Post MA-Ness, Gothic Festival, Framing, Victorian Programmes on TV, Bleak House and that kind of thing

this months post it note hastily scribbled on, some notes on key national and legislative events from Victorian era made with lovely fountain pen on my fave vellum notepaper, copy of Mary Barton with post it notes for mentions of death/death customs, mostly obscured copy of Bleak House bought from Oxfam shop on Oxford Road on way back from Whitworth Art Gallery on Friday which will be similarly annotated (plus Bleak House features spontaneous human combustion as well as being in part inspired by real life murder case known as the Bermondsey Horror in which Patrick O'Connor was murdered by Marie and Frederick Manning) and copies of the brochure for the Gothic North Art Exhibition currently on at 70 Oxford Road and which the pictures below are currently on show at though without me stood next to them looking a bit gormless and uncomfortable as I hate having my photo taken....

My work as part of the Gothic North exhibition at 70 Oxford Road - included are some of my prints on coffin lining material, including one washed with graveyard dirt and an overlaid digital print.

It's been about a month since I've written and a lot has been happening within that time - some if it good and some of it not so good. The good things involve exhibtions, books, films and the like and the not so good is a mix of lurgy, labyrinthitis symptoms and panic attacks. So in order not to let the not so good things outweigh the good things I decided I'd best write up what's been going on  plus it's also a good way of collating and clarifying my thoughts about what is next on my horizon and also a way to blow my own trumpet a bit about things like the Gothic North Art Exhibition. An exhibition which features my work and that of the Manchester Gothic Arts Group.

So I'm looking at my diary to see what I have been up to - I've had a mooch round Armley Mills Industrial Museum and taken some pictures, which was lovely. I've been to see lots of films at the ever lovely Hyde Park Picture House - including Enough Rope - which was another in the Patricia Highsmith adaptation series - no-ones write murderers quite as cold and disturbing like she does, Hunt for the Wilderpeople which was both poignant and laugh out loud funny (I especially enjoyed the priests talk over the coffin) an Odourscope version of L'Age D'Or which was both smelly and still somehow shocking to see a monstrance left on the floor of a taxi, the Ron Howard documentary about the Beatles which was also very interesting. I also introduced my husband to the joy of The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires - Hammers attempt at a martial arts bloodsucker movie with Peter Cushing. In many ways it's extremely shonky but nevertheless I love it.

I also had a road trip to Beverley and Hull to see a very wonderful exhibition about Mary Elizabeth Braddon followed by a trip to The Deep. The exhibition on Braddon is on at the Treasure House,  Champney Road in Beverley until November 19th and is well worth a visit as it details her life, has some yellow copies of her novels and is really interesting. The trip to The Deep afterwards was less exciting though as it smelt vaguely of nappy bucket to me and wasn't a patch on the Aquarium in Barcelona which I went to a few years ago, but am glad I've been and the part of Hull The Deep is in had all sorts of interesting Victorian era buildings near by. There is a lovely toilet block near the Minerva public house (the MInerva itself opened in 1829 and so is Georgian) which I had a bit of a meander round and made a note to go back and visit properly and have a proper menader round. I did enjoy seeing the penguins at The Deep though - not sure what kind they were but they defintiely weren't Emperor ones. Saw a stuffed Emperor penguin at Manchester Museum on Friday - they grow up to 1.22 metres in height and compared to all other penguins I've seen this one was huge. There are lots of live frogs, lizards and suchlike in the Vivarium bit of the Museum - my favourite bits though were the plaster cast of the Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton and the mummys with their exquisite painted wooded face covers which somehow still look very modern indeed.

Along with going to see lots of dead things in jars and cases at the Museum we also fitted in lunch at Bakchich which was delicious, and a look at the Elizabeth Price Curates exhibition at the Whitworth before heading back to 70 Oxford Road for the formal opening of the Gothic North Festival and the accompanying exhibition.

It was especially lovely for me to be part of an exhibition in my home town in a building that I went to see lots of art in when it was still known as The Cornerhouse and also to be part of a self proclaimed and proudly identified as gothic exhibition. Plus I learnt some hanging and framing tips from the team who put up the pictures - allowing a gap between glass and image will protect the image better, and using a piece of card masking taped to the wall and held out at 180 degrees from the wall whilst you're drilling holes captures most of the brick dust which can then easily be put in the bin.

It was also especially nice to have someone else put them up - albeit to my instructions as a) I'm not very good at getting things straight even with a spirit level and b) the way they were put up ie with screws and mirror plate fittings as last time I put anything up was at Lentos and the work could only be affixed to the uneven rough wall was with blu-tack which isn't ideal as it's not very secure plus it has a tendency to dry out in cafe settings as there are big fluctuations in temperature and humidity and so things often need re-attaching. Apparently my work fell on customers a couple of times...so it's just as well they were only mounted paper prints and not heavily framed ones. I doubt that'll be happening in Manchester though as they are very firmly attached to the wall.

My obsession with the Victorian period shows no sign of abating and I am especially looking forward to the new series starting this evening on BBC2 called The Victorian Slum, I've enjoyed the series called Railways: The Making of A Nation too though I have also been tutting at the tv with that one - as I do with many documentaries that show clips that appear to be of what they are talking about but can't be eg film that purports to be of a railway being built but can't be the railway they are actually talking about as it was built before film was invented or just showing clips or photographs without an onscreen list of when/where it was from.

But maybe that is more forgivable (as there is usually a list of sources in the credits) than the purely fictional series set in Victorian times - the latest series of Ripper Street which apparently is set in 1897 had Inspector Reid using a camera which wasn't invented til 1900 and far too close to the subject as it was the kind of camera with a minimal focal length of five foot. I understand that there is such a thing as dramatic licence but that's taking it too far if you ask me....it's also the perils of watching tv set in a particular period when you are both a history and an analogue camera nerd.

There's been a lot of work over the past few weeks to get stuff ready for shows (framing stuff in a way you're happy with takes almost as long as making the work to begin with - well it doesn't but it feels like it) and I'm still working on the piece/s for the MA degree show which opens on the 27th October at Studio 24 Mabgate and is on until November 6th. I've still to buy a few ingredients for it too - things like fishing wire, white acrylic paint, some hanging hooks and that kind of thing. 

One thing I'm not looking forward too though is the wearing of the graduation gown as it is PALE FRIGGING PASTEL BLUE. WITH A YELLOW AND WHITE HOOD. Of all the colours for it to be - if I do decide to do a Phd then maybe I need to check what colours the gowns are before I sign on the dotted line so to speak.....oh well best crack on - after all Bleak House isn't going to read itself and neither is the broom handle going to paint itself white.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As ever much food for thought.

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

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

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

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

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

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