MA-Ness Week 18 - Endings and Beginnings, Slogging Through Fog, 41 Hours To Go, Treats and Heartfelt Thanks

This weeks post it notes - including one with the fancy fountain pen I've just treated myself to for getting to the end of the course, a copy of a book I've just bought as I have become seriously addicted to Elizabeth Gaskell, a postcard of the painting Hard Times from 1885 by Sir Hubert von Herkomer chosen because a) I think it's a wonderful evocative painting and b) because I feel like the little boy sitting on the ground next to his mother ie dead tired... I hope the family portrayed in it went on to have less hard times but I suspect in reality the workhouse would have beckoned....

It's taken me a while to get round to writing this - partly because I have been concentrating upon getting my portfolio together ready to hand it in tomorrow. This is the big and final module - this is the 60 credits on its own module so I've been totally concentrating on it and its contents for the last few weeks so I can make it as good as possible. I want a distinction parly for my own satisfaction at successfully jumping that kind of academic hoop but also because I am hoping to do a Phd and if I get a distinction that should make that goal a little bit easier to accomplish.

I've followed the same template as I used when I handed it in this time last year and got a distinction for it but I have (hopefully) improved it further by being a little more discerning about what I've put in it as well adding little overviews for each of the projects I've worked on. I also wrote a general overview of my work over the last couple of years complete with proper harvard referenced footnotes and sub headings. I started work on that document about a month - six weeks ago and a lovely chum of mine helped me out on Monday night by helping me put the final touches to it in terms of inserting said footnotes and referencing them using the Harvard Reference system...which I think I've now more or less got a grip on how to do properly.  I know I used them for my dissertation but I was in such a state of brain fog at the time that I wasn't sure if I was doing them properly or not.

Anyway with that done I spent most of Tuesday at college printing it out along with the final images I wanted to include. I thought I had got myself all organised and sorted image-wise for printing but I hadn't - I had taken the images off the camera memory card that I had taken of my burial shroud size piece blowing in the wind at St George's Field on Sunday but I had only transferred them to the laptop - I hadn't put them on my memory stick or on google drive. ARGH - nor had I taken a picture of it on my phone. DOH!! I had put a picture of it on my Facebook page but social media sites are kept behind a firewall during lecture hours at college so you can't access them unless you have a smartphone - which I don't. Cue husband coming to my rescue again by downloading the image off Facebook and emailing it to me - it's not the best resolution but it's good enough to see the piece of work so PHEW I didn't have to come home and go back in again....

I have still one or two final final touches to make on my portfolio - namely printing out the submission lables and putting in some file dividers but I had otherwise finished putting it together by 7pm last night. I felt such a huge sense of relief that such a massive job was done, and with plently of time to spare before the deadline of 3pm on 12.8.16. I hate rushing round like a headless chicken at the last minute and finishing it last night meant I had 41 hours left in which to tinker with it, put in anything I realised I had forgotten and also be able to take a massive breath and so finally after what feels like a very long time indeed of feeling stressed about it relax a bit.  If I'm completely honest I may also have teared up a bit.

Part of me still just still can't quite believe what I've achieved and been able to do over the last couple of years, especially with the additional challenges of dealing with multiple bereavement and health problems over the last couple of years....but I got through it, in part due to my own determination and the course being an excellent focus to distract myself from the sad things going on but it is also thanks to supportive tutors and college staff, supportive and encouraging friends and last but by no means least thanks to my ever supportive and lovely husband who has been so supportive and encouraging, not just on an emotional level but also on a practical and financial level too. I don't think I'll ever be able to thank him enough really. Thanks must also go to Mapp who has listened (albeit not very closely and with no feedback) to every presentation or paper I've done but most importantly has let me fuss her when I've been feeling rubbish which frankly has been often.

A lot of the time thanks to non course related events it has felt like I've been wading uphill through treacle with a very heavy backpack, but it has also been the most brain stretching, challenging, thought provoking and rewarding time. I've been able to poke about in all sorts of archives, read all sorts of fantastic books, potter about in the darkroom, learn lots of new techniques and got to print burial plot size pieces of work - so what's not to love?  And I must remind myself of the overall joy of the process and what it brings to me when I'm sat in front of the computer cursing the fact that it has frozen yet again and all I can say is 'oh for fucks sake, just fucking work!!!' and all I want to do at that moment is sack the whole thing off and go and watch rubbish telly.

There has been some fantastic stuff on the radio recently - there was an excellent programme about leeches with Sir Christopher Frayling, an Infinite Monkey Cage about Frankenstein that was also very good (though I have otherwise somewhat gone off that programme and I can no longer take Professor Brian Cox seriously since my husband pointed out he has the same vocal phrasing as Philomena Cunk) and I have been taking time out from slogging away at course related stuff to go the pictures - seen some wonderful films like South Riding (1936) and the truly mind boggling Author: The JT Leroy Story (2016) -  though if I'm honest one of the most boggling things is how anyone could have believed Laura Alberts alter ego Speedy was british as that was one of the worst british impressions I've ever heard. I must write up my proper reviews of them whilst they are still reasonably fresh in my memory. Going to see films at the Hyde Park is one of my very favourite things to do - plus I love the fact that if you go to see a film at the cinema rather than watch one at home then you are less distracted as your only job is to watch the film and you don't have to answer the phone/check email/catch sight of the pile of ironing still undone.

One resolution I have made is should my phd plans/hopes come to fruition is that I will write my bibliography as I go along, something which I hadn't done this term and it was a right slog and pain in the arse to write it up earlier this week. A task which should have been easy but which became somewhat pained and led to a lot of procrastination and social media checking whilst writing it (I can thoroughly recommend Hacker T Dog on Twitter  as he or rather his handler who I suspect is a man called Phil Fletcher is hilarious) and I don't want to have to do that all in one go again. It's been made harder though because of the really noisy and invasive roadworks going on outside too - from 7am til 7pm there has been the sound of drilling, or the noise and vibrations of rollers making the tarmac flat and it's been going on for the last two weeks and is scheduled to continue for at least another two...

Another resolution would be to make meals in advance and freeze them as I've put weight on as I've been eating less than sensibly and reaching for easy comfort food as opposed to making healthier food from scratch.

One thing that did happen though this week or rather last Sunday was the first time I've felt unnerved in St George's Field. Along with taking images of my burial plot sized print, I also took pictures with my new pinhole lens and I wanted to take some amidst the clump of graves and trees in the corner nearest the transport studies department which is being refurbished.  It was quite a windy day and as I set up the camera on the tripod at the edge of the clump the branches above began groaning and squeaking as they rubbed against one another in a really alarming 'I'm about to break and come crashing down' kind of way so I moved to another spot sharpish. It really felt scarey and a bit threatening at the time though now I'm thinking oh for goodness sake it was just wind on the branches.

It didn't stop me going and getting a pizza from La Besi though for lunch and taking it back there to eat. Though we sat nowhere near the offending branches. Eating pizza there after taking pictures on a weekend has become a bit of a habit for me and my husband and it's one I'd like to continue. Though I will need to up the amount of exercise I'm doing in order to offset them....

I'm not sure if I'll keep up the habit of writing this once a week when I no longer need to for college purposes but even if I don't write so frequently I think I'll make a point of writing it at least once a month as although I'll no longer be at college as much I still have lots of academic and arty stuff on and I'll need to record what I'm up to somewhere, plus if all goes to plan potential phd-wise then I'll be no doubt writing about that.

Fingers crossed........

MA-Ness Week 15 - Doing, Reading, Writing, Printing, Image Transferring, Creative Bartering, Sewing, Mapplethorpe, and that kind of thing....

Some of the anthotypes in progress - I spent last week making them - again with a Heath Robinson-esque production manner - closing curtains in workroom (as in the room that used to be known as the back bedroom)  and mincing up the kale using a handblender and squeezing out the juice using coffee filter papers, painting the paper with a couple of coats of the resultant green liquid,  leaving them to dry under a blanket that blocks out the light and then after covering them with the acetate negative leaving them in the downstairs back window as that gets the most light. Exposure time roughtly 5 days....the ones with kale have worked okay,  I also did some with some minced up weeds from St George's Field but don't think they've worked anywhere near as well so I am leaving them for a little longer in the hope that there will be something there eventually.... The weeds were minced up with a cheap hand blender (£4.75) bought especially for the purpose and now adorned with the words in red permanent marker 'NOT FOR FOOD USE'...

This weeks post it note - written on a fancy purple lined post it note, along with some of the more successful anthotype images which I have scanned, boosted the contrast and brightness levels on and then digitally reinverted using photoshop (they go a lovely kind of purpley colour) a couple of the acetate negatives I've been using, and the matte mediumed image transfer embroidery hoop framed - am rather pleased with this as a prototype and hope to frame other images like this too.

It's been a busy few days, a busy weekend and it's going to be a busy time between now and final hand in I think....lots still to do though thankfully the bulk of the portfolio overview I was working on is mostly done bar a few additions and a bit of editing and polishing, but then I have to actually assemble the portfolio in terms of the work I want to include and do a little mini overview of those - nothing too long though - just a title, the rationale for doing it and what areas of my work/theoretical underpinning/inspiration it covers. I reckon I'm going to be taking it in a taxi though as I think it's going to be a bit too heavy and cumbersome to carry in on the bus like I did last time....

What else? I do have a lovely new bag to take it in though - thanks to a lovely chum of mine who is a whizz with a sewing machine. I used a existing bag that is a good size that came from Primarni as a basis for the pattern, measured it and cut it out in paper, then used that as a template to cut out the fabric, pinned and tacked it together and she then sewed it. Also used the new technique of turning straps inside out I'd seen on the Great British Sewing Bee  - you line it with with ribbon and then pull the ribbon through.  I hope to sew one of the images I've made using disperse inks to the front of it too or maybe just print one onto it directly. The fabric was initially used as the backdrop for the Out of the Shadows Exhibition last October and I'm glad it's getting used in some way. I still have some leftover and when time is less pressing (ie post hand in) and I can afford to make mistakes and rectify them I might have a go at making another bag but this time all by myself and using my own very basic sewing machine.... 

The bag sewing was a kind of creative barter as she needed some photos taking of her partner as he needed some headshots to send some off to his literary agent. I don't often take pictures of people but I really enjoyed doing those headshots - making the most of the existing light (I rarely use flash) and using either the brickwork or the plain garage door as a background. I used the film grain function on the oldest modern digital camera we've got - I love that setting, it's by far my favourite and I much prefer it to the dynamic monochrome that has replaced it on the newer model we've got.  He was dead chuffed with his pics - I'd dead chuffed with my bag - WIN all round.

Along with the anthotyping I also did some more disperse ink printing in the print room at college which apart from me and one technician was Marie Celeste-like - once again I channelled my inner Bea from Prisoner Cell Block H to operate the heat press, and I saved the ghost prints from the scrap paper underneath and have since laminated them. It's part of my work to use as much of the process as possible - eg backing paper from medium format film as bookmarks, leftover non weed greenery from anthotyping gets eaten, acetate negatives make pieces of work in themselves as well, ghost print by products of the printing process also become pieces of work in their own right too.

I did do some filming last week - or rather I accompanied one of the much more digitally competent film makers from college and told them what I wanted shooting in St George's Fields, and did a voiceover of one of my favourite pieces of traditional grave poetry. This was for the degree show show reel.  I still hope to do a film of my own at some point - one that would either be digitally filmed or individual digital photographs put together to make a film. I want it to be of one of my anthotypes or lumen prints fading so I would have to set up a camera and one of the prints and take photographs at the same time/in the same lighting conditions twice a day til it has faded. As well as make a print in the first place. I think this would be part of my work that deals directly with memory and how it fades, but I could also reverse the film and make it come back to life again - the way memories can when you encounter something material that prompts you.

It was the second visit I made to St George's Field this week - earlier in the week I went there to show a chum round it (and discuss possibilities for the Gothic Festival in the autumn) and to harvest the weeds which I then tried to anthotype with. I love that space and I love showing it to others, although I go regularly I invariably see something I have never noticed before - this time it was a more personal dedication on the subscription graves which have been laid flat to line the pathways. Need to go back and take better pictures of it though rather than just the aide memoire image I've got on my camera phone.

I've been doing quite a bit of reading and watching too recently - I read some appallingly bad but much needed brilliant bubblegum brain reading in the form of Original Sin (2009) by Tasmina Perry which I got from a charity stall a while back. Utterly ridiculous much needed distraction, as was watching The Seventh Veil (1945) last night which featured James Mason as a rather revolting (but oh so physically attractive) bachelor who takes charge of his younger second cousin when her parents die and makes her into a concert pianist. She tries to escape from his overbearing and domineering ways but ends up running back to him. It was gorgeous to watch as it was monochrome, her outfits were stunning, James Mason both looked and sounded amazing but it was also quite difficult to watch a female character being so dominated. 

I've also started another Elizabeth Gaskell which I got over the weekend from another charity stall - this time it's Cranford from 1851-1853. I tried reading it before but just couldn't get into it, but this weekend something kind of clicked as I started it and I've got as far as the cow wearing flannel after it lost all its hair. I also started a book called The Easter Parade by Richard Yates which was first published in 1976 and is set in the 1950's. I'm enjoying being transported to different eras. I've still got college library books I need to finish though....but realistically I can't see me finishing them before they have to go back so I might have to read them in the library instead. Which reminds me - I really must do my bibliography too....I know I should have written it up as I went along but I haven't. Bugger. Oh well.

Along with lots of doing, lots of reading there has also been lots of watching at the cinema or as my 3 year old nephew calls it (who has just been to the cinema for the first time) 'the big big big tv'  Absolutely Fabulous (2016)  was a good giggle in places and good distraction and Mapplethorpe (2015) a documentary about artist Robert Mapplethorpe was excellent. It was a mix of interviews with some of the people he worked with - both gallery owners, collaborators and assistants, siblings, some of his muses, some of the people whose portrait he took,  footage of interviews with him and one with his father, exhibitions and the reaction to his work and analysis of his work. It looked at the different elements of his work - from portraiture, flowers as well as the infamously famous S+M ones.

It was quite thought provoking and a bit of an eye opener (no pun intended) as it's quite disconcerting to see a picture of a fingertip being inserted into the urethra on a big screen - just from a 'surely that's physically got to hurt/sting' point of view but then I am somewhat of a huge vanilla wuss and the only thing I have pierced is my ears and them only once in each ear. The especially infamous fisting shot led to him taking a self portrait of himself being 'fisted' by  the handle of a bullwhip as it was pointed out to him that it was only fair he be on the recieving end of similar treatment.  Much was made of his quite ruthless self centred behaviour and how he used his charm to get what he wanted from people and how drugs were part of his working process both for himself and his assistants - for example giving a bit of coke to his in-house film developer and printer (he neither developed or printed his own images) to get him to work a bit quicker when exhibitions were needing to be finished. This makes me feel a little better about my handing over my film to be developed or just digitally printing certain images though I only do this in return for cold hard cash, though I did once also ensure I got a quick job done by bribing the printer with Tunnocks Teacakes. 

One of the points raised in the film was that he believed the best way to see photos was as a physical print, he died in 1989 so I don't know what he would have made of the way the bulk of images are consumed today ie as pixels on a screen. Much was made of his working methods and how he worked hard and played hard (again no pun intended). His early work consisted more of collage work (using images from porn magazines) and how his life changed both when he met Patti Smith but more importantly Sam Wagstaff who became his partner and patron. Sam also bought him a Hasselblad camera and who in his position as an influential and rich collector championed photography as an art form in its own right - equal to that of painting. The point was made that the rise of photography to be accepted as an art form in its own right as opposed to just a form of documentary has coincided with the rise of both gay visibility and gay rights though I'm not sure if the person making this point was pointing this out as a coincidence or if they believed there was some causal relationship between the two.

There was also some interesting discussion of how some of the S+M imagery was similar in composition to some religious iconongraphy - but then I don't see how crucifixion pictures can do otherwise - whether they are religious in origin or S+M club based. They also showed some images he'd taken using polaroids and had floated the emulsion off the photograph and then stretched the emulsion into a new image. Might have to research that as a method and give it a go myself.

Right - had best crack on with with portfolio stuff now....plus the bibliography note on my to do list is also calling....

MA-Ness Term 2 Week 3 Newness, Oldness, Deadness, Happiness and That Kind Of Thing...

Just one image this week - and it's quite a full post it note as it has been a busy week in which I have taken LOTS of photographs but as they were almost all on film (1 colour 120, 1 b+w 120 - both of St George's Fields, 3 x 35mm colour and 1 x 36 35mm colour  most of St George's Fields but also of a little graveyard somewhere in the outer reaches of Huddersfield.
The reason for this excessive use of colour is partly the cost - as am still using up the last of the AGFA ISO 200 colour film I got from the poundshop and one roll of ISO 800 colour film - forget the make but think it might have been Fuji film but also because somewhat ironically colour film better captures the greyness of the wintertime....

I'm typing this from or should that be on the new computer and whilst I am not a fan of what appears to be todays fad for built in obsolescence in devices nor of externally enforced change - it is a joy to be using a machine that does not take 15 minutes to warm up, freeze every half hour or so and so necessitate persistent pressing of control/alt/delete buttons and despairing cries of 'just fucking work' from me plus it can more easily cope with all the images I need to copy/paste, move from folder to folder, edit and transmute into new images. Massive thanks as ever to my lovely supportive husband who bought it, faced the hideousness of a retail park to pick it up and then set it up and installed all the software on it. I did make him lots of cups of tea and brought him whisky as a thank you whilst he was wrestling with it though. 

Best of all though after much searching I found the installation disc for my crap kids digital camera. It remains one of my favourite cameras to use and this means I'll still be able to use it and retrieve and print the pictures from it. When I bought it last summer I put the installation disc in a safe place which meant of course that when I needed it again I couldn't remember where the safe place was...

But much hunting on workroom bookcase shelves found it - I had tried just plugging it in via its USB cable into the laptop but with no joy as although it recognised there was a device attached, it couldn't access the pictures on it, and the same thing happened with the college Macs. Though I had been promised they'd be able to work it as Macs don't need drivers apparently....computers remain a frustrating, necessary and rewarding part of my day to day life though and I'd be lost without them and like I said it is very lovely indeed to be using one that (so far anyway) is working very well indeed.

So now I'll be able to get on with the photo sorting that I need to do, need to start putting things together into a portfolio and working out best ways to show them, am still loving having them digitally printed onto tracing paper as I love the translucency and they look *so* good when help up against the light (which reminds me I really must sort out either making a light box or sourcing some anyway) plus an A4 tracing paper print is only 10p and so almost cheap as chips*

And fingers crossed amongst the 6 rolls I'm awaiting getting back there will be some 'money shots' worth printing and getting blown up big - especially on the 120 films. Along with graveyard shots I also took some shots from the train - I went to Huddersfield by train last week to catch up with an ex fellow ma-er and to look round the little cemetery near to her house. It was cold and damp but well worth the journey as it was lovely to catch up with her and see the work she is working on at the moment as well as having a look around a new to me cemetery plus it was excellent to be at the station at standard commuting times and be reminded of how lucky I am not to have to do that on a regular basis.

I went to another kind of station this weekend - the one installed at the Henry Moore Institute by Katrina Palmer and called the Necropolitan Line. I thought it was wonderful - quirky, funny, thought provoking, engaging, stimulating and it made me quite envious too. I'd love to realise work on that kind of scale but that is a goal to work towards. I shall go again during the day when hopefully I'll be able to sit on the platform and listen to the announcements uninterrupted and fully absorb all its wonderfulness. I also feel both inspired and comforted by the work as well as a little envious in a way.

Last week I wrote  I have written to a firm of coffin makers this week to ask if they have any scraps of coffin lining material leftover that I could use to experiment printing on. When I told my Mum this she asked the perfectly reasonable question 'Why?' though I would have preferred it if she hadn't asked it in such a disgusted and incredulous way. I explained that as my work deals with death, and is often of cemeteries then it seems an entirely reasonable if not logical thing to do. I don't think she was convinced and still thinks me 'morbid'. Which my lovely old school Little Oxford Dictionary (1978 edition) defines as: 'adjective-not natural and healthy; indicative etc of disease'.

Mmm - she might have a point but then again she might not and this in turn makes me think of the quote at the top of my post it note from an old prayer card I saw in Kirkstall Museum Archive asking people to pray for the canonisation of Sister Marie Celine who apparently 'died in the odour of sanctity' and was sanctified in September 2007.  I'm completely intrigued by the phrase 'odour of sanctity' and cannot help but wonder what that smells like....

I also wonder what the bread made by the bakers trying to emulate the methods used by Victorian bakers smells like. I've only made bread with yeast a couple of times - I'm too impatient to have to let things rise, prove, knock them back and then rise again but I often make soda bread as that is a bit more straightforward. I've really enjoyed the programme and learnt quite a lot about the different ways of breadmaking and the role (pun unintended) of baking in a society as it industrialises and expands. The number of calories calculated as needed by manual workers to complete their tasks in those days is staggering and the bulk of them came from bread. It's also been fascinating to see the making of the different types of bread, the origin of the fashion for white bread and the dreadful additives used to help make those loaves as cheaply and as whitely as possible. It's very easy to be sniffy and appalled by the lack of trading standards and health and safety legislation years ago but as one of the presenters pointed out - corners will always be at risk of cutting if the primary factor in its production is cheapness of cost....horsemeat lasagne anyone?

Got lots on this week too so hopefully next weeks post it note will be just as full and there may even be more pictures too.....




*it might be twice as expensive though - it's roundabout £2 for a bag of chips these days and you probably get about 60 chips or more...either way it is lots cheaper than printing on more traditional photographic paper.


  

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..... 

MA-Ness Year 2 Term 1 Week 4: 'it's the most wonderful time of the year..', crap kids digital, making an exhibition of yourself, coimetromania, returned unsold work, words and lovely old cameras.

this weeks post it notes with spoils from last weeks trip to Manchesterford

home made work carrier - didn't fancy struggling with A2 folder on bus but A3 just bit too small so made one out of carrier bag and chopped down cardboard - did the job and much easier to manoeuvere   

laying prints out on bed - as only space in house that was nearly same size as exhibition space but beware perils of cat jumping on it....

sneak preview of work at St Johns Church - background looks much redder in real life...

I found it quite difficult to get into the groove writing this last week for some reason and I had to force myself to sit there and finish it - hence my writing MUST FINISH BLOG POST BEFORE DOING ANYTHING ELSE' and I think I'm going to have to be equally strict with myself over the next few weeks as I'll have to balance doings things I'm not especially keen on (like starting to write dissertation, ironing, washing up) with things I am keen on like taking and making pictures as well as making sure I take some time out to do things which aren't housework or coursework related.

Plus this is in a context of being very busy indeed - and even though the bulk of the things I am busy with are delightful, it doesn't make them any less tiring and I need to remember that too. This week is full of lovely things like festival launches, cinema and theatre trips, exhibition launches and tutorials and so is the following week but then it calms down a little before the Gothic Studies Conference (part of the Gothic Manchester Festival) so whilst last week my priorities were:

1. exhibition
2. paper
3. dissertation 

this week they are:

1. paper - have drafted outline of what I want to say but need to flesh it out now and write it down so I'm hopefully not umming and erring as I speak on the day. I did spend an afternoon last week sorting out the images I want to use and resizing them. A boring task - well the resizing bit is but a necessary one as it makes things so much easier to email and sort out and at least that time consuming bit is done now.
2. dissertation - at least I know what my topic is and what I want to say and I have done some reading on it but I need to do quite a bit more before I sit down and actually start writing the thing. Plus I need to stop thinking about Paul Calf (as created and played so brilliantly by Steve Coogan) talking about 'stewdents' with utter contempt and 'dissitations'...

I like to do as much stuff as I can in advance as possible as I hate rushing round at the last minute feeling panicked and stressed. Partly because I hate feeling like that anyway but also because that in turn makes me make mistakes more readily. So fingers crossed I can fit in some reading and writing in amongst the gadding about this week. I'm also hoping to get into a habit of putting into a word document a list of all the things I'm reading and watching in a Harvard Reference style so that job is done too...instead of scrabbling about when it comes to hand in time and I'm panicking trying to find the information...

There was a really interesting programme on C5 last week (and part 2 is tomorrow night - Tuesday 6th October that is at 9pm) and unlike a lot of their so-called documentary output, this was well considered and thought through. It was called Body Donors and featured interviews with people suffering from terminal illnesses who wanted to donate their bodies to science, their families, and the technicians and teachers who then prepare and use their bodies. You can see the details about it here. It was accompanied by a warning that the programme would include 'graphic views of dead bodies' but there was no warning that it would also include heartfelt and harrowing emotional scenes that would make you cry. Not that you should be warned about that as such - but why we as a society are worried about the effects of seeing dead bodies as opposed to talking about the process that leads to that and what emotions are involved struck me as incongruous to say the least.

And that got me to thinking about how skewed as a society our values are - there are rarely warnings that there are going to be graphic scenes of (albeit fake) dissection in programmes like CSI (though there might be one re violent scenes) and that murder is such a run of the mill topic for entertainment.

I'm not complaining about that as most of my tv programme watching for entertainment is murder related and I have often only half joked that if a programme doesn't contain an autopsy then I'm not interested in watching it. I love Columbo - but it has to be proper 70's Columbo with huge angular cars and wonderful 70's fashions. Murder She Wrote - but again the 80's ones though to be fair I watch that more to spot wigs (it has some shockers) and the repeated use of cliches and tropes within it and for the end shot which invariably features Jessica Fletcher grinning inanely. CSI (but not CSI Miami as I find that too much of an insult to intelligence)  Law and Order, Law and Order Criminal Intent (I am ever so slightly in love with Detective Goren) and Law and Order Special Victims Unit. Morse, Lewis....and rarely have any of these programmes carried a warning and most were made to be broadcast and watched in the days before on demand viewing pre-watershed.

The interviews in Body Donor appeared sensitively done and it was quite heartbreaking to see those with the terminal illness and their loved ones talking - not so much about the donation itself - they viewed that as a way of making sense and taking some control back from the illness they were suffering from (cancer and luekemia) but hearing them talk about how it was affecting their loved ones and then listening to those loved ones talk about how they were going to cope without them made tears come to my eyes. Though maybe that's also because various friends of mine have been either dealing with this issue themselves recently or been bereaved and of course it reminded me of all the people and creatures I'm missing too.

It's a world removed from the way bodies were procured for dissection in the 18th and 19th century  with no consent from or respect for the donors - though it would appear that those societies were more open to discussing death. Perhaps because they were more surrounded by it then and it was more of an everyday and less medicalised process. The pain of bereavement was I'm sure no less though - even if you believed that your loved one had gone to a better place (as most of the poetry I've read on tombstones would suggest) and that you would be reunited when you too died, it wouldn't stop the heart rending pain of bereavement and you missing them like hell in the meantime.

Jay Ruby talks about this disconnect far more eloquently that I have in his book from 1995 called Secure The Shadow which is primarily about the practice of non medical post mortem photography in America but it is also about so much more. He talks of how we rarely see a real death in everyday life though we do occasionally see them in news stories (often with a warning that we find it distressing) and yet we  are confronted with hundreds of them in entertainment settings. Plus there was a time when cemeteries used to be designed as not just body disposal sites but also recreational sites - whereas now to most they seem to be places to be actively avoided.

It will come as no surprise that reading more of this book is on my to do list for this week. Plus it also ties in nicely to one of the new words I met this week and is in the title of this post COIMETROMANIA which means an 'abnormal attraction to and desire to visit cemeteries'. It is nice to have a diagnosis at last.....

I've been using my crap kids digital again this week - technically it's one of the worst cameras ever. Fixed focus, no zoom, no internal memory (I've added black insulation tape to the the battery cover so as to avoid a repeat of the batteries becoming dislodged when you take it out of your pocket/bag and so losing my pics of St George's Field in the gloom) warped lens, inability to capture colour properly, room for only 24 pictures if you want them at anything even vaguely approaching a reasonable resolution but ---- it's also the one of the most fun I've ever used even if I can't really see much on the stamp sized screen on the back and it's light and small. Plus I love the slightly warped off colour pics it produces - they have an other worldly quality to them that I really like.

I bought another camera this week - the one pictured above. It is a Zeiss Ikon Cocarette which according to Camerapedia was made between 1926 and 1930 - making this a Weimar Republic Era camera (I also have an AGFA Billy Clack from the mid 1930's making it a Nazi Era camera) I spotted this in a charity shop on my way home on from college on Friday and went back the following day to have a closer look at it with my much more knowledgeable about the technical side of things when it comes to cameras husband. It goes without saying of course that we decided to buy it. Mostly because it looks in really good nick and usuable (it takes 120 film which is still readily available and developable)  but also because it came with handwritten on german notepaper instructions. I wonder who wrote those, when and why? The leather case is in really good condition too - the purple velvety inside is still vivid and threadful. It is stamped with the sellers details Photo-Porst Nurnberg - a photographic suppliers chain which is still going and was founded in 1919. I cannot wait to use this camera but am going to wait til the weather is at it's brightest as previous experience tells me this will work best in 'sunny 16' conditions.   I am also wondering what pictures have been taken on this camera, who looked at what through it's viewfinder and how it ended up here in Leeds...plus it was nice to overhear one of the sales assistants say to the other when we were leaving that the camera was clearly going to a good home and would be used as well as looked after and how she liked when that happened.

A couple of other things caught my attention this week - namely phrases like 'vectors of infection' though I'm not sure where that was from now, and thinking about the social purpose of pictures - portraits in particular after watching Simon Schama's programme about portrait paintings. It's on BBC2 on Wednesdays at 9pm  and you can read about it here.

Last weeks episode concentrated upon paintings of the powerful - Churchill, Elizabeth 1st, Charles II and Victoria amongst others. He talked about the role photography had in promulgating Victoria's image and ideals but there were a couple of points when I found myself tutting at the television (and not just at the usual unnecessary hagiographic reverence used for the members of the House of Windsor) - he said something about Victoria understanding that she needed to be visible by her subjects. I appreciate that it was a programme primarily about portraiture and you cannot fit everything about a subject into an hours long programme but one of the problems with Victoria during her reign was the fact that after Albert's death she didn't go out in public for a long time - Albert dies in 1861 and she isn't publicly seen again until 1866, in spite of the clamouring of some of her subjects and the attempts of prime ministers to persuade her that she needed to. So it is a bit disingenuous to say she that she understood she needed to be visible by her subjects - she did, but she ignored it for a long time and it was only after a lot of cajoling and badgering and seeing the albeit shortlived success of the Paris Commune in 1871 which boosted republican sentiment that she went out and about again.

I find myself shouting and tutting a lot at the television these days - a bit more in depth knowledge and more rounded view than is being shown or explained in the programme is a difficult thing (and anything that deals with the victorian period, bodysnatching, photography are those kinds of programmes for me as those areas are of such interest to me and central to my own research) and it makes me wonder how much has been missed out of programmes that I've watched and thought had taught me something when in actual fact they've probably barely skimmed the surface and as a result I'm nowhere near as well informed about a subject as I thought I was....

The other thing you can see in big capital letters on the post it note are PERILS OF NOT HAVING A BIG FLOOR SPACE AND USING BED - CAT! which refers to my trying to get the images ready I had made for the Out of the Shadows exhibition at St Johns Church (full details of all the Love Arts Festival happenings available here and Out of the Shadows is on page 23 of the brochure) or rather deciding where abouts in relation to each other I wanted to put them. Me and a fellow exhibitor had measured the boards we could use and the only comparable space that was nearly big enough for me at home was the double bed. So I decided to use that and started laying them out and making a plan of what I wanted where when Mapp jumped up on them and put her back paw through one of them - something I hopefully unobviously fixed with black marker pen and invisible tape. It's the perils of not having a dedicated studio space - and not closing the door but as she normally stears well clear I didn't think it necessary. Oh well lesson learnt for future.

The other lesson I learnt was - check the double sided tape you buy in advance and think you're being all organised with by attaching it to the edges of the images you want to use, because if it's like the tape Wilko's sell as double sided it won't work. It will instead have you tutting and swearing and pulling at it trying to see where the backing tape is - but theirs has no backing tape and is instantly sticky both sides (WHY?) and so there is no point attaching it in advance to the images as then they'd only stick to themselves. Cue getting to college the following morning as soon as library and shop opens and buying double sided tape there which does have backing tape so it can be affixed to image and then taken to where you want to to stick it without mishap...I took advantage of the tables in the library to cut the tape to fix to the images but by then I was getting a bit flapped as I felt like I was running out of time - even though I wasn't really but after the previous weeks key related confusion I didn't want to be the last person at St Johns Church. So it's not always as straight as I would like but as it's mostly invisible - hopefully you'll won't be able to see where I went a bit wonky with it.

Believe it or not - I did use a spirit level to attach the pictures to the board but as the board wasn't entirely level this became a bit of a moot point so I ended up doing things more by my probably just as wonky eye. Oh well. It's not perfect but overall I am pleased with it and that is the main thing plus as a chum said people have different expectations of art in spaces that are not like todays traditional white cube gallery space and the difference too between those exhibitions which are well funded and those that are done on a comparative shoestring. So now I just have the nervousness of whether or not people will go look at it and what they think of it and whether or not I'll get to hear of those thoughts....

But it did make me think of how in come circles curating has become somewhat of a pejorative term - I heard someone say 'oh you can curate a paper bag these days' - showing no understanding of how difficult it is to put things together in a way which works - either in a way to help bring out what the artist is trying to get across, or to highlight the connections between objects or illustrate a narrative.

To say nothing of the practical skill of trying to ensure things are level, visible, and exhibited in such a way as to show them at their best - for this exhibition we weren't allowed to attach things directly to the existing information boards in the church but to material that has been hung over the boards.

Initially I thought I would attach them to the material by way of pins, black ribbon (in a nod to victorian mourning customs) and bulldog clips but then I realised that whilst this would not only be fiddly - it would also detract from the clean-ness of the images I was using.

I still want to use that as a hanging arrangement but in a space where the images would be hanging like that in mid air from the ceiling so that their see-through-ness would also be visible rather than use it to hold them directly against something. So in this instance I went for double sided tape as it was a cleaner and less fussy way to present the image. The ribbon bulldog clip arrangement would add in other circumstances but detract in this one I fear.  


The title of this post begins 'it's the most wonderful time of the year' - a line from a xmas song. Well bah humbug to xmas (though there are aspects of it that I am very fond of) I am of course referring to Halloween and the shops are full of wondrous skully goodness at the moment which I may have purchased bits of over the last few days. Coco Chanel said a woman could never be too rich or too thin - I say you can never have enough skulls.    

I got my unsold work back (all 3 pieces of it) from Woodend gallery in Scarborough this weekend. I'm a little bit disappointed but not surprised as I don't think they were especially commercial in the grand scheme of things - though some of the most commercial of my work. It's kind of nice to have them back though really as I can put them in something else now. And it's nice to know that they have been on show in one of my favourite seaside towns.  

I'm sure there was something else I wanted to write about but I have forgotten what it was and I have ticked off all the things on my post it note and draft post plan so that's it for now. And so will begin this next weeks thoughts....oh no actually I've remembered - it's almost the happy accident/serendipitous* nature of my studies at times - like thinking 'oh I'll just have a rummage through the books the library are chucking out and finding a quote from someone's diary in which they talk about putting black ribbon through their underwear, or like today when my work is in an exhibition called Out Of The Shadows when the book I'm reading (after finishing The Help last night for WI Bookclub - a thought provoking and interesting read) The Tattoed Girl by Joyce Carol Oates has a character in it who has written a book called The Shadows....

*though for some reason I hate the word serendipity as it has too many hippie connotations for me..







   

MA-Ness Term 3 Week 17 Portfolio Hand In, St George's Field At Night, Academic Hoop Jumping....

Not much on this weeks post it note - think I might have thought myself out....

Crap kiddies camera view of columns at front of chapel in St George's Fields - another example of how it warps and flares,I know it's rubbish but I have so much fun using it....

Portfolio hand in day is on Friday and I'm looking forward to it - I've done a lot of work this term and I did the bulk of sorting it out ready to hand in last week (it's currently two A4 lever arch files and an A3 portfolio...all with hidden Spongebob stickers) so instead of panicking and scrabbling round trying to get it in a fit state to hand in I am enjoying the fruits of my labour by taking it (relatively) easy and just adding the final touches. I'm still unsure as to who has stolen me and replaced me with someone who looks like me, likes the same things, wears the same clothes, knows the same people but who does things ahead of schedule as opposed to running around like a headless chicken at the last minute throwing any old stuff together - like I did when I was an undergraduate many many moons ago. It would appear that in those intervening years I have not only learnt something about myself - I don't like the stress of running about like a headless chicken at the last minute but also that I have taken successful steps to change my behaviour so that I am not running about like a headless chicken at the last minute.  Now if only I can apply the same process to maintaining healthier eating and an exercise regime.....

I also want to thank the previous terms me for deciding to keep this blog as a research journal and getting into such a strong habit of writing it on a Monday as that has made this hand in (and previous ones) much easier too. I was determined to not repeat the mistakes of my undergraduate course (History at Leeds Uni many moons ago) like leaving everything to the last minute, being too embarrassed at times to admit to lack of knowledge, not knowing how to ask for help when I clearly needed it or being too embarrassed to do so and this has worked. I haven't been too embarrassed to ask for help or to admit when I am struggling with something on the course. I think that is one of the advantages of doing a course like this as a so called 'mature student'. I wouldn't have been able to do something like this straight out of my undergraduate degree. I'm also very grateful to this course for giving me such a focus and distraction over the last few months when life outside the course has been very hard indeed, and to the support and friendship of fellow course members, the support and advice from tutors and technicians and last but not least the support of my ever patient and supportive husband.

So as you can see it's not a very busy post it note - I think I'm all thunk out for the moment really and I need a rest - especially after last week as I spent most of it doing a lot of writing - my portfolio overview and review of the year is roughly the length of the dissertation we have to hand in in December.  It has been a really useful exercise though as it's made me evaluate what I've been doing - both in an approach to learning and in terms of the work I've been making.

I've got some learning points for next year - like making time to read on my to do list and making it just as much a priority as image making, going to more lectures, making time each week to sit in the library and look at magazines but overall I'm pretty pleased with how things have gone that side of things and I've got a plan for next academic year to put it into place.

I've also evaluated each of the projects I've been working on and have decided which ones I'm going to continue to work with and which ones I've learnt from but which I won't be pursuing for the time being. I might go back to them at some point but for the moment they are effectively done with. 

Along with writing and thinking and sorting lots I also had a very useful and reassuring tutorial - in which my fears about whether or not I am jumping the correct academic hoops were assuaged...there are lots of reasons I'm doing this course and one of them is to reclaim my mostly miserable undergraduate experience with something much more positive and rewarding and so far it is that - in spades. PHEW!!!!!

Unusual places to exhibit is a thought which struck me on Saturday night when we went to St George's Fields (after seeing Mr Holmes at the ever wonderful Hyde Park Picture House) to see what it looks like as the sunlight is fading and disappearing behind the height of the Henry Price student accommodation block - it was referred to as Horny Prison in my day and it was said it was built on a plague pit. I took the 35mm Canon camera I got from the charity shop a while back and took some colour pics and also (see above) my crappie kiddies camera. The pics are of such low resolution that I can attach all 25 I took there to an email and send it to myself (as a back up til a proper external hard drive back up can be done) and they are technically so poor but I love their warpedness and their inability to capture colour without flaring and it's unzoomable fixed focus. It's shonky as fuck but I love it. The light as it fades is lovely so fingers crossed me and husband will be back there soon to make the most of it (up til now all the pictures I have taken there have been during the day) and also to try and create the multiple exposures I want in the front of the chapel steps. The chapel was never consecrated so it could be used by all faiths or none and is now a university bookstore.

Taking pictures amongst a nest of graves I was struck by how smooth the back of some tombstones are and how perfect a setting they would be (vulnerability to adverse weather conditions and knickability aside) to show some of my work. Might have to do a pop up show there some day. I was also very pleased to find the same memorial seen in this pic but it is now much more overgrown and the sapling to the left of the pic (it was most likely taken early 80's) is now a massive strapping tree. The Sisters are still going (kind of) but as far as I know the only original person is Andrew Eldritch and of course Doktor Avalanche. I still listen to Black Planet but you're far more likely to find me listening to The Gift by The Sisterhood than anything else by Andrew Eldritch and unlike a lot of my chums I never got into the Mission...they were a bit too hippy for me.

Anyway back from that musical(!) meander down memory lane I'd best crack on with putting the final touches to my portfolio so I can hand it in on Friday without too much nervousness, and tidying my workroom space ready for next term as well as cracking a few more books in the ever present to read pile at the side of my desk.....we start back officially in September and I think I deserve a bit of a break so I might not write this again on a Monday til then....but I will keep up my post it note habit in the meantime in case something strikes me as worthy of note.

Happy Holidays :-)

Ma-Ness Term 3 Week 8 End of Term Round Up, Sticky Stuff, Skulls and Stepladders, Costings and Hangings.

this weeks post it note - fuller than last weeks though my heart is still breaking and empty without Lucia

Mindful of the fact that I need to crack on work-wise (portfolio hand in date of August 18th is a way off yet but it'll soon come round plus a lot of the workshops will have limited staffing and access opportunities over the summer so best crack on now)   I've made myself do some this week though if I'm honest I didn't really feel like doing it - it's not the same without a black and white fluffy creature poking her nose in and squeaking at me to remind me that it is biscuit time.  But I made myself do some cyanotyping on Thursday as it was nice and sunny - it's been a while since I've done some and it was interesting that the sun has of course changed direction so instead of starting them off on the kitchen worktop before transferring them to the back window - this time they started off in the hallway before making their way round to the back window and then ending up in the kitchen. I did 8 in total - some worked really well, some not so well (the resultant image was a bit pale as I'd forgotten to boost the levels and contrast) but I am well chuffed with the one I did using one of my dental x-rays (must email a copy to my dentist) and the one I did on red paper and I am pleased with the ones I did from the pinhole pictures I took using a cardboard box camera. I also did one of what will hopefully be the first in the series 12 Belle Ends And A Sock On The Door - my response to John Waters seminal 12 Assholes and a Dirty Foot.

Yesterday I decided to get up early and go and take some photographs at St George's Fields using a Mamiya 645 Pro TL borrowed from college - a very fancy 120 mm film camera which is heavy but gorgeous and I used a silver skull I bought from TK Maxx some time ago as a prop nestled amongst the surviving memorials. I am well chuffed with the results and plan to get some of them printed on A2 tracing paper and also to copy some onto acetate so I can make cyanotype versions of them too.  I also did an experiment with image transfer onto canvas using pva glue and a photocopy of one of my images  this week though I can't report on that yet as I'm still waiting for the glue to dry before I start trying to rub the paper away.

It was good to get lost in the mechanics of the process for a while - especially at St George's Fields as it was beautifully quiet and empty yesterday morning plus the light was lovely. It also made a change to use a modern medium format camera as til now the ones I've used have been from the 1950's and though the Mamiya it is heavy to use it is also a joy - easy to focus, and you can set it to have aperture priority and the motorised wind on was also a help in making sure the film wound on correctly.

Things I did learn though for next time - when using a prop that you want to nestle either amongst graves or atop of monuments a bit of blu tack to help it stay where you want it to is a good idea and also take one of those plastic folding steps as that helps with both placing the skull where you want it and also for getting a better angle from which to take photos - I'm not very tall and although I have very big platform boots that boost my height to 5 ft 8" but whilst they are excellent for getting a good view at gigs (unless of course you're at a gig with knobheads who prefer to 'watch' it through their bloody phone screens as opposed to experiencing it in the here and now)  they aren't practical for walking on uneven ground. But I did find a plastic milk crate around the back of the university which was very handy for me to stand on. And I put it back where I found it when I'd finished.

 But until I found the milk crate my ever lovely and supportive and tall husband helped place the skull where I wanted it - he also developed the films in the garage (aka the pop up meth lab) when we got home. And then last night once they were dry we scanned them in - there were 2 rolls of Ilford FP4 ISO 125 120 and one roll of 35mm Ilford Pan 100 (only slightly out of date ie 2 years which compared to some of the film I've used is positively brand new) and like I said I am well chuffed with some of the images and am looking forward to getting them printed up.

I also made some bookmarks using the cast off paper backing from the 120 film and the cast off adhesive sticky back plastic like remnants from the printing of some of my images to stick on it - to then stick to grave candles. I'm pleased with those as a) they look good, b) I like the thought of making something useful from stuff that would be otherwise thrown away and c) I'm going to post one of them to a chum who has been especially supportive recently and who still reads paper books.

  

It was the last formal week at college this week and before we hung our work ready for the end of year work in progress show ( details on here) we spent it looking over the last 3 terms from a  expectation point of view - what has been met and what remains unfulfilled, key moments, turning points and how have you and work changed over the last 12 months.
I think I'll probably do a long separate and maybe not public post about this but some key points are:

• Getting into better working habits - doing 'social' media on the kindle and so leaving the main computer (almost) entirely for work
• I'm not quite sure what art schools are expected to be like and I'm not sure whether this is a reasonable expectation for me to have either but it's not quite as radical an atmosphere politically or fashion-wise (for example visible subculture members appear few and far between) as I thought/hoped it would be...
• Roland Barthes - Camera Lucida - utterly wonderful thought provoking poignant stuff
• Putting away acetates 'incorrectly' and so creating a whole new set of images
• Learning a new vocabulary and a new way of looking at things (new public sculpture at Leeds Uni..)
• Collaboration and possible new projects....
• Access to archives only accessible to students
• Thinking about applying for a practice led Phd....

(and btw the formatting on blogger is a complete pain in the arse at times - you'd think it'd be relatively straightforward to put things in bullet points and it is as long as you don't want to add to it, move stuff round in which case you have to beggar about with it for 15 minutes and then think 'fuck it, I simply can't be arsed to argue with it anymore....you get the drift of what I'm trying to put in that list....and then a bit more beggaring and hurrah it worked!!!)

One of the things we were asked too was how much things had cost and it was interesting to do a rough total of what I had spent on printing, film and developing costs, notebooks, portfolios and that kind of thing - so learning point from now on is make note of how much everything costs as I go along instead of totting it up roughly afterwards. This will also help when it comes to working out how much to charge for commissions and other work too.

As I said we spent most of Friday afternoon putting up the end of year show - and I was grateful that there was both a fellow ma-er who is tall and so could help me hang my work in the window (A2 tracing paper prints of angels and churchyard benches)  - I could reach the bottom panels but not the top ones and there are 4 panels per piece arranged around each cross of the window. Initially I was only going to have one window but encouragement from another fellow ma-er plus the fact that the tracing paper does not block out light for other exhibitors and agreement from the other course members means I have colonised two windows. I'm not quite sure why but I felt really anxious and hamfisted lining the top and bottom edges of the images with double sided tape and then placing them in the window - no need for a spirit level as they are lined up against the edge of the window panes, I also didn't need to measure height from the ground or worry about positioning it so that it leaves enough wall space for others.

But I think this will have to be taken into consideration when it comes to the Kirkstall Arts Trail (details here) on July 18th though I've yet to hear whereabouts on the trail my work will be going, and I'll also need to get a little spirit level as though I normally do things by eye, my eye isn't always straight so I will need some extra help.

Last month I went to the John Rylands Library to look at things of wonder in the strong room, and the archivist has sent me a list of other items in their keeping which she thinks I may be interested in and it reads like the most fabulous treasure trove of ephemera - I mean who could resist things like 'a piece of the willow which grew over the grave of Napoleon I' and 'a russian peasants soup spoon' and 'a portion of the wrappage of a mummy embalmed 3000 years ago'....and it has both made me want to see these wondrous things with my own eyes but also wonder how they ended up in the care of the John Rylands Library, whether they are what they say they are, and how much fun it would be to make one of these up for an imaginary collector.  Which in turn makes me think of my feelings about describing myself as a writer and or an artist - I was brought up believing that you had to specialise and being a jack of all trades meant you were master of none (feminism hadn't dawned on my family at that time) and if you did more than one thing then there was something vaguely untrustworthy about you - the word 'dillettante' was unknown to my vocabulary then but the misgivings around someone who could be described as such wasn't. Mmm lots of food for thought there....

One thing I can say about myself without feeling in anyway fraudulent or self aggrandising is I'm a collector - (some might say hoarder but though the house is full of stuff - you can still sit down and make/have a meal without having to play tetris with stuff so I think it's under control) and I wonder what someone would make of and or with the fridge magnet collection (there are about 350 of them and one of the things we had to take into account when buying a new fridge freezer after the old one broke was would it be big enough to hold all the magnets and it is - just. Or the extensive amount of royal tat - I am no fan of the royal family and struggle with the continued existence of such an outmoded, unfair and frankly ridiculous institution in the 21st century  but I love royal memorabilia or rather really cheap (some of it is outrageously expensive)  tacky (even the expensive so called classy stuff is tacky)  memorabilia of the wedding of Charles and Diana. Teabags are kept in a Charles and Di tin, tea drunk out of mugs with the fateful date and their faces on (ideally the really cheap ones with their pictures taken from newspapers so you can see the dots) and feet are wiped on a silver jubilee rug in the hallway. Likewise there are lots of pictures of christian saints and Virgin Marys - not that I am a believer but they remind me of maternal grandparents house which was always a refuge for me and it was full of the outpourings of ephemera of the roman catholic church and Manchester United Football Club.

But whilst I am definitely becoming more confident in terms of the techniques I use, the approach I take I still find it a little difficult to write my artists statement though I had to write one for the end of year show - but I did it and whilst I may refine it as the months go on I'm pleased with it for now.

Right best crack on with some workroom tidying, letter writing and portfolio sorting plus I want to make a cloth carrying bag for my A2 portfolio that I can put over my shoulder as that might make it a bit more manageable when it comes to hand in time....