I received the amendments required for my essay. I was astonished at how few there were! A couple of typos, and page numbers to be added for the list of illustrations. Oh My Word! No re-writing at all. Hurrah! This led to a considerable increase in satisfaction with my essay, and a huge increase in self-esteem.
I find it odd that my self-esteem is so dependent on the assessed outcome of my essay. I wish I could have the self-belief to be confident of the value of my work, without needing external verification. But that's how I am.
So I went to the swimming pool and had a productive thinking session while doing my 74 lengths.
1. Jim finds me easier to live with when I am studying. Even when I am tetchy while writing my essay. He prefers to live with someone who is thinking, visiting, drawing, looking, making, then thinking some more, rather than live with someone (ie me!) who is a nightmare when she is bored.
2. We have no issues with funding more education.
3. Jim wants to support me in my studies while he is able. We are both aware that our/my ability to travel may be curtailed in the future, most likely by care requirements for him. Mobility restrictions are not apparent now, but we both look to the future and can see we are as able now as we will ever be, and this can only reduce with time.
4. I've been thinking about what I'm interested in. I'd categorise it as Art & Politics, because I'm interested in who gets represented and why. I've had a good look at Women, but now want to move on to manual workers and skills. I'm still interested in museums and galleries and who they choose to represent in their collections. I'm still reflecting on the NPG Collections policy that said they were aware of an over-representation of white men, in oil on canvas, and an under-representation of women and ethnic minorities, and other art forms. They ran the Who Am I? exhibition by Grayson Perry showing art about diverse people in under-represented media ... but nothing since! This policy also defined what they thought were 'significant' achievements - all of which were more likely to be masculine! My experience (to quote Matt Smith) is that 'the museum is not neutral'!
5. I'm interested in 'lesser' art forms. I went to the Cartoon Museum and found their reflection of social events, simple drawings, simple captions/uncaptioned works led to a different way of understanding - which might be an entree to a less stuffy form of art. I'm still thinking about narrative art, concertina sketchbooks and how to make art that is accessible to ordinary people (those who don't see themselves as artists). I'm not making art for artists. I'm making art that is insightful to an ordinary viewer. I'm interested in making work that can be understood by particular audiences - without a scripted narrative.
6. I know I am reacting against STEM subjects with all their thinking/computer/ deskbound attributes. I'm interested in what people actually do - the roles in our society that are essential but seem not to be respectable or desirable - shop work; field/farm work; care work; night work; building/labouring; delivery work. I think my liking for and desire to represent these largely manual workers indicates my work has a political element.
7. I'd still like to do a body of work with Finch's Gravel Quarry. I'm into linocuts at present. There is a resonance between carving a Lino and how gravel extraction carves a landscape. Driving a gravel lorry is a skilled job that I'd like to represent.
8. I've wondered about talking to Mary Schoeser (textile historian) and Kate Wigley (former Curator Warners Textile Archive) about running a Local Workers art exhibition at Braintree Museum. They would have the contacts at the council to make this successful. This could be done by a call for artworks put out to all local art groups, with selection by museum professionals/council staff, hopefully with my work being included. I think the council would buy into this as it would positively promote employers/employment in the Braintree area and support many policies about 'local'.
9. I've had a brief look at places that might do a higher level Art & Politics qualification. Places to consider include: Coventry; Goldsmiths; UEA. I'm not clear yet what the most appropriate next qualification might be. It needs to be practice based, rather than essay based.
Coventry: Pros - I know and like Jill & Imogen. Jill's enthusiasm (the look on her face!) for my stitch verified that my samplers really were art - hugely important for my self-belief. Imogen's editorial skills were what got my essay into line. I would not have written anything like as well without her.
Cons - the 3 hour each-way journey wore me down, and led to me being isolated because I was so far from student peers.
Goldsmiths - Pros - only 1-hour journey - at New Cross. Possibility of funding for tuition fees. Interesting one day taster https://www.gold.ac.uk/short-courses/art-propaganda/. Or https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/mphil-phd-visual-culture/
UEA - Pros ? Cons - poor journey - 2.5 hours.
Not sure where else to consider.
Tuesday 10 December 2019
Sunday 17 November 2019
Viva at Coventry
I had my final assessment - my viva - at Coventry on Monday 11 November.
I arrived at Elm Bank really early, and Heather Sears allowed me to access the room to stage my work. Heather was intrigued by my sampler box, and asked to see the work. I showed the first couple, and she asked to photograph them. I suggested I stage them, and she could photograph them all together.
I staged my sketchbooks, and the samplers, and stashed all my detritus and posh shoes under the corner table. When Heather came down to Sparrow Room, she brought Rebekah Smith McGloin, the Director of the Doctoral College too. As soon as Rebekah saw my work, she asked whether I was going on to a PhD. I said I found the writing too difficult - my forte was the artwork. To which she replied a practice based PhD was only 15,000 words. While I'm not planning to go to a higher level, I found it considerably confidence-boosting, prior to my Viva, to be told this. Heather took some photos of me and my samplers (I must remember to contact Heather and give permission for her to use them for publicity if this helps the doctoral college).
I was waiting in the cafeteria, when I realised I had left my posh shoes in Sparrow Room, and the Viva panel had assembled. This meant I ended up wearing my trainers with my artist dress during my assessment! At least they were a matching petrel blue!
The panel chairman was an engineer (missed his name), along with Kollette Super, and David Vaughan. Imogen Racz, my Director of Studies, was present as observer.
I gave my presentation. I talked a bit about standpoint theory - probably rattled on a bit too much about it seeing some things from somewhere and it being partial, with examples from my workplace such as managing a payroll to see what happens with the embodied nature of performance related pay - but Kollette was nodding sagely!
They started by asking what my background was - which surprised me a bit. Apparently my background for an artist is unusual! I explained I had worked for London Underground - clerical and secretarial roles, followed by all the HR roles, with lots of employee relations. Then I decided to earn some serious money so started shift work - I explained more about standpoint being partial, with the example of night shift being worth more than days, and management consultants consolidating shift rates of pay to makes Payroll cheaper to run, without realising this led to some workers trying to wriggle out of their share of night shifts because a consolidated rate meant they did not lose money.
Kollette wanted to know how I got into art. I had always stitched, then did C&G Embroidery which led me to art - I needed to get the artwork right before going into stitch, and I discovered that I was a hand worker, not a machine operator. Then I was working part-time as I was a carer for my Father (with Alzheimers), and decided to start a part-time degree. Fairly quickly my Dad died; the university offered study abroad to Curtin University, Perth; and London Underground offered severance. It was because of my work at Curtin, that I achieved a 1st at University of Herts. I took a year out, then started at London Met. Great first year with Linden Reilly (David Vaughan said he knew her), then a financial crisis led to many highly experienced staff being sacked (Kollette and David rolled their eyes!) and the course became shambolic in the second year so I walked out (I thought this was an accurate but restrained description!). However when Linden found out, she recommended I apply to Coventry - and Jill had been the verifier at London Met, so knew my work. This information had both Kollette and David nodding sagely.
David asked whether as a retired member of London Underground staff, I still got free travel on the tube. Which I do, and quarter rate on Network Rail - £17.90 return every time I go to Coventry!
I said a bit about using sketchbooks as research - using my Status and Values sketchbooks as an example when I had gone up a blind alley. Status sketchbook actually was about my Mother's values not mine!!
Kollette asked what order the samplers were made in. This was the order they were displayed in - Mrs Konieczny; me; Aunt Joan; Gifti, Mavis and Sarpong; and Aunt Daisy. She asked what response they got - I said homemaking women liked Aunt Joan, social campaigners liked Gifti, Mavis and Sarpong, and artist/embroiderers liked Aunt Daisy. I said the samplers were selected for exhibitions, typically Women's History Month, and that selection was very important to me - it validated my work, more so than self-publicity. Kollette liked the colours of Gifti, Mavis and Sarpong, and I said these were the colours of the Ghanaian flag. I added that it was very important to me that the samplers inspired discussion and triggered memory of viewers' (in)significant women. David said he had overheard conversations about these other women at the exhibition. Hurrah! My work was effective in triggering memory!
They asked whether I wished I had done an art degree earlier. I answered honestly that the Underground had paid me a good living, with a good pension and that, with my family history, I would live until I was 90, giving 40 years to be an artist! Also friends who are artists have lived in poverty all their working lives.
They were interested in what I wanted to do next. I described my idea about working with Finches gravel quarry to explore manual skills in a local environment. David was surprised that it was not about women - but I've moved on to anyone with an under-valued skill base. I wanted to say 'I'm not anti-men' but restrained this. I said something about manual skills needing to be valued, and me reacting against STEM subjects, as not everyone can manage academic subjects and as a society we need people who do manual work.
Kollette and David observed that I enjoyed talking about my work. This surprised me a bit, but most of my jobs have involved a lot of talking to staff and customers, and talking is one of my much practiced skills. They made the interview much easier than I had anticipated.
Kollette told me I had passed with minor amendments. (I was relieved more than joyful!) The amendments would be about how I need to clarify the attributes of my inspiring artists, and how my work is influenced by them. The panel were confused by when I was writing about those artists and my own work. And there were a few typos. I said I had spotted 'moths' instead of 'months'. Also there were some missing spaces between words.
I came out, feeling like an exhausted, hyper-active hamster!
I arrived at Elm Bank really early, and Heather Sears allowed me to access the room to stage my work. Heather was intrigued by my sampler box, and asked to see the work. I showed the first couple, and she asked to photograph them. I suggested I stage them, and she could photograph them all together.
I staged my sketchbooks, and the samplers, and stashed all my detritus and posh shoes under the corner table. When Heather came down to Sparrow Room, she brought Rebekah Smith McGloin, the Director of the Doctoral College too. As soon as Rebekah saw my work, she asked whether I was going on to a PhD. I said I found the writing too difficult - my forte was the artwork. To which she replied a practice based PhD was only 15,000 words. While I'm not planning to go to a higher level, I found it considerably confidence-boosting, prior to my Viva, to be told this. Heather took some photos of me and my samplers (I must remember to contact Heather and give permission for her to use them for publicity if this helps the doctoral college).
I was waiting in the cafeteria, when I realised I had left my posh shoes in Sparrow Room, and the Viva panel had assembled. This meant I ended up wearing my trainers with my artist dress during my assessment! At least they were a matching petrel blue!
The panel chairman was an engineer (missed his name), along with Kollette Super, and David Vaughan. Imogen Racz, my Director of Studies, was present as observer.
I gave my presentation. I talked a bit about standpoint theory - probably rattled on a bit too much about it seeing some things from somewhere and it being partial, with examples from my workplace such as managing a payroll to see what happens with the embodied nature of performance related pay - but Kollette was nodding sagely!
They started by asking what my background was - which surprised me a bit. Apparently my background for an artist is unusual! I explained I had worked for London Underground - clerical and secretarial roles, followed by all the HR roles, with lots of employee relations. Then I decided to earn some serious money so started shift work - I explained more about standpoint being partial, with the example of night shift being worth more than days, and management consultants consolidating shift rates of pay to makes Payroll cheaper to run, without realising this led to some workers trying to wriggle out of their share of night shifts because a consolidated rate meant they did not lose money.
Kollette wanted to know how I got into art. I had always stitched, then did C&G Embroidery which led me to art - I needed to get the artwork right before going into stitch, and I discovered that I was a hand worker, not a machine operator. Then I was working part-time as I was a carer for my Father (with Alzheimers), and decided to start a part-time degree. Fairly quickly my Dad died; the university offered study abroad to Curtin University, Perth; and London Underground offered severance. It was because of my work at Curtin, that I achieved a 1st at University of Herts. I took a year out, then started at London Met. Great first year with Linden Reilly (David Vaughan said he knew her), then a financial crisis led to many highly experienced staff being sacked (Kollette and David rolled their eyes!) and the course became shambolic in the second year so I walked out (I thought this was an accurate but restrained description!). However when Linden found out, she recommended I apply to Coventry - and Jill had been the verifier at London Met, so knew my work. This information had both Kollette and David nodding sagely.
David asked whether as a retired member of London Underground staff, I still got free travel on the tube. Which I do, and quarter rate on Network Rail - £17.90 return every time I go to Coventry!
I said a bit about using sketchbooks as research - using my Status and Values sketchbooks as an example when I had gone up a blind alley. Status sketchbook actually was about my Mother's values not mine!!
Kollette asked what order the samplers were made in. This was the order they were displayed in - Mrs Konieczny; me; Aunt Joan; Gifti, Mavis and Sarpong; and Aunt Daisy. She asked what response they got - I said homemaking women liked Aunt Joan, social campaigners liked Gifti, Mavis and Sarpong, and artist/embroiderers liked Aunt Daisy. I said the samplers were selected for exhibitions, typically Women's History Month, and that selection was very important to me - it validated my work, more so than self-publicity. Kollette liked the colours of Gifti, Mavis and Sarpong, and I said these were the colours of the Ghanaian flag. I added that it was very important to me that the samplers inspired discussion and triggered memory of viewers' (in)significant women. David said he had overheard conversations about these other women at the exhibition. Hurrah! My work was effective in triggering memory!
They asked whether I wished I had done an art degree earlier. I answered honestly that the Underground had paid me a good living, with a good pension and that, with my family history, I would live until I was 90, giving 40 years to be an artist! Also friends who are artists have lived in poverty all their working lives.
Kollette and David observed that I enjoyed talking about my work. This surprised me a bit, but most of my jobs have involved a lot of talking to staff and customers, and talking is one of my much practiced skills. They made the interview much easier than I had anticipated.
Kollette told me I had passed with minor amendments. (I was relieved more than joyful!) The amendments would be about how I need to clarify the attributes of my inspiring artists, and how my work is influenced by them. The panel were confused by when I was writing about those artists and my own work. And there were a few typos. I said I had spotted 'moths' instead of 'months'. Also there were some missing spaces between words.
I came out, feeling like an exhausted, hyper-active hamster!
Thursday 10 October 2019
Art class with Vanda
We're into a new term at art class. This term's focus is on each of us creating a sketchbook to contribute to the Brooklyn Sketchbook Library. Vanda had a recent holiday in NY and went to the Brooklyn Sketchbook Library, and anyone can contribute a sketchbook to be held there for posterity. It is a crowd funded project, run by volunteers. You buy a sketchbook (provided by them 5" x 7"), complete it and return it to them. No acrylic, glitter or gesso (pages will stick together). Any subject you like, but themes are suggested each year. The BKL has 140,000 sketchbooks so far.
I'm thinking about the gesture of stitch, and blackwork embroidery, which I love. Today's class, drawing the gesture of stitch did not go particularly well, but I'm sufficiently experienced not to get upset about it. It will come together in due course.
Tomorrow I might try writing some poetry about it to see if this helps.
I'm thinking about the gesture of stitch, and blackwork embroidery, which I love. Today's class, drawing the gesture of stitch did not go particularly well, but I'm sufficiently experienced not to get upset about it. It will come together in due course.
Tomorrow I might try writing some poetry about it to see if this helps.
Exhibitions at Edinburgh
I went to see Cut & Paste at Modern Two (Scottish National Galleries) and Audrey Grant (Scottish Portrait Gallery).
Cut & Paste was ok, but not as good as I had hoped. Collage exhibitions are rare, and this made me make the journey north. The history of the technique was excellent, with very diverse items on display, from etchings that were sectioned with pasted amendments, to heavily layered fabric collages. Apparently the first collage made from travel tickets, was made from the railway tickets retrieved from the victims of the Tay Bridge disaster! There were also elaborate valentine cards dating from the start of the postage stamp (c1840) made from up to 200(!) pasted collaged pieces made from printed kits. And the breadth of interpretation of collage included botanical specimens books where the adhesive qualities of seaweed meant they stuck themselves to the pages of documentation.
However the modern section was a total disappointment. Far too much stuff of large pieces of crumpled brown paper just stuck as a lump to a support paper.
Then I went on to the Scottish Portrait Gallery and looked at Audrey Grant's The Long Look. This is repeated drawings of Val McDermid and Norman McBeath. She had drawn in charcoal. I love charcoal drawings, and they are rarely shown in this type of venue. Repeated sittings (up to 36) had resulted in her drawing on the same sheet of paper, setting aside for a week, then erasing this drawing and creating another on top. Each drawing was photographed, leading to a succession of digital images, but only one remaining charcoal drawing. The drawings varied in their tonal value, and the variation was intriguing.
AND ...! I met the artist! Audrey Grant was at the gallery with a companion and they were debating the drawing process. I overheard Audrey saying the difficult part was the mouth and chin. Not the eyes. Once she had the mouth and chin right, the rest of each drawing followed.
A thoroughly enjoyable morning.
Cut & Paste was ok, but not as good as I had hoped. Collage exhibitions are rare, and this made me make the journey north. The history of the technique was excellent, with very diverse items on display, from etchings that were sectioned with pasted amendments, to heavily layered fabric collages. Apparently the first collage made from travel tickets, was made from the railway tickets retrieved from the victims of the Tay Bridge disaster! There were also elaborate valentine cards dating from the start of the postage stamp (c1840) made from up to 200(!) pasted collaged pieces made from printed kits. And the breadth of interpretation of collage included botanical specimens books where the adhesive qualities of seaweed meant they stuck themselves to the pages of documentation.
However the modern section was a total disappointment. Far too much stuff of large pieces of crumpled brown paper just stuck as a lump to a support paper.
Then I went on to the Scottish Portrait Gallery and looked at Audrey Grant's The Long Look. This is repeated drawings of Val McDermid and Norman McBeath. She had drawn in charcoal. I love charcoal drawings, and they are rarely shown in this type of venue. Repeated sittings (up to 36) had resulted in her drawing on the same sheet of paper, setting aside for a week, then erasing this drawing and creating another on top. Each drawing was photographed, leading to a succession of digital images, but only one remaining charcoal drawing. The drawings varied in their tonal value, and the variation was intriguing.
AND ...! I met the artist! Audrey Grant was at the gallery with a companion and they were debating the drawing process. I overheard Audrey saying the difficult part was the mouth and chin. Not the eyes. Once she had the mouth and chin right, the rest of each drawing followed.
A thoroughly enjoyable morning.
Monday 7 October 2019
Poetry class
Another great day at poetry class.
We read and gave feedback on our poems. This is a really good collection of people, all highly skilled, and Sarah Westcott, our tutor said all(!) our poems were of publishable quality, and encouraged us to participate in the monthly poetry reading at City Lit, and reminded us to submit our poems to the annual City Lit poetry anthology.
My poem was about an object - Lino
Lino
I remember Lino cutting at school.
The blunt tools and crumbly Lino put me off for years.
Lino for schools has changed.
Soft, pliable, blue and easy cut.
A 5 inch by 4 inch slab.
I have my design. Anxious.
I carve my first line.
A smooth glide. I don't remember this!
My lack of skill is apparent.
My lines wobble.
I dig too deep and too shallow.
The Lino is chewed.
I remember 'cut away from you',
I remember 'cut with a careful sweep',
I remember 'don't cut too deep'.
Only after I've done it wrong.
This Lino has been cut by an amateur.
Wobbly lines. Uneven surface.
Disappointed with the proofs.
"Reduce the image
Chop out more
Line up accurately and overprint. "
Not great quality.
But I'm delighted.
It's mine and it's original.
A simple manual technique creates a thing of joy
from a slab of Lino, when executed with skill.
I want those skills.
My feedback was that I had successfully linked the present and past. I had rediscovered youth. It had narrative and was immediate. Class suggested it might look good as an artwork, if printed on Lino.
We spent time reading poems. Great poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, with her speaking on a Youtube video. Had a rap metre, and was about teenagers from her community in the US. Looking at line endings. Enjambment means the lines run on.
1959. Gwendolyn Brooks
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
We had a go at haiku (5-7-5 syllables) and Cinquain (2-4-6-8-2 syllables), working from postcards as inspiration. My postcard was of beach huts. When responding to a piece of art, it is Ekphrasis.
Seaside at Walton
Beach huts at Walton
Shelter from the elements
Blue sky of summer.
Playing on the beach
Brilliant sun, wind and sunburn
Seaside and freedom.
Walk to sea to swim
Picking my way over stones
Cold water, quick dip.
I hate gritty towels.
Stickness from salt water.
Can't dress easily!
Sand in sandwiches
Tepid tea and sun cream smell
Fast melting ice cream.
Beach huts
Beach huts
Rainbow colours
The height of the summer
Each one uniform but different.
So bright
Lime green
Cerulean blue
Colours of the seaside
Scarlet and fluorescent orange
Sun bleach.
For homework, we blind-picked a title from a bag - we have to write a letter poem. I chose "write a letter to a toy you once owned". This suits me. Tom, sitting next to me, chose "write a letter to the moon". He liked it but I was glad I did not get that one.
Sympathy Letter
Dear Dolls Cot
I look back now with regret for how I ignored you.
My Mum had put so much effort
into choosing you. My Mum
had put so much effort into making the cot sheets.
The cot sheets matched the dress I had that Christmas.
I was astonished that Father Christmas
had chosen cot sheets in the same fabric as my dress.
My Mum expected me to play the little Mother.
Through you, I disappointed her.
I'm so sorry you weren't my thing.
With regret.
Cathy
We read and gave feedback on our poems. This is a really good collection of people, all highly skilled, and Sarah Westcott, our tutor said all(!) our poems were of publishable quality, and encouraged us to participate in the monthly poetry reading at City Lit, and reminded us to submit our poems to the annual City Lit poetry anthology.
My poem was about an object - Lino
Lino
I remember Lino cutting at school.
The blunt tools and crumbly Lino put me off for years.
Lino for schools has changed.
Soft, pliable, blue and easy cut.
A 5 inch by 4 inch slab.
I have my design. Anxious.
I carve my first line.
A smooth glide. I don't remember this!
My lack of skill is apparent.
My lines wobble.
I dig too deep and too shallow.
The Lino is chewed.
I remember 'cut away from you',
I remember 'cut with a careful sweep',
I remember 'don't cut too deep'.
Only after I've done it wrong.
This Lino has been cut by an amateur.
Wobbly lines. Uneven surface.
Disappointed with the proofs.
"Reduce the image
Chop out more
Line up accurately and overprint. "
Not great quality.
But I'm delighted.
It's mine and it's original.
A simple manual technique creates a thing of joy
from a slab of Lino, when executed with skill.
I want those skills.
My feedback was that I had successfully linked the present and past. I had rediscovered youth. It had narrative and was immediate. Class suggested it might look good as an artwork, if printed on Lino.
We spent time reading poems. Great poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, with her speaking on a Youtube video. Had a rap metre, and was about teenagers from her community in the US. Looking at line endings. Enjambment means the lines run on.
1959. Gwendolyn Brooks
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
We had a go at haiku (5-7-5 syllables) and Cinquain (2-4-6-8-2 syllables), working from postcards as inspiration. My postcard was of beach huts. When responding to a piece of art, it is Ekphrasis.
Seaside at Walton
Beach huts at Walton
Shelter from the elements
Blue sky of summer.
Playing on the beach
Brilliant sun, wind and sunburn
Seaside and freedom.
Walk to sea to swim
Picking my way over stones
Cold water, quick dip.
I hate gritty towels.
Stickness from salt water.
Can't dress easily!
Sand in sandwiches
Tepid tea and sun cream smell
Fast melting ice cream.
Beach huts
Beach huts
Rainbow colours
The height of the summer
Each one uniform but different.
So bright
Lime green
Cerulean blue
Colours of the seaside
Scarlet and fluorescent orange
Sun bleach.
For homework, we blind-picked a title from a bag - we have to write a letter poem. I chose "write a letter to a toy you once owned". This suits me. Tom, sitting next to me, chose "write a letter to the moon". He liked it but I was glad I did not get that one.
Sympathy Letter
Dear Dolls Cot
I look back now with regret for how I ignored you.
My Mum had put so much effort
into choosing you. My Mum
had put so much effort into making the cot sheets.
The cot sheets matched the dress I had that Christmas.
I was astonished that Father Christmas
had chosen cot sheets in the same fabric as my dress.
My Mum expected me to play the little Mother.
Through you, I disappointed her.
I'm so sorry you weren't my thing.
With regret.
Cathy
Saturday 5 October 2019
Linocut class at Great Slamseys Farm
This class is very local to me - hurrah - I was so much less tired than usual when I got back home after class - because I'd only spent 7 minutes each way travelling!
5 in the class - all women, some with children who'd just started school, so were able to do something during the day, other than childcare. Class was in a large barn (listed building) set up with 3 sets of tables that would seat 8. Plenty of space. Ruth is a daughter of the farm, who lives nearby offsite, whereas the rest of the family live on site.
We started by cutting a trial plate, using blue linocut (the grade that is used in schools). Easy to cut, but not great for fine detail. But useful to try out different carving tools.
Then we carved 3 inch blocks with a positive image, and negative, plus a black line drawing and a white line drawing. I chose a beetle. And we printed using different types of ink. My linocutting was rather clumsy, and I need more practice to develop better skills.
The second day we found an image we liked (one of my drawings of flowers in a milk bottle), in order to do reduction printing. More difficult that it seems! It was good advice to draw out the image twice, and colour in the areas to be cut away. This limits how likely you are to cut out the wrong area. I was constantly referring to my colouring. Proofs were done, then small amendments to cut away areas creating print noise. I decided to do a shaded bottom layer, with light blue on the left, and darker on the right.
Then decisions were made about how much to cut back on the Lino, for the second layer of print. Once again, more skills in cutting are required. But when printed in dark blue, it was good enough to show I had mastered the principles.
Two fun days.
5 in the class - all women, some with children who'd just started school, so were able to do something during the day, other than childcare. Class was in a large barn (listed building) set up with 3 sets of tables that would seat 8. Plenty of space. Ruth is a daughter of the farm, who lives nearby offsite, whereas the rest of the family live on site.
We started by cutting a trial plate, using blue linocut (the grade that is used in schools). Easy to cut, but not great for fine detail. But useful to try out different carving tools.
Then we carved 3 inch blocks with a positive image, and negative, plus a black line drawing and a white line drawing. I chose a beetle. And we printed using different types of ink. My linocutting was rather clumsy, and I need more practice to develop better skills.
The second day we found an image we liked (one of my drawings of flowers in a milk bottle), in order to do reduction printing. More difficult that it seems! It was good advice to draw out the image twice, and colour in the areas to be cut away. This limits how likely you are to cut out the wrong area. I was constantly referring to my colouring. Proofs were done, then small amendments to cut away areas creating print noise. I decided to do a shaded bottom layer, with light blue on the left, and darker on the right.
Then decisions were made about how much to cut back on the Lino, for the second layer of print. Once again, more skills in cutting are required. But when printed in dark blue, it was good enough to show I had mastered the principles.
Two fun days.
Ways into Poetry at City Lit
I'm booked in for a 3 Sunday class at City on poetry. Last Sunday we started - class tutor Sarah Westcott. The class is diverse - 4 men, 7 women, various ethnicities and working roles, mostly 30s-50s. We had a great time working with memory (I made the class laugh!), and simile and metaphor.
We debated words that we liked because of the sound or meaning - mine were fun, kind, crackle, sparkle, cartridge paper (for its meaning - the grade of paper used to make cartridges to hold shot for a gun!). Different people's words were categorised into visual, descriptive, beautiful, simple, memories, frequency. We were advised to take time to look - then the descriptive words come.
We looked at Joe Brainard's poem I Remember. It uses a lot of anaphora (repetition of a word or phrase), uses lists and repeats. Class had to write a poem of their own inspired by repeated phrases. I focussed the 'I remember'.
Teenage Angst
I remember the green and white tweed trousers my Mother bought me.
I remember I wanted to be like my mates.
I wanted tight blue jeans.
She’d spent my clothing allowance -
in the Sale -
on these hideous, bottle green and white, tweed, baggy trousers.
I remember the angst of wearing those hated trousers.
I wanted to be trendy.
But I wore frumpy, scratchy, baggy, hideous trousers.
I wanted to be trendy.
I remember the embarrassment.
I remember my Mother’s pride.
“They were such a bargain”.
“You’ll look ever so nice!"
I hated those trousers.
Who chose bottle green and white?
I remember her puzzlement at me not wanting to wear them.
“But you look ever so nice in them”.
We debated words that we liked because of the sound or meaning - mine were fun, kind, crackle, sparkle, cartridge paper (for its meaning - the grade of paper used to make cartridges to hold shot for a gun!). Different people's words were categorised into visual, descriptive, beautiful, simple, memories, frequency. We were advised to take time to look - then the descriptive words come.
We looked at Joe Brainard's poem I Remember. It uses a lot of anaphora (repetition of a word or phrase), uses lists and repeats. Class had to write a poem of their own inspired by repeated phrases. I focussed the 'I remember'.
Teenage Angst
I remember the green and white tweed trousers my Mother bought me.
I remember I wanted to be like my mates.
I wanted tight blue jeans.
She’d spent my clothing allowance -
in the Sale -
on these hideous, bottle green and white, tweed, baggy trousers.
I remember the angst of wearing those hated trousers.
I wanted to be trendy.
But I wore frumpy, scratchy, baggy, hideous trousers.
I wanted to be trendy.
I remember the embarrassment.
I remember my Mother’s pride.
“They were such a bargain”.
“You’ll look ever so nice!"
I hated those trousers.
Who chose bottle green and white?
I remember her puzzlement at me not wanting to wear them.
“But you look ever so nice in them”.
Then we passed round a bag containing objects, and chose one blind. I got a necklace - wooden spiral motif. We had to write a poem using simile or metaphor. (Ironing by Vicky Feaver, and You're by Sylvia Plath)
Necklace
Worn around the neck
as a sign of significance
Multiple laces like black liquorice
but inedible as electrical wiring
A coil of carved wood
as solid as a rock
Twisted, spiralled like an ammonite
Simple fastening - wooden button,
fixed with a string tangle,
as secure as a glover's knot.
Great class. Throughly enjoyed it. Roll on next Sunday.
Monday 30 September 2019
Exhibiting at Thaxted
The Monday class from The Granary held our second art exhibition at Thaxted. Liz showed print/collage, Cherry showed textile quilts and acrylic, Lynne watercolours and Margaret prints. I showed my latest 3 samplers, key fob and payroll.
We had over 100 visitors over the weekend, but only sold one piece, plus many cards. The rest of the group felt Thaxted was the wrong venue for our work. I'm the only one not trying to sell my work. Thaxted is only accessible if people travel by car, although I'm not sure whether people travel to any small exhibition by public transport. The Guildhall also has a lot of steep stairs and no step-free access. Nearly all visitors were friends and family of exhibitors.
I worked the Friday/Saturday and spent a fair amount of time talking to people about my work. Good practice for talking at my Viva on 11 November! I had a poetry class on Sunday, but arrived at 4pm to strike the show. Show struck quickly and all of us went home.
The following day, at The Granary, Cherry and Liz told me that my work had inspired a lot of comment from visitors on the last day. It was their view that this body of work needs a bigger audience because of the response it inspires in other women. They suggested The Festival of Quilts has a new Fine Art Textiles exhibition, expressly for textile work that is not quilting (3 layers joined by stitch). I looked it up online, and for the 2019 show, the closing date was in May, long-listed by photographic images, then shortlisted by delivering the actual work to the selection panel. There was nothing online for the 2020 show yet. Hmmm. Is my work this good? But if I don't try, I won't know. And it would give me something to talk about in the Viva to the assessors.
Stitching (In)Significant Women
We had over 100 visitors over the weekend, but only sold one piece, plus many cards. The rest of the group felt Thaxted was the wrong venue for our work. I'm the only one not trying to sell my work. Thaxted is only accessible if people travel by car, although I'm not sure whether people travel to any small exhibition by public transport. The Guildhall also has a lot of steep stairs and no step-free access. Nearly all visitors were friends and family of exhibitors.
I worked the Friday/Saturday and spent a fair amount of time talking to people about my work. Good practice for talking at my Viva on 11 November! I had a poetry class on Sunday, but arrived at 4pm to strike the show. Show struck quickly and all of us went home.
The following day, at The Granary, Cherry and Liz told me that my work had inspired a lot of comment from visitors on the last day. It was their view that this body of work needs a bigger audience because of the response it inspires in other women. They suggested The Festival of Quilts has a new Fine Art Textiles exhibition, expressly for textile work that is not quilting (3 layers joined by stitch). I looked it up online, and for the 2019 show, the closing date was in May, long-listed by photographic images, then shortlisted by delivering the actual work to the selection panel. There was nothing online for the 2020 show yet. Hmmm. Is my work this good? But if I don't try, I won't know. And it would give me something to talk about in the Viva to the assessors.
Monday 23 September 2019
Belton House, Grantham
Having handed in my thesis, Jim and I are having a couple of days away. We went to Belton House, where we saw a Women and Power exhibition - this at the end of the National Trust's theme for the year.
Jim and I started with the below stairs tour. As usual I was the one asking questions on the tour, some of which the tour guide did not know. For example, if a beer ration was part of the wages (weak ale was a sterile drink when the water supply was suspect), but staff could have a cash bonus if they did not drink their full entitlement (men 3 pints per day, women 2), what happened if any of the staff were dissenters or teetotal. The local church was Church of England, so presumably most staff would drink their entitlement. We were taken into the strong room to see the silverware. There was a huge silver punch bowl that one of the Earl's had been baptised in, coronets for the Earl and his wife and a complete silver dinner service that was loaned to No 10, when Thatcher was in power. Belton House had to ask for it back when she left power, as No 10 staff appeared to forget to return it!
The four women focussed upon in Women & Power were Florence Woolward, Sophia Cust, Marian Alford and Nina Cust.
Florence Woolward 1854-1936 was the local rector's daughter, friendly with the Brownlow family through her father, and became a botanical illustrator. The Marquess of Lothian was a world renowned orchid fancier, and Florrie was given the opportunity to paint the orchids. This led to a major orchid catalogue in 1896, and although the first copies were attributed to the Marquess, the third publication, attributed her as assisting the Marquess! Without Florrie there would be no record of this orchid collection.
Sophia Cust 1811-1882 was the leisured daughter of the 1st Earl Brownlow, and painted watercolours of the gardens and mansion. This gives the historical restoration of Belton some factual detail of the 19th century.
Marian Alford 1817-1888, was widowed at 34 and trustee of her eldest son, John Cust's, fortune until he came of age. She was another watercolour artist and embroiderer. Brought up in Italy she made many religious paintings as well as flower, landscape and humorous ones. Founder member of Royal School of Needlework, promoting embroidery as employment for poor women.
Nina Cust 1867-1955 was the most intriguing. Her story was that she was an intellect, writer and sculptor. But she had a shotgun wedding to the philandering Harry Cust (info from the Belton tour). Research online indicates Harry fathered children (with bright blue eyes) with many women, but none with her! One of his alleged children was with a maid at Belton, and this child is alleged to be Margaret Thatcher's mother. The alleged pregnancy of Nina Cust did not produce a child. And Harry and Nina remained childless. One of the interesting things here, is that NT literature talks freely about the shotgun wedding, where Harry was leant on by his cousin to marry Nina, but none of it refers to their childlessness.
Great day out.
Jim and I started with the below stairs tour. As usual I was the one asking questions on the tour, some of which the tour guide did not know. For example, if a beer ration was part of the wages (weak ale was a sterile drink when the water supply was suspect), but staff could have a cash bonus if they did not drink their full entitlement (men 3 pints per day, women 2), what happened if any of the staff were dissenters or teetotal. The local church was Church of England, so presumably most staff would drink their entitlement. We were taken into the strong room to see the silverware. There was a huge silver punch bowl that one of the Earl's had been baptised in, coronets for the Earl and his wife and a complete silver dinner service that was loaned to No 10, when Thatcher was in power. Belton House had to ask for it back when she left power, as No 10 staff appeared to forget to return it!
The four women focussed upon in Women & Power were Florence Woolward, Sophia Cust, Marian Alford and Nina Cust.
Florence Woolward 1854-1936 was the local rector's daughter, friendly with the Brownlow family through her father, and became a botanical illustrator. The Marquess of Lothian was a world renowned orchid fancier, and Florrie was given the opportunity to paint the orchids. This led to a major orchid catalogue in 1896, and although the first copies were attributed to the Marquess, the third publication, attributed her as assisting the Marquess! Without Florrie there would be no record of this orchid collection.
Sophia Cust 1811-1882 was the leisured daughter of the 1st Earl Brownlow, and painted watercolours of the gardens and mansion. This gives the historical restoration of Belton some factual detail of the 19th century.
Marian Alford 1817-1888, was widowed at 34 and trustee of her eldest son, John Cust's, fortune until he came of age. She was another watercolour artist and embroiderer. Brought up in Italy she made many religious paintings as well as flower, landscape and humorous ones. Founder member of Royal School of Needlework, promoting embroidery as employment for poor women.
Nina Cust 1867-1955 was the most intriguing. Her story was that she was an intellect, writer and sculptor. But she had a shotgun wedding to the philandering Harry Cust (info from the Belton tour). Research online indicates Harry fathered children (with bright blue eyes) with many women, but none with her! One of his alleged children was with a maid at Belton, and this child is alleged to be Margaret Thatcher's mother. The alleged pregnancy of Nina Cust did not produce a child. And Harry and Nina remained childless. One of the interesting things here, is that NT literature talks freely about the shotgun wedding, where Harry was leant on by his cousin to marry Nina, but none of it refers to their childlessness.
Great day out.
Saturday 21 September 2019
Hand-in of Thesis and East End Women's Museum Summer Party
On Wednesday I handed my essay in - one day early! Imogen had signed off all the paperwork, the previous day, and I had planned to stay with Darren for 2 nights. (Darren, a trained chef, had cooked us a wonderful butternut squash risotto the previous night). This gave me a spare day to get the thesis copied and bound, before hand-in. But I grind my teeth severely at night and had left my retainer at home. So I checked whether I could change my hand-in appointment, and dealt with that a day early - so I could go home and save my teeth!
On Thursday evening, I went to the EEWM summer party. This was in the heart of Barking. Lovely to see some old contacts, but most useful of all was that I could float the idea of my samplers being part of the opening exhibitions for the EEWM when it opens next year. For the first time, I met some of the Trustees, all intelligent, capable young women. Just the way they came across, they were women not to be messed with! Very inspiring. And two of them - I could see their faces focus with attention when I suggested my work was about unknown women of the area, and that outreach work could draw attention to women 'known to you' in art workshops. Focussing on the ordinary and mundane. It appeared this was something not mentioned before in their plans. And Rachel and Fani (Director and admin) did not rule it out of hand either. Rachel was ok with me using the EEWM in my Viva, for how my work might be used.
I also met Darren Rodwell, leader of the council, and the Mayor and Mayoress. I am often cynical about the top brass at these type of events, but they certainly seemed to walk the talk about representing their community. Despite my cynicism (learned from experience!) I was impressed with this event.
So it was a productive evening.
On Thursday evening, I went to the EEWM summer party. This was in the heart of Barking. Lovely to see some old contacts, but most useful of all was that I could float the idea of my samplers being part of the opening exhibitions for the EEWM when it opens next year. For the first time, I met some of the Trustees, all intelligent, capable young women. Just the way they came across, they were women not to be messed with! Very inspiring. And two of them - I could see their faces focus with attention when I suggested my work was about unknown women of the area, and that outreach work could draw attention to women 'known to you' in art workshops. Focussing on the ordinary and mundane. It appeared this was something not mentioned before in their plans. And Rachel and Fani (Director and admin) did not rule it out of hand either. Rachel was ok with me using the EEWM in my Viva, for how my work might be used.
I also met Darren Rodwell, leader of the council, and the Mayor and Mayoress. I am often cynical about the top brass at these type of events, but they certainly seemed to walk the talk about representing their community. Despite my cynicism (learned from experience!) I was impressed with this event.
So it was a productive evening.
Friday 13 September 2019
What Next?
I'm currently finessing the essay, for last tutorial on 17th Sept, hand-in 19th Sept, Viva 11 November.
I have 3 ideas for what next:
1. See whether my local gravel quarry will let me be artist-in-residence, to work with the skills of manual workers, who drive the quarry lorries. Possibly an exhibition at Braintree library/musuem to celebrate local unsung manual workers.
2. Learn to do more poetry. I like the way poetry can say a lot with a few words. I know I am reacting against the discursive style of my thesis - I just find a lot of it verbose. I want to say stuff in a powerful way - but with comparatively few words.
3. Art class is doing a term on sketchbooks for the Brooklyn sketchbook library project. I'm really looking forward to this. There are various themes - but Time Trapped appeals to me. Yesterday I dug out an old sketchbook with blackwork embroidery stitched from a drawing of the gesture of cross stitch. I'd like to do some work with blackwork and Jacobean embroidery, and drawing the different gestures of stitches - which vary across time. Elizabethan gestures are different to Mary Thomas' Dictionary of Embroidery stitches from the 1930s. This could be really exciting, and I love blackwork embroidery. I can visualise making fabric pages to fit the paper pages. And I'm planning how to secure the textile page edges in different ways - Elizabethan buttonhole, or 1930s hemming. Get some even weave linen on the frame, mark out the page sizes and off I could go - using leftover thread from my degree projects. But I need to do the artwork first!
I have 3 ideas for what next:
1. See whether my local gravel quarry will let me be artist-in-residence, to work with the skills of manual workers, who drive the quarry lorries. Possibly an exhibition at Braintree library/musuem to celebrate local unsung manual workers.
2. Learn to do more poetry. I like the way poetry can say a lot with a few words. I know I am reacting against the discursive style of my thesis - I just find a lot of it verbose. I want to say stuff in a powerful way - but with comparatively few words.
3. Art class is doing a term on sketchbooks for the Brooklyn sketchbook library project. I'm really looking forward to this. There are various themes - but Time Trapped appeals to me. Yesterday I dug out an old sketchbook with blackwork embroidery stitched from a drawing of the gesture of cross stitch. I'd like to do some work with blackwork and Jacobean embroidery, and drawing the different gestures of stitches - which vary across time. Elizabethan gestures are different to Mary Thomas' Dictionary of Embroidery stitches from the 1930s. This could be really exciting, and I love blackwork embroidery. I can visualise making fabric pages to fit the paper pages. And I'm planning how to secure the textile page edges in different ways - Elizabethan buttonhole, or 1930s hemming. Get some even weave linen on the frame, mark out the page sizes and off I could go - using leftover thread from my degree projects. But I need to do the artwork first!
Third day of show
There's been a long break before I've written this up - exhaustion and writing final amendments to essay.
Sunday morning Darren and I were late getting to the exhibition. This was because my Aunt Doreen, who is staying with me, took her morning tablets on Saturday night. This meant on Sunday morning I had to look up all her medication and work out what was safe to give her in the morning, to make sure she was correctly dosed. This took some time.
Darren and I got to the show at 11.30 - having advertised it to be open from 10am. This meant I missed one of my art class friends, who had made a lot of effort and driven a very long way to get there. I was frustrated with myself.
However, on Sunday, we only had 4 couples: (Lori and partner, who I missed!), Ian and Gwen, Sharon and Becky, and Margaret and Chris. However they all wanted the detailed tour, so I talked them through my work. Becky has just resigned from her job working in publishing, and has been accepted at University of East Anglia to do an MA in Poetry. When I read my Oulipo poem What Difference Does a Good Toilet Cleaner Make? she said the inflection of the voice and the punctuation enhanced the poem. High praise!
Darren and I struck the show very quickly at 4pm. Unfortunately I forgot the plinths had been wrapped in a corrugated cardboard cover, and we stuffed the plinths in the car and scraped them. Had I retrieved the cardboard covers, they would have been really useful when the plinths get stored in the garage. And it's a lot of bother to remake them.
So, reviewing the event:
The location hugely impacts who visits. I used RAWLabs because it was the only venue I could find. (Thank you Mary Schoeser!). But it was awkward for visitors to find. Even with most people having google maps on their phones, and Darren putting out the advertising poster and direction arrows, people still found it hard to find.
I should have managed the relationship with the venue better. Confirm what is booked in writing, particularly sole use of the gallery. This was due to a lack of knowledge and exhibiting experience on my part.
People who visited, had made a lot of effort to get there - for me! This was very flattering.
Advertising should have been more targeted. Very few people who did not know me attended. So my advertising to WI in East London, and others was unsuccessful. But people I knew from church (30 years ago) attended, because I'm still in touch with one friend, and they were relatively close to the venue.
Friends from church commented that my show was a self-portrait. The attitudes within it, were the same as I demonstrated when they knew me well 30 years ago. I don't have the words to describe how this makes me feel. I don't like the term humbling, but it is humbling that they found my exhibition positive and that it went to the core of my being.
I should have been more realistic about what times I could staff the show. If I had reduced in the evening opening hours, I would have been less tired. I should have expected there to be incidents that would make me tired (Doreen's medication; my brother upsetting my husband; my brother dropping the bombshell that his consultant thought he had MS, just before me leaving for the last day of show).
I was very glad Darren worked the show with me, even though on the last two days there was very little to do. He was the MOST FANTASTIC staging assistant, and did all the heavy lifting, carrying and hammering for me.
Sunday morning Darren and I were late getting to the exhibition. This was because my Aunt Doreen, who is staying with me, took her morning tablets on Saturday night. This meant on Sunday morning I had to look up all her medication and work out what was safe to give her in the morning, to make sure she was correctly dosed. This took some time.
Darren and I got to the show at 11.30 - having advertised it to be open from 10am. This meant I missed one of my art class friends, who had made a lot of effort and driven a very long way to get there. I was frustrated with myself.
However, on Sunday, we only had 4 couples: (Lori and partner, who I missed!), Ian and Gwen, Sharon and Becky, and Margaret and Chris. However they all wanted the detailed tour, so I talked them through my work. Becky has just resigned from her job working in publishing, and has been accepted at University of East Anglia to do an MA in Poetry. When I read my Oulipo poem What Difference Does a Good Toilet Cleaner Make? she said the inflection of the voice and the punctuation enhanced the poem. High praise!
Darren and I struck the show very quickly at 4pm. Unfortunately I forgot the plinths had been wrapped in a corrugated cardboard cover, and we stuffed the plinths in the car and scraped them. Had I retrieved the cardboard covers, they would have been really useful when the plinths get stored in the garage. And it's a lot of bother to remake them.
So, reviewing the event:
The location hugely impacts who visits. I used RAWLabs because it was the only venue I could find. (Thank you Mary Schoeser!). But it was awkward for visitors to find. Even with most people having google maps on their phones, and Darren putting out the advertising poster and direction arrows, people still found it hard to find.
I should have managed the relationship with the venue better. Confirm what is booked in writing, particularly sole use of the gallery. This was due to a lack of knowledge and exhibiting experience on my part.
People who visited, had made a lot of effort to get there - for me! This was very flattering.
Advertising should have been more targeted. Very few people who did not know me attended. So my advertising to WI in East London, and others was unsuccessful. But people I knew from church (30 years ago) attended, because I'm still in touch with one friend, and they were relatively close to the venue.
Friends from church commented that my show was a self-portrait. The attitudes within it, were the same as I demonstrated when they knew me well 30 years ago. I don't have the words to describe how this makes me feel. I don't like the term humbling, but it is humbling that they found my exhibition positive and that it went to the core of my being.
I should have been more realistic about what times I could staff the show. If I had reduced in the evening opening hours, I would have been less tired. I should have expected there to be incidents that would make me tired (Doreen's medication; my brother upsetting my husband; my brother dropping the bombshell that his consultant thought he had MS, just before me leaving for the last day of show).
I was very glad Darren worked the show with me, even though on the last two days there was very little to do. He was the MOST FANTASTIC staging assistant, and did all the heavy lifting, carrying and hammering for me.
Sunday 25 August 2019
Second Day of Show
This did not get off to a good start.
On the evening of Day One, Jim and I growled at each other, because I snapped at him through sheer tiredness. We have two guests, which is upsetting Jim's routine. Then the following morning (day two of the show) my brother turned up unannounced at our home, was his usual rude, thoughtless self and upset Jim further. My brother also exhausted my aunt (one of my guests) and he is likely to turn up again on day three, and upset people again. So I have a stressed household.
Darren and I went by train to RAWLabs to steward the show. I had been told by the venue organisers that stewarding would not be necessary, but I wanted to be there. They were right. There were only 2 visitors all day, partly because it is the bank holiday weekend. I could have done this by myself. However, it is part of my learning to attend.
Darren and I will steward day 3, because I know some friends have planned to attend.
On the evening of Day One, Jim and I growled at each other, because I snapped at him through sheer tiredness. We have two guests, which is upsetting Jim's routine. Then the following morning (day two of the show) my brother turned up unannounced at our home, was his usual rude, thoughtless self and upset Jim further. My brother also exhausted my aunt (one of my guests) and he is likely to turn up again on day three, and upset people again. So I have a stressed household.
Darren and I went by train to RAWLabs to steward the show. I had been told by the venue organisers that stewarding would not be necessary, but I wanted to be there. They were right. There were only 2 visitors all day, partly because it is the bank holiday weekend. I could have done this by myself. However, it is part of my learning to attend.
Darren and I will steward day 3, because I know some friends have planned to attend.
Saturday 24 August 2019
First day of show
The show went off as well as I could really have expected.
Darren and I travelled down by public transport. As we left Gallions Reach, we put up posters and direction arrows from the station to the venue, mostly on street furniture. I suspect other exhibitors had done this before us, because we could see the previous sellotape marks.
Our friends Bob and Marion were first to arrive, spot on midday when the venue opened (they were going on holiday later that day) and found the posters useful to find the venue. Jim arrived with my Aunt Doreen and cousin Allison, then my friend Liz from art class, and we all started with lunch in the cafe downstairs.
Katie, the venue administrator/cafe operator, came upstairs and had a look at the work and was complimentary about the layout. This was somewhat a relief. When I've worked so continually at something, I get to the stage where I don't know whether it's any good or not.
It got to 2pm and no-one else had arrived and I was getting a little worried about when more people would arrive Then I saw people coming up the stairs ... and it was friends I had not seen for 30 years - who I knew when I went to church! I welcomed them, and then it seemed like a constant stream of people I knew, from church, Girls Brigade, university, former tutors, City Lit, poetry class, friends and family. I clocked the assessor arrive, when I was talking to a group, so I did not go to greet him then, as it felt rude to leave my friends, but by the time I could disengage, he was obviously engrossed. I felt it was rude not to engage with him (I definitely treated him differently to everyone else!) but my instructions were not to engage with him, and he was clearly assessing the work. Every piece of work was inspected really closely. So I left him to get on with it.
Some artists/academics who I REALLY respect were present. Caroline Bartlett, Linden Reilly and Vanda. OH-MY-WORD. The look on their faces said it all. I've finally got the staging right (!!!) and my work is carrying its message. It was so fantastic to see these brilliant people and the look on their faces. They were all taken with the last sampler, Manual Worker Woman, with the quality of the stitching, particularly the colour blending and very fine running stitch and industrial marks. I found this surprising as I was not particularly struck with it, and thought I had over-worked it. But Vanda said it was simpler than the others, and thus worked better. Lots of people are amazed at the detail - yet I find it easy because I am working with magnifiers.
Darren spent a lot of time with Linden, in academic discussion. Linden looked well, and we discussed how her departure from London Met was a cloud with a silver lining. About 6 months after she left, her Mum died, and she had been able to spend a lot more time caring for her Mum in the last weeks than she could have done if working full time.
It was interesting to see how different people engaged with the work. Some people engaged with the formats and were interested in the use of the sketchbook - large, small, unique shapes, contrast between bold shape and easily overlooked detailing that indicated skill. Others liked the narrative of the cleaning bottle drawings. Women liked the representation of ordinary women, and the profiling of the value of what specific women do.
Visitors interacted well with the message board. This resulted with some very interesting descriptors of women who were respected.
What went less well: 1. I forgot to get a box of business cards out.
2. I'd prepared a welcome speech, but once there were enough people to do an introductory speech, everyone was interacting with the work, and the assessor was concentrating on the work. I felt anxious about whether or not to call people to attention, but a lack of confidence made me be silent.
3. At about 6pm (once most of the visitors had gone), Katie told me that there was an exercise class starting at 7pm in my gallery space. At the time, I was exhausted, nodded, and decided that as everyone seemed to have left, and the dockside area was devoid of people, this would be ok. Yet, this means there is a double booking. On reflection, I had a conversation with one of the administrators (there was a change in staffing half way through my relationship with RAWLabs) that there was a yoga class, but that it could take place downstairs, which was what I asked them to do. But none of it was confirmed in writing. And I can't remember who I spoke to - Katie or the previous girl. This is where my limited exhibiting experience shows. Then she said there is a film viewing at 7pm on Saturday night, again in my gallery space, and they need a section of white wall to work on, and again I just nodded. This morning Darren said the viewing is at 8, which is when I've advertised the show to close, so no need to worry.
Going home I realised this is a problem. I've advertised the show until 8pm each night. If I'd known they needed to use the gallery space in the evening, I'd have restricted my opening times, and this would have reduced the amount of time I'd need to work the show. But I don't know who's planned to come in the evening to the show. So, the learning point is to be really clear with the gallery what opening times need to be advertised, before the advertising is published. Not sure what the solution is for tonight.
3. As everyone had left, I decided to go home early, as the venue said most exhibitors only staged and struck their shows - other exhibitors did not steward their shows. This was a poor quality decision. During our journey home, my cousin Elizabeth put a photo of my samplers on facebook. I'd missed her! And one of my samplers had fallen forward off the wall. The top fixings had given way. I felt awful having missed her. She'd made all the effort to go there, presumably after work and I'd missed her.
I've not managed the relationship with the gallery, with written expectations. I've gone home when I'm tired. Not good enough!
Darren and I travelled down by public transport. As we left Gallions Reach, we put up posters and direction arrows from the station to the venue, mostly on street furniture. I suspect other exhibitors had done this before us, because we could see the previous sellotape marks.
Our friends Bob and Marion were first to arrive, spot on midday when the venue opened (they were going on holiday later that day) and found the posters useful to find the venue. Jim arrived with my Aunt Doreen and cousin Allison, then my friend Liz from art class, and we all started with lunch in the cafe downstairs.
 |
| View from top of stairs (later adjusted to hang straight) |
Katie, the venue administrator/cafe operator, came upstairs and had a look at the work and was complimentary about the layout. This was somewhat a relief. When I've worked so continually at something, I get to the stage where I don't know whether it's any good or not.
It got to 2pm and no-one else had arrived and I was getting a little worried about when more people would arrive Then I saw people coming up the stairs ... and it was friends I had not seen for 30 years - who I knew when I went to church! I welcomed them, and then it seemed like a constant stream of people I knew, from church, Girls Brigade, university, former tutors, City Lit, poetry class, friends and family. I clocked the assessor arrive, when I was talking to a group, so I did not go to greet him then, as it felt rude to leave my friends, but by the time I could disengage, he was obviously engrossed. I felt it was rude not to engage with him (I definitely treated him differently to everyone else!) but my instructions were not to engage with him, and he was clearly assessing the work. Every piece of work was inspected really closely. So I left him to get on with it.
Some artists/academics who I REALLY respect were present. Caroline Bartlett, Linden Reilly and Vanda. OH-MY-WORD. The look on their faces said it all. I've finally got the staging right (!!!) and my work is carrying its message. It was so fantastic to see these brilliant people and the look on their faces. They were all taken with the last sampler, Manual Worker Woman, with the quality of the stitching, particularly the colour blending and very fine running stitch and industrial marks. I found this surprising as I was not particularly struck with it, and thought I had over-worked it. But Vanda said it was simpler than the others, and thus worked better. Lots of people are amazed at the detail - yet I find it easy because I am working with magnifiers.
Darren spent a lot of time with Linden, in academic discussion. Linden looked well, and we discussed how her departure from London Met was a cloud with a silver lining. About 6 months after she left, her Mum died, and she had been able to spend a lot more time caring for her Mum in the last weeks than she could have done if working full time.
It was interesting to see how different people engaged with the work. Some people engaged with the formats and were interested in the use of the sketchbook - large, small, unique shapes, contrast between bold shape and easily overlooked detailing that indicated skill. Others liked the narrative of the cleaning bottle drawings. Women liked the representation of ordinary women, and the profiling of the value of what specific women do.
Visitors interacted well with the message board. This resulted with some very interesting descriptors of women who were respected.
What went less well: 1. I forgot to get a box of business cards out.
2. I'd prepared a welcome speech, but once there were enough people to do an introductory speech, everyone was interacting with the work, and the assessor was concentrating on the work. I felt anxious about whether or not to call people to attention, but a lack of confidence made me be silent.
3. At about 6pm (once most of the visitors had gone), Katie told me that there was an exercise class starting at 7pm in my gallery space. At the time, I was exhausted, nodded, and decided that as everyone seemed to have left, and the dockside area was devoid of people, this would be ok. Yet, this means there is a double booking. On reflection, I had a conversation with one of the administrators (there was a change in staffing half way through my relationship with RAWLabs) that there was a yoga class, but that it could take place downstairs, which was what I asked them to do. But none of it was confirmed in writing. And I can't remember who I spoke to - Katie or the previous girl. This is where my limited exhibiting experience shows. Then she said there is a film viewing at 7pm on Saturday night, again in my gallery space, and they need a section of white wall to work on, and again I just nodded. This morning Darren said the viewing is at 8, which is when I've advertised the show to close, so no need to worry.
Going home I realised this is a problem. I've advertised the show until 8pm each night. If I'd known they needed to use the gallery space in the evening, I'd have restricted my opening times, and this would have reduced the amount of time I'd need to work the show. But I don't know who's planned to come in the evening to the show. So, the learning point is to be really clear with the gallery what opening times need to be advertised, before the advertising is published. Not sure what the solution is for tonight.
3. As everyone had left, I decided to go home early, as the venue said most exhibitors only staged and struck their shows - other exhibitors did not steward their shows. This was a poor quality decision. During our journey home, my cousin Elizabeth put a photo of my samplers on facebook. I'd missed her! And one of my samplers had fallen forward off the wall. The top fixings had given way. I felt awful having missed her. She'd made all the effort to go there, presumably after work and I'd missed her.
I've not managed the relationship with the gallery, with written expectations. I've gone home when I'm tired. Not good enough!
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| Ann, Liz, Vanda, Naomi and me |
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| Lindsey and Sharon, friends since age 7 |
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| George, from poetry class |
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| Allison, filling in card for message board |
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| Migrant Worker Woman, and Manual Worker Woman |
Darren here! Cathy has asked me to share some reflections on the first day.
I feel that the day was a resounding success and Cathy's tireless preparation paid off. In terms of footfall, the gallery space was occupied throughout the day and people really utilised the entire space in a positive way. The exhibition space was on a mezzanine and beneath it was a coffee shop. This allowed people to view the work and discuss it later, below (often resulting in people returning to the mezzanine floor to re-examine the work post-discussion).
People were apprehensive in their approach to the work, and I feel that the sketchbooks in particular would have benefited from being "played with" or handled more. Even with encouragement the viewers were not coming forward in touching the work. However, the notice board was received well and several individuals added their 'valuable woman' cards to the board showing a willingness to engage in some interactivity.
Between 14:00 and 16:00 the space was the busiest. This was time advertised for the private view, but the private view did not allow time for any introductions or speeches as when people entered the space they immediately engaged with the work. Cathy did well to read the room during this time and realised quickly that any speeches or more formal proceedings would have caused disruptions in people's viewing experience.
I feel that the day was a resounding success and Cathy's tireless preparation paid off. In terms of footfall, the gallery space was occupied throughout the day and people really utilised the entire space in a positive way. The exhibition space was on a mezzanine and beneath it was a coffee shop. This allowed people to view the work and discuss it later, below (often resulting in people returning to the mezzanine floor to re-examine the work post-discussion).
People were apprehensive in their approach to the work, and I feel that the sketchbooks in particular would have benefited from being "played with" or handled more. Even with encouragement the viewers were not coming forward in touching the work. However, the notice board was received well and several individuals added their 'valuable woman' cards to the board showing a willingness to engage in some interactivity.
Between 14:00 and 16:00 the space was the busiest. This was time advertised for the private view, but the private view did not allow time for any introductions or speeches as when people entered the space they immediately engaged with the work. Cathy did well to read the room during this time and realised quickly that any speeches or more formal proceedings would have caused disruptions in people's viewing experience.
Sunday 18 August 2019
Debbie Lyddon class at Wells Next The Sea
Oh My Word. What a great class.
Cherry was a fantastic host. We ate well, slept well, worked well.
We started with a sight walk, where we walked a short way along the riverfront, spent time looking at things far and close, and collected a small amount of appealing detritus. We had small hand-made sketchbooks in which to make brief visual notes of what we had seen.
With the detritus we collected, we pressed them into a slab of clay, pressed a bottomless yogurt pot over (like a pastry cutter), poured in plaster and left to set. When dry (2 hours?) we lifted off the yogurt pot, peeled off the clay, and had the most amazing relief plaster cast. I had deep relief - frayed rope; medium relief - offcut of string netting; and low relief - leaves. Astonishing detail.
We did a sound walk. This was eye-opening. We sat and listened to sounds on the riverfront. We made marks for the sounds. We considered what we heard; from what direction; moving or stationary. Other people; nature; mechanical; silences or pauses. Rhythms/patterns; high/low pitch, sound textures. Whispers, variations in volume; near/far. Cherry, Liz and I were only 20m apart but we came up with many different sounds, and all interpreted the sounds in different marks.
We went back to the studio, and experimented with ink/pencil/other media to try out ways of drawing our sounds. We picked 3, and drew them across a long strip of textured paper. My sounds were the clanking of ropes against metal masts; a seagull scream; the circular saw from a nearby boatyard. The clanking ropes were drawn by using the edge of a small notebook, dipped in Quink ink, and printed using only the edge of the page. Gave lovely irregular lines, looking like ropes hitting a mast. The Seagull scream was a bright orange upward moving line, repeating with the inflexion of the cry. The circular saw was painted with a manky brush, twisted to emulate the movement of the saw. My sounds were interpreted with use of gesture as well. Our test pages were used to cover greyboard for the covers. We made concertinas of our long page by folding in half, and repeatedly folding into the crease to get the exact position right. A tip was to hold the left hand page up at right angles to the table, and fold the righthand sheet into the previous fold. Easy when demonstrated.
We went out and drew the covers on dinghys to identify how the covers accommodated the mast and other extrusions. We looked at the eyelets, which inspire Debbie. She is interested in the protection from the elements, so covers, protective surfaces and weathering appeal to her. We painted linen, made iron eyelets and stitched them onto the cloth. Then tied them onto a pole on the quayside and left them for the tide to soak and rust them the next day. We waxed our cloth, and made them into little protective bags for our plaster casts.
Brilliant two days. I came away very inspired for my idea to be artist-in-residence at the gravel works. The soundscape could be fascinating to work up some sketchbooks. Also the idea about protection from the environment. What is used and how.
Cherry was a fantastic host. We ate well, slept well, worked well.
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| Liz and I visited Oxburgh Hall on the way up to Norfolk |
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| Liz and Cherry on the beach. |
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| Debbie's inspiring collection of detritus/artworks |
We started with a sight walk, where we walked a short way along the riverfront, spent time looking at things far and close, and collected a small amount of appealing detritus. We had small hand-made sketchbooks in which to make brief visual notes of what we had seen.
With the detritus we collected, we pressed them into a slab of clay, pressed a bottomless yogurt pot over (like a pastry cutter), poured in plaster and left to set. When dry (2 hours?) we lifted off the yogurt pot, peeled off the clay, and had the most amazing relief plaster cast. I had deep relief - frayed rope; medium relief - offcut of string netting; and low relief - leaves. Astonishing detail.
We did a sound walk. This was eye-opening. We sat and listened to sounds on the riverfront. We made marks for the sounds. We considered what we heard; from what direction; moving or stationary. Other people; nature; mechanical; silences or pauses. Rhythms/patterns; high/low pitch, sound textures. Whispers, variations in volume; near/far. Cherry, Liz and I were only 20m apart but we came up with many different sounds, and all interpreted the sounds in different marks.
We went back to the studio, and experimented with ink/pencil/other media to try out ways of drawing our sounds. We picked 3, and drew them across a long strip of textured paper. My sounds were the clanking of ropes against metal masts; a seagull scream; the circular saw from a nearby boatyard. The clanking ropes were drawn by using the edge of a small notebook, dipped in Quink ink, and printed using only the edge of the page. Gave lovely irregular lines, looking like ropes hitting a mast. The Seagull scream was a bright orange upward moving line, repeating with the inflexion of the cry. The circular saw was painted with a manky brush, twisted to emulate the movement of the saw. My sounds were interpreted with use of gesture as well. Our test pages were used to cover greyboard for the covers. We made concertinas of our long page by folding in half, and repeatedly folding into the crease to get the exact position right. A tip was to hold the left hand page up at right angles to the table, and fold the righthand sheet into the previous fold. Easy when demonstrated.
We went out and drew the covers on dinghys to identify how the covers accommodated the mast and other extrusions. We looked at the eyelets, which inspire Debbie. She is interested in the protection from the elements, so covers, protective surfaces and weathering appeal to her. We painted linen, made iron eyelets and stitched them onto the cloth. Then tied them onto a pole on the quayside and left them for the tide to soak and rust them the next day. We waxed our cloth, and made them into little protective bags for our plaster casts.
Brilliant two days. I came away very inspired for my idea to be artist-in-residence at the gravel works. The soundscape could be fascinating to work up some sketchbooks. Also the idea about protection from the environment. What is used and how.
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| Cherry's collection |
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| Liz's collection |
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| My collection |
Richard McVetis class at RAY-stitch
Wonderful class 2 x Thursday evening.. Richard is a really nice guy - kind, gentle, unassuming.
We did simple stitches. The first evening we did straight stitches. On the circle I did different weights - thin straight stitches of different lengths working in from the edge, and thicker cross hatching. Then whipped running stitch around the hexagon - I used fine loops on the whipping, and thick tightly pulled stitches. I also did kantha running stitch in blue across a circle. Finally that night I did the fine seeding that Richard specialises in, on the square.
We did simple stitches. The first evening we did straight stitches. On the circle I did different weights - thin straight stitches of different lengths working in from the edge, and thicker cross hatching. Then whipped running stitch around the hexagon - I used fine loops on the whipping, and thick tightly pulled stitches. I also did kantha running stitch in blue across a circle. Finally that night I did the fine seeding that Richard specialises in, on the square.
The second week, I stitched some finer stitches on the square, and refined my effect a bit. Then I couched a heavy thread around a square using reflective thread; blanket stitched from the inside and outside on the triangle, and used some contrasting weights of thread for the fly stitch. I also tried some horsehair to couch down with a fine thread, which gave an interesting effect.
Nothing I had not done before, but very, very enjoyable to revisit with a diverse bunch of stitchers - From youngsters just doing their class at the RA, all the way through to my age, mostly women with one man, and several saying they had found stitch helped them stay well during the mental turmoil of a demanding job. Hurrah!
Possible layout of gallery.
____________ ___ ________ ___ ______________ ___ _________
320cm 30cm 260cm. 30cm 330cm. 30cm. 260cm
plugs plugs plugs
1. templates + 2. Cleaning bottles 3. Samplers 4. message board
pay packets
| 5. |
| Cyanotypes | 160cm
| 2.40m _|
| |_ 50cm
________ 6. |
top of stairs | Caring hand of |
| Mother | 400cm
| Plinth |
| key fob Jacobean/ |
| Montenegrin |
| Plinth
| Payroll
|
| Ford Toilet cleaners Values Status
| Table Table Table Table
|____________________________________________________________
1. 320cm
Car seat templates
L 15 x 78cm
T 15 x 45cm
B 39 x 79cm
R 15 x 78 cm
Total - 80cm + space between + artist statement
Pay Packets
55 x 55cm
2. 260cm
Message Board. 1m square
3. 320cm
Samplers
5 times 33 x 99cm
Total - 165cm + space between + artist statement
4. 260cm
Cleaning Bottles
3 times 42 x 59 cm
28 x 59 cm
Total 154cm + space between + artist statement
5. 160cm
Cyanotypes
20 x 50cm
50 x 15cm
Total - 70cm + space between + artist statement
6. 400cm
The Caring Hand of Mother
12 x 50cm
24 x 50cm
24 x 50cm
10 x 18cm
17 x 37cm
Total 87cm + space between + artist statement
Thread sketchbook 17 x 24cm (not sure whether to include this)
Jacobean sampler
35 x 30cm
Montenegrin sampler
33 x 30cm + Artist statement
Total - 68cm
Saturday 27 July 2019
List of research trips over last 2 years - quite a few!
Visits Womanhood exhibition, Cambridge. 2/7/17. Interesting, but very essentialist exhibition of two female artists. Expressed the female condition in glass, print and ceramic. Brilliantly done, not my taste – too much about blood, feeling drained, mastectomy scars. Narrative of many women’s embodiment. 3 hours
The Hardman’s House, NT. 18/7/17. Photographers who lived ‘over the shop’. Margaret Hardman married the boss, ran the business, adept at marketing. Ordinary 1930s lifestyle and flat but very successful. 2 hours
Speke Hall, NT. 20/7/17 B/W timbered property. 1500s Catholic – priestholes and access or Mersey/Ireland, affluent, much glass and quatrefoils. Symbolic ceilings – pomegranates, figs, hops, honeysuckle, birds and serpent. 3 hours
Festival of Quilts. 13/8/17. Annabel Rainbow Woman series. Beautifully stitched and drawn imagery of nude women with a message about the role and quandaries of making ethical decisions as a middle aged woman. 2 hours
Wallington, NT, 24/8/17. Socialist leaning Lord Trevelyan, Labour MP, monied from shipping and mining. Left house to NT, disinherited 6 children. Old roué, many affairs, had son with cook, brought up as extra child to legitimate family. OK with male outdoor staff, but disliked male indoor staff (worried about wife and 4 daughters???). 3 hours
Devil’s Porridge Museum, Eastriggs, Scotland. 25/8/17 Fantastic exhibition about role of women in wartime, making the explosive mixture for bombs. Clear stats about women’s work roles and wages before and after WW1. 2 hours
Kelvingrove, Scotland. 26/8/17 Tapestries from Burrell Collection. Beatrix Soetkens in Bed – vision of renovating a statue, repatriated to Brussels. Much symbolism in tapestry – meaning lost to history – keys (responsibility?), belt, scabbard, chamber pot, one boot, bible (faith?), candle (light of world?). 1 hour
Broughton, Kircudbright, NT Scotland. 27/8/17. E A Hornel’s home – Glasgow Boy. Amazing light on west coast of Scotland. Combined impasto impressionism with photo-realism faces. Child models paid 1 shilling, Mother chaperone 2 shillings. Sentimental pictures popular in Victorian/Edwardian times. 2 hours
Cragside, NT. 28/8/17 Fabulously wealthy William Armstrong, engineer/inventor. Munitions – rifling inside cannons made 57x more accurate. 102 rooms but homely feel. Victorian/1930s. Unmodernised as money ran out with nephew heir. 10 ton purple marble fireplace built for visit of Prince of Wales – display of money, power, status. 3 hours
Grayson Perry, The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever, Serpentine Gallery. 8/9/17 Paint and canvas have had their day – all hail the humble pot! Battle of Britain (brexit) tapestry shows leaders and remainers divided by railway and motorway, with no-man’s land in the middle. 2 hours
Traces Exhibition, Snape Maltings 29/10/17. Supporting fellow female artist friends. Abstract acrylics, assemblages and prints. Watched Lori start to shake as she sold 3 paintings in quick succession! 3 hours
London Transport Museum. Poster Girls. 30/10/17. Chairman Pick was keen to have female poster artists in 1920s/30s. Paid much less than men, but commissioned for sports events poster, not restricted to floral subjects. Women often took male names. Included Laura Knight and Enid Marx 3 hours
20thCentury Gallery, NPG. 4/11/17. Rehang. Shows ‘inspirational pioneers, responsible for devts that transformed Britain’. WWI v few women, only one Sikh man – not even finished! Skewed to WW1. Cigarette cards – exquisite – but male media? Removed Beatrix Potter, included Roald Dahl as yet another war image. Not impressed. 3 hours
Grayson Perry, First Site, Colchester The Life of Julie Cope. 18/11/17. Clever social commentary interweaving observations of evolution of life in Essex over last 60 years with social aspirations and expectations/reality of life. Wonderful woven tapestries 2 hours
Pippa Davismoon and Charlotte Morrison. Cambridge Artworks. Womanhood. 27/11/17. Essentialist – not my favoured form. Vaginas in glass and ceramic. Body image, scars and conflicting narrative. Breast feeding – at least 6 months/not in public; I can’t/cover up. Surgeons see women’s bodies as object; women see surgery as bereavement. 2 hours
View Seven, Menier Gallery. Southwark 6/12/17. Exhibition of textile work by women. Clever titles – ‘Blunt your sharpness’, ‘whole’ (mending piece).
Cardiff Castle, Wales. 10/12/17. Extravgant Gothic interior. Marquis of Bute only used for 4 weeks per year, when on mining/docks business. Devout Catholic, linguist, cultural supporter. Arts & Crafts and Arabic styles. Castle given to Welsh people when mines nationalised in 1948. 3 hours.
National Museum of Wales. 11/12/17. Terry Setch – Greenham Common women – inclement weather – strength, ingenuity, resilience, determination and power. Tudor portraits give insight into mines, docks, child mortality. Impressionist art bequeathed by Davies, mines heiress, spinster sisters – Red Cross nurses, ran WW1 convalescent home. 3 hours
Paddy Killer, South Shields. 28/12/17 Great exhibition by woman fascinated by family relationships and textiles. Beautiful drawings of lace, women and cats. 3 hours
Blists Hill, Victorian Town, Shropshire. 29/12/17. Phrases from printers workshop – Mind your ps and qs (p and q are easily reversed); dab hand (dab is an inking mop); out of sorts (need enough of a sort (font) to complete a print), upper case/lower case (capitals kept in the lid of a letter tray, and small letters in the base) 3 hours
Wightwick Manor, NT, 1/1/18. Amazing manor in high Arts & Crafts style. Big history of Geoffrey Mander, MP, raising awareness of women’s issues in Parliament. Lots of Art Deco art, and information about key women artists of the period. 3 hours
3 hours
May Morris, William Morris Gallery. 21/1/18. Amazing stitched pieces made by her. Supported her father’s business and followed his views on beauty, respecting skill and colour trends. 3 hours
Votes for Women NPG, 26/1/19 Suffragists, Millicent Garrett Fawcett – non-violent; Suffragettes, Emmeline Pankhurst – violence and vandalism. Women’s Freedom League resistence and peaceful protest. Working class women prisoners force-fed; aristocrats not. Many interesting women – but only Emmeline Pankhurst available as postcard! 2 hours
Hackney Museum. 8/2/18 Women’s achievements. Amazing exhibition about women campaigners for rights of ethnic minorities, unions, childcare, trans people. Showed how it was a continual battle to get people who were not white, straight, men to be treated fairly … and valued at all!. 3 hours
Glasgow School of Art Tour. 24/2/18. Lots about Rennie Mackintosh art nouveau – praises the female soft curves contrasted with strong uprights. Female oval over entrance to Ladies Art Society premises. Margaret MacDonald made everything herself – no contracting out. “I have talent but Margaret has genius.” 2 hours
Pauline Burbidge and Charlie Poulson. Songs for Winter. 25/2/18. Monoprint grasses printed on fabric and quilted. Big, bold shapes. Lots of continuous line, in drawing, resembles lines of stitch. Things you cannot actually see – eg growth. 1 hour
Kelvingrove, Scotland. Decorative arts strongly associated with women. Jessie M King – dressing table set, silver and enamel. King was the only Glasgow Style artist to design for Liberty & Co commercial range of enamelled jewellery. 1 hour
Riverside Museum, Glasgow 3/3/18. Transport Museum. Modern social take on transport. Includes Wilton coachbuilt prams; bicycles; wheelchairs; skateboards; fairgrounds; horses and car races. Stories of deaf carpenter, Asian bus drivers, poverty and pawnshops. 2 hours
Charles I King & Collector, Royal Academy, 5/3/18. Collections formed by opportunity, fashion and personal taste. Affluent portrait of woman with blackwork collar – different pattern inside collar to outside. 1 hour
Hanbury Hall, NT. 6/3/18. "Women make over 50% of population but less than 0.5% of recorded history, especially working class women." Harlot’s progress by Hogarth virtually unknown, yet Rake’s Progress is known! 2 hours
Baddesley Clinton, NT, 7/3/18. NT Women and Power exhibition advertised but nothing about women here! Naff. 2 hours
2 hours
Redditch Needle museum. 6/3/18 Needle making a key industry in this Victorian town. Incredibly harmful to health, largely women’s work. Very highly skilled processes to make all sorts of needles – sewing, embroidery, sailing, upholstery, hypodermic. Highly skilled product now taken for granted. 4 hours
Scottish NPG, When We Were Young 10/3/18. Narrative of social issues for the young, from deprived areas. Victorian to modern day family photography, campaigning. Edith Tudor Hart – women’s medical services, by women for women; post WW2, concerns about fatherless boys drifting into crime. 1 hour
Monet & Architecture NG, 27/4/18. Visual identification of landscape by scale of spires. Direction of travel and scale indicated how far away/how long it would take to arrive. Suggests identity, time and distance. 2 hours
Giants of Victorian Photography. NPG 11/5/18. Naff. Poorly explained. Everything referencing Lewis Carroll stressed the children in his shots were ‘mostly chaperoned’ but did not actually deal with his alleged paedophilia. Why the historical veneration of Lewis Carroll? 1 hour
Grayson Perry exhibition, Firstsite Colchester. 12/6/18 Great exhibition of Maldon tapestries and other works. Represents the Essex hinterlands very well, and narrates modern life stories, of people surrounded by the reality of their artefacts and environment. 3 hours
Stoneywell National Trust, 6/8/18. Arts & Crafts house with exquisite furniture. All have mortice and tenon joints showing, for integrity of making. Wooden chest carved end panels – fritillary; oak; strawberry; currant; laurel; honeysuckle; carnation. Knitted cotton coverlet – leaf pattern set on point. 3 hours
62 Group exhibition, MAC Birmingham. 10/8/18 – Caren Garfen’s hospital beds, all different sizes in minature, all sorts of heartwrenching comments on them about the experience and reality of suffering from anorexia. 2 hours
The Coffin Museum, Birmingham. 11/8/18. Newman Bros made coffin furniture and linings. Could provide coffin linings in Aston Villa colours. Joyce Green worked way up from clerk to owner, by share bonuses and inheritance from Director. Refused 1.2m from redevelopers, sold for £400,000 once it was Grade II listed/an industrial history museum. 2 hours
Edward Bawden, Dulwich Picture Gallery. 23/8/18. As wartime artist, paints all grades, notes names, grades and nationality. Combines lettering and imagery in early work. Wonderful blotter – pattern and doodles – normally valueless, beautiful detailing, yet preserved! 3 hours
Do I have to draw you a picture? Heong Gallery Cambridge. 1/9/18 Bob & Roberta Smith – letter to Gove – good sentiment but too much to read. Louise Bourgoise prints lovely – but gallery statements obtuse, did not add to viewing experience. 2 hours
Lyveden New Build, NT, Kent 10/9/18. Catholic Pattern and symbolism. Symbolism is clear to those who understand it. I’m not Catholic so I don’t. Is symbolism designed to exclude? Is this a good thing – to select the audience, or not? 2 hours
Ightham Mote, NT, Kent 14/9/18. Pattern and narrative. Sunflower pattern on carver chair. Indicator of power and status of person who sat in it? And fecundity from offsets on sunflower? Symbolic of powerful person in his absence, when he’s not sitting in it? 2 hours
Knole, NT, Kent 14/9/18. Women and Power theme. Loved Lubaina Himid’s imagery of the ‘blackamoor’ laundrymaid Grace Robinson on the downpipes that collected the water for her skilled labour – washing high status collars and cuffs. 2 hours
Stoneacre NT, Kent 15/9/18. Velvet curtains, printed with Angel and Trumpet. Other site of this hand printed fabric is V&A. Lyon sisters hand sewn samplers with multiplication table by Christianna Lyon fecit 1819. Fecit means s/he made it - stitch or arithmetic? 2 hours
Smallhythe, NT, Kent 15/9/18 Ellen Terry, Shakespearean actress. Costume style from Aesthetic movement – loose and comfortable, enabled free movement on stage, worn while pregnant. Beetle dress (Lady MacBeth) uses beetle wingcases to sparkle in the limelight. 2 hours
Bateman’s, NT Kent 16/9/18 Rudyard Kipling’s house. Associated with strong women all his life. Women & Power reinterprets wife from a controlling shrew, to a woman who defended Kipling from the demands of unannounced visitors and ran his household to enable him to concentrate on his work. Also reinterprets The Female of the Species. 3 hours
Monks House, NT, Kent 16/9/18. Virginia & Leonard Woolf’s house. Good explanation of her bi-polar disorder (paternal genetics). Manic when writing, depressed when published. Ran Hogarth Press. Covered books with hand watermarked papers even when ill. 2 hours
Petworth House, NT. Elizabeth Ilive. Female heiress, betrothed at 3, to protect inheritance. Multiply married. Invents cross bar lever to aid moving rocks, to till soil. Researches potatoes – her work, head gardener gets credit. Mrs Elizabeth Purser. Housekeeper. Identified by bunch of keys – responsibility. Hires, fires, supervises staff. Maids who handle fine china get paid more.Dowager Lady Egremont. Death duties of Lord Egremont led to Petworth being given to NT, and art to Govt in lieu of tax.Lady Lucy Percy. Lady of Bedchamber to Q Henrietta Maria. Plays on both sides of Royalist/ Parliamentarian divide.Lady Elizabeth Percy. Married 3 x by age 15. 4 hours
Raw Materials, Valance House. 20/9/18. Textile industries in East End, Russian Jews, unemployment, attempts at unionisation to improve conditions. Salvation Army Knitting Home provided accommodation & employment for destitute women. 2 hours
Virginia Woolf: An exhibition inspired by her writings. Fitzwilliam Museum. 28/11/19. 2 kinds of equality – one where women gain admittance to the world of men (vote, education, financial independence) or remodelling society to allow men and women to live on own terms. 2 hours
Women, Power, Protest. Birmingham Art Gallery. 12/12/19. Mary Kelly Post Partum. Not about competing with men. More about the reality of her life. Not sweet scented and sentimentalised. About her reality – complex, unsavoury. Humanist? 3 hours
Irish Linen Centre, Lisburn. 2/1/19. Cottage industry. Women did yarn prep, men worked loom, land and marketplace. Webster is a weaver, web is finished cloth. 2 hours
Mount Stewart House, NT. Ulster 3/1/19. Women and Power. Included working class and gentry. Gave pro and anti-suffrage views of women. Anti-suffrage wanted status quo to continue. Pro-suffrage wanted women’s lives to improve. 3 hours
Fashion & Feminism, Ulster Museum. 4/1/19 Rational Dress Society campaigned against harmful dress fashions. Late Victorian – too much corsetry; 1920s promotion of soft, uncorsetted, bias cut, post-war New Look – rehashed corsetry, goes back to women as decorative – and passive because they can’t move! 2 hours
Making Her Mark: Women Printmakers from the Ulster Museum Collection. 4/1/19. Women artists known for their relationship to an artistic man, not their own work. Women used art to communicate wider public views that would be dismissed in wider (male) journalism (Lady Butler). Women have to join female groups in order to get their work shown and sold. 2 hours
Edward Byrne Jones, Tate Britain. 29/1/19 Stitching exquisite. May Morris. Really dislike his portrayal of women – languid, beautiful, sexualised powerful predators. Men victims of female power and desire. Yuk. 2 hours
Louise Bourgoise, Kettles Yard. 30/1/19. Don’t really get her work. Beautifully made bronze double breasts object. Textiles look unfinished. Poor gallery statements. 2 hours
The Beautiful Stitch, Embroiders Guild. 8/2/19. Embroidery as art; education; fashion; industry; status. Industry is both personal and commercial. Quaker sampler “speak well or speak not at all, that no-one may be the worse for what you say”. Religious repression of women! Education Act 1902 needlework and cookery compulsory for girls only. 2 hours
Hannah Hauxwell Quilt Auction, Leyburn. 9/2/19. Fascinating auction of traditional thrift quilts and knitting sticks made by her family. Many items bought by textile dealers - will remain in the area. Double the prices anticipated. Some pieces went to Australian collectors, esp knitting sticks. Good to see her stuff valued and collected, but probably influenced by power of television, documentary Too Long A Winter. 4 hours
National Railway Museum, York. 10/2/19. Ambulance trains WW1. First Ambulance trains organised by rank, expects casualties in same proportion as ranks. Officers segregated from men by door (limits air circulation!) Later trains organised by lying down cases, sitting up cases and secure mental cases. Quakers ran 4 out of 12 trains. Woman nurse featured. 2 hours
Martin Parr, Only Human, NPG. 12/4/19 Photos as social document, artistic commentary and performance. Questions purpose of social events. Phenomenon of Britishness is different for the British abroad. Expat communities - white privilege is out of step with contemporary British life. 2 hours
Claudette Johnson. I came to Dance. Modern Art, Oxford. 13/6/19. Amazing show of large drawings of black women. Allows sitters to take up space in a way that reflects who they are. Gestures go outside the frame. Raised arm both assertive and vulnerable. 2 hours
Lee Krasner. Barbican. 3/7/19. Very diverse media. Different phases of life, mourning period after Pollock’s death. Cuts old drawings for later works. Very large. 2 hours
Broughton, Kircudbright, NT Scotland. 27/8/17. E A Hornel’s home – Glasgow Boy. Amazing light on west coast of Scotland. Combined impasto impressionism with photo-realism faces. Child models paid 1 shilling, Mother chaperone 2 shillings. Sentimental pictures popular in Victorian/Edwardian times. 2 hours
Cragside, NT. 28/8/17 Fabulously wealthy William Armstrong, engineer/inventor. Munitions – rifling inside cannons made 57x more accurate. 102 rooms but homely feel. Victorian/1930s. Unmodernised as money ran out with nephew heir. 10 ton purple marble fireplace built for visit of Prince of Wales – display of money, power, status. 3 hours
Traces Exhibition, Snape Maltings 29/10/17. Supporting fellow female artist friends. Abstract acrylics, assemblages and prints. Watched Lori start to shake as she sold 3 paintings in quick succession! 3 hours
London Transport Museum. Poster Girls. 30/10/17. Chairman Pick was keen to have female poster artists in 1920s/30s. Paid much less than men, but commissioned for sports events poster, not restricted to floral subjects. Women often took male names. Included Laura Knight and Enid Marx 3 hours
Grayson Perry, First Site, Colchester The Life of Julie Cope. 18/11/17. Clever social commentary interweaving observations of evolution of life in Essex over last 60 years with social aspirations and expectations/reality of life. Wonderful woven tapestries 2 hours
View Seven, Menier Gallery. Southwark 6/12/17. Exhibition of textile work by women. Clever titles – ‘Blunt your sharpness’, ‘whole’ (mending piece).
Cardiff Castle, Wales. 10/12/17. Extravgant Gothic interior. Marquis of Bute only used for 4 weeks per year, when on mining/docks business. Devout Catholic, linguist, cultural supporter. Arts & Crafts and Arabic styles. Castle given to Welsh people when mines nationalised in 1948. 3 hours.
National Museum of Wales. 11/12/17. Terry Setch – Greenham Common women – inclement weather – strength, ingenuity, resilience, determination and power. Tudor portraits give insight into mines, docks, child mortality. Impressionist art bequeathed by Davies, mines heiress, spinster sisters – Red Cross nurses, ran WW1 convalescent home. 3 hours
Paddy Killer, South Shields. 28/12/17 Great exhibition by woman fascinated by family relationships and textiles. Beautiful drawings of lace, women and cats. 3 hours
May Morris, William Morris Gallery. 21/1/18. Amazing stitched pieces made by her. Supported her father’s business and followed his views on beauty, respecting skill and colour trends. 3 hours
Redditch Needle museum. 6/3/18 Needle making a key industry in this Victorian town. Incredibly harmful to health, largely women’s work. Very highly skilled processes to make all sorts of needles – sewing, embroidery, sailing, upholstery, hypodermic. Highly skilled product now taken for granted. 4 hours
Monet & Architecture NG, 27/4/18. Visual identification of landscape by scale of spires. Direction of travel and scale indicated how far away/how long it would take to arrive. Suggests identity, time and distance. 2 hours
Giants of Victorian Photography. NPG 11/5/18. Naff. Poorly explained. Everything referencing Lewis Carroll stressed the children in his shots were ‘mostly chaperoned’ but did not actually deal with his alleged paedophilia. Why the historical veneration of Lewis Carroll? 1 hour
Grayson Perry exhibition, Firstsite Colchester. 12/6/18 Great exhibition of Maldon tapestries and other works. Represents the Essex hinterlands very well, and narrates modern life stories, of people surrounded by the reality of their artefacts and environment. 3 hours
Stoneywell National Trust, 6/8/18. Arts & Crafts house with exquisite furniture. All have mortice and tenon joints showing, for integrity of making. Wooden chest carved end panels – fritillary; oak; strawberry; currant; laurel; honeysuckle; carnation. Knitted cotton coverlet – leaf pattern set on point. 3 hours
62 Group exhibition, MAC Birmingham. 10/8/18 – Caren Garfen’s hospital beds, all different sizes in minature, all sorts of heartwrenching comments on them about the experience and reality of suffering from anorexia. 2 hours
The Coffin Museum, Birmingham. 11/8/18. Newman Bros made coffin furniture and linings. Could provide coffin linings in Aston Villa colours. Joyce Green worked way up from clerk to owner, by share bonuses and inheritance from Director. Refused 1.2m from redevelopers, sold for £400,000 once it was Grade II listed/an industrial history museum. 2 hours
Edward Bawden, Dulwich Picture Gallery. 23/8/18. As wartime artist, paints all grades, notes names, grades and nationality. Combines lettering and imagery in early work. Wonderful blotter – pattern and doodles – normally valueless, beautiful detailing, yet preserved! 3 hours
Do I have to draw you a picture? Heong Gallery Cambridge. 1/9/18 Bob & Roberta Smith – letter to Gove – good sentiment but too much to read. Louise Bourgoise prints lovely – but gallery statements obtuse, did not add to viewing experience. 2 hours
Lyveden New Build, NT, Kent 10/9/18. Catholic Pattern and symbolism. Symbolism is clear to those who understand it. I’m not Catholic so I don’t. Is symbolism designed to exclude? Is this a good thing – to select the audience, or not? 2 hours
Ightham Mote, NT, Kent 14/9/18. Pattern and narrative. Sunflower pattern on carver chair. Indicator of power and status of person who sat in it? And fecundity from offsets on sunflower? Symbolic of powerful person in his absence, when he’s not sitting in it? 2 hours
Knole, NT, Kent 14/9/18. Women and Power theme. Loved Lubaina Himid’s imagery of the ‘blackamoor’ laundrymaid Grace Robinson on the downpipes that collected the water for her skilled labour – washing high status collars and cuffs. 2 hours
Stoneacre NT, Kent 15/9/18. Velvet curtains, printed with Angel and Trumpet. Other site of this hand printed fabric is V&A. Lyon sisters hand sewn samplers with multiplication table by Christianna Lyon fecit 1819. Fecit means s/he made it - stitch or arithmetic? 2 hours
Smallhythe, NT, Kent 15/9/18 Ellen Terry, Shakespearean actress. Costume style from Aesthetic movement – loose and comfortable, enabled free movement on stage, worn while pregnant. Beetle dress (Lady MacBeth) uses beetle wingcases to sparkle in the limelight. 2 hours
Bateman’s, NT Kent 16/9/18 Rudyard Kipling’s house. Associated with strong women all his life. Women & Power reinterprets wife from a controlling shrew, to a woman who defended Kipling from the demands of unannounced visitors and ran his household to enable him to concentrate on his work. Also reinterprets The Female of the Species. 3 hours
Monks House, NT, Kent 16/9/18. Virginia & Leonard Woolf’s house. Good explanation of her bi-polar disorder (paternal genetics). Manic when writing, depressed when published. Ran Hogarth Press. Covered books with hand watermarked papers even when ill. 2 hours
Petworth House, NT. Elizabeth Ilive. Female heiress, betrothed at 3, to protect inheritance. Multiply married. Invents cross bar lever to aid moving rocks, to till soil. Researches potatoes – her work, head gardener gets credit. Mrs Elizabeth Purser. Housekeeper. Identified by bunch of keys – responsibility. Hires, fires, supervises staff. Maids who handle fine china get paid more.Dowager Lady Egremont. Death duties of Lord Egremont led to Petworth being given to NT, and art to Govt in lieu of tax.Lady Lucy Percy. Lady of Bedchamber to Q Henrietta Maria. Plays on both sides of Royalist/ Parliamentarian divide.Lady Elizabeth Percy. Married 3 x by age 15. 4 hours
Raw Materials, Valance House. 20/9/18. Textile industries in East End, Russian Jews, unemployment, attempts at unionisation to improve conditions. Salvation Army Knitting Home provided accommodation & employment for destitute women. 2 hours
Virginia Woolf: An exhibition inspired by her writings. Fitzwilliam Museum. 28/11/19. 2 kinds of equality – one where women gain admittance to the world of men (vote, education, financial independence) or remodelling society to allow men and women to live on own terms. 2 hours
Women, Power, Protest. Birmingham Art Gallery. 12/12/19. Mary Kelly Post Partum. Not about competing with men. More about the reality of her life. Not sweet scented and sentimentalised. About her reality – complex, unsavoury. Humanist? 3 hours
Mount Stewart House, NT. Ulster 3/1/19. Women and Power. Included working class and gentry. Gave pro and anti-suffrage views of women. Anti-suffrage wanted status quo to continue. Pro-suffrage wanted women’s lives to improve. 3 hours
Fashion & Feminism, Ulster Museum. 4/1/19 Rational Dress Society campaigned against harmful dress fashions. Late Victorian – too much corsetry; 1920s promotion of soft, uncorsetted, bias cut, post-war New Look – rehashed corsetry, goes back to women as decorative – and passive because they can’t move! 2 hours
Making Her Mark: Women Printmakers from the Ulster Museum Collection. 4/1/19. Women artists known for their relationship to an artistic man, not their own work. Women used art to communicate wider public views that would be dismissed in wider (male) journalism (Lady Butler). Women have to join female groups in order to get their work shown and sold. 2 hours
Edward Byrne Jones, Tate Britain. 29/1/19 Stitching exquisite. May Morris. Really dislike his portrayal of women – languid, beautiful, sexualised powerful predators. Men victims of female power and desire. Yuk. 2 hours
Louise Bourgoise, Kettles Yard. 30/1/19. Don’t really get her work. Beautifully made bronze double breasts object. Textiles look unfinished. Poor gallery statements. 2 hours
The Beautiful Stitch, Embroiders Guild. 8/2/19. Embroidery as art; education; fashion; industry; status. Industry is both personal and commercial. Quaker sampler “speak well or speak not at all, that no-one may be the worse for what you say”. Religious repression of women! Education Act 1902 needlework and cookery compulsory for girls only. 2 hours
National Railway Museum, York. 10/2/19. Ambulance trains WW1. First Ambulance trains organised by rank, expects casualties in same proportion as ranks. Officers segregated from men by door (limits air circulation!) Later trains organised by lying down cases, sitting up cases and secure mental cases. Quakers ran 4 out of 12 trains. Woman nurse featured. 2 hours
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