MA-Ness Term 3 Week 9 Show, Talking, Drinks Tokens and Tat.

this weeks post it note - again not so full as others but this flanked by some gloriously tacky fridge magnets brought all the way from the home of Dracula himself - Transylvania............

A lovely chum of mine has just come back from a Dracula Society trip to Transylvania and along with some other goodies - a prayer card featuring St George,some holy perfume and a mug featuring a lady with not very much on and a blood splattered knife between her teeth she brought me back these gems. Both featuring an image of Vlad the Impaler - they are gloriously badly executed and whilst ostensibly the same differ in the way the vines and the grapes, his imperial headgear and his blood ravaged lips have been painted. I like also how both have come from the same mould but thanks to the different placing of the magnet on the back of each one they look as if he is facing in different directions. Utterly wonderful and I look forward to placing them on the fridge later.

Otherwise this last week has been overshadowed by lurgy (again!!) and I am bored of coughing and aching and feeling so under the weather plus my heart is still breaking and broken from the death of my beloved Lucia. She would often keep me company in the work room - either sunbathing on the windowledge behind the computer monitor or in her favourite cardboard box which she used to squeeze into (it's sides are bowed) on the landing just outside. Mapp has spent some time in all of Lucia's spaces apart from this one - I hope she takes over this one too at some point.

So although my heart isn't really in it 100 percent I have made myself carry on doing things and there's been time when I've been able to be distracted enough by what I've been doing to put heartache aside for a bit or like on Thursday night when it was the delightfully dark musings and stories of David Sedaris read by the author himself which provided much welcome distraction and laughter. I doubt there are many people who could describe having a benign tumour removed and wanting to feed it to a snapper turtle with a growth on its head and part of its foot missing with such wit and warmth. He was very wonderful indeed and if you haven't read anything by him then you must and if you can go see him give a reading then you must do that too. He's also not a fan of people taking pictures of anything and everything on mobile phones and had signs up saying no photos please at his book signing table and as far as I could tell people abided by his request.

His use of words is exquisite - scalpel like in their exactness and words are something that I keep coming back to time and time again as part of my studies which both amuses and bemuses me seeing as as my work is mostly in a visual format as in I take photographs and then make the resultant images into cyanotypes or try copying them onto canvas using pva glue - without much success so far but I suspect that is refinement of technique/materials needed as opposed to the actual technique itself not working as the image did transfer - just not  as well as I would have liked...

And now the formatting of this blog is going skewiff again - part of the reason I use blogger (aside from it being free) is because compared to wordpress I find it easy to use but it can be a right ball-ache sometimes when it comes to formatting, it doesn't always insert pictures where you ask/tell it to so then you find yourself moving text around and it then centres the text when you actually want it justified to the left and no amount of highlighting the text and clicking that alignment makes it align that text but it does for the text after the picture......and then the 4th time of telling it to do it it does.....oh FFS - why can't things just work first time when you tell them to?

This kind of technology fail - either of the person attempting to use it or on the technology itself drives me witless. It happened last week at college when I tried to log out after doing some printing - it wouldn't let me and I had to go and disturb the computer chaps in their lair to get it to let me to log out (force quit apparently) and yesterday my lovely fridge magnet donating chum and I had similar issues trying to get the chromecast thingy to work as she had bought a copy of the Skull (1965, F Francis, Amicus UK) for us to watch online and it took us ages to get it to work - made me realise why I prefer having a physical in your hands product as opposed to a streamed ethereal electrons malarkey.

As I've said before you know where you are with physical stuff and it's often much easier to spot the reason why it's not working....anyway we did get it to work on the laptop at least - it juddered so much when 'cast' to the television that we gave up watching it on there as it was making us feel sick. And it was worth it - both Mr Lee (RIP) and Mr Cushing gave very fine performances and the story though unlikely was at least true to its own logic and I really enjoyed it.

So got sidetracked there - was talking about words and their part in art - in what is usually perceived as a visual medium and whilst I do write a bit and have performed semi autobiographical monologues at Headingley Literature Festival I think of myself primarily as a visual as opposed to word artist but so much of art is reliant upon words - either on the words used to describe it, the application you make to get the chance of being in an exhibition, the grant application, the publicity.....plus a fellow artist talked on Saturday about artists statements and asked the question 'are they an insight or a barrier?' which is something I think about a lot - my immediate reaction on reading some artists statements is often one of bewilderment or on occasion ' oh ffs get over yourself' but it's a treat when I read one that I can understand and offers insight too. She also talked about looking at artists sketchbooks too and how insightful that can be - she'd just bought one of Frieda Kahlo's and I'm still plowing my way through the Derek Jarman one I bought at the Whitworth - it really is wonderful and if you get chance to peek at an artists sketchbook then you should....

Plus all this is feeding into the ideas I've got for my dissertation which is due in December which might sound like a long time off but it isn't really and the sooner I get started on it the sooner it'll be in a draft version and I can begin to refine and polish it...this course is about academic hoop jumping after all and I want to jump those hoops as well as I can. John Waters and his comments about art being an elitist club and having to learn the language to take part is one I keep thinking of. That plus his wonderful speech on being given an honorary doctorate which if you haven't seen you must for it is wonderful - warm, inspiring and witty - and you can see it here.

The other article I read this week which also made me think about the accessibility of art is Stewart Lee's interview from last June with Julian Cope - and you can read it in full (should you wish to) here but the bit that stood out for me was the section in which he says of his book 'It's demanding but great art is demanding' and I can certainly see his point.......but.....still not sure.....

I had a tutorial last week , and I showed my tutor some of the pieces I've been working on for the past few weeks and as ever my tutor gave me some useful feedback and ideas on how to develop them - I'd been very pleased with the 'happy accident' when putting away some acetate copies away on top of the original images and making images from that but I hadn't developed it further - but I have now by layering acetates and photocopies on top of one another and so creating new images and then layering that new one upon the existing acetates and copies - so that an image of two cross topped memorials from Undercliffe Cemetery has now become a multi crossed image with 5 layers of crosses - it would make a lovely pattern for fabric (an idea from a chum commenting on an image I posted on Farcebook of me stood next to my work in the windows as part of the MA end of year work in progress show) and I can't wait to make it into an acetate and then make a cyanotype with it......

.....the process also reminded me of a film about WG Sebald (called Patience After Sebald) which I half watched a while ago in which someone described his process of creating his distinctive b+w prints was take the pictures on colour 35mm film, get them developed at Snappy Snaps, then photocopy them in b+w and keep photocopying the photocopies til they have the right level of murkiness. The images I've made aren't murky - well I don't think they are but I am really liking them and they are made from multiple photocopies...

The other thing which I thought about a lot this week was a meme which went round Farcebook from PetaPixel in which it showed 3 different image formats 120 film, 35 mm film and an sd card with the tag 12 exposures 6 are awesome, 36 exposures 6 are awesome hundreds of exposures 6 good results and it made me nod and go 'yep' - me and my husband refer to this as 'the money shot' and there is a good definition of it here - we use it in its non pornographic definition and it's true - amongst the many pictures we take - there is usually (hopefully!!) a few that stand out and so are referred to as 'the money shot'. My current money shots are mostly coming from the pictures I took in St Mary's Churchyard in Whitby, Cleethorpes Cemetery, St George's Field and Undercliffe Cemetery...can you guess what they all have in common? 

Curation and curating are also words and actions playing on my mind - there's a school of thought that says they have been so overused as to become meaningless and I'm not sure what my thoughts are on it as yet but the interview I read with Richard Boon (manager of the Buzzcocks and a librarian) in which his response to the question: 

'As a librarian you are a custodian of words. There’s a lot of misuse of language in the media. One that irks me is ‘Curator. ‘What do you think?'
was 

'It is a hugely misused word. It should have an academic context and imply knowledge, expertise in a given field. My daughter is assistant curator of a collection at the Science Museum; some hipster with a beard in Shoreditch is NOT curating a coffee bar, he’s selling coffee. Do you curate your oranges in a supermarket in the green grocer display? No! It’s really sloppy use.' and I can't help but agree....you can read the rest of his interview here

I don't know where the phrase 'surviving memorials' on the post it note comes from or to what it refers exactly though it does make me think of an Ausonius quote I have used - namely that 'death comes even to stone monuments and the names upon them'.

So onto the main events of last week - the end of year show opening and giving a talk on Photography and Victorian Death Customs to Darling Roses WI. I'd finished putting up my work last week so only had to do a couple of finishing touches - eg putting away a ladder, putting the empty drinks can I'd left on the windowledge in the recycling and that kind of thing. It was good to see the MA room and ante room filled with work and I've never seen the college so full with people looking at stuff - it was far too hot and far too crowded at times and I am looking forward to going back in and having a proper look at some of the things that caught my eye on Friday night, I did manage to have more than one glass of wine too thanks to chums of mine not wanting to use their drinks tokens and it was lovely to see lots of my chums making their way to the college and down the corridor to see some of my work and massive thanks to all those who came - learning points for next time are: try not to have lurgy...and know that tracing paper attached to windows with double sided tape in sunshine warps slightly so that what was absolutely flush to the window edges when you left it the previous week will look a teeny bit saggy in places when you come back to it.....still A2 tracing paper and a free lightbox ie window are a good way to guage what things will look like if you have them blown them up to burial plot size instead.......plus it is lovely when people tell you how much they like your work.....

The other thing which took up a lot of my time last week was preparing for the talk I gave to Darling Roses WI group on Saturday morning at St Johns Church Hall - a lovely slightly musty smelling hall next to St Johns Church which fittingly enough has some very lovely victorian gravestones and they listened very attentively to my talking about cyanotypes, the meanings behind some of the symbols used on gravestones, the social etiquette of mourning, the history of cemeteries in Leeds and focusing in particular on the history of St George's Fields and a bit about the bodysnatching scandals in Leeds and the Anatomy Act of 1832 and the shame that is the laying flat of the subscription graves in St George's Fields to be used as lining for pathways....I was struggling a bit - lurgy-wise and my voice was very croaky but it held out and I got lovely feedback and have been asked back and asked by another WI group to talk too so it's all good.

Well I think that's enough for now - got lots to do this week and here's hoping this lurgy will let up and let me do them....
and I really must sort out the white balance on the digital camera - those walls are actually white....but here is a pic of me in front of my work in progress called Mourning.

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.