This is this weeks post it note which like last weeks makes some kind of sense but not completely but that is no surprise as last week I was in the midst of dental woe (an abcess which led to tooth removal) and on v strong painkillers indeed and in fact today is the first day I've not had to take any painkillers in well over a week. RESULT!!!!!
However such was my state of pain, soreness, painkiller out of it -ness and last but not least swollenfaceness that I missed last Friday's workshops at college which is a shame as looking at the notes the tutor has put on the college website - it looked like I missed an interesting and thought provoking discussion....oh well I hope to catch up with it all properly soon.
Anyways - here's to my post it note scribbles....
This is a public as opposed to friends only private type blog (though is anything really private on the internet? no - not really) and I started it many moons ago before the reality of college attendance was even a pipe dream. My first post was back in July 2012 and in it I said I wanted to talk about 'photography, my collection of kitsch items, knitting and stuff like that' and that's how it was until I decided to use it as my research journal to hand in for college - though I also have a paper sort of one too and some of the feedback I got from my assignments was to talk about the ideas I have art-work-wise and to show them on here - something which I haven't literally done so far - partly out of a no doubt misplaced fear of being copied - yet I happily post photographs I have taken both on twitter and on farcebook (deliberate sp) without a 'copyright' notice/name superimposed on them and I should really a) learn how to do that and b) get into the habit of doing it.
And also because I've not been doing so much 'doing' but more 'thinking and reading' - the latest book I'm ploughing through is Death,Grief and Poverty In Britain 1870-1914 by J M Strange which is a very interesting book - especially as it is looking at the more working class approaches to mourning in victorian and edwardian Britain and interestingly she draws on literature (among many other sources) - namely a work from 1897 called The Nether World by George Gissing to evidence her arguments. I doubt this approach would have been approved by my history tutors back in my undergraduate days. A creative work is not the same as a piece of legislation or electoral registers but does this a) make it any less valuable or reliable as a resource? After all newspaper and diary accounts are often used as evidence to support arguments or even to show timelines and aren't these just as subject to author bias as 'creative' work? Mmm lots of food for thought there....not least the often blanket assertions by historians and social commentators that really get my goat - like if anyone was to look at the newspapers of September 1997 when they were dominated by saturation coverage of the death of Diana Spencer and phrases like a 'nation was in mourning' are bandied about - er me and a lot of my friends are part of this nation and we definitely weren't in mourning but hey ho.....I'm going off at a tangent but one which I keep thinking about.....
So in the meantime I'm also still thinking about the best way/place for me to show/talk about the work I'm working on....maybe I should set up a new blog and just not publish it and use that as a record. Or maybe record it entirely in a paper notebook instead - or maybe a mix of the two but however I do it, I'd best get on and do some as this term is all about the handing in of work either completed or in progress so I really must get on and do some.....as opposed to just writing and thinking about it.
And speaking of actual creative work - aside from trips to the dentist I left the house for what felt like the first time in ages on Saturday to both pick up some books from the local council library (the Rev Richard Coles autobiography which I am v much enjoying and The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd which is the next Buns and Roses WI Book Club choice) and to pick up the film I'd left in for developing at the ever helpful and reasonably priced Photo Shop on North Lane. I'd used Kodak Colour Plus ISO 200 and I am v pleased with the results - though I am not going to show them here yet as a) they need a little bit of editing and by that I mean a bit of cropping, and I might convert one or two to monochrome and b) I'm going to get them printed out and see what they would look like as a narrative photo book....
I might also use the new graphics tablet which my husband bought last week - I've had a little go of it and my initial thoughts are 'ooh the possibilities' along with 'really am going to have to get to grips with powerpoint' as that has more options available in it than my usual microsoft viewer or paint, and also 'christ almighty, it's really fecking fiddly' as you don't look at where your pen is going on the paper like I normally do when drawing but where the cursor and pen are on the image on the screen so in some ways it feels like I'm drawing blind as I'm not looking where I normally look when drawing....I think it's going to take some getting used to. But it's very exciting....
I did manage to put together a presentation though last week - and with my new found trick of taking a screenshot of the slide once I'd put it together and then copy and pasting that image it is a) easier to email as it is a fraction of the size and b) it doesn't matter what fonts they have at the other end either - result!! This is for a Cultural Heritage Show and Tell event (details here ) and I need to practice it a couple of times before I need to deliver it but it is a mark of how much I have progressed as if you'd told me even 12 months ago that I would VOLUNTEER to stand in front of people and speak I'd have laughed in your face and thought you were rambling. Which is just as well as I think we have a couple of presentations to do at college-wise this term - am feeling a bit out of the loop college-wise as I've missed two weeks this term due to illness so I have emailed my tutors to make sure I'm back up to speed - especially with what needs handing in when.
Although this term is 'doing' in terms of handing in - workshop wise it is much more about theoretical perspectives which I am still trying to get to much better grips with - I really must read Barthes Camera Lucida properly as opposed to just skimming through it and I also have Baudrillard's Consumer Society to plough through and Danesi's Of Cigarettes. High Heels and Other interesting Things and whilst those are interesting books they just don't grab me in the way that Death Grief and Poverty does.... note to self - quit procrastinating and get down to some serious study....
I've been collected phrases which I find inspiring - either as springboards to ideas or potential titles or just because they make me smile, I handed them in along with this blog and I think 'dated confines' which is ion the middle of my post it note must be another one to add to the list as it doesn't make sense otherwise.
Which brings me round to the last two points on my 'blog post it note' that I want to write about. Namely what to do with human remains and what is the purpose of a memorial? I have been offered human remains by two of my chums - or rather part of their remains in the event of their death to use in my artwork as I see fit. This is both an incredible honour, a logistical conumdrum as in which medical school can help me with this and also in all likelihood an unrealised semi pipe dream as a) I don't want them to die and b) I might be too squeamish to do this.
I did ask the dentist for the bits of my broken tooth though - he looked at me funny but said 'yes of course, it's your tooth' and put them in a little blue envelope with a picture of a tooth fairy on it so am guessing they were designed for children as opposed to morbid adults. I've a vague idea to make them or rather have the bits made into jewellery but I will need to clean them first as they are still somewhat gory and they make my stomach go funny each time I look at them - though I suspect that is somewhat of a pavlovian response as they make me think of the really rather unpleasant procedure I went through for them to end in the little blue envelope and I was never a big fan of the dentist anyway.
Don't worry - I wouldn't show you the bits of tooth - not til I've cleaned them up at least....
Plus I have been offered these remains freely - not through a deal with coroners to use 'unclaimed' bodies from morgues so I have no moral qualms about using them - my qualms are can I do them artistic justice and how squeamish am I really? And how much stamina and cash do I have for fulfilling the legal requirements of the Human Tissue Authority? As you need a licence to display human remains and they're not cheap - though you don't need a licence to show photographs of human remains....mmm legal loopholes to work my way through and round...
But what do you do with remains? I have the cremated remains of my beloved first cat who I adopted from the RSPCA when she was just 3 months old and she was my constant companion for 17 years. She died 6 and a half years ago. Her cremated remains aka 'cremains' (or rather what we think are her cremated remains as I have not opened the beautiful wooden box that came back from the vets to verify this) now 'live' in the cupboard above the stairs where she used to demand to be given a shoulder lift to along with one of her favourite catnip mice but I don't know what I'll do with them if/when we move house. Does having actual remains (in this case feline) stop you from moving on grief-wise? I don't feel I need them now yet equally I couldn't imagine parting with them but when she died I did want them very much indeed or rather I wanted her back, still alive and purring but as that wasn't possible I made do with her cremains instead. Now however I take comfort in my memories and photographs of her - and a little video I took of her asleep and she was making little sing song snoring noises.
Also apparently there is a new process for dealing with human remains which involves your remains being put in a chamber which then fills with chemicals which dissolve the flesh and bone and the resultant sludge is chemically inert and can be flushed away - am not sure how I feel about this approach - although on paper it seems the 'cleanest' and most final - but I think I'm still liking cremation best but am not sure why.
Which in turn leads me to think about stone memorials and what do they mean? and what are their function? I ask this partly with a victorian funeral monument afficiando head on - I adore them to look at in all their angelly over the top mawkish emotional expensive symbolic wonderfulness but even if they are all of those things they are also physical manifestations of love, regard and affection and the stonemasons art. A marker of a persons life to hold onto when they physically have gone and all you are left with are the memories and possibly photographs and maybe some of their possessions and in this day and age their digital trace and a heart turning reminder from social networks when their name and face pops up....
As ever - so much food for thought.....
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