then her creative power came back again in 2019. The year 2020 began with the birth of a little girl for Pelgag and her soulmate Karl Gagnon (aka Violett Pi) in mid-January, but in mid-February, her father passed away from a degenerative disease. Life was a rollercoaster, an then the pandemic set in. "I'd started missing him long before he actually left. He'd already been gone for a long time," says Pelgag, who portrays that long goodbye in "La fonte," a song from her new album, accompanied by a simple piano melody: Now, I'm asking you, let me go in the shadow of this body that's no longer mine.
"It was a necessary song because it came out of the suffering I was carrying with me," she says, "and it was very hard to accept. It's the only song on this album that I kept simple. I didn't want its meaning to be obscured."
A new village
The album title is the name of a small village, a name that used to frighten Pelgag as a child, but that she learned to see in a brighter light. Like a real village, the artist's third recording is different from her others. It was built in a familiar landscape, but everything in it is new. Each successive album is a new village that reminds us of a place where we've been before.
"I'm glad you see it that way," Pelgag says, "because that's exactly what I wanted to convey. When I put out my second album, people could hear traces from my first one, but I allowed my songs to evolve, when I performed them later on tour with my band. By the end of the tour, I already knew that I wanted to leave behind the strings that played a central part in L'étoile thoracique, and move toward something more grounded. I wanted to insert some violence and some fat into my sound. I had never before experienced such a need to express something."
Sylvain Deschamps, her co-producer since her first album, is still the one who "receives" all her ideas. "Enjoying such significant musical collaborations is precious because, besides wanting to be a good performer, you have to be humble enough to be a conduit for other people's ideas," Pelgag explains. "What scares me the most always is the technical side. I can't write or read music, but I have very sharp ears. Sylvain has greatly helped me feel stronger in everything I still don't understand."
Étienne Dupré, François Zaïdan, and Pete Pételle, her closest acolytes, are also seasoned musicians, part of the team that makes it possible for Pelgag to express herself. On the current album, Owen Pallett is credited for the string arrangements for "À l'ombre des cyprès" and "J'aurai les cheveux longs," and also for the brass arrangements for "Soleil," while Marianne Houle supervised all the string parts. Pelgag sees this album as an "accumulation," something that kept growing during the intense period she was experiencing. "I hope that everybody can appreciate the work that went into the sound textures and movements that these people were able to create," she says.
Sandwiched between to instrumental pieces at the beginning and the end of the album, Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs requires space and volume to be heard properly. Each listening brings out new gems. "Of course, I'd like people to listen to this album while smoking their pipes in front of a great sunset by the sea, or as they lie in a strawberry field with their mouths all reddened from pigging out, but I think the cool thing is that you can listen to it any way you want, and it still fits," says Pelgag.
Pelgag's third album is her most personal yet. After presenting the character Édelweiss in her previous release, she now introduces Rémora and Élise, two fictional characters who speak with as much strength as if they came out of 10-volume epic saga. "All these people are me, but they are not limited to me," says Pelgag. "I enjoy taking a peek into myself from the outside. It allows me to be everything I want to be, and to say things I would be afraid of saying otherwise."
The more one listens to the album, the more each story comes to life. Pelgag also has the knack of painting in full colour what has always seemed to be black and white. "Maybe I am pre-disposed [to that]," she laughs. "Writing that kind of songs is a form of letting go. When I'm writing, I know I'm not going to judge myself, and this often is when an image will come to mind."
Although Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs came out of a personal setback, Pelgag isn't about to wave a flag for mental health, believing that in many situations, "silence is best." "I'm just a songwriter, and music that speaks of distress already plays a social role," she says. "I'm singing about it, so I don't have to talk about it too. You can go too far in getting artists to be spokespeople on behalf of this and that cause. Some people spend a lifetime taking post-doctorate studies in the kind of subjects that my songs are talking about. The microphone should be passed to them," she says.
Admittedly, there are dark zones in Pelgag's "seven sorrows," particularly in the song "À l'ombre des cyprès," where she's asking to be buried. "Yes, it's a suicidal song, even if it is a groovy one. But you know, I often talk about death, even if I do it with a smile," she says. "The childlike illustration and the bright colours of the album cover for L'alchimie des monstres was taking us aboard a ship of contrasts that was asking us to put a name, a face, some sweetness 'at the very top of the heart's mast.' Yes, I often talk about a deep unhappiness, and life always is a bit like that. There are days when you read what's happening in the world, and you feel sorry for the world, and even pain in your own body. And then you go to the market and eat fresh strawberries, and think life is wonderful after all, it's so beautiful. Someone stole a geranium pot from my porch last week, but at the same time, he fled carrying flowers, and I hope he will place it in his home and enjoy it," she says with a mixture of resignation and amusement.
If "Rémora" is representative of Pelgag's musical abilities at the present time, practically all of the new album's other songs demonstrate her original craft, and the creative way in which she links together the songs. "I never could have anticipated all the events that drove me to create this album," she explains in a nutshell.
In the video explaining the genesis of the Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs album, the village she's talking about is pictured "before" and "after," and the earlier state is far more disturbing than the sweet reality that follows. Did she place her album before, or after? "For me, the album is a long bridge between the two. It's a process album, a rite of passage album," says Pelgag.. "It's both dark and transparent, it hurts, but it's freeing. It helped me get rid of lots of crutches, unease, and anguish."
Klô Pelgag has always known that her life as an artist wasn't going to be easy, "but it didn't turn out to be hard for the reasons they gave me," she recalls. "For a long time, I needed my self-confidence to be reinforced. But right now, I'm moving in the direction of a kind of self-confidence that comes from within. I'm not about to become too complacent, though, because constant self-doubt has its good sides."
Collaboration COVID-19 Feature Stories – Artists Quebec Singer-Songwriter Songwriting/Composing
Klô Pelgag : Klô's Clues
L'Étoile thoracique is a rich, ambitious sophomore album
Klô Pelgag:
Outlandish wordplay to amuse, de-stabilize, and move the listener
Guylaine Tanguay: "I want to 'de-tacky-fy' country music"
With new album and tour of drive-ins, she's in summer mode
Photo by courtesy/courtoisie. Left to right/De gauche à droite : Amritha Vaz, Lesley Barber, Jeff Danna, Amin Bhatia & Ari Posner
What have SOCAN #ComposersWhoScore been doing during self-isolation?
Story by Chaka V. Grier | June 29, 2020
Screen composing is both a deeply collaborative and solitary practice. Composers who score thrive on this ebb and flow, but when COVID-19 morphed from epidemic to pandemic, daily life and creativity transformed, too.
Lesley Barber
"Oddly, I found the forced isolation kind of freeing, as I'm a really social person," says screen composer Lesley Barber, whose resumé includes movies like Late Night starring Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson, the Oscar-winning Manchester by the Sea, and You Can Count on Me, with Mark Ruffalo and Laura Linney. "It was great to be able to have this time [to] just focus on my writing and stay in touch with family, friends, and colleagues, from this one location."
Barber says the pandemic has affected her projects – one is on hiatus, another is moving forward – and changed in-person studio sessions to phone calls and online meetings involving collaborators from different time zones. All these adjustments have made her aware of how the pandemic affects her peers, on various levels. "Everyone has felt the impact of COVID – emotionally as well [as professionally] – and being attuned to where people's heads are at, and sensitive to their lives, has been on my mind as I work with musicians," she says.
Sensitivity to oneself and one's community have also proven important to Amritha Vaz, who's scored award-winning documentary features like Made In India (PBS), Little Stones, and Music for Mandela, as well as the Disney animated TV show Mira Royal Detective (2020), and apprenticed for five years with Oscar-winning screen composer Mychael Danna. Vaz confides that balancing career and family, "pulled the ground out from under my feet, and I feel like I've had to invent a new surface altogether.
Amritha Vaz
"Prior to the pandemic," she continues, "I was spending 12 to 15 hours a day working to meet timelines. Without that support from [baby]sitters and teachers, it became an intense juggling act. My partner is also a creative, with a nutty work schedule. Right now, it's important for me to balance delivering the best music I can, in the time I'm given, while being compassionate to myself and my family."
The world's social and political unrest, in the wake of the police killings of unarmed African-Americans George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others, was another blow for the L.A.-based composer, reinforcing her need for community – even in a moment of social distancing.
"Initially it felt like a gut punch during an already dark time," says Vaz. "But a strange thing happened: execs and colleagues started initiating genuine conversations about politics and social change. I started to see acts of solidarity from fellow artists and friends pop up everywhere. It created a sense of connection and belonging that I've been missing. It provided me with some hope and inspiration. These are just baby steps towards what will need to be a massive system re-set, but I was glad to see these little shifts. I'm also leaning more heavily than usual on my composer community for support and camaraderie, especially the Composers Diversity Collective."
For composing partners Amin Bhatia and Ari Posner – best known for their multiple-award-winning (including SOCAN Awards) work on such globally successful TV series as Flashpoint and X Company – camaraderie comes with the job. The pair recently won a second Canadian Screen Award for Anne with an E, but that momentum has been temporarily undercut by the pandemic.
Amin Bhatia & Ari Posner
"This would have been a perfect time for our agents to get out there to find us more work," says Bhatia. "But no crew means no production means no post-production, so it's going to be awhile. However, animation is alive and well. Ari and I are on schedule to work on the next season of Luna Let's Go later this year, and we can't wait."
Some suggest that royalties from increased pandemic streaming might help offset losses from postponed projects, but Bhatia says perhaps not. "The current business structure of streaming services has been far more damaging to composers and songwriters than anything the pandemic could do," he says. "Many composers and songwriters have seen a sharp drop in royalties, anywhere from 50% to 90% in the last two years. This is all being re-visited… so we're hopeful a better situation can be made that will be a win-win-win for creators, distributors, and consumers. And we have a lot of time now for online meetings between SOCAN, The Screen Composers Guild of Canada, and industry partners to iron all this out as we wait for the cameras to start rolling."
Posner says that while the cameras aren't rolling, it's also a good time for creative regeneration. "This is a forced slowdown, not just for the economy, but also for our nervous systems," he reports. "If not for the concern of having to make a living and keep my family going, my body could get used to this pace. One big upside for me has been more time to sit and simply enjoy playing the piano. This has been really fun and challenging – actually practicing a whole piece of music until it's under my fingers and I can play it with confidence, from start to finish."
Jeff Danna
Jeff Danna – winner of three Canadian Screen Awards, 12 SOCAN Awards, and with credits ranging from Pixar's The Good Dinosaur, to Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, to Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus – has a California studio that faces a beautiful and bustling street in Old Town, Pasadena. But when the state's regional lockdowns began, the foot traffic stopped, and once the protests began, stores were boarded up – poignant reminders of dual crises. Danna, however, has kept busy wrapping up projects like Guillermo Del Toro's DreamWorks Animation series, Trollhunters. "It was a lot of fun, really cool," says Danna. "I was glad to have something to work on as things slowed down in our business."
And now, as deadlines disappear for the moment, like Posner, Danna is embracing deadline-free creativity.
"The arts are a lifelong study," he says. "I've got a Ravel orchestration book, maybe I can really do a deep dive on that and just keep trying to move my sense of craft and aesthetic outward. When you're on deadline all the time, there's a certain kind of exploratory creative process that doesn't necessarily have a lot of room. I'm going to try and take this opportunity to go to those corners of my craft that I don't usually go to, and see if I can push the boundaries a little bit."
Collaboration COVID-19 Feature Stories - Themes Film & TV Songwriting/Composing
Seven SOCAN #ComposersWhoScore win in 2020 Canadian Screen Awards
Prizes awarded in online ceremonies due to self-isolation
SOCAN #ComposersWhoScore cash in on Vancouver's cachet
Through networking, hustling, hard work
Self-Isolation: A source of inspiration for SOCAN members
"There's going to be a baby boom and an album boom!" – Kroy
Photo by Marc Costanzo. The Team of/L'équipe Inside Music Nashville. Back row / Rangée arrière,, L to R/D à G : Matt Reviere, Roger Lee Coleman II, Donnie Marple, Dave Dubas. Front row / Première rangée, L to R/D à G : Martin "Bucky" Seja, Marc Costanzo, Kory Caudill
Publishing: Marc Costanzo and Inside Music Nashville
Story by Karen Bliss | June 24, 2020
Marc Costanzo hasn't been "frying on the bench slide in the park across the street" since selling 2 million copies of Len's You Can't Stop The Bum Rush in 1999, thanks to the ubiquitous summer hit "Steal My Sunshine."
The Toronto songwriter and producer, who also discovered Sum 41, and has developed many other writers and artists, released subsequent Len albums in 2005 and 2012, and laughs when asked what he's been up to in between.
"A lot," he says, but doesn't want to name names. "It's never served me well talking about all the things that I've done in the past with publishing. If you want to see what I've done, just come to the studio in Nashville and you can look at the gold records on the wall."
"It's probably the most fun I've ever had."
Costanzo's interest and ownership of catalogue publishing rights totals more than 35 million albums sold, according to a press release about his new company, Inside Music Nashville. "We have about 10 songs that get placed a lot, but the most placements out of all our catalogue is 'Steal My Sunshine,'" he says.
Most of his catalogue is with Universal, Sony, and Warner, he says. He's had music in Peter Rabbit The Movie; TV campaigns for Amazon (North America), Hampton Inn (worldwide), Hotpoint (U.K., Europe, Middle East, Japan), QVC (U.S., Canada), Tropicana (Canada), and Kinder Joy (N.A); plus South Park, Beat Shazam!, America's Got Talent, Live with Kelly & Ryan, American Idol, Mr. Robot, American Dad, and Roswell: New Mexico.
Sunshine Don't Stop
"Came here during coronavirus. Needed a smile on my face," reads one comment under the video for Len's "Steal My Sunshine" on YouTube, which has amassed 49 million plays since it was posted in late 2009, 10 years after its original release on the album You Can't Stop The Bum Rush.
The song hasn't "missed a million miles of fun" these two decades, getting syncs in everything from the movie Go in 1999 to more recent placements in South Park, American Dad, and a Tropicana commercial — "about 30 to 50 a year for the past five years," says songwriter/producer Marc Costanzo, who shares vocals on the track with sister Sharon. "I haven't had to say 'No' to anything. It's generally just cool fun shit, all the summer commercials."
While "Steal My Sunshine," ranked No. 13 on the Top 50 One-hit Wonder List compiled in 2007 by Stylus magazine, and No. 13 on Rolling Stone's 2013 Best Summer Songs of All Time, Costanzo himself is more a wonder of hits.
Note: the late Gregory Diamond, who died the year the song came out, received a posthumous credit on "Steal My Sunshine" for the use of its "More, More, More" sample.
Once signed by SOCAN's current Chief Membership & Business Development Officer Michael McCarty, back when he helmed EMI Music Publishing Canada, Costanzo says, "Everything I do today is based on how Mike worked in 1995 to whenever he left EMI.
"He supported in ways that I, still, to this day, very rarely see. He would take chances, more than anybody I know. He was running a publishing company like a record company, like a management company, and there was a studio component that didn't exist for anybody back then."
Since the COVID-19 pandemic closed the Canada-U.S. border, Costanzo is at home in Toronto, working out of his second-floor waterfront studio on songs for the newly-formed Inside Music Nashville. His new partner Kory Caudill, a producer, keyboardist, and arranger, works out of the same studio as him in Berry Hill, Tennessee, where they met. Matt Williams has been appointed General Manager, and Costanzo has brought along his long-time hip-hop and R&B production collaborator, Martin "Bucky" Seja.
"It'd be nice for people to know that people from two different countries with two different backgrounds are coming together," says Costanzo. "Kory is a country / bluegrass / jazz guy that's from East Kentucky, Floyd County; he's Appalachian, he's Southern; he plays in [the multi-No.1 charting] Justin Moore Band. He and his crew all come from the South.
"I come from a pop, hip-hop and R&B direction, a style of pop music which is a lot of gear, a lot of electronics. We're completely the opposite – except we have something in common, which is we do things our own way, and we saw in each other things that each of us don't have. We realized that, together, we complete the picture of what we love to produce, which is country-pop, pop-country. Let's bring all our experience in publishing, and in writing, and production, and join up with those guys, a lot of incredible musicians and producers on his side.
"The real conversation that I had with Kory is, I can be myself. I can be pop, hip-hop. We can all represent that kind of music, with Bucky and all my writers and my producers, and we don't have to try to be country. I don't write verse-lyrics. I'm not going to pretend I'm from Floyd County. I'm not going to pretend I'm from the South. And then he doesn't have to pretend that he's a pop guy or carries all the experience that I have. But together we can be ourselves."
Just that day, Bucky wrote an instrumental and Costanzo the chorus, "a full-on R&B song," says Costanzo. He played it to Caudill, who said it could be a country song. Costanzo brings up "I Swear" as an example – a country hit for John Michael Montgomery and an R&B hit for All-4-One in the early '90s. "We're going after his people and my people," he says. "It's probably the most fun I've ever had."
Collaboration Country Feature Stories – Artists Music Publishing Pop R&B/Soul Singer-Songwriter Songwriting/Composing
Making It in Nashville
Four SOCAN members newly emerging in Music City
CYMBA Music Publishing going for global synchs
Dramatic re-branding also opens doors to new songwriters
Mackenzie Porter: Co-writing the Nashville way
Actor and singer is a songwriter at heart


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Duttur est la déesse sumérienne de la chèvre, et patronne des troupeaux. Dans le mythe « Le Rêve de Dumuzi », elle est la mère de Dumuzi et de Geshtinanna.

Références

Divinité mésopotamienne

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Arts + Life » Hackie
Roger Wilco
by Jernigan Pontiac
Published April 2, 2014 at 10:00 a.m.
It was a huge snowfall for so late in the season, just over a foot and a half in Burlington when it finally stopped coming down on Thursday. By Friday afternoon, it had reached 40 degrees, and the streets streamed with snowmelt. Toward evening, the temperature dropped below freezing again, and the Queen City became Ice City. Then, at 7 p.m., as a finishing touch and gratuitous dollop of fun and games, a one-hour snow squall deposited another inch or two atop the iced roads. The end result was that "black diamond" degree of driving difficulty so prized by discriminating motorists everywhere.
I wasn't about to lose a Friday night's worth of taxi revenue, so I hit the road at eight o'clock, ice and snow be damned. Such is the life of a Vermont cabdriver; if you can't deal with wintry road conditions, you are in the wrong line of work.
The entire night was a grind. Not just negotiating the treacherous roads, but contending with the customers. It was one of those nights when everyone seemed ornery and dour. (Like many ER nurses and cops I've met, I am a firm believer that the city itself has a communal personality, complete with mood swings.) And even the relatively jolly fares were acting weird.
Two girls, a tall blond and short brunette, hailed me and jumped into the back seat. "Zephyr Road, please," the blond requested. "Do you know where that is?"
"Sure, yeah," I replied. "Just north of Taft Corners."
"Take the interstate, please. It's quicker."
I beg to differ, I thought, but said, "Roger, wilco."
"Roger who?" the blond asked, stumped by my archaic lingo.
"I'll take the interstate," I clarified.
The interstate was no breeze. If the plows had been deployed to salt it, I couldn't tell. The instant we turned off at the Williston exit, the blond said, "Pull over. I can't wait any longer."
I shot over to the shoulder, where she leapt out and did her thing by the side of the road. While she was out there, her friend said, "I had no idea she was feeling queasy. I mean, we definitely hit a few bars, but still."
I said, "Man, I couldn't even tell she was drunk. Your girl can hold a drink. Well, on second thought, she is vomiting al fresco, so maybe not so much."
Deed done, the regurgitator returned to her seat, and I passed her a complimentary napkin. "Thanks," she said. "It took a lot to hold that in until we got off the highway. I almost didn't make it."
I didn't like the sound of that, and said, "Well, speaking on behalf of cabdrivers everywhere, do not wait if this happens again. It's fine to do it on the highway. The main thing, I mean, the overriding principle, is not in the cab. So thanks for that, anyway."
I couldn't tell how she took my slight admonition, but I couldn't let that pass without setting her straight.
My very next fare was a girl and two guys in front of Nectar's. The guys were clearly drunk — no ambiguity there — but the girl appeared alert. As the boys plopped into the back seat, she asked me, at my window, to drive her friends to Patchen Road.
"Do they got money?" I asked — always the 64-thousand-dollar question.
"Bart, you got money on you?" she asked one guy, the incrementally more sober of the pair.
"Yeah, I got money, I got money," he replied in a slurry, bored tone.
On the ride up the hill to Williston Road, the guys in the back were quiet as a couple of dormice, which is how I like my customers, especially drunk ones. When I turned toward Patchen Road at Al's French Frys, I called out, "So lemme know when we get to your place."
That's when I noticed the snoring. Glancing up at the rearview mirror, I saw the two of them were out like lights. I pulled over and shifted into park. Reaching over the seat, I shook Bart's leg. "Wake up, man," I said. "We're on Patchen Road."
One eye slowly opened. "Yeah, right," he said, and promptly returned to his golden slumbers.
"Wake up, Bart!" I shouted this time. "We're at your house."
That was a little white lie, but at this point I just wanted these guys successfully extracted from my cab so I could head back downtown and make some actual money. My hope of getting paid for this fare was fading fast. Given their extreme level of intoxication, I knew it would be fruitless, and I might as well just skip the song and dance. I'd seen this movie before.
Suddenly conscious, Bart popped out of the cab and stumbled around to the other side. Opening the door, he said, "Walter, g'your ass up. We're home."
After some coaxing, prodding and poking, Bart ultimately dragged Walter out of his seat, and the two of them staggered up the street. I hate getting stiffed, but I was thrilled to see them out of the cab. The way they had been out cold, I thought I was going to need the Jaws of Life.
My last fare of the night was a tall African man in the front, whom I matched up with four folks — three girls and a guy — who squeezed into the back. All five of them were drunk and unhappy, which I had already identified as the theme of the evening. The backseat customers were going to South Winooski; my seatmate was bound for Shelburne Road. He had told me the exact address — three times, in fact — but I simply couldn't make it out with his pronounced accent. I did get "Shelburne Road."
On the short hop up South Winooski, the man in the front kept trying to engage one of the girls in the back. She was having none of it and grew angrier by the minute. When I stopped at their destination, he said, "What do you say, darling? Maybe you want to come home with me?"
At least, I think that's what he said. He was probably a newly arrived immigrant; his English was sketchy. And he was inebriated. I believe I got the gist, anyway.
The girl exploded. "Stop talking to me, you freak! I can't understand a fucking word you're saying. Just shut the fuck up!"
"Hey, now!" I bellowed into the cab, to all concerned. "Peace, peace, peace. No need to get all bent out of shape."
The girl's friends calmed her down, one of them paid me, and we were on our way — me and the African dude.
"Oh, my," he said to me. "She was angry girl."
"Yes, she was," I said, nodding my head and chuckling at this entire discordant night, now mercifully coming to an end. "Don't let it get you down, though," I counseled, speaking as much to myself as to my customer.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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"Move Over, RA! I'm In Control!"
By webmaster October 29, 2018 Warrior Stories
As a devoted runner with RA, Alicia Rider says a positive outlook and a great healthcare team help her to compete, thrive—"and make my daughter proud!"
Alicia Rider loves to run—and not even RA can stop her! Fact is, "since my diagnosis seven years ago, I've qualified for Boston [the marathon] four times," she says with delight. (Before RA, Alicia didn't run fast enough to enter the race even once.) And in 2018? Alicia's run 17 races—12 of which she's won!—everything from 5Ks to half-marathons and marathons. "The longer the run, the more I enjoy it!"
It's not that RA has somehow spared her. Alicia, who lives in Winston-Salem, NC, with her husband, James, and seven-year-old daughter, Finley, has struggled with pain and fatigue, and she still has flares. But back when she required a walker to move from one room of her home to the next, she decided that RA was trying to take too much from her life. "I realized I needed to turn the negatives into a positive, and to put my health first so I could be there for my child!"
"Everything in my world changed"
Flash back to the early weeks of her pregnancy with Finley, when Alicia first started experiencing shoulder pain. "I wrote it off to a strenuous workout, and the pain disappeared when I took a couple days off running." But the flares kept coming, each one more intense than the last. "I didn't test positive for RA factor until after I gave birth," she says.
"After delivery, RA attacked me with a vengeance." Her feet hurt so much, it was difficult to stand. And her hands were so swollen and inflamed that she was afraid to bathe her newborn for fear she'd drop her. But when her rheumatologist told her, with sensitivity, that she might never race again, Alicia hit rock bottom. "I had the most ugly cry you have ever seen," she says. And just as she had to face the fact that her life would never be the same, she had an epiphany. She had a little girl—Finley, then just a baby—who would look to her for how to live her life. "I wanted to show her a strong female role model and lead by example," says Alicia. "I wanted her to see that obstacles in life can either make you stronger or you allow them to limit your hopes and dreams."
"I put my health first"
Determined to live her best life despite RA, Alicia teamed up with her doctor, Greensboro, NC, rheumatologist James Beekman, MD. "After diagnosis, I was trying to put off treatment because I felt pretty good. But Dr. Beekman explained that, with RA, it's not just what you can see, but what you can't see that affects you—and that the inflammation from RA also attacks other parts of the body, including your organs, bones and soft tissue (your muscle, ligaments and tendons). He made me realize that just because I can live with the pain, doesn't mean I should. I know now—early treatment is the best defense you have!" Alicia stopped nursing and started methotrexate, then switched to a biologic medication which gave her relief. "I was so thankful for it. Biologics have really given people with RA more hope!"
"Honoring my body helps"
At the same time, Alicia overhauled her training regimen. She cut back on her running and started to cross-train. "On days I don't run, I get on my stationary bike and do circuit-training for my arms and core. Working out helps prevent muscle imbalances, and stronger muscles help support my joints." But she's careful not to overdo it. "The heaviest weight I use is 15 pounds," she says. On the three days of the week that she runs, Alicia also does some leg exercises at home. "You focus on what you can do with RA. Some days it's swimming, and some days it's a nap. What I've found is, you're going to have bad days. And that's okay. I came to realize, Wait, RA is not my fault."
Her friends and loved ones know that, too—and for that, she's grateful. "The biggest thing is having people who understand you," says Alicia. "There are days I have brain fog and I just do my best to get through the day. But I know tomorrow will be better. And the days I can show up, I show up!"
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Home/Australia/How junior fees above $2500 are preventing Socceroos from playing and almost costing them Garang Kuol
How junior fees above $2500 are preventing Socceroos from playing and almost costing them Garang Kuol
Jacky Follow on Twitter Send an email December 2, 2022
The Socceroos are inspiring a new generation of youth footballers and the Matildas will do the same in 2023 with a World Cup at home – but will parents be able to afford to fund the journey of our next national superstar?
The Socceroos' David versus Goliath performance at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar is well documented and a path to the top from the domestic A-League is now clearly visible.
When Melbourne City striker Mathew Leckie clinched the winner against Denmark, it proved that any Aussie kid could do the same on the world's biggest stage.
Leckie celebrates his goal against Denmark, which ultimately secured Australia to the second knockout stage of a World Cup
And with Sam Kerr and the Matildas taking center stage when Australia and New Zealand host the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, even more juniors are likely to enter the football rankings.
But parents will struggle to make their children's dreams come true because of the eye-watering sums associated with youth football in Australia – fees that almost made Socceroos teen sensation Garang Kuol quit the sport.
While others like the NRL and AFL trickle money from the top ranks to the grassroots level, the A-League's broadcasting deal means there's little to give back to the juniors.
The Socceroos' Thomas Deng thanks fans after an international friendly between the New Zealand All Whites and Australia Socceroos
In powerhouse countries, the big clubs can pick and choose young players they identify with potential and fund them from juniors to the top.
Socceroos coach Graham Arnold this week called for a major overhaul of Australian soccer routes.
He revealed his struggles as he searches for the next crop of players to replace retired stars Tim Cahill, Mile Jedinak, Mark Milligan and Robbie Kruse, among others.
"When I started looking, nothing came through," he said.
Socceroos coach Graham Arnold has called for an overhaul of junior development in Australian football
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In Australia, parents have to pay for places in training programs set up by A-League clubs. Often it is the parent with the deepest wallet, not the child with the most skills, who comes out on top.
On the senior side, Sydney FC runs the Sydney FC Academy which provides "opportunities for selected talented players to train according to the Sydney FC Youth philosophy" and players must be selected to participate.
However, with a $1500 price tag to enter, many talented young players can slip through the cracks because families simply can't afford it.
The real problems for the Socceroos moving forward come in the National Premier League [NPL] level, the second tier league below the A-League where the brightest teens are chosen to develop their game.
The NPL Youth league has eye-watering fees that average around $2500 per season, with some clubs charging a little less, others more.
It's fees many families can't afford and almost meant Socceroos star Garang Kuol – who also signed for Newcastle in the English Premier League – was lost to the sport.
Goulburn Valley Suns coach Craig Carley was the man who developed both Garang and his brother Alou, who signed with German club VfB Stuttgart II.
He said a deal should be made whereby the Kuol family washed team jerseys in exchange for allowances.
Kuol and his parents celebrate his ascension to the Socceroos. Their family had to wash team jerseys for him to play for an NPL club to reach that level
"One of the unique things about where we are here, the family couldn't afford the NPL fees and as part of a contribution, the family washed all our junior kits as a kind of payment and as part of our football community at our club," Carley shared to the Announce sun.
"And that's one thing that really bugs me about football in Australia, and that's the fact that it's so expensive to play.
"We could have lost kids like Garang and Alou completely out of the system if they were with another NPL club and couldn't afford the fees.
"I don't think they would play this sport that they do now."
Kuol is a teenage star who has already represented his country and earned a contract to play in the English Premier League
According to Football Australia chief James Johnson Johnson, club registration fees for community football were 'generally quite reasonable', but he acknowledged there were challenges at the NPL level.
"These costs have gone up significantly from about 2013 and they are too high," Johnson told me The age.
"And we are aware of that, and we will address it. Government subsidies do help, but it takes more, it takes a package of measures.'
In Queensland, playing soccer is relatively more affordable than other states with an average annual cost of $459.90, largely due to the code having the highest participation rates in the state.
Australian players walk onto the pitch with escorted children ahead of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Group D match between France and Australia
Logan Metro Football Club chairman Sam Escobar said that while no money was coming in from the Socceroos and the A-League, better governance and community-run clubs like Logan Metro helped make it affordable.
"So despite football being the biggest club sport in the country, the broadcasting money is not enough to filter all the way down to the base," he told the Courier Mail earlier this year.
"The game has suffered from bad decisions, leadership, governance and individual agendas in recent history, but changes led nationally by Football Australia, locally by Football Queensland, local clubs getting on the same wavelength and playing our part have meant that we are starting to see some hope of real results and change.'
"Clubs like ours still offer great coaches, programs, facilities and are cheaper than the elite route that get the same result as top clubs and of course still cater to kids who just want to play sports for enjoyment and not necessarily the developmental route."
Australia's Sam Kerr poses for photos with fans after winning the women's-friendly football match between Australia and Thailand in Gosford
Darebin Falcons is a women's only community football club based in Melbourne's north that draws a packed house almost every week.
Falcons volunteer Jasmine Hurst said the 2023 World Cup was likely to boost player and spectator numbers again and that more money was needed to support it or their best coaches and staff would leave for the NPL.
"Every year there is a steady increase," she says. "With the Women's World Cup next year, we expect even more growth there," she told The Age.
'[The NPL] is a higher standard of competition, the coaches are paid with the right qualifications and the facilities are a lot better.
"Our pitch is extremely muddy and horrible in winter and just not conducive to good football."
Which means that without funding only the wealthy reach the elite level and potential Socceroos and Matildas could be lost to the sport forever.
The author of what'snew2day.com is dedicated to keeping you up-to-date on the latest news and information.
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IN THE TRACES OF THE MULE DANCERS. TRAVEL NOTES, PERU. JULY/AUGUST, 2019. Post 5 of 6 »
IN THE TRACES OF THE MULE DANCERS. TRAVEL NOTES, PERU. JULY/AUGUST, 2019. Post 6 of 6
DAY FIFTEEN. THURSDAY AUGUST 11th.
AT THE COFFEE COLONY, PAMPA WHALEY.
VISION & CONSEQUENCE.
Having being engaged since childhood with Arthur's story as adventure – picaresque episodes, remote peoples, mountains, jungles, snakes, mules, rafts – it took some time (and hard information mined by Farne) to appreciate the true dimensions of the 1891 expedition. Arthur and Alexander Ross were fellow planters and visiting agents in Ceylon. They were investors, speculators in the booming coffee market. P.D.G. Clark, the invisible and unpublished third man, whose lengthy handwritten report to the Peruvian Corporation Farne tracked down, was a civil servant, employed by the Royal Botanic Gardens (in association with Kew) at Peradeniya, near Kandy in Ceylon. What has now been made clear, through books such as The Thief at the End of the World by Joe Jackson, is that Kew, in unacknowledged partnership with the India Office, operated a covert system of bio-piracy, plant smuggling on a massive scale along the Amazon and its headwaters. The basic pitch being to employ desperate men, crazed and addicted solitaries on a survivalist budget, to asset strip fertile non-imperial territory for the benefit of the British Empire. 'Liberated' rubber plants could then be propagated at Kew, before being shipped to Ceylon or Malaya. Economic guerrilla warfare carried out in conjunction with rapacious London corporations and bankers.
Sinclair and Ross were under contract, on a monthly stipend (in case they didn't make it), to the Peruvian Corporation of London. Born in modest circumstances, his father a small farmer and village thatcher, Arthur experienced a life of travel, making regular reports to the Aberdeen press. He was now, by the standards of the time – his investments blown, gold prospecting in Tasmania eating into his resources, a family to support – an elderly man. He was almost sixty. But it was always a done deal with the Peruvian government who couldn't honour their bonds on borrowings for railway expansion. The land was there for the taking: how best to exploit it? Sir Arthur Dent had no hesitation in appointing Sinclair and Ross as competent (and perhaps expendable) scouts. The two men, whatever their virtues as surveyors and witnesses, were obliged to return positive reports: to be delivered as books, lectures and promotional tours. I am struck by the conjunction of two appointments made, after meetings at corporate headquarters in Brussels and the City of London in 1890. Arthur Sinclair to the 'Headwaters of the Amazon'. And Joseph Conrad as riverboat captain to the Congo.
Arthur's account, which is delivered with the verve of a period novel, says very little about the reasons behind his journey. Events simply happen, carrying him along, like the approach to the Ipoki rapids. What is striking is his evident awe for the power of the landscape and his tender rapport with the fecundity of the flowers, plants and trees. Which he sketches, photographs and evaluates.
'Coca, from which the invaluable drug cocaine is obtained, is a native of this locality… Of the sustaining power of coca there can be no possible doubt; the Chunchos seem not only to exist, but to thrive, upon this stimulant, often travelling for days with very little, if anything else to sustain them. Unquestionably it is much superior and less liable to abuse than tobacco, betel, or opium of other nations… The flavour is bitter and somewhat nauseating at first, but the taste is soon acquired, and, if not exactly palatable, the benefit under fatiguing journeys is very palpable. Cold tea is nowhere, and the best of wines worthless in comparison with this pure unfermented heaven-sent reviver.'
Arriving by way of another impossible road at Pampa Whaley, the most successful coffee plantation of the Perené Colony, is to, visibly and emotionally, jump back in time. Back to archival photographs from the Smithsonian Institute of armed Asháninka standing against these very recognisable buildings in 1910. Back to the stories we were told of the range wars: how the plantation labourers killed the managers, not in a spirit of rebellion, but under instruction; the less successful operations jealous of the position and prestige of Pampa Whaley. The garden of broken concrete pillars was not a homage to Ballard or an art installation but collateral damage from the time of Shining Path. The present co-operative, dependent, it appeared, on a distant voice at the end of the telephone in Lima, came into existence when the Peruvian Corporation land was broken up and awarded to selected workers and applicants, but never (or rarely) to the Asháninka.
The Colony lasted much longer than we thought, even with shifts of ownership: it was still functioning in the 1970s. All the former plantation workers we interviewed delivered standard riffs on maltreatment, 'slavery', the violence of the 'corporals' and overseers. All of them, that is, up to the managerial class, the technicians of the co-operative. Those men spoke, very carefully, of employment opportunities, schools, medical care. And a splendid cinema screen, still present: a white wall with a decorative border at the end of the storage shed. Here the entire workforce, managers in armchairs, truck drivers, cooks and labourers scattered on the floor to watch 'mute' Mexican films, romances and gunfighter epics. 'We were made to grow coffee,' say the Asháninka, 'but we do not drink coffee. We were made to grow cocoa, but we do not drink cocoa.'
We were walked through the entire coffee production process: from arrival of trucks, through baths, grading, drying and ovens, to packaging in grey sacks and departure. It was as slow and precise and repetitive as alchemy. Then we broke for lunch and presentation of the documents we had recovered concerning the history of the Corporation.
Towards the end of his narrative, Arthur suddenly remembers that he is supposed to be making a report to London. It is a requirement of his contract. The contract that rewards him with shares in future prosperity. He delivers a panoramic rhapsody, barely touching on practical difficulties, the near impossibility of transporting product.
'The Perené valley, however, for a tropical climate, seems remarkably healthy; there is little or no malaria, few mosquitoes, while leeches – the great pest of Ceylon – are unknown… There is an abundant supply of the purest water, flowing freely from the snow-topped mountains, almost within sight. On the banks of the Perené we nightly slept in the open air, and drank almost hourly of its waters, unfiltered…'
And the reality of this paradise? 'This beautiful valley of the Perené has now become the property of a British Corporation, the concession having been duly ratified by the Peruvian Government, and arrangements are in progress for establishing a planting colony upon a scale never before attempted in Peru.
This land, as selected and conceded, extends to 1,250,000 acres, sufficient to grow the world's present requirements in coffee, cocoa, coca, chinchona, rubber, sarsaparilla, and vanilla, for all of which both soil and climate are admirably adapted. Here will be a favourable opening for many a trained Indian planter, and many a restive youth in England and Scotland will find elbow-room of the most interesting and lucrative description, helping, I hope, to solve many an anxious father the problem "what to do with our boys"'.
At the lunch table, Farne handed over a letter from a Colony manager, back in the '30s. He was asking for practical advice. Could somebody send him a book of instructions? He knew nothing about coffee, the machines, the methods. All of it a mystery to him.
Don Armando, the operations chief, a man who worked in the last days of the Peruvian Corporation as a soil fungus specialist, gave us the tour. And now led us through the old company offices: the huge safe, the iron doors behind which wages were kept, the primitive telephone exchange, cranking a particular number for each of the other plantations. And then, taking us by surprise, behind bars, the true archive of the entire history of the Perené Colony. (In Lima records have vanished or been shredded.) Sack after coffee sack spilling across the floor, tattered and rodent-gnawed papers, letters, account books, maps, legal documents. Paper history for an impossible paper chase. Here it is, here it decays. The evidence from which an adequate history of this painful episode might be assembled.
First photos of Iain's adventure in Peru with…
NOTES FOR A PROPOSED JOURNEY OF RESEARCH. LIMA TO…
IN THE TRACES OF THE MULE DANCERS. TRAVEL NOTES,…
August 28th, 2019 | Category: cyberpresence


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How Can the History of Science Encourage the Church? Part 3: Modern Christianity (STEAM Grant Series)
May 11, 2018By James Ungureanu 6 comments Posted in: Resources, Science and FaithTagged in: early modern history, faith and science, History of Science, modern history, STEAM Grant, STEAM Grant Series
Photo by dullhunk Statue of Isaac Newton outside the British Library.
ESN is currently creating a Faith/Science curriculum for young adult small groups. We've partnered with InterVarsity graduate student discussion groups to identify faith/science questions that are important to emerging scholars, and we're commissioning thoughtful Christians in science or theology/philosophy/history of science to explore those questions in this series at the ESN blog. We will then publish these posts as a booklet curriculum for campus groups. You can find previous posts in the series and related posts here. Today, we are delighted to present the final post of a special three-part exploration of the history of science within this faith/science series. See last week's account of medieval history here and the previous week's post on the early church here.
This project was made possible through the support of an award from the Science and Theology for Emerging Adult Ministries project at Fuller Theological Seminary. The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Fuller or the STEAM project.
The "two books" metaphor—the belief that God has revealed Himself in both the book of Scripture and the book of nature—enjoyed its greatest currency in the early modern period (c. 1500-1800). But during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a host of new and often competing natural philosophies emerged. Since natural philosophy was still seen as the "handmaiden of theology," these competing theories of how the natural world works brought into conflict competing theological schools of thought. It is in this internecine warfare where we begin to see the true origins of what many contemporary historians of science call the "conflict thesis," the notion that science and religion are fundamentally and irrevocably at odds. As we already intimated in the previous post, the collapse of the "two books" metaphor into the one book of nature took place in the early modern period. This collapse continues to profoundly shape contemporary discussions about science-religion relations. Therefore we shall close this series by fleshing out this process in more detail, and conclude with some reflections on how a better understanding of this history may encourage people of Christian faith.
The early modern period has been traditionally divided by historians as three successive events—the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. These divisions or periodizations have been appropriately challenged by many contemporary historians, but they may still serve as useful signposts. As it relates to the relationship between science and Christianity, Renaissance thinkers pursued an even deeper and more comprehensive engagement with classical learning than that witnessed in the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries. The Renaissance witnessed the revival of a number of different strands of ancient thought about nature, including some of the more esoteric elements such as magic, astrology, alchemy and the Neoplatonic writings known as the "hermetic corpus."[1]
But these pagan traditions often came into conflict with historical Christian theology. In this period, for example, we also see the revival of ancient Greek atomism. The rediscovery of Democritus (c. 460-370 BC), Epicurus (c. 341-270 BC), and especially Lucretius (c. 99-55 BC) gave rise to a crisis of atheism among some Christian theologians. Greek atomism provided reasons and arguments for materialism and a naturalized world. Strictly speaking, these ancient Greek writers did not deny the existence of the gods. Rather, they simply maintained that the gods care nothing for us and do nothing for us, and therefore we ought to be content with the simple pleasures of nature. This revived mechanical philosophy insisted that there is nothing eternal but matter and void, that the universe is not divinely created but the product of the impact and concurrence of atoms, guided by nothing else but chance and necessity. The Epicureans believed that the material world is best described in terms of interactions of tiny, indivisible particles. This mechanistic theory of matter obviously had great importance for the development of modern science.[2]
Early modern Christians attempted to accommodate the revival of Epicurean naturalism with Christian faith. From this attempt came the idea that the regularities observed in the natural world were thought of as "laws" imposed by God. Laws of nature, in short, were understood to consist in divine commands bestowed by a Lawgiver.[3] Thus most Christian writers throughout the Renaissance continued to see both reason and Scripture as valid sources of knowledge. Nevertheless, such attempts at reconciliation only served to heighten tensions. As we shall see, the problem of atheism will loom large in later treatises on natural philosophy and theology, particularly among the "English virtuosi" of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. If anything, the Renaissance revival of ancient atomism presented Christian thinkers with alternatives to the prevailing Aristotelian tradition.
The Protestant Reformation, however, offered a unique challenge to ancient knowledge. Prominent Protestant reformers—and Martin Luther (1483–1546) in particular—were sharply critical of the pagan philosophical tradition, accusing the Roman Catholic Church of being "corrupted" by pagan thought. Moreover, the Protestant Reformation, although it was by no means a monolithic phenomenon, eroded the centralized authority of the Catholic Church, not only making possible the cultivation of heterodox religious positions but also allowing departures from the officially sanctioned range of scientific doctrines.[4]
While Luther was indeed a vociferous critic of Greek philosophy, railing against the admixture of pagan philosophy with Christian teaching in ways similar to Tertullian, other leading Protestant reformers were more moderate and somewhat more ambivalent in their views. According to John Calvin (1509-64), for instance, while Aristotle was "a heathen whose heart was perverse and depraved," he was nevertheless "a man of genius and learning."[5]
The Protestant condemnation of the authority of the Catholic Church should help to explain, in part, the Church's reaction to the heliocentric hypothesis. While the Catholic Church had initially been quite complacent about Nicholas Copernicus's (1473-1543) thesis that the earth and planets revolve around the sun, after the Reformation, when controversies about the interpretation of Scripture were at their height, the Holy Office was concerned to impose its authority on questions of biblical interpretation, particularly when Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) defended his position by claiming that the Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.[6]
Although the Protestant stress on Scripture was not new, Protestant insistence on the Bible's "literal" sense seemed to spur scientific advance. This emphasis on a literal approach to understanding Scripture had an indirect bearing on approaches to the natural world. The Protestant emphasis on the literal sense of Scripture and a corresponding skepticism about the value of allegory and symbolism were accompanied by a new, literal reading of the natural world. When Protestants stripped the book of Scripture from its symbolic or emblematic meaning, all texts, including the book of nature, became open to a more literal interpretation. A hermeneutical revolution had taken place, both in interpreting the book of Scripture and the book of nature.[7]
Scientific Revolution
Against popular claims about their inherent incompatibility, it has long been established by historians of science that religious conviction frequently stimulated, rather than inhibited, scientific inquiry. But while this may be the case, definitions of "religion" and even "Christianity" were modified by some to better cohere with the new learning. During the so-called Scientific Revolution, the English virtuosi, men such as Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Samuel Hartlib (1600-1662), John Beale (1603-1683), Kenelm Digby (1603-1665), Thomas Browne (1605-1682), Benjamin Whichcote (1609-1683), Henry More (1614-1687), John Wilkins (1614-1672), John Wallis (1616-1703), Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688), Walter Charleton (1619-1707), Henry Oldenburg (1619-1677), John Evelyn (1620-1706), John Aubrey (1626-1697), Robert Boyle (1627-1691), John Ray (1627-1705), Isaac Barrow (1630-1677), Christopher Wren (1632-1723), Robert Hooke (1635-1703), Thomas Sprat (1635-1713), and Isaac Newton (1642-1727), among many others, sought not only to demonstrate how God has revealed himself in nature, but how a more "rational" Protestantism provided an atmosphere more conducive to the sciences. Protestantism, in other words, embodied the principles that would allow for the progress of learning, society, and religion itself.[8]
Latitudinarian Theology
But a deeper reflection at once reveals that many of these men held rather unorthodox views of Christianity.[9] Indeed, many if not most were anti-Trinitarians, and some even denied the divinity of Christ. Most importantly, Latitudinarian divines, or liberal Anglicans, were deeply impressed by the new learning, and sought to minimize doctrinal discord by emphasizing human reason in understanding revelation. They frequently preached for a more "reasonable Christianity" at the pulpit. They were united in belief that the most serious threat to religion was the irrational, and thus hoped to continue the reformation of religion along more rationalistic lines. By emphasizing a more liberal theology, one which underplayed doctrine and opposed superstition, enthusiasm, and fanaticism, they hoped to align Christianity to the modern age.
The philosophy of John Locke (1632-1704) is representative of the "rational supernaturalism" of the latitudinarian tradition, combining elements of a more liberal religion with scientific interest. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), for instance, Locke argued that the existence of God is "the most obvious truth that reason discovers," that its "evidence" is "equal to mathematical certainty."[10] For Locke, however, reason not only provided proof of the existence of God, it also established the criteria to judge what counted as genuine revelation. He argued that for revelation to be accepted it must be subject to reason. In his The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), for instance, he argued that while religion is not contrary to reason, any divine revelation claimed by religion must be subject to the judgments of reason. Based on reason rather than superstition, such religion would abandon belief in such things as miracles, the virgin birth, and the Trinity, and would retain only the more rational and ethical elements of Christianity: belief in a creator God, in the brotherhood of man, the immortality of the soul, and the duty of love and care for one another.[11]
A Religion without Revelation
Many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century figures argued that the pursuit of science was itself a form of religious activity. Indeed, throughout the Scientific Revolution and the subsequent Enlightenment, religion and science remained closely intertwined.
But it must be emphasized at once that with the rise of modern science we also see the decline of a strictly more orthodox Christianity. One of the most striking patterns that emerges from an examination of the thought of early modern English and continental men of science, whatever their particular religious commitments, is an almost universal suspicion of theological dogma accompanied by a pronounced desire for religious compromise and unity. Thus when the so-called English deists first appeared during the period of the Enlightenment, they had an abundant selection of histories and rhetoric which supported their critique of orthodox Christianity. Protestant historians and natural philosophers in particular had produced numerous polemical books condemning the "irrational" and "corrupt" Catholic Church for continually obstructing the progress of religion and new knowledge. This anti-Catholic polemic easily transformed into an intra-Protestant critique.
Rather than advocating atheism, for example, the English deists proposed a new rational "natural religion" that would offer, they believed, a firmer basis for a more stable and prosperous society. With a more diffusive Christianity emerging, such men as Edward Herbert (1583-1648), Charles Blount (1654-1593), Matthew Tindal (1656-1733), Thomas Woolston (1669-1733), John Toland (1670-1722), Anthony Collins (1679-1729), Thomas Morgan (d. 1743), Thomas Chubb (1679-1747), Conyers Middleton (1683-1750), and Peter Annet (1693-1769), promoted a non-institutional, and therefore non-partisan and non-dogmatic, "natural religion."[12]
That the English deists appropriated much of their understanding of history from their Protestant forebears is often overlooked by Christian apologists. Indeed, the borders between deism and liberal Christianity are difficult to establish. When abandoning the church for deism or natural religion, the English deists simply extended the Protestant critique of Roman Catholicism to include most or all of Christianity. For such thinkers all hierarchical established religion had been and still was "priestcraft," instituted by the clergy for gain; they thus advocated a non-institutional belief in God.
More Recent Controversies
A generation later, such sentiments continued to be promoted by liberal Protestant thinkers. Of all of the topics that have fueled the antagonism between science and religion, evolutionism remains perhaps the only one with power to stimulate debate even today. Following the impact of geology and paleontology in the early nineteenth century, evolutionary theories seemed to many to challenge the story of human origins recounted in Scripture. Despite the ongoing sources of conflict, historians have shown that the conventional image of nineteenth-century Darwinism sweeping aside religious belief is an oversimplification. As a number of historians of science have pointed out, the religious response to Charles Darwin's (1809-82) Origin of Species (1859) suggests more a compromise than a confrontation.[13]
But as we have intimated, historians of science often neglect to point out that more orthodox Christians remained strictly anti-Darwinian. That is, Darwinism, or some modified version of it, was supported by liberal intellectuals and religious thinkers, while more religiously conservative thinkers quite correctly pointed out the materialistic implications of Darwin's theory. Many had indeed joined Presbyterian theologian Charles Hodge (1797-1878), for example, in declaring that Darwinism is tantamount to practical or effective atheism.[14]
Even today, the question of Darwinism remains hotly debated. From Young Earth Creationism to Theistic Evolutionism, there is an immensely wide spectrum of attempts at reconciling scientific discoverers and Christian faith. But as recent sociologists have shown, the conflict today is strikingly similar to the one in ages past.[15]
A brief survey of when science and Christianity meet reveals that there are no easy patterns of "conflict" or "concord." The one pattern that does consistently emerge, however, is that by holding such negative attitudes toward traditional Christian theology, liberal Protestants of the early modern period actually eliminated the very possibility of having a genuine Christian dialogue with science, rather than just a monologue dominated by science. Men and women in the history of Christianity have perhaps been too eager to embrace the latest scientific "facts," and have thus attempted too quickly to "harmonize" Christianity with these "facts." But by doing so, many lost their faith in the process. This loss of faith should not be interpreted simply as mere atheism, which is almost never the case, but the abandonment of core Christian beliefs.
This danger remains present for Christians today. A recent study by the Pew Research Center, for example, found that while many Americans continue to believe in a higher power, a very small majority believe in the God of the Bible.[16] Here we must remind ourselves what the Apostle Paul told the church in Corinth many years ago. We ought to "demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God," to "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10.5). When Paul says to "demolish" arguments and arrogant opinions against God and, to take thoughts or minds captive, he means the minds and thoughts of others. In other words, Paul is calling on the Corinthian Christians to demolish the boastful worldviews of the pagan Corinthians, taking their philosophies captive for Christ. And by implication, Paul is still calling on the Christian Church today to destroy arguments and take captive every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God.
Paul's call is essentially the Augustinian approach to the non-Christian world and its ideas. Christians in science today can still plumb from the wisdom of the Bishop of Hippo, who wrote at least five commentaries on the creation narrative in Genesis. Augustine sought to defend the integrity of Genesis against other philosophers who criticized Genesis as legend or derided its narrative as irrational. He argued in response that human language is tricky, and to understand the meaning of words we must be careful to discern their intentions. When it comes to the biblical text, we must be attentive not only to the human element but also its divine source. According to Augustine, the purpose of the Bible is redemptive. As we have seen, he did not think knowledge of the natural world useless, but simply inferior to the knowledge of God in revelation. Since knowledge of the natural world is constantly changing, it is dangerous for the Christian to insist on the constancy of certain scientific theories. Augustine believed we become obstacles of salvation to others by equating a scientific theory with the meaning of the Bible. Not much has changed today. The Augustinian solution to conflict is humility both in the interpretation of nature and the interpretation of Scripture.
The history of science serves as a warning to Christians about embracing too quickly every new idea or new discovery in the natural world. What the history of science teaches the Church, in short, is that our faith must be placed not in the latest scientific discoveries or theories, but in Scripture and the guidance of Christian history. We must pursue our research, whether in the sciences or in the humanities, for the glory of God. For Augustine, all truth is God's truth. Since He has revealed himself in both nature and Scripture, both are ultimately compatible. At the same time, we, as finite, fallible, and fallen creatures, must approach the study of these two books of God with the utmost humility and openness. We cannot do this alone. Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us constantly remind ourselves that while the grass withers and the flower fades, the Word of our God shall stand forever.
What did you find most illuminating or helpful in this history of early modern interactions between science and faith?
Having read all three parts of this short series on the history of science, what encourages you? What do you find most challenging about it?
How would you translate what you have explored in this series to a conversation with a scientific colleague interested in faith/science questions?
How would you translate what you have explored in this series to a conversation with a fellow church member interested in faith/science questions?
[1] See the classic study by Frances A. Yates, "The Hermetic Tradition in Renaissance Science," in Charles S. Singleton (ed), Art, Science, and History in the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1968), 255-74.
[2] See William B. Ashworth Jr., "Christianity and the Mechanistic Universe," in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (eds), When Christianity & Science Meet (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 61-84. For an entertaining account of the recovery of these ancient Greek writers, see Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Become Modern (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2012).
[3] See, e.g., Edgard Zilsel, "The Genesis of the Concept of Physical Law," The Philosophical Review, vol. 51, no. 3 (1942): 245-79; Francis Oakley, "Christian Theology and the Newtonian Science: The Rise of the Concept of the Laws of Nature," Church History, vol. 30, no. 4 (1961): 433-57; and Alan G. Padgett, "The Roots of the Western Concept of the 'Laws of Nature': from the Greeks to Newton," Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, vol. 55, no. 4 (2003): 212-21.
[4] For a recent survey of the unintended consequences of the Protestant Reformation, see, e.g., Brad A. Gregory, Rebel in the Ranks: Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the Conflicts that Continue to Shape Our World (New York: HarperOne, 2017).
[5] John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, 5 vols., trans. James Anderson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949), 4.107.43.
[6] See, e.g., Maurice A. Finocchiaro, "That Galileo Was Imprisoned and Tortured for Advocating Copernicanism," in Ronald L. Numbers, Galileo goes to jail, and Other Myths about Science and Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 68-78.
[7] A number of scholars have argued that Protestantism had shaped, nurtured, and spurred the development of modern science. See, e.g., the famous thesis by Robert K. Merton, "Science, Technology, and Society in Seventeenth-Century England," Osiris, vol. 4 (1938): 360-632. A more recent version of this thesis can be found in Peter Harrison, The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
[8] See, e.g., Paul H. Kocher, Science and Religion in Elizabethan England (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 1953); Richard S. Westfall, Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1970); and Margaret C. Jacob, The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689-1720 (Hassocks, Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1976).
[9] See, e.g., John Brooke and Ian Maclean (eds), Heterodoxy in Early Modern Science and Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
[10] John Locke, "An Essay concerning Human Understanding," in Works of John Locke, 9 vols., 12th Ed. (London: Printed for C. and J. Rivington et al, 1824), 2.187-88.
[11] For a recent discussion of Locke's theology, see Victor Nuovo, John Locke: The Philosopher as Christian Virtuoso (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
[12] See, e.g., Wayne Hudson, The English Deists: Studies in Early Enlightenment (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2009).
[13] Perhaps the best survey is James R. Moore, The Post-Darwinian Controversies: A Study of the Protestant Struggle to come to terms with Darwin in Great Britain and America, 1870-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). See also David N. Livingstone, Darwin's Forgotten Defenders: The Encounter between Evangelical Theology and Evolutionary Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987).
[14] Charles Hodge, What is Darwinism? (New York: Scribner, Armstrong, and Co., 1874), 177.
[15] See, e.g., Eliane Howard Ecklund and Christopher P. Scheitle, Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); and John H. Evans, Morals Not Knowledge: Recasting the Contemporary U.S. Conflict Between Religion and Science (Oakland: University of California Press, 2018).
[16] "When Americans Say They Believe in God, What Do They Mean? 2018," Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (April 25, 2018): http://www.pewforum.org/2018/04/25/when-americans-say-they-believe-in-god-what-do-they-mean/.
James Ungureanu
James C Ungureanu has a B.A. in Religious Studies and Philosophy from the University of California-Davis, where he graduated in 2008. He also has a M.A. in Church History from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and a PhD in Studies in Religion from University of Queensland. He is Honorary Post-Thesis Fellow in the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry at University of Queensland and Honorary Fellow in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. An historian of science and religion, his research is mostly focused on nineteenth-century religious thought. He resides in Madison, Wisconsin, USA, with his wife and two children.
Keith B. Miller commented on May 11, 2018	Reply
I would argue that your statement "… historians of science often neglect to point out that more orthodox Christians remained strictly anti-Darwinian." is itself a significant oversimplification. The work of David Livingstone, Ted Davis, Mark Noll and others has shown the evolution was not seen as being in conflict with a very orthodox Christian faith by a number of contemporary scientists and theologians (eg. B.B. Warfield, and ASA Gray).
James C. Ungureanu commented on May 11, 2018	Reply
Keith, thank you so much for the comment. This is the kind of push-back that helps us develop a better "theology of evolution," which we desperately need. I happen to personally know a couple of the other writers you point out, and one of them was even my external examiner. Unfortunately, word constraints would not allow for a more detailed account. Nevertheless, I stand by what I wrote. If anything, Livingstone, Davis, Noll and others have only shown that there were a variety of religious responses to Darwin's theory.
But you also have to keep in mind that many religious thinkers who accepted Darwinism, conservative or liberal, were actually neo-Darwinians. They inserted metaphysical ideas that Darwin himself did not allow. Darwin, however, accepted their support because it advertised his theory to the public. While Warfield and Gray may have accepted "evolution," it was a version that Darwin did not support. I think Barnard Shaw put it well in his book, Back to Methuselah (1920): "For 'Natural Selection' has no moral significance: it deals with that part of evolution which has no purpose, no intelligence, and might more appropriately be called accidental
selection, or better still, Unnatural Selection, since nothing is more unnatural than an accident. If it could be proved that the whole universe had been produced by such Selection, only fools and rascals could bear to live."
The key to Darwin's theory was "natural selection." It was truly the only remarkable thing about Darwin's understanding of evolution, which numerous scientists and theologians had already discussed long before his Beagle voyage. While some orthodox Christians may have initially supported Darwin, once his Descent of Man appeared in 1871, these Christians retracted their support and concluded that Darwin's conception of evolution was incompatible with their religious beliefs. If you read Warfield and Gray closely, you see the tension there, in their understanding of Darwin's theory or their alleged orthodoxy, respectively.
So, yes, I did oversimplify. But my conclusion is solid.
The Darwin/Gray correspondence is very helpful to illuminate the issues. Darwin was basically rejecting the design argument of Paley, while Gray was trying to convince Darwin that there were other ways to understand God's participation in and through natural processes. It is important to keep distinct the actual science of evolution, from the metaphysical implications that individuals attach to it. As a paleontologist, I find no aspect of evolutionary science that stands in necessary tension with a robust orthodox Christian theology, and I am by no means alone. The theological and philosophical arguments have evolved, but the early responses to Darwin by individuals like Gray and Warfield provided helpful direction that could have short circuited the false "warfare" perspective that has gained such a strong hold on the evangelical community. BTW: I do take exception to your final comment concerning the "alleged" orthodoxy of individuals such as Gray and Warfield. I see no basis for this qualifier.
The correspondence is indeed very helpful. It actually demonstrates that Gray failed to convince Darwin of his teleological arguments. Darwin ultimately came to the conclusion that all arguments for design are "childish." Darwin viewed his theory supplanting natural theology, not supplementing it.
I'm encouraged that you see no tension between evolutionary science and orthodox Christian theology. But I need to see this view more clearly argued and not merely asserted. If you have written on this topic at length, I would love to read it. Please understand that I'm not attacking your position. I'm merely clarifying the historical record, which naturally compels us to clarifying our own contemporary views. We can do this work together and in fellowship, but we must first accurately understand our sources.
Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to keep our metaphysical commitments separate from our investigation of nature. Indeed, I think it's a fallacy to believe one can. The whole history of science, as I have tried to show, is replete with men and women who constantly let their metaphysical commitments interfere with their science. As such, I think NOMA is not a viable option, particularly for the Christian believer. NOMA is just a new version of "two books" argument, which does not work in my opinion.
The reason why the "warfare" model gained ground is because positions like Gray and Warfield failed. That is, their positions were quite common, if not unintentionally disingenuous. So I don't think if believers had simply taken up the view of Gray or Warfield the "conflict thesis" would not exist. I think that is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the "conflict" was really about. What Gray had argued and what Warfield had argued were tried and tested. It didn't work.
My comment on their "alleged" orthodoxy referred both to their understanding of Darwin's theory and their theology, respectively. We often here that Warfield was an unquestionably religiously orthodox, theistic evolutionist. This view is widely accepted but often uncritically cited. Warfield may have claimed to have accepted the theory of "evolution" in his youth, but he ultimately rejected it later in his career. I put evolution in quotation marks because, again, Warfield's early understanding of evolution was quite different from what Darwin and other scientific naturalists promoted. It was the explicit (or inherent) naturalism in the theory that forced Warfield to reject it. While he did believe that evolution was not inconsistent with theism, he ultimately argued that theism and Christianity are two different things.
The case of Gray is even more instructive. Gray was not a theologian and never wrote any thing like a theological treatise, so his theological orthodoxy is up for interpretation. While we are often told that Gray was a "deeply religious man," this tells us nothing about his theology. His most systematic presentation is found in Natural Science and Religion (1880), where he tellingly wrote that he did not believe that the Bible was divine revelation but the human record of that revelation. That's a fair position, but it is nevertheless an ambiguously orthodox position. Moreover, he also wrote that he believed that Christianity evolves, something I think most orthodox believers would find quite disconcerting.
Moreover, while Gray attempted to defend Darwin's theory against charges of atheism, his teleological viewpoint was difficult to sustain in the case of natural selection. Gray himself conceded the fact, and Darwin somewhat viciously attacked Gray's position in the conclusion of Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (1868). All the evidence, according to Darwin, suggested that variation was not directed along a predetermined course. In the final analysis, Darwin could not accept the claim that one species could evolve characters for the benefit of another. Gray's open invocation of God's designing hand was rejected by Darwin and the scientific naturalists. So Gray's "Darwinism" is just as questionable as his Christian "orthodoxy."
Keith, I really appreciate the dialogue as I think it has helped me clarify some really important points. The nineteenth-century is an immensely complicated period in science-religion relations, as we are not simply dealing with "science" and "religion" in the rarefied sense but with contending theological traditions. If you or any one would like to know more, please don't hesitate to contact me.
P.S. As a final note, a good book on Gray's religious views is A. Hunter Dupree's Asa Gray: Friend of Darwin, American Botanist (1988), who concluded that Gray was "untypical of orthodox Christian thinkers."
I am not about promoting my own work. But if people are interested they can start with my edited volume "Perspectives on an Evolving Creation" published by Eerdmans. I have also written numerous articles in the ASA journal "Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith" and elsewhere. You and others may also be interested in my article on methodological naturalism in the edited book "For the Rock Record: Geologists on Intelligent Design" published by the University of California Press.
James commented on May 22, 2018	Reply
Thanks so much for sharing your writing with us. I'm sure many will benefit from those articles. While I'm mostly an intellectual historian of the 19th century, I have heard of ID advocates. Not too much, though. Thus your articles look like it will bring things up to the present. From a quick scan of your essay in FOR THE ROCK RECORD, it nicely reflects some of the consequences of 19th-century debates. I look forward to reading them more closely.


Tootsie Time: Table for 4?
I was driving down the street to pick the kids up at school, when I came upon a treasure!
It was this table and two benches! On the top of the was a sign that said FREE!!! Take me Home!
It was loaded into the truck….and dropped in the garage. I needed to think of what I wanted to do with them. So it sat there for a while, waiting on my decision.
It had obviously seen better days. Someone had used one of the benches as a painting table…and it needed some serious TLC.
It does have good bones…and could be spectacular…with the right touch. It will seat at least 4 people!
One afternoon, I had a little spare time, and decided to head to the garage and start to sand it down.
…and painted it with cream color paint.
I still was not quite happy with this look…so….in true Tootsie form…I grabbed my rubber gloves and a fresh rag…a can of stain would save the day!
I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed….and I love the new look!
It looks aged and rustic…and just soooo charming!
I wish I could get a better photo…the lighting in the garage does not lend itself to photography!
It is now distressed…and absolutely LOADED with character.
I have shared it with a few friends…who are totally in love with it. One of my girlfriends was over and fell in love with it right away. If she had room in her house for it …she'd have taken it home right away!
I know how she feels. I did however…use indoor/ outdoor paint and stain on it….perhaps it would look fabulous outside? Hmmmm….now that's something to think about!
I can't wait until next time…I have the MOST fabulous makeover to share with you all…but that's another post! Stay tuned!! Hee hee!
Don't forget that the Friday Flaunt is just around the corner!!! I hope to get time to share something good this week…does anyone know how to get a single mom more time in a day???
Until next time…Happy Decorating/ Junkin/Reinventing!


text:
CPB: Digital Radio Grant Applications Due Nov. 24
And look for more activity in public broadcast funding requests
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting opened a new digital radio grant application window this week; filers have three weeks to get their paperwork in.
Note this is the first time CPB is allowing stations that have already converted to add service that they did not install in the initial conversion. (Multicasting was not available to the earliest converters, for example.)
CPB tells me its "Priority I" designation refers to stations converting from analog to digital, including HD2 and HD3 channels; "Priority II" projects are for stations that have already converted and seek funding for multicasting or other advanced digital radio services. "Priority III" are demonstration projects using digital translators and boosters. The applications procedure and further details are on the CPB Web site.
At the Eastern Region Public Media conference this month, CPBers said it's hard to say how Barack Obama's support for public broadcasting will translate into how CPB funding requests are handled. One CPBer predicted a crowded landscape next year. "There will be a long line of groups who have been underfunded for the past eight years standing in line."


I do not require that you comply with me to some unrealistic libertarian nirvana. The unfettered free market," where the improvident die within the gutter is another ridiculous straw man. Southwest's pilots have FAA licenses. Walmart's merchandise move the buyer product safety fee. We can argue about these items, but we don't have to. Just a little freedom will go a great distance. The market can survive loads of regulation, even silly regulation.


If you are a regular to this blog you will know that earlier in the week I published a tutorial about box pleats - specifically, how to insert box pleats into the centre front (or centre back) of a garment. I was planning to also show you how to put box pleats in other parts of a garment, but the post got a little long, so I thought I'd save it for today's post.
For this example, I will show you how to add two more pleats to the front of the skirt (either side of the centre front pleat), but you can use the same method to add as many box pleats as you like.
What is a box pleat?
Just in case you missed the last post, here is a box pleat and an inverted box pleat. They are essentially the same, just the way the fabric is folded is opposite in each case, creating a different aesthetic (an inverted box pleat is a box pleat turned right side down).
To start, take the pattern you plan to add a box pleat (or inverted box pleat) to. I decided to use the pattern I drafted during the process of the previous tutorial (an A-line skirt with centre front box pleat). Trace a copy of the pattern without seam allowance.
2. Consider where you would like to add a pleat. Make sure it is not too close to the side seam, otherwise there will not be room for the volume of the pleat when it is folded in place. In this case, I am only adding one additional pleat, but you may want to add more. Draw a line through the pattern, where you plan to place your pleat (or pleats).
2. Cut along the line - separating the pattern into two pieces (or more, if you plan to have multiple pleats). Label the pattern pieces if it is likely that you could get them mixed up.
Now, you will need to have a think about the size of your pleat. This is totally up to you. If you are struggling to work out the width of your pleat, have a play around with some fabric (or even a piece of paper), folding different sized pleats to get an idea of how it will look. Make sure you check that there is room for a pleat this width, in relation to the centre front / back and side seams.
3. When you have decided on the finished width of your pleat, spread the two parts of the pattern piece apart, until the opening is double the width of the finished pleat. For example, if my finished pleat will be 5cm, I need to create a 10cm opening between the two parts of the pattern. Fill the gap with a piece of pattern paper and tape or glue in place.
4. Mark a line that runs through the centre of the opening. This will become the centre of the pleat.
5. Fold along both edges of the opening (bring the line towards you when folding).
6. Fold in each section of the skirt pattern, lining up each fold line with the centre line of the pleat.
7. Just like with a dart, when you fold a pleat on a curved edge, you will need to adjust the edge of the pleat, so that when it is folded it will sit flush with the waistline.
With the pleat still folded (you may want to use a weight to hold the pleat in place), take a tracing wheel and trace along the waistline, transferring the shape of the waistline onto the folded paper underneath. Repeat for the hemline.
8. Unfold the pleat, take a ruler and pencil, and join the dots created by the tracing wheel to create a smooth curve.
9. Add notches to either side of the pleat, as well as the centre point of the pleat.
10. You now need to use arrows to indicate which direction the pleat needs to be folded. An arrow can be drawn from each outside notch towards the centre of the pleat. For an inverted pleat, when it comes to folding it in the fabric, the folds will need to come towards you, meeting at the centre point on the right side of the garment. For a box pleat, it will need to be the opposite - the folds come together at the centre on the wrong side of the garment.
Now have a think about whether you would like to stitch the pleats in place. This will depend on your fabric choice and the style of your skirt (or garment). You could consider leaving the pleats free, stitching down a few centimetres to give the pleat a little more structure, or stitch down 15cm (6 inches) or so, to really give some structure to your pleat.
If you would like to add some structure with some stitching, it is a good idea to mark a drill hole on your pattern, marking the end point of your line of stitching.
11. Measuring down from the waistline, at the centre of the pleat, mark a drill hole the distance down you would like to stitch your pleat.
12. To complete the pattern, add seam allowance and pattern markings.
Posted on January 20, 2016 by Emily Hundt and filed under pattern making tutorials, skirt series and tagged box pleats pleats skirt series pattern tutorial.