Open Collections Program - Student Dialogue

Open Collections Program > Women Working > Teachers > One Kitchen or Fifty > "Convenient Arrangement"

Some Students Discuss the Photograph "A Convenient Arrangement"

LIDYA: But I was thinking . . . that the tool part makes sense, because it’s definitely—there’s so many tools, that it—it does require some kind of professionalism to be able to know how to use it. It’s not just a fork and a ladle anymore—there’s, like, all sorts of knives, and—like, it—to me, it implies some sort of different, like, training to use all of these tools—a more professionalized type of kitchen—more sophisticated than just, like, the normal sort of things.
DENNIS: Yeah, like, look—on the far left, you see all those things—there must be, like, a dozen things, like, sort of hanging, and each one of those, maybe, is a different tool, made for something special.

This exchange was part of the longer discussion below.

LIDYA: And so, I—I thought that—um—for me, like, what struck me was just the variety of tools, and how they’re displayed for [the] convenience of the person who’s going to use them—that they’re not sort of piled on top of each other, they’re there so that whatever you need to take, you use, you put—sort of this idea of more mechanical—sort of, well, fast pace, and— Laughs a little. And—which related to the [Tivolia] beater.

ANA: But, yeah, picking up on—following that idea, what came to my mind [was] that these could be possible exhibits—like, kitchens that are in [an] exhibition, to show how things—because I was struck by—by the word arrangement. Because what I noticed—that both of them—both pictures ["The New England Kitchen" and "A Convenient Arrangement"] are showing a different way of arranging tools or utensils or, you know, dishes—kitchen stuff. But another thing that I also thought about was that both of them are referring somehow to different [kinds of] places. Like, the first one is more commercial . . . [and] this one seems to be for a smaller group of people, or even for one person, so we thought about even—it looks like a home—it can be a home kitchen—
LIDYA: But it’s missing the human quality.
ANA: But then we also learned that it’s from—the source is some—is related to—
LIDYA: A farmhouse.
ANA: [A] Healthful Farmhouse. So, you know, we started thinking about farms.
LIDYA: But I was thinking . . . that the tool part makes sense, because it’s definitely—there’s so many tools, that it—it does require some kind of professionalism to be able to know how to use it. It’s not just a fork and a ladle anymore—there’s, like, all sorts of knives, and—like, it—to me, it implies some sort of different, like, training to use all of these tools—a more professionalized type of kitchen—more sophisticated than just, like, the normal sort of things.
DENNIS: Yeah, like, look—on the far left, you see all those things—there must be, like, a dozen things, like, sort of hanging, and each one of those, maybe, is a different tool, made for something special.