MA-Ness Term 3 Week 4 Being A Creature of Habit, Religious Experiences In A Secular World and Lumen-Ness

this weeks post it notes, a blank back page of a book I wrote on and tore out (I don't normally do this but I had nothing else to hand plus it was a trashy escapist novel and it was completely blank so no-one is missing anything if they buy this from the charity shop I'll be taking it too) and my new library card...

I am largely a creature of habit - happy to try new things and approaches but that is providing I can retreat to my usual habits and lair at the end of the day but the last few days have been especially trying - partly because I have come down with some kind of cough/cold/flu lurgy which has left me at times breathless (and not in a good way) and partly despair at the election result and partly because there is an intermittent electrical fault locally which means the power keeps going off (not for longer than 12 hours though which is when compensation would kick in) and so burglar alarms go off, the lights go out and of course computers stop working....and it has meant my having to use the laptop as opposed to desktop and sleep in my workroom which is not ideal...

I am not a smartphone lover - I do use my husbands kindle fire thingy and whilst that is a v handy device for social media checking I couldn't imagine writing anything on it of length or great import plus I hate the way it makes you use your fingers in a swipey dabby kind of  way, I'm much happier with a real not touchscreen keyboard. But of course the desktop computer (which i consider to be my 'work' computer as that is where I keep my electronic folders and digital version of pictures but as it's at the back of the house it's marginally less subject to the noise of burglar alarms going off when the power fails) though of course using it is subject to the power staying on.....

I did put together a presentation yesterday afternoon on the main work computer and emailed it so at least that is done but it all felt v hurried and rushed and there was a lot of pressing the save button but even if it is not lost thanks to my frantic saving, there is no guarantee when the power will come back on so it all feels a bit wrong and unsettled at the moment.

We do have a laptop and I have now installed that in the workroom as it wouldn't feel right to write my blog anywhere else - this is where the pictures and books I am using are and although I may not be able to upload this if there is a power fail as the router would go down - at least I could copy and paste it into notepad so hopefully not all will be lost....but I hope the power company get their arse in gear and fix this fault - we've had almost a week on intermittent power now and frankly it's crap. It was especially galling when it went off during BBC2's screening of Vertigo on Saturday, I don't care that I've seen that film lots before when I sit down especially to watch it I want to see Kim Novak and James Stewart in all their glorious Hitchcock wranglings uninterrupted.

I do realise these are comparatively trivial moans in the grand scheme of things and I am fortunate not to be reliant upon electrically powered medical equipment to keep me alive but it's a pain in the bloody arse and I want it sorted soon.

So onto what I've actually been doing (aside from coughing and moaning about bloody privatised power companies) - one of the things on my post it note is the palaver and cost of film and why use it? prompted by my (fellow film fan)husband as he was taking pictures with comparative ease on one of the digitals we have (though if their battery runs out and we can't charge them they won't be much use then...)  and it made me think well why do I use it? I like the palaver of it - from ripping open the cardboard box, the smell and flick of the plastic lid, the feel of the film as you pull it across the back of the camera locking it into place on the sprockets, the sound of it winding on,the wait to get it back and in the meantime not knowing whether or not it has worked, the despair of the not quite right framed pic that you can't go back and retake,the can do better next time of a shot you can retake, the joy of capturing exactly what you wanted or the joy of an unexpected result, the rustle of the negative holders, the contact prints - so much more romance in that than a memory card plus I like the fact that it is now considered to be an old fashioned process - and long may that continue. And whilst I don't have the words to technically describe what I mean - there is something about the look and feel of film that I just prefer.

There's also the question does writing this blog help - a chum of mine says she likes reading it as it's accessible and creates a relationship in which she wants to read it to find out what I've been up to and that it's useful in terms of building an audience - an audience who will then (hopefully) want to come to my shows and buy my work. I don't know if it does do this but I find it useful as a way of collecting my thoughts, reporting on progresses and failures and for helping me get my head round things and also most of all when it comes to course submission times as I can print it out and hand it in as evidence of the work I've been doing.

I don't know what inter/exter means though - power cuts are self explanatory and so onto lumen prints - am so enjoying making these now I have got the method a bit more sorted...I keep my box of photo paper (generously donated by a chum who had no use for it anymore) in my zip up portfolio so it's very definitely kept in the dark, I then decide on what bits I've collected from the various places I've been visiting I'm going to use - arrange them on the glass and then close the bedroom curtains and door and get the box of paper out under a kind of tent I make out of a throw over the top of the bed and then open the photographic paper box, make sure I've got the paper the right way round - shiny side towards the glass and put the back of the frame down (I use cheap A4 frames that I've taped round the edge of the glass with electrical tape and bulldog clips from Wilkos) and then fasten it down and then put it in the sunlight downstairs - much to Mapp's displeasure as I have to move her beanbag so it can get maximum sunlight exposure. I check it every 30 minutes or so by setting an alarm on my phone and it seems to take about 2 to 2 and a half hours to get the exposure I want,  I then take a digital colour picture of it to capture it as it was then I cover it with paper and put it in a plastic wallet in my portfolio folder to stop it either fading or developing further - though I do love the fact that without chemical fixing it continues to change and deteroriate....as nothing stays the same for ever - no matter how much you want it too.

I've also been experimenting with manipulating the images in photoshop so they end up looking like an x-ray of themselves...I hope to do some more soon - so far I've done successful site specific ones of Ilkley Moor and the back garden and one made of the decaying bits of an easter decoration.

I haven't made any cyanotypes for a while yet either but I have lots of acetates waiting to be used as negatives for those - and will be prepping for those in a couple of weeks. I also have some solarfast which apparently works best on fabric and a chum has given me some curtain lining fabric she doesn't have use for anymore - which I hope to make into image printed patches that I can then sew onto things....

Other things I want to experiment with are the way I hang the tracing paper prints of my work - the default is a mix of fishing wire and bulldog clips but maybe it's time to think of other ways......

I half watched (til the power went and hopefully the rest of the recording of it is undamaged) the Nick Cave film that was on Film 4 recently - I did mean to go and see it at the cinema but didn't get my arse in gear to do so and whilst I found it a bit slow in places I was struck by a couple of things he said - namely that 'places choose you' and that 'memory is what we are' and his use of the words narrative, retelling and mythologising plus it was lovely to see his notebooks - especially as I am still reading Derek Jarman's Sketchbook - plus it's always fascinating to see how other artists work. For visual artistry though Jarman's sketchbooks are streets ahead...

Before lurgy fully took hold I had a busy time over in Manchester at the John Ryland Archive - via a quick trip to the 'Hidden Gem' aka St Marys. I had often heard of that church but had never visited and I thought I'd just pop in and have a quick peek. And I'm really glad I did - it's a beautiful space, I felt slightly uncomfortable though as I was brought up catholic and went to a very strict convent school and I've long since rejected all of that (other than the core message of be done as you would be done by which is my central moral tenet really)partly for fear of being labelled a hypocrite and partly for an ill-placed fear of being sucked back in....

But it was a lovely quiet space in an otherwise busy and conflicted and conflicting city centre - as prior to my popping in I'd been to Central Library (and joined as anyone from anywhere can join online and then in person with some ID and you get a card and access to all their online information - see library card in pic) but it was in the midst of an increasingly fraught and desperate conversation between homeless people and security companies and police over their access to the librarys facilities. I hope the homelss people currently living outside the library are able to continue using it without being stopped by security guards though - libraries should be for everyone - whether they're reading the books or just having a few minutes in a warm quiet place out of the rain....

Maybe it was because I'd just been in a church but I was struck by the similarities between churches and archives when I was in the Rylands Library Collection - the general air of reverence for the objects, the quiet, the careful unwrapping of treasures, the 'snakes' aka the weighted string of beads you use to keep the pages of a book open share a haptic similarity with rosary beads, the pillows and foam cushioning you rest the books on look like the lecturn bibles rests. But I was fortunate not only to be able to look at a book which looked like a family bible but was in fact a collection of cartes des visites in the upstairs reading room but also to be taken behind the scenes into one of the strong rooms to look at gems of the collection like exquisite victorian mourning jewellery, a lock of Proust's hair (a strand of which Cornelia Parker has taken to use in her work - with permission obviously), relics of Walt Whitman (including the flowers from his room when he died) courtesy of his appreciation society in Bolton and exquisite photographs by Roger Fenton - the mounts slightly mildewed with age but all the more beautiful for it.

I took lots of photographs (digital ones without flash) but they were very clear that those photographs could only be used for my own research and inspiration as opposed to them being published so alas I cannot share any of them with you - suffice to say it was both very inspiring and wonderful and many thanks to the staff of the John Ryalnds for making it such an incredible afternoon of wonder - and I hope to go back again soon for more inspiration and wonder.

What else? well I neglected to add I'd joined the Creative Timebank a couple of weeks ago - and you can read about who they are and what they do here and I am very much looking forward to both benefitting from it and hopefully in turn benefitting someone else plus it seems an excellent way to learn and build connections too.

This week is hopefully going to include my ceasing to cough in a way that suggests I have been smoking 100 capstan full strength since birth, a way forward with a collaborative project, a successful presentation, a tutorial, and our power supply being properly restored and things computer and workroom wise back to normal.