Will This Ever End? Good Luck Folklore, New Photos, Xmas Prep, ASMR Noises and Podcasts...

 

Todays prompts, my lovely fountain pen, leftover stickers, folklore good luck leaf 

One of my favourite images from the film I took using a cheap plastic camera I bought from Primarni in the 'before times' - the camera has a fixed no focus lens, no iso setting or anything fancy about it all - it's just a shutter. I used 35mm Kino film from Lomography - which is film I got for xmas or birthday I can't remember which a couple of years ago. The image itself is of the stone bridge over the beck in Meanwood Park taken on a sunny day in late November 2021.

As I write this I am struggling to manage my anxiety about the seemingly exponential rise of the new strain of Covid, the terrifying predictions of the numbers of infections, the uncertainty of what Omicron might mean on an individual level and the impact of what large groups of people having to isolate might mean. The fact that it's Thursday and so it's blog day is a good alternative focus.

I am in the fortunate position of having had both my jabs and my booster but the uncertainty of the effect of the new strain has meant that the beginnings of confidence I was starting to work to reclaim a couple of months ago and the tentative steps I was taking to get back to a bit of the normality of a bit of the 'before times' has been replaced again by the fear, uncertainty and at times sheer terror of the start of the pandemic almost two years ago.

I can hardly believe I have just written the words 'two years ago' but it is almost two years now.  Two years of stress and anxiety and now it's back at the highest levels and having had a teeny bit of respite from it it feels all the more heavy and all the more difficult. And having stopped feeling quite so anxious and then that feeling being racheted back up again just shows to me how tiring it all is and what an impact it has and continues to have on so many people to say nothing of its effect my own ability to concentrate and complete tasks. 

It also makes the feeling of when will this ever end all the stronger and heavier. Plus I know people who are extremely clinically vulnerable and on a personal level as an asthmatic who has been hospitalised in the past with a respiratory infection I'm very frightened of becoming seriously ill. But I am ever mindful that I am in a comparatively really fortunate position compared to so so many and I remain incredibly grateful for that and fingers crossed that continues. 

Vaccine provision aside I say no thanks whatsoever to our shitshow of a government who continue to both disappoint and enrage with their staggering levels of arrogance, incompetence, corruption and mixed messages. And now so many of their crap decisions are coming back to bite them (not sacking Cummings for instance, the shortsighted stupidity of making masks optional, the awarding of contracts to cronies with no oversight to name but three) but also sadly us in consequence on the arse. 

So on a happier note I learnt a new piece of folklore whilst on a walk this weekend round the bridlepath with a friend - namely that if you catch a falling leaf it will bring you good luck, and I managed to catch one. I try not to be superstitious but I think despite my conscious brain being fully behind rationalism and atheism it's partly a subconscious throwback to my strict roman catholic upbringing and its attendant belief and hope in things you cannot see and do not exist.

Plus when things are bad - as long as you are doing the rational things what harm can it also do to touch a piece of wood or cross fingers? I am still resisting the lure of submarine catholicism (ie it surfaces when you are in trouble) as I do not believe in it and have zero time or respect for any kind of organised religion apart from the Satanic Temple. 

Anyway I caught a leaf (pictured above) and wished whatever good luck and fortune it may hold to my two friends currently dealing with serious illness - same as I did with the penny I found on the floor and picked up mentally saying 'see a penny pick it up and all the day you'll have good luck'. 

Its the same when I see a robin.  Robins are supposedly carriers of loved ones souls as in the rhyme 'when robins appear, loved ones are near' and whilst I know each time I see one that it does not contain my Dad's soul or the soul of other dead loved ones I do find it a very very small comfort to even think that the belief is that it could. Oh how I wish it was actually true.  

What is a comfort though at the moment is slowly but surely working my way through my pre xmas preparation list which along with organising presents and food also involves a deep clean and sort out of the house. Last week I sorted out my workroom over two afternoons. The bookcases are still double stacked but now much more neatly and in much better groupings - most of the photography boooks are all together in one corner, though the death, gothic and victorian studies are still spread over two bookcases. Fiction takes up the rest of the shelfspace.

There are still piles of equipment and materials on the floor next to the bookcases but it's all been sorted into much neater piles and I know what is in each one and where to look for things. Plus a bag of stuff went in the bin, a bag of stuff went into the recycling bin and two bags of stuff were dropped off at the charity shop on Tuesday morning. Imposing a bit of order makes me feel a bit better, as does looking at the pictures I took using the really cheap plastic camera (example above) as they have mostly come out exactly the way I wanted them too - I hope that viewers also see elements of creepiness, melancholy and old looking-ness. I'm looking forward to using some of them either as stills in a short film or as image transfers onto material. 

Whilst doing this I will probably be listening to one of my favourite podcasts which I am finding very comforting (either the Boulet Brothers Creatures of the Night, Peaches Christ Midnight Mass, The Uncanny on Radio 4 or the soundtrack album from Dark Shadows which I got as a birthday present last year. I've now watched 910 episodes and I remain as much in love with Barnabas Collins as played by Jonathon Frid as I was just over 2 years ago when I first started watching it. My curiosity aroused by what I'd heard of a gothic horror soap opera featuring a sympathetic vampire. Hearing the theme tune has a kind of ASMR effect on me and my husband - it's a real kind of 'aah deep breath calming' kind of effect and for the next twenty minutes we can get lost in and be distracted by ghostly, vampiric and time travelling goings on the Collinwood Estate. 

Thank you for reading and I hope you too have something that you can find solace in and some distraction and calm escape. 





 

Promise Sticking, More Image Transferring, Colour Boosting, Boosters In General, Where Are Memories Held? Film-ness

 

Matte medium image transfer piece in progress - still need to remove last few bits of paper, trim and sew excess fabric, wrap outside of embroidery hoop in bias binding (possibly purple) and decide on a title - I usually draw on chapter titles from novels by my favourite nineteenth century authors - Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins...this one is in monochrome as monochrome is my preferred colour-scheme to work in.
Examples of other matte medium transfers I have done can be seen here and here

this weeks notes, the nail varnish I'm going to paint my nails with later whilst watching Drag Race - I much prefer Dragula as its inclusivity and menu of drag, filth, horror and glamour are some of my very favourite things...so whilst my heart and soul now belong to the Boulet Brothers there's still a bit of it that has space for RuPaul...also pictured is a bag of a shower cap I bought in a beautifully old fashioned chemist in Buxton in the 'before times' because its sombre old fashioned-ness really makes me smile. 

It's still early days but as this is the third blog post I've written in the last three weeks I'm feeling cautiously hopeful that I am getting my blogging mojo back. I'm certainly finding it a good way of marshalling my thoughts again in these ongoing uncertain and frightening times, and aside from it helping me I've also had positive feedback on it which is also a boost.

Boosts of whatever kind are still very welcome as anxiety is still kicking my arse. I've not got back my going out to indoor places with lots of other people mojo as yet but am hoping getting my anti covid booster jab is going to help with that along with still taking things slowly but surely - baby steps, baby steps.  

Speaking of boosters - my current mood boosters are: watching or listening to the Boulet Brothers, the rather wonderful selection of ghost and uncanny stories on BBC Sounds and I-Player, going for a walk, reading a book that completely distracts and transports me - currently enjoying A Single Thread by Tracey Chevalier very much and painting my nails. I love nail varnish and tho I'm not especially skillful about applying it but there is something very mood lifting looking down to see shiny colourful unchipped nails.

Due to being a dyed in the wool old school goth almost all my clothes are black and often the only pop of colour about me is my fringe which is blue or my nails (if I've painted them) or my lips if I've got make up on. I don't find black a miserable colour to wear or look at or be surrounded by but I'm reminded of reading something Brix Smith Start wrote about bright colours being a form of prozac for her but annoyingly I cannot find the quote. I don't have to surround my self with colour to cheer myself but a bright pop of it somewhere along the line is nice.

Houseplants also brighten up the space around me and my mood - a chinese money plant I bought during lockdown has produced many offspring which along with spider pants (also very bountiful offspring from one plant) a few prayer plants and a very exuberant boston fern make me smile lots as do the constants of Spongebob cartoons at the weekend and daily glimpses of Hacker T Dog and his handler's other characters. As ever being able to walk in the woods and go to the gym also helps massively.

I'm also really enjoying podcasts - be it the Boulet Brothers Creatures Of The Night or Peaches Christ's Midnight Mass or No Heathen Lands eerie stories of Yorkshire. 

But back to nail varnish - my Nana always said that nail varnish was the sign of a woman who didn't do any housework and chipped nail varnish was the sign of 'a slattern' and painted toenails were a sign in her opinion of very dubious morals and the person with painted toenails was likely to be a sex worker tho she would not have used that term. I doubt she could have countenanced the idea let alone the reality of men wearing nail varnish like a few of my friends do - I think she'd have connuptions like the time she went to see Hinge and Bracket and was appalled that the man sat next to her had a handbag. I don't think she realised Dame Hilda and Evadne were actually characters played by men. 

So whilst I don't miss her sheltered and restrictive views I do miss her and frankly would give anything to be able to talk to her again and I'd get her to teach me how to crochet whilst making sure that my nails were as impeccable as I could make them and I'm not sure whether or not I'd paint them bright red - which was according to her the sign of 'a harlot'. 

Knitting is more of a mood stabiliser for me tho really as I find it quite meditative after a while and sometimes I pick projects because they involve quite a bit of just plain knitting. Though at the moment it's less meditative as I am currently working my through various projects that are destined to be xmas presents for family members. I've got 5 that I want to finish before the start of December so that there's plenty of time to get them posted off in time to arrive for Xmas. So far I've finished 3, made a start on one (a nice simple one thankfully) and then the last one is a little bit more complicated and so will require a lot more concentration. Am being deliberately vague on the offchance that one of the recipients might come across thisblogpost.

One of the things I've been thinking about recently is memories, both reliving them or what we think they were, where they are held - are they in the object, diary entry, a space somehow embedded into physical structures and my/the fear of losing them if I lose the objects that are associated with and evoke those memories and how photographs are (their lack of smell and noise aside) such excellent memory holders/provokers. 

It also makes me think and wonder about matte medium as a medium (every meaning and association of the word intended) for transferring and holding images and how I want to work on refining the physical process of working with it but also reading more about the philosophical implications of it.

I'm hoping that some of the pictures I took on film with the very lomo camera will be good enough to make into transferred pieces. I finished the roll on Monday whilst walking through the woods, I also had the usual 'ooh will I get more than 36 pictures out of it' as you often get 37 or or rare occasions 38. The camera I was using is very lomo but it does have an anti double exposure feature and so as I continued to frame, click and wind on past 36 I was at first 'yay more pics' and then 'oh no, maybe I didn't wind it on properly in the first place - all those potential photographs lost' when I clicked without really framing and it really was the last on the roll and then of course as is always the way I saw what would have been a beautiful image opportunity. Oh well.

                                            Thank you for reading.

Mirror Mirror, Matte Medium Transfers, Lomo Film Cameras, Proustian Computer Paper, GI Blues And That Kind Of Thing

Post it note-ness, camera am currently using and a piece  'Story Of the Past Part V - as on show as part of the 2021 Arts and Minds Network Online Exhibition (which can be found here ) and which was made using a photograph taken with the (very) lomo camera pictured next to it.

I am trying to live up to my promise in my last but one post that I would try to update this blog more regularly and so I tried to get back into my old MA habit of writing things that I had done, thought about or encountered on a post it note which I keep in front of my computer in my work room in the hope that will prompt me to write more regularly.

I also wanted to make sure that there was something up to date for people to read if they came here via my instagram account (which can be found here ) in turn via my inclusion in The House of Smalls current exhibition Mirror Mirror On The Wall which can be found here.  Plus one of the things I find the biggest compliment as an artist aside from someone wanting to buy a piece of my work and live alongside it in their home is that they want to go and see a space for themselves after seeing my images of it or hearing me talk about it or want to try out a technique for themselves. 

A couple of weeks ago I loaded a camera (the one pictured above) with film - 35mm ISO 400 b+w  Kino film from Lomography. I had primarily been using lomo digital over the last 12 months or so using either a kids watch camera or my non smart phone camera so I had forgotten how exciting it is to tear open the cardboard box, flip the plastic lid and get that faint chemical whiff from the unexposed film. I did however struggle a bit at first to remember how to load this camera - as it has no auto windo on features at all.  I'd forgotten I needed to pull out/up the wind on bit as well in order to fit the cartridge in. But after some fiddling and worrying I'd break a nail but I didn't I got the film loaded and I am currently on  shot 24 of a 36 film.

I decided to use one of my most basic film cameras that I bought from Primarni in the before times as I wanted something to use something with no electrics that only needed me to have wound the film on properly, enough light to make a picture, a press of the shutter and a wind on and was easy to fit in a pocket and light to carry round.

It has no film speed setting, is fixed not very sharp focus and the daft passion fruit pattern makes me smile every time I look at it. You can't do accidental double exposures with it though as you can only press the shutter once before you have to wind the film on. I forget how much it cost exactly but think it was either £6 or £7 and I have taken it out of  the waterproof casing it came with as I won't be using it underwater for the moment.  It was an impulse whilst standing in the queue kind of buy.

Tho I haven't used it underwater I have used it next to water - all being well  I will have captured with it views of the Seven Bridges Valley* near Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, Meanwood Beck, the canal near Bramley Falls Park which I am looking forward to seeing once I've finished the roll and developed.

I won't be developing it myself in the garage aka pop up meth lab as a) it's far too cold and damp and miserable in the garage at the moment and b) despite my best efforts I always end up with either waterspots or cat hair on the negatives so my plan is to give it to someone far more competent than I am and hopefully I will have lovely clear albeit not very sharp focus negatives to then print from and make matte medium image transfers with. Plus I hate scanning negatives - it's one of the most boring processes in photography for me and if I can avoid doing it I will. 

I suffer from imposter syndrome at times when describing myself as an artist as I primarily use a camera as my paintbrush rather than actual paint and paintbrush, so in part to assuage this doubt I do use an actual paintbrush to transfer an image I have taken and printed onto another surface. The one above is a transfer onto canvas but I also use fabric of various kinds including poly cotton, muslin and coffin lining material.  The doubt re materials and methods used and a hierarchy thereof is not one I apply to other artists of any genre but I find it very hard not to apply it to myself at times. 

The transfer is created by painting a layer of matte medium (I use Windsor and Newton's Galeria range) on the printed image (reversed or flipped so that when transferred it is the right way round) - printed using the printer I have at home which is just an ordinary domestic use Hewlett Packard kind that I often find myself swearing at a lot. Once I have printed or photocopied the image and it's dried I then decide what surface I'm going to transfer it onto. I then paint a layer of matte medium onto both the surface and the image and then sandwich the two together making sure there's no air bubbles, letting it dry completely (usually by leaving it overnight)  and then wetting the paper and rubbing the paper away gently and hey presto the image has transferred itself...hopefully.

Sometimes it lifts off a bit, or has patches where an errant air bubble has escaped my attention but  I think this adds to it, making it more of an accurate material recreation of a memory which is basically what a photograph is. 

The more keen eyed amongst you may have noticed that the post it note, piece of work and camera have been photographed against a background of proper old school computer paper, the kind that has a smell all of its own, an ever so slightly furry texture, sprocket holes either side and numbered green and white lines, the green stripes being made up of 6 thin green lines.

This was the kind of paper I made revision notes on when I was studying for my exams and most proustian of all this was the kind of paper my Mum used to bring home for me when she was a cleaner at IBM back in the early 70's. On occasion she'd let me go with her and I'd sit and draw on it whilst she emptied bins and polished tables. A friend of mine had inherited a big pile of it from a relative who never throws anything away and kindly sent me a huge pile of it - it makes me smile every time I look at or write on it. 

Happy memories brought back as were the ones that watching GI Blues (1960) on Talking Pictures TV yesterday afternoon brought back. My Mum loves Elvis and had this album which she played on rotation with Johnny Cash's Live From San Quentin on a portable orange Dansette until early December when out would come Perry Como's Xmas Hits and an album of xmas songs by others including Andy Williams and which was probably some kind of K-Tel compilation. 

I'd forgotten how much I loved GI Blues as a soundtrack and I might have to ask Santa for a copy for Xmas...and by copy I do mean actual physical copy as although I do listen to some streamed music I'd far rather have an actual copy. Though as it's only an old secondhand copy complete with some slight scratch noises and hissing and creased cardboard cover that would make its proustian capabilities strongest.

Talk of the dreaded c-word (ie xmas) makes me think of the only acceptable xmas album namely the John Waters Xmas Album which is packed full of the most gloriously twisted and bizarre xmas songs ever. However despite the adverts assaulting our ears with xmas songs from before Halloween I won't be playing it until at least the start of December. That's a reasonable time to start playing that kind of malarkey I think - not months before. 

Thank you for reading. 

*misnamed as it only has 5 bridges apparently - I think I crossed them all on the walk and also got as far as Sam's Seat which has a beautiful view across to Ripon Cathedral in the distance. 

MA-Ness Week 12 - Distraction, Coffin Furnishings Visitations, Films (or fillums as my Nana would have said) Poetical Musings, Walking, Projects and Student Food.

Not a very full post it note but it has been a busy few days, though I have been struggling to focus properly today as am feeling distracted by health related woes - though hopefully they are more sorted now...and I am determined that I will not leave the desk ( I mostly write this sat at a proper old school pc so I feel in proper 'work mode') until it is finished...though I reserve the right to distract my self  by looking at pictures of cats on the tinternet or listening to Hacker T Dog (one of my current comedic heroes) as he never fails to make me chuckle.



So I last wrote this blog/research journal on last Thursday as I had got out of sync writing it due to lots of appointments at the start of last week. So this week I only have a few days activities to write up as opposed to the usual 7 days so I can get back into my usual rhythm  of writing it - but what fun days they were - firstly a visit to a coffin furnishings factory in Dewsbury to collect coffin linings offcuts. I intend to use the offcuts to print on so I shall have to book a time in the darkroom to paint them with cyanotype solution though I also have something called Solarfast which I haven't used yet. It says it works best on natural fabrics and the offcuts I have are possibly not made from natural fibres but manmade ones....oh well I shall have fun experimenting and as the company I approached were very generous indeed I have lots to practice on. I didn't take any photographs inside the building but it looked very similar in set up to Newman Brothers in Birmingham and I did take lots of photographs afterwards of the fabulous Victorian height of might of empire architecture nearby afterwards.

But it was like stepping back in time - from the paper card clock in system, the old tins which contained many years worth of tea bags, the truly beautiful wood and etched glass, the evidence of leaks on the ceiling and oh it was lovely - I'd like to go back but I'd like to have something to offer in return before I go ask again. They were very generous when they didn't need to be and I don't want them to think I am taking advantage. In the meantime I have sent them an old school postcard with my thanks on it and when the work I've got in mind is finished I'll send them copies of that too.

I also had a lovely time meandering around Dewsbury afterwards - got a good haul from the big Sue Ryder charity shop, saw beautiful tombstones in the Heritage Centre and a heartbreaking memorial tapestry made in 1866 by 36 year old Sarah Anne detailing the loss of her eight children (some died in infancy, the eldest Clara lived til she was 4 years and ten months) over the previous 11 years. I hope she got some comfort from the phrase/belief embroidered 'they are not lost though but gone before....'

I also took part in a community art/history project which was looking at peoples stories of Dewsbury, I stumbled upon it after walking down an arcade which looked interesting and being invited in by one of the contributing photographers.  I don't remember ever having visited there before but have been through it often on the train (especially when as an undergraduate I was travelling back to Manchester) and the artist co-ordinating it when I said why I was visiting said it was the 'most niche reason' she had heard or was likely to for visiting Dewsbury.

I've seen a lot of films recently - the last two weekends have been spent amongst the comfort and huge screen of Pictureville in Bradford watching Hail Caesar (2016 Cohen Brothers) which I absolutely loved - their recreation of lovely golden age of Hollywood genres (the homage to On The Town with Channing Tatum is especially funny as it takes homoerotic undertones to overtones and the Esther Williams water movies recreations is just glorious, as are Tilda Swinton's characters suits) and this weekend was Rams (2015 Hakonarson) - I thought it was going to be a comedic film about two sheep farming brothers who live next door to one another but do not speak to one another and haven't done so for 40 years. It did have comedic moments - the noise of the hidden sheep being explained as 'many cats', the delivery of the drunken almost frozen brother to the hospital via the bucket of a tractor, the written communication system the brothers use via sheepdog but otherwise it was bleak and somewhat grim.

Far more glamorous and exciting was yesterdays double bill of Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015 Jones) followed by Rear Window (1954 Hitchcock) - my only quibble about the otherwise excellent documentary about the interviewing by Hitchcock by Truffaut over 8 days in 1962 was that surely there must be some female film directors somewhere who could also have spoken about the influence Hitchcock had on their work though the male directors interviewed all had very interesting things to say - as did Truffaut and Hitchcock thought the most tantalising juicy bits of gossip were obviously relayed via interpreter after the mics were turned off.  I made some notes in the dark (well the limited light of the screen) and the things which struck me were:

• the time and preparation Hitchcock put into how his films were going to be made (note to self find out more about his wife and her role in his work, he said he always made decisions in consultation with Alma) 
• he was a roman catholic - I didn't know this
• He said of himself - 'my mind is strictly visual, logic is dull' - the former bit makes absolute sense when you realise his made his start in silent films and that 'ideally you should be able to tell a story in film without dialogue'.
• A director is 'an author writing with a camera'.
• He made his films to be seen by hundreds in an audience situation 

And those directors interviewed or quoted in the film included Wes Anderson saying that his book of Hitchcock/Trufaut is now a pile of pages held together with an elastic band such has been his enthusiastic and constant reading of it for it is such a film makers bible, that various objects appear in a fetishistic way in lots of his films:
rope, keys, handcuffs,
The transfer of guilt in his films - overtly in I Confess (Montgomery Clift was indescribably beautiful) or the mistaken presumption of guilt (am guessing his roman catholic upbringing has no small part in this)
The omniscient camera angle often used - religion rarely overtly expressed in his films (I Confess being an exception though there are sometime minor figures who are religious eg the nun in 39 Steps)
his incredible use of back projection - which thanks to todays high definition projection equipment can look a bit shonky and dissolve effects
How he speeds up what you expect to be slow and slows down what you expect to be fast...and how as a director he wanted to wrongfoot the audience so that what they expected to happen wasn't going to.

There are elements though of Hitchcock's work which I find problematic, though how much of that is him and how much a reflection of the times he lived in I'm not sure - his portrayal and use of female actors, well all actors actually. Plus I also need to do some more research into the technicians he used plus praise must also go to Bernard Hermann and his incredible scores - Psycho and Vertigo being my favourites.

Rear Window was wonderful - yes there are some plot holes, but as a voyeuristic exercise (as all films are in some ways) it is wonderful. I love the nurse who comes in to give LB his physiotherapy and her somewhat gruesome fortune telling and the costumes made by Edith Head are GORGEOUS!! I know I'm going to really enjoy a film if there is a credit for 'gowns' or if the costumes are made by Edith Head.

A few days ago I got a couple of books from Chapel Allerton Library - from the pile of books set aside to be sold. I always think it is bit sad to see the word 'DISCARDED' stamped inside the cover but I am happy to them be able to buy them and keep them in my greasy little mitts or rather in piles around the edge of the bookcases as the bookcases are already doublestacked and having at the seams so to speak.

One of the books I got was All Points North by Simon Armitage (2009  Penguin Edition) which is giving me both food for thought and funny looks by fellow passengers on public transport as bits of it are making me laugh out loud. His description of his visiting the film set of Regeneration has given me lots of food for thought as he states on page 83 that film is:
'...only just at the potty-training stage in comparison with certain other ancient and well practised art forms' plus it is a 'fairly passive medium, requiring very little of its audience short of not falling asleep. Film rests very comfortable on the retina, whereas printed words seem to get right down through the optic nerve, like microbes of thought, inflaming the imagination.'

Plus films are made by 'collectives' and often are remakes of books and as a rule 'the greater the book, the poorer the film'. Lots and lots of food for thought there.... and I think he is definitely and obviously right re the collectives and mostly right re film adaptations. The only one I can think of that I don't mind as a version of the book is the 1962 version of To Kill A Mockingbird directed by Robert Mulligan - which I think stands up as a good film in its own right...though how much that has to do with my love of monochrome films in general and Gregory Peck in particular I'm not sure.

I'm really interested in place and how place influences the people who love in it and walk in it - I feel an instant 'aaah' feeling of peace and kind of completeness whenever I visit St George's Fields for instance, and I also like discovering new places - though I am also a creature of habit and have certain definite routes to places I follow, so much so that I have to make myself walk a different way to places sometimes, along with making myself look up - you'd be amazed by what gorgeousness you see on buildings just by looking up - especially in Leeds City Centre. I also like the physical process of walking - I find it quite meditative and get most of my best ideas when I'm walking - so much so I always have either a notebook and pen in my pocket or my phone to draft notes notes.

I am still trying to decide which projects to include in my portfolio (hand in is in August) and what format I want them to be in, and this is contrast to my undergraduate self who left things to the last moment and didn't really plan things through til the last moment. However in other ways I have almost completely reverted to early student behaviours ie I listen to Fall albums on repeat - though these days it is less likely to be the Wierd and Wonderful World and more likely to be Fall Heads Roll or Reformation Post TLC. I wear a lot of black (though to be fair my recapturing of my lost goth youth began in earnest some 13 years ago) like I did then but I have also started eating manky but delicious lazy food like I used to - namely pasta slathered with salad cream - though I now add sweetcorn in a somewhat futile attempt to make it more nutritious and at least it's one of my five a day....

Technically it's the Easter Holidays now but I have so much reading to do still, phd opportunities to research, images to make, work to sort out, papers to write I doubt I'll be taking much time off....

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 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....