MA-Ness Week 15 - Doing, Reading, Writing, Printing, Image Transferring, Creative Bartering, Sewing, Mapplethorpe, and that kind of thing....

Some of the anthotypes in progress - I spent last week making them - again with a Heath Robinson-esque production manner - closing curtains in workroom (as in the room that used to be known as the back bedroom)  and mincing up the kale using a handblender and squeezing out the juice using coffee filter papers, painting the paper with a couple of coats of the resultant green liquid,  leaving them to dry under a blanket that blocks out the light and then after covering them with the acetate negative leaving them in the downstairs back window as that gets the most light. Exposure time roughtly 5 days....the ones with kale have worked okay,  I also did some with some minced up weeds from St George's Field but don't think they've worked anywhere near as well so I am leaving them for a little longer in the hope that there will be something there eventually.... The weeds were minced up with a cheap hand blender (£4.75) bought especially for the purpose and now adorned with the words in red permanent marker 'NOT FOR FOOD USE'...

This weeks post it note - written on a fancy purple lined post it note, along with some of the more successful anthotype images which I have scanned, boosted the contrast and brightness levels on and then digitally reinverted using photoshop (they go a lovely kind of purpley colour) a couple of the acetate negatives I've been using, and the matte mediumed image transfer embroidery hoop framed - am rather pleased with this as a prototype and hope to frame other images like this too.

It's been a busy few days, a busy weekend and it's going to be a busy time between now and final hand in I think....lots still to do though thankfully the bulk of the portfolio overview I was working on is mostly done bar a few additions and a bit of editing and polishing, but then I have to actually assemble the portfolio in terms of the work I want to include and do a little mini overview of those - nothing too long though - just a title, the rationale for doing it and what areas of my work/theoretical underpinning/inspiration it covers. I reckon I'm going to be taking it in a taxi though as I think it's going to be a bit too heavy and cumbersome to carry in on the bus like I did last time....

What else? I do have a lovely new bag to take it in though - thanks to a lovely chum of mine who is a whizz with a sewing machine. I used a existing bag that is a good size that came from Primarni as a basis for the pattern, measured it and cut it out in paper, then used that as a template to cut out the fabric, pinned and tacked it together and she then sewed it. Also used the new technique of turning straps inside out I'd seen on the Great British Sewing Bee  - you line it with with ribbon and then pull the ribbon through.  I hope to sew one of the images I've made using disperse inks to the front of it too or maybe just print one onto it directly. The fabric was initially used as the backdrop for the Out of the Shadows Exhibition last October and I'm glad it's getting used in some way. I still have some leftover and when time is less pressing (ie post hand in) and I can afford to make mistakes and rectify them I might have a go at making another bag but this time all by myself and using my own very basic sewing machine.... 

The bag sewing was a kind of creative barter as she needed some photos taking of her partner as he needed some headshots to send some off to his literary agent. I don't often take pictures of people but I really enjoyed doing those headshots - making the most of the existing light (I rarely use flash) and using either the brickwork or the plain garage door as a background. I used the film grain function on the oldest modern digital camera we've got - I love that setting, it's by far my favourite and I much prefer it to the dynamic monochrome that has replaced it on the newer model we've got.  He was dead chuffed with his pics - I'd dead chuffed with my bag - WIN all round.

Along with the anthotyping I also did some more disperse ink printing in the print room at college which apart from me and one technician was Marie Celeste-like - once again I channelled my inner Bea from Prisoner Cell Block H to operate the heat press, and I saved the ghost prints from the scrap paper underneath and have since laminated them. It's part of my work to use as much of the process as possible - eg backing paper from medium format film as bookmarks, leftover non weed greenery from anthotyping gets eaten, acetate negatives make pieces of work in themselves as well, ghost print by products of the printing process also become pieces of work in their own right too.

I did do some filming last week - or rather I accompanied one of the much more digitally competent film makers from college and told them what I wanted shooting in St George's Fields, and did a voiceover of one of my favourite pieces of traditional grave poetry. This was for the degree show show reel.  I still hope to do a film of my own at some point - one that would either be digitally filmed or individual digital photographs put together to make a film. I want it to be of one of my anthotypes or lumen prints fading so I would have to set up a camera and one of the prints and take photographs at the same time/in the same lighting conditions twice a day til it has faded. As well as make a print in the first place. I think this would be part of my work that deals directly with memory and how it fades, but I could also reverse the film and make it come back to life again - the way memories can when you encounter something material that prompts you.

It was the second visit I made to St George's Field this week - earlier in the week I went there to show a chum round it (and discuss possibilities for the Gothic Festival in the autumn) and to harvest the weeds which I then tried to anthotype with. I love that space and I love showing it to others, although I go regularly I invariably see something I have never noticed before - this time it was a more personal dedication on the subscription graves which have been laid flat to line the pathways. Need to go back and take better pictures of it though rather than just the aide memoire image I've got on my camera phone.

I've been doing quite a bit of reading and watching too recently - I read some appallingly bad but much needed brilliant bubblegum brain reading in the form of Original Sin (2009) by Tasmina Perry which I got from a charity stall a while back. Utterly ridiculous much needed distraction, as was watching The Seventh Veil (1945) last night which featured James Mason as a rather revolting (but oh so physically attractive) bachelor who takes charge of his younger second cousin when her parents die and makes her into a concert pianist. She tries to escape from his overbearing and domineering ways but ends up running back to him. It was gorgeous to watch as it was monochrome, her outfits were stunning, James Mason both looked and sounded amazing but it was also quite difficult to watch a female character being so dominated. 

I've also started another Elizabeth Gaskell which I got over the weekend from another charity stall - this time it's Cranford from 1851-1853. I tried reading it before but just couldn't get into it, but this weekend something kind of clicked as I started it and I've got as far as the cow wearing flannel after it lost all its hair. I also started a book called The Easter Parade by Richard Yates which was first published in 1976 and is set in the 1950's. I'm enjoying being transported to different eras. I've still got college library books I need to finish though....but realistically I can't see me finishing them before they have to go back so I might have to read them in the library instead. Which reminds me - I really must do my bibliography too....I know I should have written it up as I went along but I haven't. Bugger. Oh well.

Along with lots of doing, lots of reading there has also been lots of watching at the cinema or as my 3 year old nephew calls it (who has just been to the cinema for the first time) 'the big big big tv'  Absolutely Fabulous (2016)  was a good giggle in places and good distraction and Mapplethorpe (2015) a documentary about artist Robert Mapplethorpe was excellent. It was a mix of interviews with some of the people he worked with - both gallery owners, collaborators and assistants, siblings, some of his muses, some of the people whose portrait he took,  footage of interviews with him and one with his father, exhibitions and the reaction to his work and analysis of his work. It looked at the different elements of his work - from portraiture, flowers as well as the infamously famous S+M ones.

It was quite thought provoking and a bit of an eye opener (no pun intended) as it's quite disconcerting to see a picture of a fingertip being inserted into the urethra on a big screen - just from a 'surely that's physically got to hurt/sting' point of view but then I am somewhat of a huge vanilla wuss and the only thing I have pierced is my ears and them only once in each ear. The especially infamous fisting shot led to him taking a self portrait of himself being 'fisted' by  the handle of a bullwhip as it was pointed out to him that it was only fair he be on the recieving end of similar treatment.  Much was made of his quite ruthless self centred behaviour and how he used his charm to get what he wanted from people and how drugs were part of his working process both for himself and his assistants - for example giving a bit of coke to his in-house film developer and printer (he neither developed or printed his own images) to get him to work a bit quicker when exhibitions were needing to be finished. This makes me feel a little better about my handing over my film to be developed or just digitally printing certain images though I only do this in return for cold hard cash, though I did once also ensure I got a quick job done by bribing the printer with Tunnocks Teacakes. 

One of the points raised in the film was that he believed the best way to see photos was as a physical print, he died in 1989 so I don't know what he would have made of the way the bulk of images are consumed today ie as pixels on a screen. Much was made of his working methods and how he worked hard and played hard (again no pun intended). His early work consisted more of collage work (using images from porn magazines) and how his life changed both when he met Patti Smith but more importantly Sam Wagstaff who became his partner and patron. Sam also bought him a Hasselblad camera and who in his position as an influential and rich collector championed photography as an art form in its own right - equal to that of painting. The point was made that the rise of photography to be accepted as an art form in its own right as opposed to just a form of documentary has coincided with the rise of both gay visibility and gay rights though I'm not sure if the person making this point was pointing this out as a coincidence or if they believed there was some causal relationship between the two.

There was also some interesting discussion of how some of the S+M imagery was similar in composition to some religious iconongraphy - but then I don't see how crucifixion pictures can do otherwise - whether they are religious in origin or S+M club based. They also showed some images he'd taken using polaroids and had floated the emulsion off the photograph and then stretched the emulsion into a new image. Might have to research that as a method and give it a go myself.

Right - had best crack on with with portfolio stuff now....plus the bibliography note on my to do list is also calling....

MA-Ness Week 14 - Doing Things Slightly Differently, Plastic Bags, Image Transfers, In Our Time and Big Big Big TV

this weeks post it note with the 'bonkbuster' I'm reading for some light relief  (it really is quite dreadful and reminds me of the bit in the Victoria Wood programme 'We'd Quite Like To Apologise' in which the character played by Julie Walters talks about a book she'd reading called 'Groin' which apparently is 'not just sex but has quite a lot of literature in it as well' After the demanding rigours of Gaskell's North and South though it is perfect bubblegum for my brain and a cinema ticket for Jane Eyre from 1943 on monochrome 35mm which I saw on Saturday - leaving aside the problems of the Jane Eyre story  - it was glorious, full of pathetic fallacy, Joan Fontaine looking gorgeous and Orson Welles looking like a v blinged up Mr Rochester indeed.

Am doing this slightly differently to how I usually write my blog aka research journal entry, as am downstairs on the sofa on the laptop with the tv on in the background. I've spent most of today ironing a job lot of husbands shirts and pillowcases so I don't have to do it again for a while and also seeing how some of the disperse ink prints I had done last week work using a domestic iron as opposed to industrial heat press - and the answer is okay.

They look slightly better on the industrial heat press but that could also just be because they were the first pressings of them there and they get paler with each use. Anyway enough to see that they'll work in a domestic setting so it's all good and I have printed pieces I can sew onto the bags I'm hoping to make to put my portfolio in - the other thing I've been working all day on. I am hoping to make a bag and yesterday I made a simple basic pattern based on measuring the bag I got from Primarni a while back. It's a fairly simple gusseted bag with handles and I've cut out the panels and pinned them together ready to sew them - a chum is going to help me with that bit though as I don't quite trust my ancient sewing machine or my ability to sew in straight enough lines.

I spent the rest of today working on my portfolio overview, it's just under 4,000 words and bar a bit of editing and adding the references it's done. PHEW!!  Just need to check I think I've covered each of the objectives listed in the module details and that's it - my last MA module done.  So after all that writing and deciding on the structure my portfolio is going to take I now feel I can crack on with actually putting the pieces of visual and written work in it. I want it to be as good as possible - not just for my own satisfaction but also because if I want to get Phd funding then getting as high a grade as possible ie a distinction can only help towards that aim.

The deadline for handing it in is still just over a month away but as I hate rushing round doing everything at the last minute I'm trying to get it done at a reasonably leisurely pace with enough time to redo bits if need be. I could do this blog post tomorrow but I decided I wanted to get it done today as that way I'd still feel on track with everything as Monday is usually blog day.

But as I'd been sat upstairs all day I decided to do it downstairs instead as that way I could watch University Challenge and also keep my husband company whilst he watches something with Professor Brian Cox in. Afraid I'm no longer able to take Prof Cox seriously since it was pointed out to me that he has similar vocal inflections to Philomena Cunk. But I am getting distracted...upstairs in my workroom it's usually just by my own desire to look at the tinternet especially in these politically febrile post Brexit-times...but down here it's both tinternet, telly and husband - but am just about managing to get it done. It's the news now though and I keep stopping to shout 'fuck off' at the seemingly endless deluded line of voters, politicians and so called pundits on the screen.

So best crack on so I can get this finished before the weather forecast after the local news....I've taken to carrying round those zip lock style plastic bags with me everywhere I go so instead of trying to hold lots of of bits of fallen petals, feathers, leaves and other bits of detritus to make lumen prints with on my walks round places I can put them in a bag, plus there is also space on the bag to write the date and location. It also has the added benefit of keeoing the inside of my bag cleaner too.

Every time I pick something up though - especially feathers I can hear my Mum saying 'oh that's filthy, put it down, you don't know where it's been, it's carrying diseases'...it's just as well she doesn't come with me in person on any of these walks - she'd be disgusted and forever at me with an assortment of wetwipes. I must be honest though the first thing I do when I get in is wash my hands very thoroughly indeed.

My work with image transfers is continuing and I am enjoying seeing images I've made or taken appearing on fabric, I'm trying to do things in a thematic way so I have some positive and negative fish eye lens views of St George's Fields as well as digitally reinverted lumen prints of my favourite grave monuments.

I've also had another go at some more DIY methods that don't rely so much on fancy inks and printers - namely a photocopy of an image, acetone nail varnish remover, a cotton wool bud and a spoon. Had some limited success with it so far, apparently it works best with freshly photocopied images and the only ones I had were a few old weeks old but I did get some transfer of pigment so think it will work much better with fresher copies. I won't be trying it again on the synthetic coffin lining offcuts though - it just made the material kind of fuse. But I think it will work on canvas and organic fabric.

In Our Time last week on R4 was about the early history of photography and it was fascinating. Partly because of the exotic sounding names of some the ingredients involved in early image capturing like gun cotton and bitumen of judea, partly because of details like applying for patents for the new photographic processes was expensive and had to be applied for separately in England, Wales and Ireland and Scotland and the advice was not to bother for Scotland, hence Scotland then becoming a centre of photographic experimentation and excellence. I must listen to it again when I get chance.  

My youngest nephew is 3 years old and went to the cinema for the first time this weekend or as he called it 'the big big big tv'. I was the same age when I first went to the cinema and saw The Jungle Book at what was known as the fleapit aka The Savoy and which has long since been demolished and flats built in its place. He saw The Secret Life of Pets and loved it. I am loving his calling it 'the big big big tv' and think I might take to calling it that too. As well as the pictures of course in my old fashioned non metropolitan manner. I hope he grows up to love the cinema as much as I do. Watching a film at the pictures is one of my very favourite things to do.

One of the films which I have never seen on the big big big tv but have seen many times on the small screen is In Which We Serve (1942) directed by David Lean and Noel Coward. Designed to boost wartime moral it is full of stiff upper lips, fortitude in the face of adversity and Noel Coward plays Captain Kinross who serves fellow officers they've rescued his special fortifying drink which is 'bovril heavily laced with sherry' which I made a note of on my post it note last time I saw it as I'm thinking I might have some of this once I've handed in...

  

MA-Ness Week 13 (hopefully lucky for me) Printing Adventures, North and South, Lumen-ness+Cyanotype Failure, BFI-Ness, Procrastination Lurg and WW1 Photography

this weeks post it note - along with my current reading - I have 71 pages left to go and I am LOVING it - I bought it some time ago from a charity shop for 50p but only recently got round to reading it. It is quite a tatty copy and whilst the pages are secure - some of the cover is held together with sellotape.
The green sticky tabs are marking pages that had particularly useful/resonant quotes re death or funeral practices - there have been 3 funerals in the book so far...

Well the end date for this MA malarkey creeps ever closer and though I've made lots of lists about what things I need to do to put together my portfolio I haven't done much actual compiling - partly because I have *so* much work to sort through and partly because I've come down with cough/cold/flu lurgy (so poorly I missed the all day extravanganza of Silent Film with live musical accompaniment loveliness that was on at my favourite cinema The Hyde Park Picture House) and so my energy and concentration levels are somewhat lacking. But also partly if I'm honest - because if I put it off I can pretend the end isn't happening. But I'd best get over this a)lurg and b)endavoiding feeling-ness or else I'll be running round like a headless chicken come deadline time and I hate feeling like that more than the feelings of  enjoyable incredible things coming to an end.

Prior to coming down with lurg though I did do some printing of my images onto the coffin lining material offcuts using disperse inks and a big heat press iron type machine. So pleased with the results - both the actual image on the fabric but also the kind of ghost print it leaves on the newsprint paper you put underneath the material. Plus you can keep using the images though each time the print will fade, you can cut bits out, layer and do all manner of exciting things. I channelled the character of Bea from Prisoner Cell Block H (one of my televisual guilty pleasures) whilst pressing and felt a mix of both really excited at the end results but also a bit 'why has it taken me this long to discover this process???' - especially as the matte medium image transfer I'd tried last week hasn't worked so well. Have lined up multiple images (mostly fish eye lens views of St George's Field)  to be printed using disperse inks and all being well I'll soon be back up to full speed and so able to print them onto various pieces of material soon. 

It's so exciting!! and has worked a lot better than the matte medium transfer I mentioned, but I did get a lumen print using new Ilford black and white photographic paper which I'm really pleased with (it's of dried flower petals I've been collecting) but alas none of the cyanotypes I did worked at all. I'm not entirely sure why but think it's a mix of over development as I left them in the sun far too long (well over 30 minutes as I got distracted by other tasks - note to self if doing a cyanotype set timer alarm on phone and don't fall into trap of fearing there won't be anything there and think 'oh I'll just leave it a bit longer...) two did come out a bit but then I almost completely obliterated it by putting it in a bleach solution to try and bring down the overdeveloped blue a bit and not washing out the bleach enough. Ho hum. But the temporary dark room tent I rigged up using a clothes horse, some black throws and my red safe light worked a treat. It was easier to work under than just draping myself under a throw and whilst complete dark is not so vital re cyanotype prepped paper, it is with photographic paper to ensure you don't a) pre expose the piece you're working with and b)don't expose the rest of the packet to light either. Being in the dark with the red safe light meant I could take a bit more time positioning the paper and acetate negative image exactly where I wanted it as I could just about see what I was doing - RESULT!! I scanned and photographed the lumen print and might get it printed using disperse inks so I can put it on a t-shirt or something....the possibilities are legion. It does all feel a bit Heath Robinson though, if I had the money and the skills I'd be building a proper shed that I could kit out as a darkroom but as I don't have either the money or the skills my Heath Robinson-esque contraptions will have to do in the meantime.

So before last week ground into somewhat of a halt with coughing and snot I did some printing and I also attended the British Film Institute Feedback Event at Leeds Beckett. I'm on their mailing list and going to a screening at their HQ at the South Bank is on my list of of places to see a film screening - they did a John Waters season a while back but annoyingly I couldn't make any of the dates. It was a mix of film students trying to get a job, film festival organising folk, cinema runners, film students still studying and people like me who love going to the pictures and are interested in film heritage and conservation. There were lots of interesting conversations - like does film mean film in the digital era, what about all the information stored on videotape in people's houses that captured things like local news and local programmes in the days when ITV was made of regional broadcasters, what is being done to ensure that a) the technology to show stuff like that is maintained and b) the training of people to operate such equipment, is the resurgence of film in a photographic sense also going to happen in a cinematic sense. Plus how much Yorkshire is a centre for film makers these days and of course hanging over it all as it is hanging over everything at the moment - just what kind of an impact is Brexit going to have?  There was also much discussion about ways of making both audiences and film makers as diverse as possible and what the barriers are to inclusion. Cultural differences were mentioned but by far the biggest barrier people talked about was socioeconomic and the lack of finance/disposable income. I am very lucky to be able to afford my cinematic habit - I don't go to the pub very often (I tend to drink at home) but I go to the pictures at least two or three times a month. 

They are looking for responses so they can build their programme for the next few years -and you can make your input here - and please do. They want to build on the success of Film Forever campaign. A logo and legend which I've seen at the beginning of many a film recently and one which makes me rub my hands with glee and think 'ooh I'm in for a treat'. Something which I told to one of their head bods when chatting with a glass of wine afterwards -  he seemed very taken with the fact that I still used the phrase 'going to the pictures' when talking about going to the cinema as apparently no-one in that London does anymore - according to him they only call it 'going to the movies'.  I must be honest it's only recently that I've become more aware of the BFI and their work - but I am looking forward to watching more on their website and maybe signing up for movie watching service. Plus I am more than happy being an un-metropolitan in comparison bumpkin.

I also went on a walk round Meanwood Woods - but not just any walk, this was an interactive, poetic, curated and thought provoking walk organised by the people behind A Quiet Word which you can read about here. It was quite beautiful to be in the woods - a place I often walk round but not as late at night and not with as many people and certainly not to hear wonderful poetry or watch choreography or listen to beautiful singing. It's finished its run for now - but I hope they do it or something similar again as it was very good indeed. Plus I didn't get bitten by any midges though alas my gaffer taped wellies had well and truly given up the bucket (and let in a bit of mud) by the end and they are now on their way to landfill but as I'd had them for at least 6 or 7 years and had worn them a lot (even though they were bright pink with flowers on) I don't feel too bad about that.
Thanks to lurg I've been doing a lot more reading and watching than I have any doing (apart from coughing and blowing my nose) the past week - North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell which is taking some ploughing through as the style of sentence construction is dense (I often have to read sentences a couple of times before I've properly understood them) but so rewarding - think I'll be using chapter titles from it as inspiration and possibly titles for my own pieces (same as I've done with Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon) and I've also ploughed through a few more chapters of Death in England edited by Jupp and Gittings (now understand a bit more about the decline of funereal pomp after the first world war) and watched a few programmes on BBC4 including the documentary about the origins and rise of Punk - Punk Britannia which was very interesting. There was a piece where Siouxsie Sioux (one of my heroines) was talking to camera and said 'once something becomes easy to copy it loses its power' which struck me as true in some ways but not in others.

The other fascinating, poignant, moving, horrifying and wonderful programmes were about poets and writers of the first world war (some of who survived and some who didn't) and a programme about the non military photography taken during the war - most of it on a camera called the Kodak Vest Pocket which was first made in 1912 and cost 30 shillings which was quite a lot of money in those days and so was more likely to have been owned by officer types as they could more likely afford it. I have a Kodak Vest Pocket - still working but it is a later model from the early 1920's though it looks much the same as the original model issued in 1912.

It was both fascinating and heartbreaking to see some of the photographs taken on those cameras, not just in terms of their subject matter but also in terms of the way in which they were taken as personal photography of that kind was outlawed by British High Command. Though not until the war was already in progress and an article on how best to do it had been featured in one of the amateur photographer magazines of the time had been published.

One soldier had a prearranged code with his family back in England that if he asked for a cake in his letters he meant 'send me a film' - though there was no mention of how the pictures taken were developed. The pictures featured were found amongst the belongings of two grandfathers - one german and one english and featured their grandsons comparing them. There was some interesting but to my mind also slightly misleading analysis of the pictures - ie one of the remains of a completely blown up tree being symbolic of all the destruction, or the haunting one of the nameless dead soldier lying on the ground before a crucifix. As evocative and hauting as those images were the analysis was entirely through 21st century eyes and mores, as surely trying to define the motivations of now dead photographers who left no written or verbal clues as to why they took the pictures they did. Plus as well as choosing (within the very real confines presumably of where best to stand and not get shot or be spotted by a commanding officer) where to stand and what to take an image of - they could also have moved things/bodies to be in or out of frame. I initially used the word shot in that sentence and then realised whilst this would be a technically correct photographic word to use - in this context I'm a little uncomfortable with it - mostly because people might think I was either being insensitive or deliberately flippant.

One thing I wish documentary makers would do though - instead of just thanking archives and other image suppliers in the credits at the end, would be to label each image/film clip not across the bottom with the following details (if known) who took it, where it was taken and when. Too often in documentaries there is footage of victorian era slums or somesuch when moving film images just weren't around and yes it might add to atmosphere but it's not adding to truthfulness....

Well I'd best crack on with all the other things on my not getting any shorter to do list.
 
 





 

MA_Ness Weeks 11 and 12 Post Referendum Shock and Horror, End Times, Fulneck Loveliness, Laminating Fun, Thinking Things Through and History

Two weeks worth of post it notes - one considerably fuller than the other, this can be blamed on pre and post referendum horror and general end of things-ness

Practice digital print on coffin lining material - am still experimenting with transferring images onto this fabric - this is an inverted digital scan of a colour film negative - post processed to black and white and inverted using photoshop - the image is of the Chapel (now a University bookstore) in St George's Field taken using a lomo camera with a fish eye lens.

I think I'm still in a state of shock after the referendum, and sadness too. I am not sad because I voted for leave and am now regretting it like some seem to be doing on seeing what a fuck up that has been so far,  but sad because I voted for Remain and so sad because not enough others can see what wider benefits membership of the EU has had. I am not saying for one minute that the EU is perfect (far from it) but as someone with a reasonable grasp on European history - the more time our respective countries representatives are talking in Brussels the less we are literally fighting one another. Plus the seeming legitimisation it appears to have had of the most repellent and revolting racist views is truly appalling, saddening and maddening. The fact that so many of the people in this country seem to feel so disenchanted and disenfranchised that a Leave vote seemed like a good idea is truly depressing. It is one unholy truly fucked up mess - to say nothing of the hiatus now where the political elite all seem to be floundering with seemingly no clear idea of what to do to sort things out. And along with the revolting racism I'm also uncomfortable with the describing of people who did vote Leave as  'morons, idiots etc' as it seems it's exactly that kind of dismissal and disrespect that has helped create this toxic situation in the first place...even if I might think that the decision reached was a shortsighted and stupid one,  but then again is it kind of understandable given the unfounded and unbelievable claims the Leave campaign were making if we don't teach or encourage critical analytical thinking from school onwards. The anti-immigrant and anti immigration tone of a lot of Leave propoganda though was absolutely disgraceful and there is no excuse for that.

Sweet suffering fuck frankly. Part of me just wants to completely retreat into a world of Victorian sensation fiction, cyanotypes and that kind of malarky as that gives me great comfort and another part just wants to put my head under the covers and not come out til it's all calmed down a bit - though it doesn't seem that it is likely to for a while and I've got a big college deadline coming up - the last one on this course and so I must get my arse in gear to get that done if nothing else - clicking refresh on Twitter and watching News 24 isn't going to help with that.

And as a student of history - I'd far rather be reading about these kinds of upheavals from the comfortable distance of a few years than actually experiencing it. And aside from stopping the name calling and somehow teaching folks to be more analytical and critical of the things politicians and more importantly the media say I'm not sure what to do - but this quote from Toni Harrison is giving me both some hope and some focus:

This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self pity. No place for silence, no need for fear. We speak, we write, we do language - that is how civilisations heal'.

I'm not quite sure how to put it into practice and in the first place it might be by doing something as simple as taking and making some pictures and just making myself feel better. So now I've got that off my chest and fingers crossed all the worst possible outcomes don't actually come to fruition - what have I actually been up to over the last fortnight?

Been to see some inspiring and thought provoking films:
Somewhere to Disappear (2010) - a film by Uyttenhove and Flammarion in which they followed photographer Alec Soth when he was working on a project that involved photographing men (there were no women in the film) who had decided to opt of mainstream society - a mix of hippies, stoners, ex drug addicts/possibly current drug addicts and far right survivalists who live (way) off the grid. It was interesting - a little bit unnerving at times partly because of the people he was talking to and worrying for both his and the film makers physical safety, partly because at least one person he was speaking to I wasn't entirely sure was capable of giving fully informed consent to being filmed and photographed, admiration of his people skills by being able to talk his way into people's lives - something very evident from the exhibition of his work at the Media Museum which accompanied the film. He persuaded people to let him photograph them in very intimate and potentially vulnerable situations but also unease at his people skills and to what end he's using them - especially as he was talking to them from a position of influence and what would appear to be a better education and certainly more financially secure position. He  gets them to open up and pose for a picture, persuades them to let him take some of their personal items (incredibly personal break up letters) and then not return them, plus it seems that as he is not using their picture to advertise a particular product he didn't need to get model release forms signed. Plus it was also unsettling in places because it was shot with a hand held camera and so the picture wobbled a lot in places. I also have questions like - he was using a big 10*8 plate camera so with a camera that size which takes minutes to focus he's not taking pictures in a covert way but how did he develop the plates? Save them up and do them all in one go, or in batches as he went along. He planned what he wanted to get pictures of each day so I wonder if that also included developement plans. The other thing the film brought home is just how big America is - acres and acres and acres of empty plains.  That said though some of the pictures were achingly beautiful and poignant, especially the ones of love stories from in and around Niagra Falls. 

Heart Of A Dog (2015) - a film by Laurie Anderson which was beautiful to look at, was thought provoking and which made me cry as it was about aging, relationships - particularly with pets in this case her dog Lolabelle who she teaches to play piano when she (the dog goes blind) and loss. Laurie Anderson has the kind of voice I could listen to all day - I find it incredibly soothing. Plus it had lots of interesting points about the death beliefs of Buddhism and ancient Tibetan practice which was very thought provoking indeed. Apparently hearing is the last sense to go - even after all other visible signs of life have gone and the Tibetan Book Of The Dead specifically forbids crying as it stops the dead moving on - and they cannot come back anyway. Plus death is seen as a release of love. It was the kind if film that would bear repeated watching and analysis as it covered so much so I think I'll be asking for a copy of the soundtrack if not a dvd of it for my birthday. 

Holding The Man (2015) a film based on the memoir by Timothy Conigrave directed by Neil Armfield which details his falling in love with John whilst teenagers at school and their at times rocky relationship as they navigate being with one another against parental, religious and societal disapproval. Their coming out, being apart, getting back together and becoming ill with HIV and dying. In spite of its sad ending it was an especially life affirming joyous power of love film with a cracking soundtrack even if by the end I was weeping buckets (thank goodness for waterproof mascara) as it reminded me so much of friends of mine who have died and whom I still very much miss.  

Sing Street (2015) a film by John Carney which I saw on Saturday afternoon and which was the perfect antidote to referendum related misery as although it too is very sad in places (the violent bullying that happens in schools - both on the part of the other schoolkids as well as the teachers, the fall out of relationship breakdowns,feeling you have to leave where you grew up for lack of opportunities) it was also very optimistic and joyous. It's the story of a schoolboy who falls in love with a girl and wins her and himself by setting up a band who wear their influences all too obviously on their sleeves (I especially enjoyed their goth phase) and it was just glorious. So much so I might go and see it again.

This along with semi bingewatching season 1 of Bates Motel means that I've been doing an awful lot of listening and watching. But I have been doing some doing too - and some people have been doing some doing on my behalf - namely printing on the coffin lining material. I cut and prepare the material by painting an edge round where the images can be placed with gloss medium (matte medium shows up more for some reason)  as this not only gives a guide for where the image can be placed but also means I can then cut the material without it fraying. And boy does it fray - I'm reading North and South at the moment and each time Bessy complains about getting 'fluff' on her lungs I cough in appreciation as my workroom is full of bits of this material. I am (hopefully) going to be experimenting with using a heat activated method of image transfer this week. Applying heat to this material is something I'm somewhat anxious about though as it is synthetic and potentially liable to melt...but I have been able to put bits of it through my latest acquistion - a laminator.

At one point last week I was laminating almost everything - old amusement arcade tickets (they make v good bookmarks) and the coffin lining material both survives it unscathed and then it can be cut without fraying - result!! I've also experimented with leaves, petals, bits of detritus I've found on the floor whilst walking about. They're not as long term successful as so far I've used pieces I haven't dried first and so the liquid in them has kind of boiled round them in the pouch and the petals have faded. But I reckon it'll work well with the petals I have collected and dried - namely every bunch of flowers I've been given since starting the course. It's kind of nice watching something you've collected further decay under plastic though.

I've also finally thought (why of why has it taken me so frigging long to think of this??) of a way to make making lumen prints a bit less slapdash. Putting them together under a black throw but with a red safelight on underneath the throw with me so I can make sure things are level and exactly where I want them before I expose them to the light. As I don't have a darkroom I've just been doing it in  a darkened room under the throw but that of course means I cannot seen a bloody thing but at least with the safelight I'll be able to see much better what I'm doing. This is in turn part of thinking things through - something which I need (and if reports are to be believed Leave voters) need to do a bit more of - like I have a burial plot size piece of silk printed with the a digitally reinverted lumen print I made of a tombstone in St Matthews and other than hanging it up with fishing wire I hadn't really thought how I was going to attach the fishing wire - doh!! am now thinking with black ribbon adorned bulldog clips of some kind. Black ribbon played a role in Victorian mourning culture and it seems only right to include it somehow in the finished work. So now I'm experimenting with different hanging techniques so i can find the ione which not only works the best but looks the best also.

I've been to another phd open day too - this time at Leeds Beckett University and interesting and useful - both in terms of clarifying my thoughts about what exactly it is I want to do and what it is they have to offer. I am still hoping to do a phd - but still not sure when exactly or where. I'm kind of dreading my studies officially coming to an end at Leeds College of Art as I have had such a good time there - learnt lots, met some interesting and supportively challenging people and I'm really going to miss having regular meetings with my personal tutor who has been a source of insight, suggestion, guidance and support. I'm also going to really miss the library, print rooms and the darkroom not just in terms of facilities but also in terms of the people in them. Oh well - I'd best make sure I make the most of what time I've got left with them then.

I've also been to a burial ground that I've been meaning to go and see for a long time - namely that of the Moravian Settlement at Fulneck, ever since a tutor told me about long ago way back in the days when I was a history undergraduate and doing a module called the Archaeology of Death. He talked about how as refugees fleeing religious persecution in Moravia (now part of the Czech Republic) set up a new settlement in 1744 on the outskirts of Leeds and how their burial ground has monuments flat to the ground as all are equal before God and God's judgement therefore all tombstones must be level to the ground. It was a really interesting, atmospheric and contemplative place - want to go back again when the Museum is open and have a look round that bit too. I can thoroughly recommend the tea rooms though - really lovely.

I've been using photoshop a bit more recently too (I feel dirty even writing that word *grin*) I'd resigned myself to using it to post process images to monochrome, boost levels and invert images and occasionally crop out either a modern bin or unwanted bit of tombstone) but last week I used it to get rid of graffitti around a graffiti skull I found on a building in Leeds, as I wanted to print just the skull on its own.

I've also been thinking a bit more about the role of memory and both music and smell and their role in it. If I hear Alice by the Sisters of Mercy I am instantly transported back in time to being in front of a mirror, choking on hairspray fumes and desperately trying to backcomb freshly dyed black hair into something approximating a sort of Siouxsie Sioux hairdo - but sadly it always went flat. Likewise if I smell Dettol or Savlon I am transported back in time to when I often had grazed knees (playgrounds were made of gravel when I was little) and this week I was transported back in time to a time of not quite sure but at least twenty years ago when I heard Brassneck by The Wedding Present - I had a chum who was mad about them but I was never much of a fan apart from that one song. Though I do have a copy of Bizaaro somewhere on vinyl - that was the only song I ever played on it and I know I didn't buy it when it came out but rather secondhand from somewhere. I hope to incoporate sound and smell into works I'll make in the future.

One of the phrases I have on my post it note is 'pebble in a pool of memory' and I really like it both as a description and as a possible action. Wish I'd written down where I heard/read it though. I have however made a good note of the next quote - it's from the bottom of page 108 of the second book I've read by an ex Fall member - The Big Midweek - Life Inside The Fall by Steve Hanley (bassist) and Olivia Piekarski. Less new agey and more down to earth than Brix Start Smith's I read it over the weekend. I recognised some of the places he talked about and some of the characteristics of growing up in a roman catholic family originally from Dublin. It confirms my belief that as much as I like the end product of Mark E Smith I doubt very much I'd like him in person. It's when Hanley is describing Mark E Smiths performance on a song called Papal Visit in which he tries to play a violin 'it's pushing avant-garde to the threshold of dross'. A phrase I hope no-one will ever ascribe to my work - not least because I don't think it's that avant-garde (lots of people work around death) but mostly because I'd be really sad if someone thought it was dross. 

 

MA-Ness Week 10 - last formal week, pop up meth lab fun, tidying, sorting, sad sad news...

This weeks post it note and an experiement in glossing flowers...

I'm writing this on Monday afternoon - trying to get back into the habit I'd got into of writing it on a Monday and I'm struggling to be honest. The ongoing misinformation,scaremongering and barely disguised racism of some of the Brexiters coupled with the truly appalling, depressing, shocking and sad news from Orlando means I'm finding it hard to concentrate to be honest. The news makes me feel not only helpless but also quite hopeless and a bit what's the point of doing anything.

But having said that I must press on and get this post finished and start putting my portfolio together ready for final hand in in mid August. That seems like a bit of a big ask though at the moment and 'portfolio' keeps appearing on my to do list, so really I need to start breaking it down into its component parts - eg write an overview, sort the separate pieces I've been working on into coherent pieces so that it doesn't feel quite so overwhelming. I also need to sort out what pieces I need to get printed too.

The fact that it is coming to the end of the time I have at Leeds College of Art is at the forefront of my mind too - I've had such a fantastic time I don't want it to stop, which is part of the reason I want to do a Phd. I've not made much headway on that score (got a couple more open days coming up) think I might have to put aside definite time to do it (like this blog/research journal) so that I make more progress than just keep writing it on my to do list.  But I have also got a draft copy of a successful phd proposal which is going to be a guide for trying to come up with mine.

One thing I am really going to miss about the college (apart from the tutors, the facilities, the other students) is the library - even if it is the warmest room in the college and makes me feel at times murderously hot. I love libraries - I always have. On my wall is a quote from Anne Tyler about books - 'I read so I can live more than one life in more than one place'. Books are one of my biggest passions and take up so much room in the house - 2 to 3 deep on shelves, in piles both next to and under the bed. More bookcases and how to fit them in the house are also on the to do list...

And in spite of the fact that the house is almost overflowing with them and I haven't read all of the ones I've got (I've had some from the college library on almost permanent repeat loan since last year) I got some more on Friday on the way home from college - a copy of Vanity Fayre by William Makepeace Thackery which began to be published in serial form in 1847 and was published as a collected edition in 1848. Mine is the BBC tie in version from 1998 and was a quid from Meanwood Community Shop (which is in my opinion one of the finest charity shops in Leeds - partly because of the work it does and partly because of the stuff it sells, the books in particular are excellent). I've seen adaptations of the story and listened to it on Radio 4 Extra too but I've yet to read it for myself. Though first I must finish North and South which I am really enjoying now I've properly got into it.

I also got a copy of Victorian Women by Joan Perkin, and The Victorian House by Judith Flanders - so as you can see my obsession with all things Victorian shows no sign of abating as yet. I also got a copy of Nigel Slaters Eating for England which is delightfully nostalgic and makes my mouth water when he talks of such things as Fry' Five Centres and Mint Cracknell.

I did a bit of experimenting with making bookmarks from coffin lining offcuts and bits of detritus I'd collected from the ground at St George's Fields, covering them with sticky backed plastic hadn't worked brillianty well but a fellow ma-er has suggested laminating them instead - think this will work much better so am going to give that a go next. Just need to find a laminator.

I had fun in the pop up meth lab aka garage yesterday developing the Ilford Delta 3200 I used last week - I reckon we need a couple of trips to the charity shop, a couple of trips to the tip and a trip to Poverty Aid to buy a new set of shelves/cupboard or small wardrobe and I'll be able to convert it into a bit more of a darkroom. It won't be so dark that I'll be able to do traditional black and white photograph printing but that's okay as that doesn't make my heart sing but I will be able to cyanotype prep and make and that's okay - because that does.

Am pleased with some of the pics I took but a lot are out of focus, I've taken pics on a film slr before using Delta 3200 and was really pleased with the results but that was on a Minolta SLR and it clearly likes the dark better than my Canon SLR which really struggled whatever settings I used on it. But at least I got some I'm chuffed with plus I quite like agitating. My ever supportive and lovely husband has an app on his phone (I don't have that kind of phone and so would have had to use a pen and paper to write down the times/chemical concentrates needed and then used a clock) which made it all a bit easier. But even a couple of the out of focus ones are so out of focus to be kind of interesting in an abstract way so am counting it a win all round.

I finished reading Brix Smith Start's autobiography last week - it was really interesting to read about someone else's creative process and also about The Fall - a band I have loved (even if it's just Mark E Smith and a granny on bongoes) for almost 30 years. (Writing that sentence makes me feel really frigging old) and of course their drunken rambling shambling but also wonderful leader the aforementioned Mark E Smith. A man who it appears moved his new girlfriend in whilst his old girlfriends dirty underwear still littered his flat. This added to the way in which he treats people so badly that they leave makes me think that song and lyric writing skill aside he is not a very nice man. But as a chum pointed out - oftentimes bad people make good work. The separation of work from character of the creator is something I have often mused upon. Gary Glitter is an utterly repellant and vile individual but he did write some good pop songs.  The Young Gods version of Did You Miss Me is one of my favourite songs and I console myself that even if he did write it - I am not listening to him singing it and as I playing the version I bought on vinyl many moons ago he is not continuing to get any royalties on it from me - apart from a one off payment way before he was charged and found guilty of his offences.

I didn't go to the end of year overview session at the college on Friday but I did go in for a meeting about our end of year show (which will be at the end of October) and a sneak preview of the other end of year shows - I wasn't in the mood for the hustle and bustle of the evening opening and so just wandered about looking at the last of the stuff being put up. There was some amazing work - the kind of work I look at and think wow I wish I had the skill/thought to make that, some good thought provoking work and some work that I look at and think 'mmm, just not getting it'. It's on til June 16th so get down to Blenheim and see it for yourself and see if you see anything that makes you go 'wow'.

I did do something on Friday though that I had been putting off for ages - namely a tidying of my workroom which had become more teetering piles of disorganisation and I was struggling to both find things and get things done. It took me two hours (The Chemical Brothers are usually my cleaning soundtrack of choice though I did also use the soundtrack to Cecil B Demented) and now I can find things again and see what I'm doing - all my library books are in one place ready for me to (finally!) read them and you can see the floor again which is going to help when it comes to portfolio pulling together time.

The sofa bed is still in use as an extra temporary book shelf but at least it is now only one end of it - the end nearest my desk and you can sit on the rest of it. There are still piles of folders under the desk but at least they are now neatly stacked and I can find things again. A box of papers and out of date brochures went into the recycling bin...

And so here we are - almost at the end, certainly at the end of formal teaching though I still have a couple of tutorials before hand in. Not sure whether or not to carry on writing this blog in this way though, I might do though as it's become a good habit, plus I've had lovely feedback on it too and not just in an academic setting. This is important to me as although this blog became my research journal for handing in to be assessed and jump those academic hoops I don't just want it to be an exclusive academic document. The feedback was from a chum who has moved to Australia and she says 'I love the way you write, it's like you're talking to me over a cup of tea' and this added to the feedback from my fellow ma-ers about how much they have enjoyed the talks I've done gives me good cheer. This and Ilford have just retweeted one of my gig pics that I took last Saturday :-)   

Ma-Ness Week 9 - Better Late Than Never, End Of An Era, Printing, Lumen Prints, Collaborations and Cemetery Jaunts...

Quite a full post it note this week - surrounded by experiments with making bookmarks out of coffin lining offcuts, bits of detritus found in St George's Field (also found a £2 coin - result!!) and other bits and pieces.

Well college is officially coming to an end - and I don't want it too, as I am still having far too much fun. I really don't want to leave - last hand in date is 12th August and then we have the end of MA graduation show in late October early November so I've still got plenty of opportunity to be there for a while yet, but part of me is thinking oh I wish I'd gone to more lectures, I wish I'd read more books, spent more time in the dark room, spent more time in the print room but overall I'm pretty pleased with how things have worked out and what I've done - I've made lots and lots of work so much so it is going to be difficult to wittle it down into a sensible submission come hand in time, learnt some new techniques, learnt to look at things in different ways, learnt some art theory, met some really lovely and interesting people, been challenged, been to lots of conferences, learnt how to do presentations well enough to be asked to be a guest speaker (an MA colleague told me it was my sense of humour that makes my presentations - which is lovely feedback but also welcome as given the subject matter they could otherwise be unrelentingly grim),  held but not used a £20,000 camera, written a dissertation, done an awful lot of photcopying, poked about in some fantastic archives, neglected housework, not always eaten as healthily as I could have done, worked on some collaborative pieces, doubted myself and my abilities, regained confidence in myself and abilities, lost it again, got it back again.....and getting better at holding onto it and realising what my strengths and weaknesses are, got into some good habits and tried hard to break some bad habits and got lots of exciting stuff lined up. PHEW!!

I normally write this on a Monday but I spent this Monday sorting out new reading glasses (rock and indeed roll eh?) and then lay on the sofa reading North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (1855). It's taken me some getting into as the sentences are quite long and not always straightfoward but really got into it now and am rather in love with Margaret Hale. It is also wonderful to read contemporaneous Victorian literature and am making note of each reference to a mourning custom (she has had to wear mourning dress in honour of a distant relative of her father) and the fact that it is about my home town Manchester - though in the novel it is named Milton is also a bonus.

Anyway I've been busy with meetings and so not had an opportunity to write it ti now - I did think of leaving it til next week but then thought no, get it written now and then you won't have that ongoing feeling of work undone hanging over you. The meetings have been a mix of talking to folks from Leeds University with a view to potential future collaborations based around St George's Field and Leeds Museums with a view to working on education days about the Victorian period. It's very exciting and fingers crossed it will work out okay.

I've also been trying to work with the coffin lining offcuts Luke Howgate and Sons so generously gave me, I've just made some bookmarks but am not sure about them - both technically as the gloss I've used to preserve the dried flower leaves looks shiny on the fabric but I'm not sure I can make it less noticable,  the material frays very easily so I've coated some with that old Blue Peter makes favourite - sticky back plastic which stops it fraying but looks too shiny and doesn't entirely stop fraying either....mmm more work to be done. But the printing I've had done on bigger pieces is looking good - so will be getting more of that done soon. These prints will form part of my piece for the graduation show. I've not submitted anything for the interim end of year show - part of me wishes I had but the bigger part of me is pleased I haven't as I have been so busy.

I've had two jaunts to St George's Field this week - one was an impromptu jaunt with an MA chum and it was really lovely to show him round as he had never been before, I did apologise in advance for the possibility of boring his arse off with facts about the place but he didn't complain. That was when I picked up the bits ot make a lumen print - I really should have taken advantage of the full colour sunshine and done some cyanotyping and had a practice with the Solarfast fabric but I couldn't summon up the oomph to do it. Maybe next week - when the sun has come back....but I did do a lumen print - using some of the detritis I picked up from St George's Field, left it in the sun slightly too long but scanned it in and clicked 'enhance' and am quite pleased with the result. I've yet to make a lumen print using modern paper that I'm really pleased with though. Part of the difficulty I have is not having a proper darkroom so I arrange them under a throw which is not ideal as it is a) v stuffy and b) dark enough so as not to ruin the print but also so dark that I can't see at all what I'm doing.

In discussion with other cyanotyping colleagues I have worked out a way I can do them without access to a dark room - paint the solution on late at night in the garage (don't mind rinsing them off in the house but don't want the chemicals needed to make them in the house) and then out them in a light tight cupboard to dry until I'm ready to use them. So a trip to Poverty Aid to buy a cupboard is on my to do list now.

Anyway my first jaunt to St George's Field was late on Saturday night after a stonking gig by the very excellent Zeitgeist Zero (you can check them out here) at the Lending Room at the Library (which in turn made me wonder what meetings have been held in that building over the years) as I had tried taking some b+w pics (on Ilford 3200 Delta film which is the business at low light conditions)  at their gig (still waiting to see if they have come out) but unlike my beloved Minolta SLR which can cope with low light conditions my Canon SLR can't and I could barely see what I was doing - focusing was a real struggle so lesson learnt for next time - take a torch and use my Minolta instead. I took lotsof pictures earlier on the day at Aberford Churchyard as I was tipped off about a stone sarcophagus propped up against the churchyard wall which have come out okay plus thankfully although my knee is still not quite right it's getting lots better and I can bend to take pics again - HURRAH!!

What else? well need to crack on with rest of my to do list really....that portfolio isn't going to assemble itself for hand in....

MA-Ness Week 8 - Mrs Beeton, 21st Century Bingewatching, Ainsworth Magazine, Jodrell Bank, Sad Anniversaries, Brix Start Smith and Frankenstein

Quite a full post it note this week - along with my latest book acquisition.

It is a copy of the edition published in 1861 which in turn comprised the 24 monthly parts called Mrs Beeton's Household Mangement which had been published between 1859 and 1861 in a magazine called The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine. The magazine contained patterns, recipes, short stories, translations of french novels, gardening tips and medical aids. The edition I have is from 1968 and cost 3 guineas. I got it from the Leeds Library booksale - they very kindly remembered I had asked if they had original copies of the Englishwomans Domestic Magazine but alas they didn't, and then when I emailed to see if they had copies of Ainsworth Magazine from 1842 ( I wanted to read Laman Blanchards essay about visiting Kensal Green Cemetery) which they do -  they said they had a found an original first edition facsimile copy of Mrs Beeton which was going in their book sale and would I like it? ....to which I of course responded yes please. I also got a copy of a book called Urn Burial by Patrick Ruell from 1975. It is awful - but each of its chapter headings are quotes from a book called Urn Burial by Sir Thomas Browne from 1658,  so I can forgive albeit grudgingly the author Ruell's dreadful sexism as it is worth it just for the chapter titles alone....

The Beeton's book is wonderful, even if some of the recipes are are more stomach churning than mouth watering (stewed rabbits in milk?? which comprises of 2 very young rabbits not nearly half grown, skinned and chopped up then simmered in 1 and half pints of milk with a blade of mace, a dessertspoonful of flour and a little salt and cayenne) and it also has a fabulously stern section featuring medical advice and the section on 'The Cholera and Auntumnal Complaints' states that 'to oppose cholera, there seems no surer or better means than cleanliness, sobriety and judicious ventilation'. 'Where there is dirt, that is the place for cholera; where windows and doors are kept most jealously shut, there cholera will find easiest entrance ; and people who indulge in intemperate diet during the hot days of autumn are actually courting death. To repeat it, cleanliness and sobriety and free ventilation almost always defy the pestilence; but in case of attack, immediate recourse should be had to a physician'

A lack of knowledge re how cholera is actually spread ie by a bacterium called vibrio cholerae and its being ingested somehow but it was to be a few years til John Snow's pioneering work on the cholera outbreak in Broad Street in 1854 would become widely  accepted and measures taken to deal adequately with sewage and how to access clean water.

Once again I am happy that I live in the 21st century with its advantages of modern medical techniques, safe drinking water which you don't have to carry to your home in buckets and not the 19th, even if overall I prefer the architecture and literature of the 19th.

I had gone to Leeds Library to see Ainsworth magazine or rather an essay by Samuel Laman Blanchard from 1842 in which he visits Kensal Green Cemetery. This was after a suggestion from Dr Trev Broughton from York University who I met at the Victorian Representations conference at Leeds Trinity Uni a couple of weeks ago. The library copy was Volume 2 from 1842 and was datestamped 1887 and it was falling apart. It wasn't quite as dusty and sooty as the Leeds Mercury newspapers I had looked at from 1835 but it was more delicate. The reddish brown spine and cover had mostly rotted away but it was oh so beautiful and such a treat and privilege to be able to consult it. Albeit very carefully so as not to further damage it but the lovely librarians told me not to worry about it as there were used to books being in such delicate states and the whole point of them is to be looked at. So along with the article I had initially planned to look at I also looked at and enjoyed some poetry, a description of Coventry, a marvellously funny article called the Coquette's Week which featured a widow itching to get out of the full mourning she had been encased in for her previous husband and on the hunt for a new one, a description of the tomb of Hafiz the Persian Poet plus it also featured illustrations on steel and wood.

Blanchards description of Kensal Green (which is still there today and can be walked round) was very fulsome in its praise and he talked of how the suburban cemetery was much preferable to the city churchyard 'the choked charnal house to verdant wide expanse' and how 'with no heavy or morbid oppression of the spirit, we are yet with the dead..and we linger in peaceful reflection...(we do not have to)..commiserate the strangers who dwell around on thebrink of the churchyard, inhaling its unwholesome vapours, familiarised with its loathsome secrets and witnessing its profanation..here there has been nothing to repel, nothing to shock, nothing to wound the profound and sensitive feeling'.I don't know if Blanchard was on the board of any of the new burial companies but his sentiments and descriptions tie in very closely with the reasons given in the first annual report of the people who owned and set up St George's Field. They wanted to be able to offer facilities that were ‘a matter of indispensable necessity..demanded by propriety and good taste…given the overcrowd state of our present graveyards'.

I really really want to visit Kensal Green now - and Highgate and Abney Park and am thinking I might as just well book a week in that London just to go round cemeteries. I am lucky though in that I have been to Pere La Chaise in Paris which opened in 1804 and was the first of the garden cemeteries and the inspiration for all my favourite Victorian era founded cemeteries.

I did buy a modern magazine the other week when I was travelling back from Coventry and I fancied something a bit lighter to read the book on The Victorians I had taken with me, I got Glamour* as it was a special edition that was only a quid plus it had an article on how to break free from habits of worrying. That was the only interesting thing in it really - the rest was utterly vapid rubbish. I am so glad that though I am interested in clothes and fashion that it is of the 19th century as opposed to the 21st as the ones featured in the magazine were without exception horrid and the models look tortured. Though I may be tempted to get a new red lipstick but what is the point of nude lipstick? What the frig is that for? What was new to me was the fact that every contributor is now listed by their twitter name and how many followers they have in brackets, the inference being that clearly your opinions only count if you have a high enough number of followers. 

So what else did I out in my title? well 21st century bingewatching. I'm still seemingly quite old fashioned in that I watch television 'live'. I do record things too and sometimes watch things on catch-up - but only BBC programmes as the amount of advertising you have to endure and can't skip through on commercial channels catch up is more than I can bear. Anyways over the weekend thanks to a chum me and my husband bingewatched Ash versus the Evil Dead and very marvellous indeed it was too. I am a huge fan of Bruce Campbell and he was very good indeed at fighting the deadites along with his feisty younger sidekicks who I'm pleased to say included kick-ass women. I don't think I'll be bingewatching anything else again soon though - unless you count watching Victoria Wood clips on Youtube.

It's just over a year since our beloved Lucia died - so unexpectedly and even though rationally there is no difference in the amount how much we miss her regardless of the date, I was dreading the anniversary of her death and so was my husband. So we decided to go out for the day on her death, not to forget what had happened as her absence is painful proof of that every day but just not to be surrounded by her absence on that day in particular. We decided to got to Jodrell Bank as we'd never been there before. It was a good day out and good distraction and the grounds it is in are very beautiful and it is AMAZING to see the telescope up close and see it moving but the visitors centre bit didn't thrill me. I'm afraid a lot of sciencey stuff goes in one ear and out the other for me - or it begins to sound like the unintelligble burble the teacher used to make in Charlie Brown cartoons. But watching old pathe news reels about the cold war era space race and the role of the telescope was lovely as was the lunch, I did take lots of film photographs though and hopefully I'll be able to pick them up from The Photo Shop in Headingley soon and see how they have come out.

I started reading Brix Smith Start's biography last week - The Rise, The Fall And The Rise. I got it from the library but think I might be investing in my own copy to keep as it is inspirational, intriguing and really interesting to read about how someone else creates and is inspired. She was in The Fall when I first got into them - thanks to a uni chum who introduced me to the delights of Bend Sinister and This Nations Saving Grace. I played those albums which he taped for me on repeat. Then bought my own vinyl copies and I've been to see The Fall more or less once a year (apart from a break in the late 90's after a truly truly awful gig at Manchester Uni) ever since. The first time I saw them was at (the then) Leeds Poly on the Kurious Oranj tour. Amazing and Brix was mesmerising on stage. I'm going to be listening to those songs again but with a new appreciation of what went into them.

Sheffield Uni's Centre for the History of the Gothic are running a competition to write a short story (500 words) that must start with the words Mary Shelley wrote in 1816 after being challenged to write a story ' it was a dreary night in November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils'. I started writing it on the coach on the way home from Coventry in between dipping in and out of Glamour magazine and I would argue that Glamour is infinitely more terrifying than Frankenstein. I finished it and emailed it off last night - it has been a very long time since I've done that kind of creative writing. I write a lot (I still write actual letters by hand in paper and post them) but I rarely write something that is cokmpletely made up in the way a story is. It felt very good to finish it. I've no idea whether it stands a chance of winning or being selected to be read out but it was fun doing it.

The other notes on my post it note are Ed Wood and domestic violence - I adore Ed Wood the film (and the film director) and rewatched it on Friday night - before the news stories about Johnny Depp who plays Ed Wood so beautifully broke about his alleged domestic abuse of his wife. I really hope this is not true as I'd feel very uncomfortable watching if this is true. It once again brings up for me whether or not you can divorce the work from the person who made it and who may be vile in their personal life.

The other thing was reverse engineering coffin shaped cyanotypes - I'd tried making a coffin shaped outline and using that as outline when painting the cyanotype solution on paper. It worked well at first but then solution made its way through the edges and blurred. A chum from the MA course has been making beautifully circular cyanotypes. I asked how - he has been cutting a hole out of black card and then attaching the acetate negative onto it and clamping both down on the solution coated paper. It seems so obvious that this is the way to do this now...can't believe I was so dim as to ot think of that myself. Doh!! 

*I wonder if in 165 years there'll be someone waxing lyrical about going to see original copies of Glamour magazine in the archives....