Starting to make progress again

I think I've come out of a spell of mild depression.  I hit a wall after New Year with my work.  Particularly with the thinking.  I managed to stave off panicking about the thinking, by finishing Aunt Joan's sampler, but the conceptual stuff just was like fumbling in cotton wool.

Then with a push from Jill, I started writing about the history of samplers, which made me feel a bit better, because I'm starting to get to grips with their historical significance to the makers and the historical changes, such as the advent of Protestantism, that impacted on sampler making.  Then I had a tutorial with Imogen and I'm starting to write about makers who inspire me, and investigating their work to identify why I like what they do, is illuminating.  Definitely starting to feel brighter about my thinking!

Last night I went to a talk about Suffrage, Women and Cycling.  Lots about the commencement of women's cycling clubs in London and Essex (Rosslyn) in Victorian times.  Lots of club minutes debating uniform (Rational dress or full dresses), colours, and social events.   Strong correlation of women cyclists and suffrage.

Then today, I went to London and dropped in to the pubic toilets at Liverpool St.  I spoke to the cleaning ladies about my idea for an artwork about them, and they called their supervisor.  When I explained my idea saying I wanted to make artwork about his team as I thought they were under-valued by the public, he was absolutely delighted,  shook my hand and hugged me!  He took me to the Duty Manager of Liverpool St Network Rail, and he liked the idea in principle.  I left my business card with the Cleaning Supervisor.

I need to get my Ethics Form back from Coventry Uni (next week?) and get on with chasing up Interserve Management.

Then I went to my Inspiring Women class at National Portrait Gallery, and had a great time there.  We looked at Queen Victoria, Mary Seacole, Elizabeth Barrett Anderson, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, the Pankhursts; Nancy Astor.  Interesting fact that one reason why in 1918 the vote was only given to women over 30 of property (which must have been a TINY proportion of women) was that if all women had been given the vote, there would have been more women voters than men, due to high WW1 fatalities.  Also noted was the Victorian campaign for suffrage with Suffragists (the lobbyists, non-violent) stating "dress like a woman, behave like a man".  So was the cycling debate about whether to wear skirts or trousers on a bike, actually about suffragists wanting to dress like a woman, whereas the suffragettes were more practical/safe wearing trousers and happy to dress like a man/behave like a man?

Now in Scotland, ready for a few days gallivanting around the Scottish museums.  Days are getting longer, and I'm feeling brighter.