PhD-Ness Part 8 Year 2 in a weekly ongoing series - sticking and gluing, experimenting, re-drafting, reading and writing

More image heavy post this week showing bits of what I've been up to - the top picture shows a matte medium image transfer in progress. I'd printed the 35mm image I'd taken of St George's Field on ordinary printer paper, cut it out and also cut a circle of cream muslin and put it in an embroidery hoop. The hoop keeps the material nice and taught. Then I paint a layer of matte medium on the material, then on the cut out image and then put the image on top of the material and smooth it as flat as possible to ensure minimal creases or bubbles. I leave it to dry overnight and then using tepid water make it all damp and then slowly and carefully with my left index finger start to rub away the paper in a circular motion - thereby hopefully leaving the print from the image caught in the layers of matte medium.

The second image is also a matte medium image transfer in progress - this time a colour 35mm image I'd taken of Ann Carr's grave on what would have been her 235th birthday when I left a yellow rose on her gravestone as a tribute to her and her work with so called 'fallen' women. Women who had children outside of wedlock were often made to wear yellow in the workhouse as a way of marking them out from other workhouse residents. I have not read of the fathers of these children being made to wear something similar to mark them out.

3rd image is of the same image when the paper has been rubbed off for the second time - it usually takes a couple of goes to get as much of it off as possible - all the while trying not to rub so hard that you rub off the image too. Sometimes though the bond between image and material underneath isn't that good - especially around the edges. I am especially careful on those bits but sometimes to no effect. Sometimes it really annoys me when the edge lifts up but other times I think it adds to the image as it a)shows the human touch in the process and b)imitates/recalls the way glass plate negatives can look - either the person painting it missed the edges in the darkroom or it has become damaged over time.

Ways round the edges coming up include: only using muslin to transfer images onto as that seemed to grip the image best or making the border of the transferred image a half inch wider and then cutting it out with a neat solid edge...

The third image also shows some of the experimenting I've doing with kinetic drawing/mark making on paper which involves putting paper in a tube along with a marking medium, in this case chalk, pastel and crayon. The tube is then sealed and placed at the bottom of my rucksack - these are the results of a walk to Meanwood and back but it's not made much of an impression on any of the papers. So I'm going to ask an artist friend of mine who does these for any tips she might have in the hope of making something more definite - maybe I just need to do it for longer or make the ends of the chalk/pastel/crayon more pointed.

The last image shows the finished image transfers - I've rubbed off as much of the paper fibres as possible and added a layer of gloss medium to finish them off. Without it the images can still look quite flat and a little bit fibrous. It also shows this weeks post it note - which as you can see isn't over full but it has been a busy week with quite a lot of reading and doing and listening and seeing and watching.

The reading has mostly been of the psychogeographic variety as I have made a start on On Walking by Phil Smith - especially useful as he references The Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald which I (finally) finished last week. Huzzah. I also re read the introduction of  Photographs Objects Images edited by Elizabeth Edwards and Janice Hart and I have ploughed a bit more of the way through Adam Bede by George Eliot. I also picked up a copy of  Walking Inside Out by Tina Richardson.

Part of my rationale for reading these is part recommendation by tutors but also part methodology writing as to write mine up is part of my homework from last weeks supervision along with a redrafted research plan for year 2.

It was also the launch of the festival brochure for the Love Arts Festival last week at which I chatted and caught up with folks. I also made a collage which was great fun. It's been a while since I've made something with just the joy of making something in mind as in I wasn't consciously trying hard to create a particular effect or feeling or end result. It felt good. You can find out about all the events, exhibitions and happenings of the festival here  including my contribution Once and Now at Kapow Coffee 15 Thornton's Arcade and fingers crossed the framer will have finished framing them by then so that I'll be able to put them up at the end of the week.

So lots of doing of all kinds and I'd best get cracking on with my to do list for this week but first off I need to get something to eat, and to tidy my workroom a bit.

PhD-Ness Part 6 in weekly ongoing series - thinking, looking, doing, lifting, failing/falling.....

A much fuller post it note this week - though that is also because it was so empty at the end of the previous week I decided to continue writing on it underneath to save paper.

Am feeling really tired today though - in part thanks to a training session (am on track to reach my goal of being able to deadlift 80kg by the end of the year*) but mostly in part thanks to a really broken nights sleep which is in danger of becoming a habit again...but it's a habit I really want to break.

So what have I been up to over the last seven days - well lots of things including:

Being a Victorian era death customs expert for a chum who is researching the lives of some of the men involved with the Franklin expedition (the ill-fated voyage of artic exploration led by John Franklin in 1847 on the ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror) she had questions re burial practices that I was able to help with, along with the prominent role that organised religion be it conformist or non conformist played in everyday life then.

Buying materials - got some more matte medium, some new graphite sticks in different hardnesses and some Halloween pom poms as it's my favourite time of year when the shops are filled with all manner of skull emblazoned goodness and other assorted goodness. The man working on the till in M+S at the station asked me if I was getting ready for Halloween when he saw my bodypart emblazoned bag, skull bracelets and coffin ring to which my reply was 'it's Halloween all year round for me' and he smiled.

Taking work for my Once and Now show at Kapow 15 Thortons Arcade from the beginning of October to be framed. I've never had any of my two dimensional work professionally framed before, I've always done it myself with cheap frames from either Wilkos or Ikea. They looked okay and were all I could afford at the time and the plain wooden deep frames from Wilko I'll continue to use as I can paint those the colour I want (black) and fill with collected fallen petals or whatever else fauna-wise I find at the graveyard. It was especially exciting though to try different coloured backing papers for the images I've selected to frame which are mostly greyscale on either tracing paper or acetate. I was initially thinking white but then there are many different shades of white to choose from and in the end I opted for a deep cream backing. A colour which really adds to the images and makes them even more oldy worldy than just being in greyscale does. Am really excited about seeing the end result.

Speaking of graveyard finds - pictured above is the piece of wood I found (minus the woodlice which I left behind after scraping them off with a stick) yesterday whilst I was mooching round St George's Field taking pictures and trying and failing to make some kinetic drawings. I have completely fallen in love with its animal skull like shape. I left behind the broken bit of stone that I think had come off a nearby tombstone that had been shorn of its ivy. Part of me really wanted to take it but I wouldn't as that seems really disrespectful to both the person whose memorial it was from (regardless of how long they have been dead) and the people who paid for it to be erected to/for their loved one. If I'm being 100% honest there is also a teeny part of me that has seen and read far too many horror stories involving people taking away things from places that they shouldn't...most notably the short stories by M R James 'A Warning To The Curious' and 'Whistle And I'll Come To You'.
I hadn't been back to St George's Field since my birthday gathering at the end of July and a lot of vegetation along what I call Obelisk Avenue had been cut back (re- revealing one of my favourite tombs which has BE YEA ALSO READY carved on it alongside two rather beautiful heavenly figures) and the subscription stones which have been laid flat around the chapel have been blasted clean. This has revealed their original pale yellowy stone colour and leaving aside my preference for their previous grey colour I also worry about what kind of potential damage is done when cleaning stone as it can make it more porous and prone to chipping.

Anyway I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the piece of wood I found but I did take some pictures of it in situ around the graveyard - using 35mm Ilford XP2 film and my trusty go to Canon SLR. I don't know how they have worked as I've not finished the roll yet (ah the delayed gratification of film) but the kinetic drawings I did didn't work out well at all. I put tracing paper in a drinks bottle (one with a wide neck) along with a couple of pieces of charcoal and then laid it flat at the bottom of my rucksack. The idea being that as you move the pieces of charcoal make marks. I walked along Obelisk Avenue along to the other side to see what was happening around Anne Buttery's grave - I also went to pay my respects at Ann Carr's grave but failed to make much of an impression. Next visit I shall try a narrower tube (a kitchen roll one sealed with masking tape and a different kind of mark marker - maybe chalk, or crayon or graphite marker or pastels and see if that works any better.

Speaking of Ann Carr I spent last Thursday holed up amongst the splendour and peace of the Family and History Library reading about her. I had previously scoured the card catalogue for mentions of her and thanks to the as always helpful librarians they brought me all the things I wanted to see. Things like reports from the Temperance Society reports from the 1830's whose title page included 'We whose names are subscribed, do voluntarily agree to abstain entirely from the use of distilled spirits, except for medicinal purposes, and although the moderate use of other liquors is not excluded, yet as the promotion of Temperance in ever form is the specific design of the Society, it is understood that excess in these, necessarily excludes from membership'.  And each title page also included the following verse from Isiah 5. 22 ' woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink'.  I didn't find any mention of her in their reports but I did discover that Edward Baines Senior (one of the founders of St George's Field) was a regular donor to the Temperance Society of the then comparatively huge sum of £1 a year. An online inflation checker transcribes this to be the equivalent of approximately £120 a year now. I wonder where Edward Baines Senior made his money to begin with.

Looking through the collected notes and queries columns from the Leeds Mercury compiled in 1893 (a beautiful red fabric bound book with a handwritten index and very neatly pasted in pages with no bits coming adrift) I learned more of Ann's funeral as well as looking upon gems querying the authorship of Wuthering Heights, and the 'old' practice of putting an extinguished candle in a coffin which the book just fell open at as I was browsing through it. I love that kind of serendipitous action.

However the gem was a copy originally from Dewsbury Library of Memoirs of the Life and Character of Ann Carr (of Leylands Leeds) Containing An Account Of Her Conversion To God, Her Devoted Labours and Her Happy Death by Martha Williams. Written shortly after Ann's death in January 1841 it contains Martha's memories of Ann as well as some of the people she used to say with in Hull when preaching as well as an appendix containing the Reverend J Rawsons funeral address for her. His funeral oration includes the sentence ' We are gathered round the cold remains of a friend and a sister in Christ.'  Not the kind of phrase you'd expect to hear in a modern funeral service. The Reverend Rawson meets a shameful end though as he is sacked for drunkenness on the job.Drunkenness on duty in what was originally a graveyard full of Temperance advocates is beyond the pale. 

I also attended the first day of the third Fourth World Psychogeography Conference at Huddersfield Uni. It was a fun and thought provoking day. The opening presentations by Dr Anna Davison and artist Lesley Eleanor Wood really made me think about my methodological approach to my studies as well as giving me pointers towards further reading and techniques - it's thanks to Lesley who I had the privilege to meet and get to know as she was on the MA course with me that I am experimenting with kinetic drawing techniques. Anna is making me think about the invisible forces behind places - eg although I know where the money came from for the creation of St George's Field  that is shareholders putting up the cash - where did those shareholders get their cash?

As ever lots of food for thought......

Programmes/Films Watched Morrison B (director) 2016 Dawson City Frozen Time USA Picture Place Pictures
Incredible film which was a documentary about the discovery and reclamation of loads of silent films from the 1920’s/1930’s from a filled in pool and bank vault where they had been put as ballast essentially or just left – because the place they were in Dawson City – the furthest north bit of the Yukon valley of gold rush infamy was too far for the film companies to pay for them to be returned plus as it took them almost two years sometimes to get that far north in the first place.

Really detailed overview of creation of film – hadn’t really realised it was essentially an explosive as it was thanks to gun cotton. It also covered the history of the Yukon gold rush, the displacement of indigenous peoples and the cultural assimilation of some and of course Dawson City itself in all its wooden regularly needing to rebuilt because of fires glory – all interspersed with restored clips from the films found in the ground. Apparently something like only 25% of silent films still exist. Also sad moments like the description of the death of mostly women and children in wooden cinema fire, and moment when glass plate negatives by Hegg were found in walls of cabin and new owner asked what was best way to get emulsion off so they could be used to make a greenhouse!! Thankfully the person they asked saw/knew value of the images and they gave them brand new glass. Hegg was main photographer in Dawson City. It was also a bit of a love story as the discoverer and museum archivist met and fell in love and got married.

Beautifully mesmerising soundtrack too by Alex Somers – who also works with Sigor Ross. But did find it difficult to stay awake at times – and it was also the first film of the autumn where I went to the cinema in broad daylight and left two hours later in the dark - definitely worth a rewatch.

Books Read
Still ploughing my way through Sebald's Rings of Saturn and absolutely loving it,am loving the style of writing but am finding some of the description of slaughter, war, exploitation and holocaust harrowing to read. If you compare the amount of post it notes in the picture above compared to last weeks you'll see the progress I'm making.


Exhibitions Attended
none - but got plenty lined up to go and see including this one .


* I really like the definiteness of weightlifting - as opposed to the indefiniteness of academia and artmaking at times...and I lifted 65kg from the block this morning so am on target for reaching my goal of being able to deadlift 80kg by the end of the year. 

PhD-Ness Part 5 in a weekly series - thinking, sorting, doing, deadlifting

Todays picture shows a fairly empty post it note thing on top of work I'm in the process of sorting and taking to the framers so that it can be ready for my Once and Now exhibition at Kapow Coffee House Thorntons Arcade starting at the beginning of October. It's part of the Love Arts Festival and you can find out details about all the things that are part of the festival here - there are all sorts of lovely things on including performances, poetry and pictures.

It's interesting sorting through the images I've made in and of St George's Field, some of them I'm really pleased with as I have managed to capture exactly what it was I was trying to, some of them make me think of Roy Walker as in 'good, but not right' and some make me think 'plan and take the right equipment next time' or 'if I'd only stood a little more to the left' or 'a slightly longer exposure and I've have got it...' my plan is to review the space they're going in again this week, sort through the images again but this time with the helpful and more objective eye of my ever supportive husband and then decide which ones to have framed and show. 

I last updated this blog only 4 days ago so not much time to have done stuff but as I am trying to get back into a weekly habit of academic reflexive writing I decided to write it again today. Plus writing it on a Monday helps me both reflect on the previous week as well as prepare for the forthcoming one.

My note somewhat predictably contains the words 'difficulty concentrating' - twas ever thus and maybe I just need to accept that rather than difficulty concentrating I just have a kind of flitting brain and as long as the task gets finished does it matter if I do it in snatches of concentration rather than one big long tranche. Plus as I write this on the computer it's incredibly easy to get distracted, especially if I have to look something up.

Anyways on with the note - one of the things it says is 'horsehair in the post'. One of the things I am really interested in and hoping to make a version of my own is mourning jewellery that includes hair. Thanks to an international inter library loan I was able to read the very wonderful The Art of Hair Work Book by Mark Campbell which consists of patterns and tips on how to make them. One of the tips is that as human hair can be very fine it can be padded out with horsehair which is much stiffer and coarser and so easier to work with. I am lucky to have a chum who has a horse so I asked her to save me hair from each grooming session with her horse and a lovely packet of it arrived through the post last week. I hope to start working with it soon.

My favourite seasons are (and in this order) autumn, spring, winter - I'm not really a fan of summer as though I like the extra strong sunlight from a developing cyanotypes and anthotypes point of view, I do not like the heat. Nor do I like having to slather myself in factor 50 and so feel like a chip each time I leave the house. Autumn brings cosy nights when as the light fades you can close the curtains and light candles and read ghost stories without feeling out of place. Plus I love the half light of Autumn - especially when it is gloomily misty and atmospheric. Plus Autumn has Halloween - my very favourite time of year.

Plus as autumn is also the start of a new academic year it also fills me with excitement (as well as slight trepidation) as who knows what the new term will bring? apart from a very good excuse to buy new stationery - obviously.  I've not had any emails yet from the university outlining what if any the new enrolment arrangements are - will contact them by the end of the week if I still haven't heard anything and in the meantime slowly but surely plod on with my reading list. I've read a bit more of the Rings of Saturn (Sebald) and am still loving it and making all sorts of notes on the text.

This reading and writing malarkey is mostly sedentary though so I'm still having deadlifting sessions twice a week as it is helping me with my goals of not being quite so sedentary, getting fitter and increasing my stamina. Plus it is a very definite thing to do in lots of ways when compared to my academic pursuits and I was pleased last week to be that bit nearer to my goal of being able to deadlift 80kg by the end of the year by deadlifting 60kg. I am most decidedly knackered though.

Yesterday I went to see a film about Andy Goldsworthy and it was very good indeed but rather than talk about it here -I shall put it in the next section:

Programmes/Films Watched
Reidelshimer T (director) 2018 Leaning Into The Wind UK Filmpunkt Skyline Productions
A film which followed Andy Goldsworthy making work with his daughter Holly as his assistant, talking about his influences, researching and showing images of his work around the world, either in situ or in progress. It's many years since I saw an exhibition of his work at Leeds Art Gallery and fell in awe of it. IIRC it was the shapes made out of dried leaves held together with thorns which most impressed and intrigued me, as well as the use of brightly coloured natural leaves in situ in the landscape. This film also showed his pieces within a city setting too - think it was in Edinburgh, including his beautiful temporary pieces where he lies down on the floor as it begins to rain, waits til the ground surrounding him has changed colour with the rain and then stands up - leaving a splayed limbs human shape behind which quickly becomes spotted and disappears. Beautiful, simple, evocative, poignant and fun.

He talked about how for him being an artist meant he could ask the question - can you walk by something or through something as he was making his way through hedges - not from front to back but from one end to the other in a way that looked very uncomfortable and potentially dangerous should you fall. He did say that learning to fall is very important for an artist. He also talked of how his favourite kind of day is an overcast grey calm one as that gives him time to stop and that's a relief.

It also showed him revisiting the coffins carved into the cliff above Morecambe Bay in Heysham and the Sleeping Stones they've inspired him to make around the world. This made me especially happy as I went there in July and laid in one of them. How much time and weather changes things - in the film they were full of rainwater, when I saw them they were full of dust. Which also reminds me of the scene in Brazil where he was throwing and sweeping dust into the beam of light from a hole in the roof in an otherwise abandoned cottage. I also found the covering of a hand in thick black mud and washing it off under a waterfall very moving as it made me think of loss and the transience of all things though it could also be thought of as a revealing too.

As ever lots of food for thought and I really enjoyed the way he described his work and the motivations behind it. It did also make me wonder about health and safety as there was an awful lot of climbing, stone carving with power tools and being alone in the landscape and physical discomfort at a level I wouldn't be at all comfortable with. In my eyes - he really does suffer for his art.

Books Read
Ongoing reading of Rings of Saturn and Gaudy Night
the unread pile of books that I need to read continues to nag at me......

Exhibitions Attended
None - but definite plans have been made to visit the Victorian Giants of Photography at the Millenium Gallery in Sheffield later this month. 

PhD-Ness part 4 in weekly series - reading, listening, pomodoring, Sebald and Infest

slightly emptier notepad this week, another matte medium image transfer - this time onto canvas using a two week old black and white photocopy and finally(!!) started reading Sebald and the blue post it note stickers indicate places in the text where there's something I need to look up, something I want to think about a bit more, something I want to quote or some mention of death/funereal custom - I'm not sure where I got the copy from though, I usually remember where I get books from but can't remember with this one and it doesn't have a charity shop mark I recognise in it.

So finally started reading some Sebald - Rings of Saturn 2002 edition and so far I am absolutely loving it, in a similar way to the way I completely fell in love with Barthes Camera Lucida because it is so immediately emotional and personal plus he is writing about things I love - the past, bones, burial and fascinating recounts of individuals histories. There are also stark shocking figures about the bombing raids during the 1939-1945 war which originated in East Anglia. So far I'm up to the silent housekeeper and her inheritance - I am looking forward to reading more and thinking about the themes of the book and the way it is constructed and written.

Along with looking up some of the references in Sebald's book I also need to do some investigating into the life and work of Elizabeth Fulhame who published a book called An Essay on Combustion with a View to a New Art of Dying and Painting in 1794. She is credited with discovering photoreduction - which is to do with light dependant reactions and the concept of catalysis -  which is to do with what chemicals can be added to others to alter the speed of chemical reactions to give a desired outcome. I think. I'm not really au fait with chemical terms and so I can forsee a lot of dictionary checking and asking questions of my chums who are chemically literate in my future.

I had never heard of Elizabeth Fulhame before last week when she was talked about by Irfan Shah during his very excellent Measure of the Moon talk at Leeds central Library last week. He talked about the connections between photographic and film experimentations and Leeds. It was fascinating to hear him trace the threads and leads between the invention of the micrometer, calotypes, daguerreotypes (am especially pleased because that's the first time I've been able to spell that word correctly without having to look it up!!) and the creation of moving images by Louis Le Prince. Much more investigation needed on my part to find out more about Elizabeth and also to hopefully read her book and ideally be able to understand it....

I'm interested in her work - partly because she was a woman but also because of my work transferring images onto material and to see whwther or not she uses any techniques I could learn from or copy.

As ever I've been really struggling with concentration, flitting from one thought to another or one website and another so am going to make a concerted effort to do one thing at a time, either until that particular task is finished or for a set amount of time before swapping to something else - essentially the pomodoro technique. Sometimes though it is the chance finding of seeing another potentially useful source whilst looking up or working on something that is most fruitful but also potentially most distracting. This most often happens when I am having to look a word or a reference up which either leads me down another path or down the siren path of social media. Must be a bit more disciplined though and make productive use of as much of my time as possible eg like reading more Sebald whilst on the bus earlier this week, whilst waiting for a chum and whilst waiting to be called in the health centre waiting room.

This also makes me think about procrastination, it was a real light bulb moment when I read about procrastination often being a mask for fear of failing the task you're putting off. A feeling I can all too readily identify with, though sometimes my procrastination is also useful as it means I'm mostly on top of the non scarey more routine tasks and life admin type stuff. Though in spite of checking my diary almost every day - I still often forget to get birthday cards in the post in time for folks.

The Tetley run an artists associate programme and I applied for it through the very marvellous Curator Space a couple of weeks ago. It was a bit of a last minute application as I'd not checked Curator Space properly and so was only aware of the opportunity thanks to the email reminder of last chance opportunities. I've had an email to say I haven't been successful which I'm not surprised about partly because last minute applications are not as well thought through and put together as ones done well in advance and also because I'm not sure the kind of work/subject matter/approach is what they're looking for but I've asked for feedback on my application so I'll see what they say.

Last week was very busy in terms of lots of lovely things too - namely Infest which is an annual goth, dark wave, industrial, synth pop festival in Bradford. It's usually three nights but this time it was four as it was the twentieth anniversary. As there were other family things going on we only went for the Thursday night which was also the evening that our friends Zeitgeist Zero were playing and they were brilliant and so were Peter Hook and the Light. There was also the Gravediggers Union and Empirion but I didn't watch those as my attention was all for Zeitgeist Zero and Peter Hook and the Light.

Peter Hook was one of the founding members of Joy Division who became New Order after the death of Ian Curtis in 1980. I've kind of grown up with Joy Division and New Order - coming from Manchester you'd be hard pressed not to have heard of them, even if you're not a fan of the music they made. So it was amazing to hear such wonderful iconic songs that have meant a lot to me and so many others over the years played live with such passion. A friend writes with much more eloquence about the performance and its link to the goth scene here. 

It was also especially lovely to hear, dance and sing along to those versions without the usual annoyances of having to watch it through other people's phone screens or being forced to listen to other people's inane conversations. That's not to say that those things weren't happening but they were few and far between and easily avoided. It was also a lovely opportunity to get properly gothed up, wear lots of make up and see lots of friends in real life as opposed to chatting to them via social media. Social media is exactly that - social but it's also a media as opposed to a direct physical immediate experience and whilst it is a good way of keeping in touch with people it's so much lovelier to see them in real life. In the same way that I'm all about the analogue when it comes to images - in real life I'm all about the real as opposed to the virtual simulacrum.

Programmes/films watched
Nothing of note except for yet another rewatch of Jacques Tourners Night of the Demon (1957) its monochrome gorgeousness is just enchanting, especially the corridor Caligari-esque scenes and the scenes in the wood (it's in the trees, it's coming!!') with the lights in the distance has given me an idea for a photo sequence I want to try using dusk, torchlights....and maybe even a smoke machine.

Books read
(finally) started Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald
still reading Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayer and am struck by the arguments around women and work, careers, marriage are still being had today - some of the archaic language being used aside. Given that the novel was first published over 80 years ago and we have had things like The Equal Pay Act in place for 40 years makes me feel that Sayers was a prescient and still relevant novelist and depressed that not more progress has been made.

Exhibitions Attended
No art ones but did go to Yorkshire Air Museum last week. My brother was up for a visit and it was his choice to go there as he is a bit of an aircraft nerd. I've been there a few times now and there were quite a few new planes and others were at more advanced stages of restoration than when we'd last seen them but the thing that struck me this time was the lack of context around some of the things on display. There is lots of technical information around dates of use, size of engine etc and displays around the development of aircraft and the use of aircraft in the 1939-1945 war in particular.

However the object that to me was without much context and that I found especially horrifying and depressing was a cluster bomb, on display with half of the cover removed so the smaller bombs it contains with technical details next to it, but nothing about who designed it, who makes it, who sells it, who profits from it, where it has been used and that kind of information.  I also had my usual cognitive disconnect/does not compute on visiting the Chapel, my reading of the new testament was a long time ago but I am fairly sure Christ wasn't reported as saying many pro-war/fighting things if at all.

So a busy week of doing a bit of reading, some photo editing - did a lot of flipping of images ready to print them for matte medium image transferring, some dressing up, some dancing and some socialising - all of which are good for my soul.



    

MA-Ness Term 3 Week 10, Ongoing Lurg, Printing, Bookbinding, Potternewton Mansion, Northern Gothic, Taking Time Out

this weeks post it note - pictured on top of brand new cutting mat - been meaning to buy one for a while and fantastic book binding workshop was final impetus to part with cash for one

booklets made in book binding workshop - a concertina which involved lots of glue and was bit fiddly - but worth it, a japanese stab stitch booklet (pink one) which involved drilling and slightly more complicated sewing, and the red one which involved punching a hole with a sharp point and more simple sewing...but well chuffed with all of them and thinking of using the red style one for one of my projects.

A slightly fuller post it note this week but still struggling with motivation and get up and go - partly because my heart is still breaking with regard to Lucia (it'll be 4 weeks on Wednesday since her sudden and shocking death) and lurgy which although is lessening is still lingering. Though thankfully the coughing fits have become less frequent and hacking and with less use of my inhaler - not had to use it since Saturday so that is a big improvement and fingers crossed taking it easier over the next few days will see the back of it.

Still feel lacking in energy though as a result and it was a mix of realising that I was running on empty and a realisation that if I don't let myself have some down time that I will end up really poorly that has led me to rearrange my commitments for this week - some I've postponed and some I'm going to cancel, I need a couple of long lie-ins and doing not very much instead of dashing about like a blue arsed fly for a bit.

But as I didn't make that realisation and decision until the middle of last week I still did quite a lot of running about and doing stuff - namely lots of printing in the digital print room (the print room is about to mostly close down for lots of the summer  and I am mindful of a portfolio hand in date in August) - have printed on entirely on tracing paper this time, some colour but most black and white and some A4, some A3 and some A2 - was originally going to take them all home rolled in a cardboard tube but then decided to buy a plastic A2 project bag as that way they would be kept flat, as unrolling tracing paper can be difficult if the roll has set in...and I had also bought some screenprinted lovelyness from fellow students from the pop up art fair and this was the best way to get it home unscathed. My ever supportive and patient husband picked me up after work that day to save me the hassle of walking home with it.

I have still to sort it out into categories and place them appropriately into my portfolio though - I have printed off some of my Belle End pics (my response to John Waters 12 Assholes and a Dirty Foot) and some of the images I've taken recently on b+w 120mm at St George's Fields and also experimented with the printing and photocopying of one of those images in a Sebaldian tribute stylee (apparently he used to get his colour pics developed on the high street and then copy them in black and white and repeat copying that image until it got the level of murk he wanted) , and I am well chuffed with those as the way parts of the image deteriorates reminds me of how memories deteriorate too so that only the most salient points remain along with the feeling.

The digital printing cost £12.40, the project bag, A3 display book, cutting mat and bone (well it is plastic as they didn't have bone folders at Blenheim but I'm hoping they might at Vernon Street when  their library reopens after the summer break) folder thingy and the photocopying cost about another £20. I did make a note of keeping track of exactly what I'm spending but I forgot - but I must keep a better note for future as a)it'll be interesting to see exactly what I'm spending and b) as I'm hoping to be part of a project for which I'll be able to claim expenses I'd best start keeping receipts.

I was able to appreciate a bit more of the work on show this week as I was on invigilating duty so inbetween printing and invigilating I had another look round - so much easier to see the work without lots of other people stood in front of it and quite heartbreaking to see some of the plaster sculptures being sawn up and attacked with hammers when it came to taking it all down time. 

I took mine down out of the window  and attached them to plain white sheets of paper - there were a little couple of tears but nothing too major but I have left behind some sticky residue from the double sided tape so I shall return with special sticky stuff remover and get rid of it.

It was also an opportunity to see how other people have displayed their work and one of the ways I was most impressed by was in the photography department and it was two images - of the front and the back of the head sandwiched between glass at right angles to the wall - the top part of the glass wired diagonally to the wall - apparently it's rather fiendish to execute but so worth it. I'd like to make my images stand out - not just because of their content but literally so that you either have to walk round them or through them if I ever get them printed on silk (working on ways to make this as cheap as possible so I can actually do it...) so that you can interact with them in some way other than just looking.

The other thing I want to try and incorporate is the use of colour - not as in colour photographs but maybe colour washes over the black and white and taking my inspiration for the colour used from the victorian fashion for messages in flowers - it seems there were various dictionaries so you could send loved ones coded messages both in terms of the flowers used and the colour of them - apparently yellow meant jealousy though it did also depend upon both the message sender and receiver having the same dictionary.

As is probably obvious my obsession with all things victorian shows no signs of wavering and this week has had two highlights of victorian loveliness - a peek inside Potternewton Mansions which was built in 1870 and is now a sikh temple and in the process of being restored to its original splendour and I feel both excited and privileged as well as very much looking forward to doing some more work with them over the next few months and the victorian splendour of Scarborough.

I'd gone primarily to see Sharon Harvey's photography exhibition at Woodend Gallery (details here) plus it was nice to go to the seaside for a bit (I did worry about Mapp being on her own but we had a cat sitter pop in a couple of times to check on her and feed her and though she was very pleased to see us when we got back she seems to have survived okay) and we did do the things we usually do at the seaside - namely play on the twopenny falls, buy terrible tat (in this case an owl made of shells that is truly vile but brilliant) and of course we also had fish and chips, ice cream and had a quick walk on the beach.

We loved Sharon's photos so much we bought two prints (coffee stained cyanotypes) and I can't wait to get them home and on our own walls - her photos are gorgeous, eerie, contemplative, slightly disconcerting and they look so lovely amongst the restored victorian splendour of Wood End in what used to the Sitwell family home. I use similar processes to Sharon but different subject matter and it  has given me ideas about how to develop and progress those processes and also again made me think of what I want to evoke in the viewer.

As ever much food for thought.

We went back to Scarborough Art Gallery the following morning specifically to see the exhibition of seaside snaps from the 1870's to the present day and they were wonderful - amazing to see how much of Scarborough has changed and how much has stayed the same - sadly Warwicks Revolving Tower and the Aquarium under the roundabout have long gone but the advert for 'high class artificial teeth - perfect fit guaranteed' on the side of a building in a picture from the early 1900's made me chuckle and it was lovely not just looking at the pictures but also the memories which accompanied them.

Along with the photographs there were also wonderful paintings by Charles Wynne Nicholas and Atkinson Grimshaw - so lovely to see such wonderful victorian paintings in victorian surroundings - the whole side of that bit of Scarborough is gorgeous, we also popped into Crescent Arts next door and looked at a fine exhibition of new collage work and old collage work by Eduardo Paolozzi's - his Bunk portfolio which were also wonderful - partly due to the heartwarming nostalgia for some of the contents of the collages, I am a sucker for 1950's american magazines and adverts.

From there we went to the Rotunda - a purpose built to show off geological specimens museum which was also splendidly victorian - it had a domed roof (complete with seagulls nest which we had been watching from our hotel room the night before) wonderful glass cabinets full of objects of wonder - glass eyes for taxidermied birds, funerary urns from the bronze age, egyptian cats as the collection soon expanded to include more than just geological specimens and included all manner of things.

We then treated ourselves to a late lunch at Francis - which has just got listed status, it's a tea room set amongst the  gorgeousness of a 1930's hairdressers (you can read about it here) and it's also next door to where one of my other victorian photographic heroes Oliver Sarony used to live and work - sadly his studio is long gone but his house decorated with painted heads and now converted into flats is his house and you can read about him and his work here before heading for home via the splendour of Scarboroughs magnificent victorian cemeteries on Dean Road and Manor Road grouped by a wonderful under the road passageway.

I took lots of photographs which I hope will come out okay and include more than 6 'money shots' (see previous posts) as there were some magnificent examples of victorian grave splendour though sadly all the angels I photographed had bits of their wings or hands missing. I used 35 b+w film (Ilford ISO 400)  and because I didn't want to be carrying a heavy bag I only took one lens - my 'nifty fifty'. I took some on my camera phone but not sure if those will come out or not as although there is space on the micro sd card it kept saying it could not display them as I'd reached the 1000 pictures limit.....

What else? best crack on with my sorting, also want to do some relaxing reading this week - partly course/work related but I also want to get my hands on a copy of Lady Audley's Secret which is a victorian sensation novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon published in 1862 which caused somewhat of a scandal and is featured in the 1867 painting 'Courtship On The Beach' by Charles Wynne Nichols which is at Scarborough Art Gallery as well as finish the the very wonderfully unsettling and creepy 'We Have Always Lived In The Castle' by Shirley Jackson which is marvellous so far - just got to the revelation that the older sister Constance was acquitted of murder and quite how the arsenic got into her parents food is a mystery.....