PhD-Ness Part 1, All at Sea-Ness,Trains, New Campus, Love Arts-Ness, New Desk and general ness of all kinds.....

Mono print made yesterday at the Love Arts Festival launch, student travel pass, pass card to Leeds Library, notes and misery....

It's now official - I am a PhD student at the University of Huddersfield (EEK but also YAY!!!) - I have a new email address, new website to get to grips with, new printing facilities to access, new campus to navigate, new colleagues and all other manner of new-ness to get my head around.

One of the loveliest newest things is my new desk - am hoping this will help with back pain and stiffness as it is much better proportioned than the old one and I can sit at it with my legs underneath it comfortably as opposed to my legs being jammed under drawers (though those drawers were very useful indeed for holding passports, mini sd card adapters, usb sticks and the like) - old desk has been moved to the garage where it will (hopefully) be used as a printing desk. The rest of my workroom still needs organising better - the plan is to do a big book cull and get new bookcases too and then maybe I will be able to sit on the sofa bed and read - as opposed to use it as a bookcase...

The plan was to have done all this by the start of term but the boiler was condemned and that was much more of a priority to get replaced (and then the shower wouldn't work alongside the new boiler because of the changes to the water pipes so we had to get a new shower sorted as well...ARGH and indeed OUCH wallet-wise) so new bookcases are still waiting on the shopping list. Aside from actually buying the house (which we effectively bought on tick thanks to a mortgage) last September was the most expensive month I think we've ever had - new boiler, new shower, guttering needed cleaning and new down pipes fitting, uni fees (GULP!!) new glasses for us both, travel pass - got a bus and train one to make getting to and from Huddersfield easier, root canal treatment for me. All adds up to 'new bookcases will have to wait for the moment'.

But along with all those necessary expensive things I also treated myself to student membership of Leeds Library - the one that's above Paperchase on Commercial Street in Leeds - I have wanted to join since I went there for a book launch some time ago. It's a beautiful building, it's the oldest surviving subscription library in the country and it was founded in 1768. It is steeped in history, the staff are really lovely and helpful - they were very helpful when I was doing my MA and I am sure they will be equally helpful now I'm studying for a PhD. Plus best of all they have many Victorian novels, newspapers and periodicals - the actual original paper versions - not reprints or digitally scanned copies. I will be a mix of a kid in a sweetshop and a Bisto kid - breathing in that delightfully heady mix of 'old' 'must' 'candle and coal soot' and 'paper rot'.  I can't wait to start reading their wares. One of the things I am interested in is how the stories I read now as compete editions looked when they were originally published in serial form and what they were placed next to,and what adverts they were surrounded by.

They also have a lovely DVD collection from which I borrowed the delightfully grim and hilarious Arsenic and Old Lace - Peter Lorre as Dr Einstein is glorious and the BBC adaptation of North and South which I am halfway through watching. It's quite tough going - am not finding the characters portrayed on screen as sympathetic as I did when reading them..but I will persevere - I'm intrigued to see how the scene where Margaret Hale is bonnet-less (caused scandal in the 19th century) and steps forward to protect the mill owner John Thornton will be done.

I am also getting to grips with the library at Huddersfield Uni - it's nowhere near as gorgeous to look at as the Brotherton, it's quite labyrinthine, quite noisy and I'm not sure where the librarians live in it as all the booklending is done by a machine which scans your card and the books...call me old fashioned but I prefer to interact with a human and have my book stamped. But there are lots of helpers about - one of whom helped me navigate the difficulties of loading cash onto my printing account (it's mostly done online - ARGH!!! Another one of my bugbears as I prefer to pay for things in person if possible) and then it seemed fairly smooth. I found the book I was looking for and checked it out, I also found my way to and from the print room and got some nice b+w prints done of more recent images I've made.

I'm slowly but surely finding my way both round the campus and Huddersfield itself too - I've still to check out the cafe in the Parish Church (though I have had a look at the graveyard surrounding it) - am loving the 19th century architecture, the charity shops, Walkers the jewellers and the vegetarian sausage rolls from the pound bakery. I love the bit of the campus that goes over the canal - even though on the whole the campus is a bit too toytowny architecturally for me. Am looking forward to doing some more exploring off campus. Including of course Edgerton Cemetery which opened in 1855.

I have found where to get a good baked potato for lunch and got chatting to the lady sat opposite me whilst eating it yesterday. She turned out to be a fairly big cheese in the university and has offered to help me find a scientist type at the university who can help with analysing whether or not the 'mourning' brooch I got in Cleethorpes a while back is made with human hair. It was sold as a mourning brooch but it has no personal dedication or general memoriam-ness which makes me wonder if it is in fact a more mass produced fashion item or love token. Exciting times.

I was however given some undoubtedly authentic mourning items at the weekend by an old chum who kindly gave me a box of Royal Mourning Pins - they're completely black and not shiny and so therefore suitable for use during periods of deepest mourning. Not sure who made them but am guessing by their title that they were made after 1861 (death of Albert) to cash in on Victoria's going into deep mourning and helping make it a more fashionable/expected thing to do. He also gave me mounts for funeral card dedications - it's not clear whether they were 'real' people (will check next time I'm in the local history library where you can access the Ancestors website without having to subscrtibe to it) or examples for printers. The designs are gorgeous and will make beautiful outlines for making both cyanotypes and anthotypes.

Thanks to a workshop run by the lovely Hayley Mill-Styles  - you can find out about her and her work here that was part of the Love Arts Festival launch which you can find out  about here.

I made an image using printers ink and a tile yesterday (see red and white shapes above - I was channelling my inner late 60's early 70's design loves there) which has given me lots of ideas for developing my own work and my aim to present photographic images in a non 2D way. I need to get some new supplies - and dig the enlarger out of the wardrobe as I'll be able to use it to project images and so stencil them onto polystyrene...and then print with them - hopefully with added grave dirt/site specific material from the places they are images of.

The Love Arts Festival runs until October 18th and there is so much to choose from - art shows, plays, perfomances, a special showing of Now Voyager (on 35mm!!) at Hyde Park Picture House at 2pm on Sunday 8th October for which I've written a short introduction, and a pop up outside the by then newly reopened Art Gallery on Saturday 14th October from 11am til 4pm.

I have some of my coffin lining prints on show as part of the pop up exhibition in the Light and as ever I owe The Arts and Mind Network (the people behind the festival) massive gratitude - it was them that gave me the opportunity to take part in the Place and Memory Project which in turn led to me going back to big school (Leeds College of Art now the Leeds University for the Arts) to study for a Masters degree and in turn the PhD I'm studying for now.

I've also written my first proper grown up academic article - currently awaiting feedback on it, had a proposal accepted for a conference on death and memorialisation at Hull University next year, been booked by Darling Roses again to do a talk about my work, so although I've not been making much new artwork recently - the research  into the stuff that inspires me to make the work is ongoing....

What else - as am still settling in, am still trying to work out how best to do my PhD work but I have bought a notebook from the student union shop that is half lined paper and half graph paper and on its front is the embossed gold legend ' LABORATORY BOOK' which I am very much looking forward to filling with notes on anthotype experiments. I am hoping to still have proper down time too and to make that a part of my daily schedule too.

It's two months since I last wrote a blog post, this blog started out as just a general place for me to write about my obsessions, research and projects and then it became my official research journal for my MA. I'm not quite sure what format the academic hoops I have to jump during this PhD malarkey will take - I may update this weekly again like I did or I may just keep notes in a notebook instead - this is another question to ask my tutor when we meet....I already have a list for her.

MA-Ness Week 8 - Mrs Beeton, 21st Century Bingewatching, Ainsworth Magazine, Jodrell Bank, Sad Anniversaries, Brix Start Smith and Frankenstein

Quite a full post it note this week - along with my latest book acquisition.

It is a copy of the edition published in 1861 which in turn comprised the 24 monthly parts called Mrs Beeton's Household Mangement which had been published between 1859 and 1861 in a magazine called The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine. The magazine contained patterns, recipes, short stories, translations of french novels, gardening tips and medical aids. The edition I have is from 1968 and cost 3 guineas. I got it from the Leeds Library booksale - they very kindly remembered I had asked if they had original copies of the Englishwomans Domestic Magazine but alas they didn't, and then when I emailed to see if they had copies of Ainsworth Magazine from 1842 ( I wanted to read Laman Blanchards essay about visiting Kensal Green Cemetery) which they do -  they said they had a found an original first edition facsimile copy of Mrs Beeton which was going in their book sale and would I like it? ....to which I of course responded yes please. I also got a copy of a book called Urn Burial by Patrick Ruell from 1975. It is awful - but each of its chapter headings are quotes from a book called Urn Burial by Sir Thomas Browne from 1658,  so I can forgive albeit grudgingly the author Ruell's dreadful sexism as it is worth it just for the chapter titles alone....

The Beeton's book is wonderful, even if some of the recipes are are more stomach churning than mouth watering (stewed rabbits in milk?? which comprises of 2 very young rabbits not nearly half grown, skinned and chopped up then simmered in 1 and half pints of milk with a blade of mace, a dessertspoonful of flour and a little salt and cayenne) and it also has a fabulously stern section featuring medical advice and the section on 'The Cholera and Auntumnal Complaints' states that 'to oppose cholera, there seems no surer or better means than cleanliness, sobriety and judicious ventilation'. 'Where there is dirt, that is the place for cholera; where windows and doors are kept most jealously shut, there cholera will find easiest entrance ; and people who indulge in intemperate diet during the hot days of autumn are actually courting death. To repeat it, cleanliness and sobriety and free ventilation almost always defy the pestilence; but in case of attack, immediate recourse should be had to a physician'

A lack of knowledge re how cholera is actually spread ie by a bacterium called vibrio cholerae and its being ingested somehow but it was to be a few years til John Snow's pioneering work on the cholera outbreak in Broad Street in 1854 would become widely  accepted and measures taken to deal adequately with sewage and how to access clean water.

Once again I am happy that I live in the 21st century with its advantages of modern medical techniques, safe drinking water which you don't have to carry to your home in buckets and not the 19th, even if overall I prefer the architecture and literature of the 19th.

I had gone to Leeds Library to see Ainsworth magazine or rather an essay by Samuel Laman Blanchard from 1842 in which he visits Kensal Green Cemetery. This was after a suggestion from Dr Trev Broughton from York University who I met at the Victorian Representations conference at Leeds Trinity Uni a couple of weeks ago. The library copy was Volume 2 from 1842 and was datestamped 1887 and it was falling apart. It wasn't quite as dusty and sooty as the Leeds Mercury newspapers I had looked at from 1835 but it was more delicate. The reddish brown spine and cover had mostly rotted away but it was oh so beautiful and such a treat and privilege to be able to consult it. Albeit very carefully so as not to further damage it but the lovely librarians told me not to worry about it as there were used to books being in such delicate states and the whole point of them is to be looked at. So along with the article I had initially planned to look at I also looked at and enjoyed some poetry, a description of Coventry, a marvellously funny article called the Coquette's Week which featured a widow itching to get out of the full mourning she had been encased in for her previous husband and on the hunt for a new one, a description of the tomb of Hafiz the Persian Poet plus it also featured illustrations on steel and wood.

Blanchards description of Kensal Green (which is still there today and can be walked round) was very fulsome in its praise and he talked of how the suburban cemetery was much preferable to the city churchyard 'the choked charnal house to verdant wide expanse' and how 'with no heavy or morbid oppression of the spirit, we are yet with the dead..and we linger in peaceful reflection...(we do not have to)..commiserate the strangers who dwell around on thebrink of the churchyard, inhaling its unwholesome vapours, familiarised with its loathsome secrets and witnessing its profanation..here there has been nothing to repel, nothing to shock, nothing to wound the profound and sensitive feeling'.I don't know if Blanchard was on the board of any of the new burial companies but his sentiments and descriptions tie in very closely with the reasons given in the first annual report of the people who owned and set up St George's Field. They wanted to be able to offer facilities that were ‘a matter of indispensable necessity..demanded by propriety and good taste…given the overcrowd state of our present graveyards'.

I really really want to visit Kensal Green now - and Highgate and Abney Park and am thinking I might as just well book a week in that London just to go round cemeteries. I am lucky though in that I have been to Pere La Chaise in Paris which opened in 1804 and was the first of the garden cemeteries and the inspiration for all my favourite Victorian era founded cemeteries.

I did buy a modern magazine the other week when I was travelling back from Coventry and I fancied something a bit lighter to read the book on The Victorians I had taken with me, I got Glamour* as it was a special edition that was only a quid plus it had an article on how to break free from habits of worrying. That was the only interesting thing in it really - the rest was utterly vapid rubbish. I am so glad that though I am interested in clothes and fashion that it is of the 19th century as opposed to the 21st as the ones featured in the magazine were without exception horrid and the models look tortured. Though I may be tempted to get a new red lipstick but what is the point of nude lipstick? What the frig is that for? What was new to me was the fact that every contributor is now listed by their twitter name and how many followers they have in brackets, the inference being that clearly your opinions only count if you have a high enough number of followers. 

So what else did I out in my title? well 21st century bingewatching. I'm still seemingly quite old fashioned in that I watch television 'live'. I do record things too and sometimes watch things on catch-up - but only BBC programmes as the amount of advertising you have to endure and can't skip through on commercial channels catch up is more than I can bear. Anyways over the weekend thanks to a chum me and my husband bingewatched Ash versus the Evil Dead and very marvellous indeed it was too. I am a huge fan of Bruce Campbell and he was very good indeed at fighting the deadites along with his feisty younger sidekicks who I'm pleased to say included kick-ass women. I don't think I'll be bingewatching anything else again soon though - unless you count watching Victoria Wood clips on Youtube.

It's just over a year since our beloved Lucia died - so unexpectedly and even though rationally there is no difference in the amount how much we miss her regardless of the date, I was dreading the anniversary of her death and so was my husband. So we decided to go out for the day on her death, not to forget what had happened as her absence is painful proof of that every day but just not to be surrounded by her absence on that day in particular. We decided to got to Jodrell Bank as we'd never been there before. It was a good day out and good distraction and the grounds it is in are very beautiful and it is AMAZING to see the telescope up close and see it moving but the visitors centre bit didn't thrill me. I'm afraid a lot of sciencey stuff goes in one ear and out the other for me - or it begins to sound like the unintelligble burble the teacher used to make in Charlie Brown cartoons. But watching old pathe news reels about the cold war era space race and the role of the telescope was lovely as was the lunch, I did take lots of film photographs though and hopefully I'll be able to pick them up from The Photo Shop in Headingley soon and see how they have come out.

I started reading Brix Smith Start's biography last week - The Rise, The Fall And The Rise. I got it from the library but think I might be investing in my own copy to keep as it is inspirational, intriguing and really interesting to read about how someone else creates and is inspired. She was in The Fall when I first got into them - thanks to a uni chum who introduced me to the delights of Bend Sinister and This Nations Saving Grace. I played those albums which he taped for me on repeat. Then bought my own vinyl copies and I've been to see The Fall more or less once a year (apart from a break in the late 90's after a truly truly awful gig at Manchester Uni) ever since. The first time I saw them was at (the then) Leeds Poly on the Kurious Oranj tour. Amazing and Brix was mesmerising on stage. I'm going to be listening to those songs again but with a new appreciation of what went into them.

Sheffield Uni's Centre for the History of the Gothic are running a competition to write a short story (500 words) that must start with the words Mary Shelley wrote in 1816 after being challenged to write a story ' it was a dreary night in November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils'. I started writing it on the coach on the way home from Coventry in between dipping in and out of Glamour magazine and I would argue that Glamour is infinitely more terrifying than Frankenstein. I finished it and emailed it off last night - it has been a very long time since I've done that kind of creative writing. I write a lot (I still write actual letters by hand in paper and post them) but I rarely write something that is cokmpletely made up in the way a story is. It felt very good to finish it. I've no idea whether it stands a chance of winning or being selected to be read out but it was fun doing it.

The other notes on my post it note are Ed Wood and domestic violence - I adore Ed Wood the film (and the film director) and rewatched it on Friday night - before the news stories about Johnny Depp who plays Ed Wood so beautifully broke about his alleged domestic abuse of his wife. I really hope this is not true as I'd feel very uncomfortable watching if this is true. It once again brings up for me whether or not you can divorce the work from the person who made it and who may be vile in their personal life.

The other thing was reverse engineering coffin shaped cyanotypes - I'd tried making a coffin shaped outline and using that as outline when painting the cyanotype solution on paper. It worked well at first but then solution made its way through the edges and blurred. A chum from the MA course has been making beautifully circular cyanotypes. I asked how - he has been cutting a hole out of black card and then attaching the acetate negative onto it and clamping both down on the solution coated paper. It seems so obvious that this is the way to do this now...can't believe I was so dim as to ot think of that myself. Doh!! 

*I wonder if in 165 years there'll be someone waxing lyrical about going to see original copies of Glamour magazine in the archives....






   

MA-Ness Year 2 Term 2 Week 2 Relaxation, Enervation, Affirmation, Very Old Newspapers Indeed and Taking Photographs

this weeks post it note - much more filled in than last, current reading which is an excellent and thought provoking book and an appropriate bookmark made from medium format film backing paper

Front page of an original copy of the Leeds Intelligencer from July 1836 as perused in Leeds Library - utterly wonderful...and aside from design, change in language and attitudes not much has changed really - newspapers in 1836 were full of gossip - who had attended what ball, international events and adverts for hair dye, and the latests in fashions with economy

What became known as 'the bastard dissertation' all safely printed up, bound and handed in - now awaiting it being marked with some trepidation but fingers crossed it'll be okay.....

Had a much more chilled week last week, life seems so much easier when there isn't a scarey deadline hanging over you. It was a delight to get back to work in a gentle way - I did some picture taking in St George's Fields, did some playing about on the photocopier (am interested in the way you can degrade the quality of images by photocopying them and then photocopying each subsequent copy - think it is an interesting way to explore how memories can change over time) and some colouring in too with oil pastels as well as quite a lot of thinking about why am I doing the course and what am I doing it for and why I love the things I do.

This thinking was partly as a result of a conversation with my husband and one with my tutor. I want to do as well as I possibly can on this course and the predominant way I had been measuring this was by the marks I'd got for assignments which on reflection seems a rather narrow and reductive way of looking at things, plus it runs the risk of me thinking it hasn't been worthwhile if I don't do well markswise. Which would be silly really - it's taught me a whole new way of looking at other people's work and my own, I've learnt a whole new vocabulary, met all sorts of interesting people and been able to use some really wonderful resources...so even if I don't get the overall grade I really want it won't have been wasted at all. And I need to remind myself of this more often when I am getting worked up over marks and the academic hoop jumping side of things.

I got the Photographers Playbook  (Fulford J and Halpern G 2014 Aperture) out of the college library last week after seeing it listed in the bibliography for an abstract for a paper called 'Botanizing On The Asphalt': Wandering as Generative Interpretation by Bonny McDonald and Ruth Laurion Bowman.  And I fell in love with it instantly after reading this quote which is just inside the cover:

'But it just happens, every so often, that something very ordinary seems beautiful to me and I'd like it to be eternal. I'd like this bistro, and that dusty light bulb, and that dog dreaming on the marble and even this night - to be eternal. And their essential quality is precisely that they aren't'.  - Raymond Queneau Witch Grass.

This completely resonated for me (so much so my own copy of the book is on its way to me via a large online tax avoiding company...) and made me think of the times I've stood on Whitby Pier watching the waves crash against the pier wall and wanting to be able to bottle that sound, smell and moment and be able to return to it whenever I want - especially in times of distress (oh how I wish I'd have been able to bottle the smell of the fur behind Lucia's ears as it was so lovely) and no amount of photograph or video taking can relive that moment in its entirety but it can at least boost your memory of it. I've also wanted to 'bottle' moments of peace amongst the remaining stones in St George's Field - I'm trying to make it into a habit that every time I go to college I also pop across the road too so I can resoak myself in its peace and calm.

I'm not sure why I find such peace and solace in what used to be a graveyard - it's partly an aesthetic thing and because it's peaceful and quiet. But I am also very aware that in its past it will also have been a place of great emotional pain and torment, for even if you do believe (like many victorians did) in an afterlife and that once dead provided you have lived a good life you will ascend to heaven and so be in a 'better place' those left behind still have the trauma of missing and grieving and sometimes I worry I'm possibly being a bit ghoul-like when what I want to do is promote the practice of honouring lost loved ones.

Along with lots of thinking, and a bit of reading I also did some research this week - I looked at original copies of the Leeds Intelligencer held in Leeds Library. The very splendid library which is next door to and above Paperchase and very wonderful it was too. You can read all about the library here and if you get chance to go/join then do for it is very lovely indeed. I was in a room marked with signs saying things like 'you are requested not to talk' and 'this room is for silent study' and aside from the ticking of a very wonderful Potts Clock and the distant noise of a clock elsewhere in the library chiming the hours it was beautifully quiet. No chatting, no people tapping on mobiles, or tapping on laptops and the noise from the outside street only became noticeable as the lunch hour began.

I was looking at copies of the Leeds Intelligencer from 1834-1836. In that time it was published once a week on a saturday and you also had to pay a penny tax on top of the cover peice when you bought it. Each copy was stamped somewhere on the front cover with a red tax paid stamp. Initially it consisted of two folded pieces of paper so 4 sides in total and it was adverts on the first two pages. then  reports from the 'imperial parliament', local and national news and gossip. All in very small densely packed typeface, no illustrations though some engraved logos - though not sure they would have called logos then. Very different in tone and look from todays newspapers but not all that dissimilar in terms of content. By 1836 it was 4 pieces of paper folded in two and the first 4 sides were of adverts.

Utterly marvellous adverts for places like the Lounge - 17 Boar Lane Leeds whose proprietor '[respectfully begs to announce that he has just imported a beautiful Assortment of GENEVA WATCHES and several elegant GILT TIME PIECES (15 days movement) with many choice and Beautiful Specimens of Foreign Manufacture, adapted either as Presents or Articles of bijoutire for the Drawing Room'. Capitalisation exactly as in advert.

This advert makes me smile so much - and later on in the period I was looking at, there were adverts for hair dye, wax flowers and 'newest fashions in beaver bonnets' and of course PROFESSOR STEHELINS BOTANICAL PILLS which came complete with a treatise on syphilitic and venereal diseases with 'observations on seminal weaknesses arising from early abuses'. An immediate cure was available with 'secrecy and safety' from 11 Albion Street Leeds for just 2s 9d a box.....

But perhaps best of all the newspapers smelt of old - not just the old cold of being kept in an archive but the almost 200 years of being stored, they were beautifully creased and torn around the edges and were covered in fine black soot from candles and coalfires. Utterly wonderful and captivating. I could have looked at them all day but after a couple of hours and finding the article I wanted to - namely a report about the first funeral to be held at St George's Fields or rather Leeds General Cemetery as it was known then and the calls for subscription to the monument for Michael Sadler (still there alongside the Chapel in St George's Fields) as well as an advert detailing the burial charges I called it a day. Reading such dense type is hard on the eyes and I had to wash my hands more than once to get rid of the dirt of the centuries, as much as I love 'old', I don't want 'old' on my sandwiches and by that time I was very hungry indeed.

I took lots of photographs on Sunday in St George's Fields before heading to the Hyde Park for the afternoon showing of The Lady In The Van. I've never known the ground so soggy and boggy at St George's Fields - the annual reports often complained of poor drainage and there were lots of puddles, not just on the paths of subscription graves laid flat but also on the grass. I took the opportunity to take pics of reflections in the puddles though alas the repairs I'd made to my wellies with gaffer tape aren't as watertight as I would like...but they don't leak as much as they did so at least I only had cold as opposed to wet feet to watch the film.

And what a glorious film it was - heartwarming, poignant, heartbreaking and funny. I'd read the story many years ago and seen a production at Leeds Playhouse many moons ago too so knew the story. Maggie Smith was utterly wonderful as Miss Shepherd. As was the chap who played both Bennetts Alex Jennings. I absolutely love her assertion that as it was holy water that she put in the battery it had no need to be distilled, and the keeping of the air freshener behind the Virgin Mary by the confessional. The unhelpful lay secretary at the convent was a small but also very revealing part about just how miserable and restrictive a religious life can be. I want to watch it again.

So this week is going to consist of more photograph taking, more reading and a lot of thinking about what format I want my final project to take as I have no hand in until the middle of August when I have to hand in my portfolio and I need to focus (pardon the pun) on that but alas no trips to the oldy worldy splendour of Leeds Library again for a while...just my overcrowded workroom instead.....