Feeling a lot brighter

I've been plodding stoically with my essay.  Then I got to the stage where I started Chapter 4, Exhibition.  This involved adding lots of photos of my work and rationale for what is going to be in the exhibition.  It made me feel better.

I've also spoken to the new adminstrator for Bow Arts (the previous one has moved on).  She confirmed she knew all about my exhibition (even though I've not had the invoice which was making me anxious about whether the booking was accepted).  I'm going up to RAWLabs tomorrow to see it as a venue-in-operation as there is a PV there from 6pm.  She confirmed I could screw lightweight shelves to the walls, provided I made good afterwards.  I feel much more relaxed about it now.

Just writing Chapter 4 - Exhibition is making me feel better.  I can see the photos need to be retaken, with better lighting, but it's all coming together and I can see how to do it (previously I could not).  Also looking at the photos of my work, in a chapter, correctly credited, is making me feel good, just by looking at it.  I'm starting to believe in it.

Whereas the writing does not.  It reinforces I'm an artist, not an author.  I am really starting to believe my artwork is good and has a strong narrative.  My writing is nothing like as good, but that's OK.  I remembered a quote from Tilleke Schwartz on a workshop "I don't theorise my work. I just make it". That's how I feel about my work.  I'm not a theorist.  I'm a maker, who looks at her world and how women are treated, and responds to it.

Fig … Cathy MacTaggart, A Traditional Woman?, Cyanotype on sewing pattern directions, 14.5cm x 50cm, 2017

Fig … Cathy MacTaggart, Non-Standard Use of Directions, cyanotype on sewing pattern directions, 50cm x 20cm, 2017

Fig … Cathy MacTaggart, The Caring Hand of Mother, pink gloving leather on paper pattern, 2016

And I've even started a rich fruit cake for the PV.  This shows I'm confident I'm going to make it to this stage!!!

And then a frustrating day

Yesterday I went to my lecture series, More Than Muses, at the National Gallery.  It was the class about the Female Nude, which I wanted to listen to, get an overview of the issues, to be able to write a footnote for my essay.  This would show my understanding of the spectrum of the subject, without needing to write a couple of hundred words. The handout would give me authoritative sources to quote in the bibliography.

Except the date had been changed and it took place 10 days ago.  On a Wednesday, not the usual Friday.  Apparently other people also turned up, having not received the email notification!  I was seriously hacked off!  Two hours travelling, for a non-event!  I've written in asking for the hand-out.

I was given a complimentary entry to the Sorolla Exhibition.  Lovely exhibition.  Definitely an event for colourists.  Wide range of images - formal portraits of family members; landscapes, group images of active people.  Plays with light and shadow.  My favourites were a group image of people working on sails, and one of boys with disabilities going for a swim.

The Director of the National Gallery has contacts with the Prada Gallery, Spain. So the attendant thought this might be how the exhibition came about. All the exhibition signage was in both English and Spanish, and the audio guides were the same length in both English and Spanish (apparently this is unusual).  The attendant said there had been lots of Spanish people attend the exhibition, both tourists and residents.  Many Spanish groups attending had been multi-generational, with Spanish being the language spoken.

It gave me a different perspective on how to make an exhibition inclusive of different groups.

Granary Art Class - Brilliant day

I'm definitely an artist not an author. Having struggled for ages with my essay, yesterday I had the most fantastic day in art class.

On Monday, in drawing class, we were looking at sketchbook formats, debating when the sketchbook moves from being an place to explore an idea, to an object in its own right.  We looked at concertinas, clipped with bulldog clips, envelopes,   I got out my little A5 envelope of collage papers (which we'd been given advice to collect at the start of term).  I realised they were all about my life (doh!, obviously) - tax letters, flyers for exhibitions, crosswords, envelopes, knitting yarn wrappers.  I drew on them with carbon paper, was told to simplify them to one drawing on each one, so cut them up Then reassembled into a concertina book.  I happened to trace certain words from a magazine cover - and the word "essential" came up twice.   As all the things in this sketchbook are important concepts to me (art, communication, bits from current art projects, exhibition flyers, crosswords, paying one's tax, knitting) it has been named The Essential Sketchbook.

Collage - Essential sketchbook

Then in Studio Group (Wed/Thurs), we repeated the exercise creating raw materials for sketchbook compilation the next day.  I spent time drawing various manual tools on a variety of papers using a restricted range of media (fine line marker; white Posca pen; dressmaking tracing paper, blue carbon paper.  We all created our own versions of sketchbooks as an object in their own right, but Lori created an amazing small sketchbook, long and narrow, held together with a bulldog clip.  Bulldog clips have been in my mind for some time as they will be used to display my art work at my exhibition in September.  I'd also been thinking about the pattern pieces used to make a car seat, and the side panel is long and narrow.  I'd also seen an image at Gaydon Motor Museum where car seat templates were hanging on a wall.

At Thursday class I cut lots of side panels from utilitarian brown paper, and drew and stitched images onto them.  I tore some images from my sketchbook, drawn over the last 6 months and incorporated these.  Then stacked the side panels, clipped with the bulldog, and hung on the wall.  I was very pleased with it.

Side panel sketchbook, staged

Charcoal sewing machine foot

Car seat print, blue collar fabric, stitch

Sewing machine foot - ink, water soluble pencil, silver acrylic paint, 

Sewing machine foot - ink, fine line marker, blue masking tape,

Ford logo - blue carbon paper

Car seat - print, fabric

Car seat - print

Ford Logo, carbon paper

Hammer - dressmakers carbon paper

Machine foot - fine line marker, pencil.

Class feedback was to make 3 more bulldog sketchbooks using the left side panel, top and main panels.  I have lots of ideas to include:  drawings of the cording and welting feet for the machine, drawing with the sewing machine ...

Making art is so much more appealing than writing!

Trip to see Mary Schoeser

I had a trip out to see Mary yesterday.  She was interested to hear I went to the Tennants auction of Hannah Hauxwell quilts.  As I had noted down many of the hammer prices of the lots, she noted them on her copy of the catalogue.

One of the roles she carries out as a textile historian is valuing the content of archives.  She has recently valued a contemporary commercial textile archive (thousands of items), some of which were much damaged.  Mary was pleased to see that some of the textile lots at the Tennants auction, similar to what she had valued, were spot-on for price.  I said if she wanted me to attend auctions in future to quietly note prices paid, I was happy to do so.  When I went to Leyburn to watch the auction, I did not really know why I was noting prices down, but it was part of enjoying the experience.  Now I know the application of the knowledge gained.

Also talking to Mary gave some insight into issues of academic interest.  She noted which lots had Turkey Red in the quilts and said there were two main centres of Turkey Red production (in the borders?) and this would be impacting the price (only one left?).  Hermes silk scarves hold their price well, and sold for more than top quality fur coats.  Shows what ethical fashion can achieve! Sampler prices were variable, and there are key points about colour, fading and damage, which would have given insight into prices, had I noted them!  There were two stumpwork pictures from the estate of Professor Metcalf - Mary queried where he came from - and it turned out he was a professor of fine art (at Leeds uni?? - not sure) who she knew had died recently - and she had seen these images in his home.  She was pleased they sold for twice the lot estimate.

She noted the strippy quilts with a particular lavender shade of dye sold for high prices.  Something to do with this being a dye that held its colour well, and was used for staff/servant uniforms.

Mary also spoke about her mother, on an occasion in much later life, coming across a piece of fabric of a particular blue.  Her mother, who had had a colonial upbringing in South Africa, was rubbing it in her fingers, and making a keening sound.  Mary had seen Mary Sibande's African work, and realised her mother was regressing to the time of her toddlerhood, when she had been brought up by an ayah.

Mary also spoke about Marianne Straubb, who was the subject of Mary's first exhibition with the V&A.  Straubb was cautious about giving consent to the exhibition - it was not sufficient that Straubb would be the subject of an exhibition at the V&A.  Straubb needed to be confident that she, her work and technique would be represented well, rather than just her ego. When Mary asked about why Straubb did not weave her name, as designer, into the selvedge, she said the role of the designer was to keep weavers in work. It was about more than her.  It was the skill of the weaver that she was promoting.  Straubb's designs really understood the handling of woven fabric, which is why they were used to upholster curved furniture - the bias in the weave pattern was optimal for this furniture.  It is this sort of social history that interests me.

She noted the Hauxwell quilts that really exceeded lot estimates were the ones with dates - so why did the auctioneer not hike the estimates?  She said the images of the knitting sticks were insightful because they were so very unusual.  The rarity of them accounted for the phenomenal prices.  She also explained the lower prices at the start - when dealers were saving their funds for later lots - a budget for total spend leads to caution at the beginning.

So many stories around textiles. Fascinating afternoon.

Gesture Conference at Coventry

I'd been invited to be part of the panel discussion at Darren Berkland's conference at Coventry.

... spoke about Cinematic Gesture and the Invention of Psychiatric Normality. How film enables psychological introspection.  How early psychiatrists photographed mental patients to record their gestures.  The relationship of power between psychiatrist and patient, the clothed and the unclothed.  Normative forms of gesture.  Usingthe gaze to interrogate psychiatric pain.  The male gaze upon the hysterical patient.

Caroline ... the Politics of the Smile.  Studio space as cultural space.  Anglo Turkish London (Stoke Newington).  Culture, taste and background props.  Visual habits. Power.  Took the people out of the images (victorian) - what does the background tell you about social and cultural status?

Tina Kendall - Boredom and vines.  Did not understand her talk.  Vines were taken off the web platform by the owning company a few years ago.  Seemed very trivial and strange to study - probably because it is not my subject!

Agata ... Meaning endures.  Gesture is performed.  Symbolic movement.  Cultural and coded.  I was losing concentration here and started unseen drawings of her gestures.  She used her hands elegantly.

Darren did a storming presentation.  No powerpoint slides - talked authoritatively.  This forced the audience to watch his gestures.  His parents came in to watch him perform, and it was delightful to see their support for him.  I felt very wistful for what he has in them.  His Dad, Gary, sat slightly in front of me, so I was able to watch the gestures of him and Darren, concurrently.

It was the first time I had participated in a round table discussion.  Sara Reed (performance/dance), Tom Gorman (theatre/director), Agata, and me.  Darren said the discussion showed a breadth of perspective on gesture.  Tom spoke about planning and observing gestures in performance, and identifying the revealing gesture that he wanted the actor to repeat and deliver in the actual event.  Sara spoke about the intention of the gesture.  Yet for me, I'm interested in the difference between the intention and what is read from the gesture.  The dictionary definition talks about gesture being mostly movements of the head and hand, and what is intended by it.  Whereas for me, gesture is often not consciously intended (quite possibly subconsciously intended).  So my contribution was different to the others, as they were academics, planning the gesture.  My experience comes from the travelling public where I am watching and interpreting (who's about to be ill/assault someone/jump under a train/fall down an escalator).  And my gestures when stitching (head down, small stitching gestures, no eye contact) get read as passive/submissive - which I'm not!

Great event.  I was spent afterwards.

Framing Feminisms Parker & Pollock

I've referred to this book before, but new stuff leapt out at me this time.  All quotes, not paraphrased.

'Feminism constantly questions the identifications of popular and high culture and their pleasures - of being the artist, the special and select, the refined sensibility or inspired or driven creator. p54

' Feminist practice entails a collective production of radically different views of the world, different kings of knowledge and accounts of experience and its determinations.  ... [Along with] engagement with the issues of representation there is a need to be accessible to the world of women, who may be unfamiliar with feminist theories about the way representations operate in the subordination of women. p54

The only constructive strategy for women is to work to produce a different meaning for art, its producers, its audience, that is to align its social relations of production and use to radical political change.  p59

The demand that the neglect of women artists be rectified - was adopted, but the demand that our entire conception of the artist and the discipline of art history be overhauled and transformed - was eschewed.   p60

The notion of 'shared oppression' permitted the domination of white heterosexual middle-class definition of that oppression.  Black women, lesbian women, working-class women, Jewish women were rightly claiming that their position in a racist and sexist society gave rise to quite specific forms of oppression p64

Structures of looking and especially pleasurable looking [scopophilia] have been identified and shown to establish meanings and gender positions for accepting those meanings.  ...Dominance secures the masculine position, while the feminine is placed as the passive object of that gaze.  How is it possible to make texts through which women's point of view can be articulated?  p73

Feminist activity is the interface between fundamental feminist concerns to articlate women's meaning and the theorised understandings for meanings are secured in dominant art practices and theories. p74

'The ideological is the non--unitary complex of social practices and systems of representation which have political consequences.  (Mary Kelly, 1977, Art & Politics conference, London) p81

'Feminist artistic practice can be effective - not by expressing some singular and personal set of ideas or experiences, but by calculated interventions (often utilising or addressing explicitly women's experiences ignored or obliterated in our culture).  Therefore the study of feminist cultural practices leads to a series of tactical activities and strategically developed practices of representation which represent the world for a radically different order of knowledge of it ... in the context of established institutions and discourses with define limited of what is ratified as art.  p81

'Ideology is - by means of social processes that we are produced as subjects, gendered and classed.  Social practices and institutions which constitute who and what we are: the family, schooling, the church, advertising, cinema etc.  p89

'Feminism is crucially a matter of effect.  To be feminist at all, work must be conceived within the framework of a structural, economic, political and ideological critique of the power relations of society and with a commitment to collective action for their radical transformation.  ... It has a political effect in the way the work acts upon, makes demands of and produces positions for its viewers.  It is feminist because of the way it works as a text within a specific social space in relation to dominant codes and conventions of art and to dominant ideologies of femininity.  It is feminist when it subverts the normal ways in which we view art and are usually seduced into a complicity with the meanings of the dominant and oppressive culture.  p93

'Post partum document.  The relationship, the reciprocal activities, experiences ... cannot be pictured or directly represented.... Thus Post Partum Document attains to the level of document as evidence of proof.  p97

'Reading a history from documents requires the active participation of the reader.  Meaning is produced at the point of production by its viewers who ... come to recognise and understand femininity as social process, founded in historically specific social practices.  p98

Perking up a bit - School of Textiles, Coggeshall

I've been working steadily on my essay, making slow but consistent progress. I've got over the horrible train journey home, where I fretted about my writing, that left me over-tired. I know Jill and Imogen only want me to end up with a good essay. I've also been stitching, but am awaiting more threads.

Over the last couple of days, I've completed another embroidery class with Lynn Hulse and the School of Textiles (Mary Schoeser and Kate Wigley), stitching  a 17th century Garden of Delight design, using 17th century embroidery techniques.  Great networking opportunity too.

Stitch from central area to the edge. Bring needle through vertically.

Hold thread to bottom,
angle the needle to make a snug stitch over  the outlining.

Add caption

Work from centre to the edge.
Work from centre down one side, then return to centre and work down other side.

Long and short stitch.  

I happened to say that if I had the chance to study abroad again, I 'd like to go to Davis University, California, as Jim and I cycled through this town when we rode across the USA in 2014.  Mary said she spent 4 years working/studying there and had all the contacts to be able to negotiate post grad study, and if I'd like it (!!!) she'd make enquiries for me.  Mary had various ideas about how to fund it too, by working as a teaching assistant to one of the textile lecturers.  Oh my word!  What an opportunity.

While stitching, in correct 17th technique(!), we had some interesting conversations.  In her time, Mary has worked as a textile archivist, lecturer at various universities, the V&A and Met Museums, but has also worked as a cowboy!  One summer she worked rounding up cattle.  She's absolutely tiny, but was able to do this because the horse and saddle fitted her.  When she moved to the UK, she could not get to grips with English saddles and gave up riding.

Eileen and Sue were discussing how to recreate an 18th century quilted silk petticoat, and there were lots of discussions about how to transfer stitch designs.  Prick and pounce, too much powder that stains the silk, pencils - no graphite is a powder; ink - can you cover it with the stitch? needle marking, stitching by eye.

Different class members had different issues with stitching.  Mary found the stitching difficult because she has reduced sensation in her finger tips (diabetes?).  I kept stitching the wrong way - backwards!  But I did manage to master starting and finishing my thread correctly.

Tutorial 1/5/19

NOTES OF TUTORIAL WITH JILL JOURNEAUX AND IMOGEN RACZ

1 MAY 2019

I’d sent in the latest versions of Intro/Ch1; Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. 

-      All images need to be 1/3^rdof a page in the text, and a full page in the appendices. High res photos.  All artwork for exhibition needs to be included in appendices. 

-      I don’t have the required photographic skills – try WEA, or FE/HE colleges to find a photographer. Or Matthew Gonzales Noda, CU student.

-      Final submission date for essay 20/9/19.  

-      Chapter 4 – Exhibition needs to be written in anticipation, with a 1 page appendix reflexive piece about it.

Intro

-      Include references to Parker in Intro/Ch1.  

-      Put Montenegrin stitch in Appendix – primary research, so not in main text.  And photos of progress.  More about the time it took and reflections. To simulate their gestures and their experience. Why rejected.  And Elizabethan chain stitch.

-      Use footnotes for areas where I touch on a well-rehearsed debate but am not going to describe it. Eg how women have been seen – see Pollock and Mulvey.

-      In Intro, Manet and art history goes in Appendix.

-      Change 1^stsentence.  This thesis underpins a body of work that explores representations of under-valued women through stitched samplers and drawings.  Explores what women do and how they do it.  Challenging masculine/paternalistic powerbase through practice.  Explain how I do it and how I deliver it.

-      Include Subversive Stitch p5 When women work it is craft.  Parker.

-      Contact Doctoral College about training for viva.

-      Working class and middle class need to be hyphenated throughout.

-      Add in multiple references eg Strang, Nochlin, Pollock about women in art. And Gendory (?) and Mulvey.

-      Avoid debate about female nude. Delete.

Ch1 - Samplers.  

-      Talk about history to underpin my practice and repetition of same themes coming up in  historical work.  

-      Cut purpose

-      Time and Holofernes.  Talk about how much time the needlelace would have taken.  Better photo.  Stress skill, patience and time.  

-      Add in footnotes about visits to properties.  List all visits and what I saw as appendix.

Drop Value.  Too slippery.  Portraying Women’s Actions through Stitch.  Write from my Making to the research.  

P2 Chapter 3. Reference a book on interview technique.

Write about Mrs Konieczny in Appendix.  Explain her and Theorum – alternative spelling.  

Cut Sara Impey.

Tutorial for my essay

Had a very long and good tutorial with Jill and Imogen.  But had a horrendously long journey home, and am now feeling very stressed and upset by it all.

I'm going to be way over on word count.  I'm meant to have a total word count of 15,000 words.  I've not written the Chapter 4 - exhibition, or the conclusion and I'm over 15,000 already.  Yet now I've been told to dump lots of relevant but peripheral stuff into appendices.  And my issue with this is that effectively it is just falsifying stats.  Yes, the main body of text will come in at 15,000 words, but I've just dumped them elsewhere where they 'don't count for total words' but are taken into account.  Which means more pointless messing about cutting and pasting, and more mouse work which knackers my neck.

I've been told that the assessors don't need to come to the show.  (Really, so what is the point of it?)  But I do need excellent photos of all the artwork, to add into appendices of the essay.  Which need to be really high resolution so the detail can be seen.  So why don't they just attend the show?  And look at the objects for real?

I've also been told I need to consider the grammar of my essay.  I've never hyphenated my use of the words working-class or middle-class and apparently they are meant to be hyphenated.  To me, this is more mindless detail that adds nothing of value.  But it's more fiddling about with mouse work which knackers my neck.

And I've been advised not to use the word Value as it is too slippery a term.  But this is actually, really what I'm interested in.  I read values through behaviour, and it's women's activity and behaviour that indicates their values.  I'm not interested in portraying women's actions - I don't want to portray an action like a sport - I 'm interested in the value that underlies the behaviour.  Imogen's suggestion is 'Portraying Women's Actions through Stitch'.  It does not really grab me.  I know values are not clearly defined for women - this is why I'm working in this area.

And the assessment process is stretching interminably in to the future.  I just wanted it wrapped up in September.  But now I'm told, if my exhibition is 2nd week in September, final submission date for essay is 20 September, then viva 6 weeks later - this will be November!  And I just want it wrapped up and finished so Jim and I can go away on holiday.   Some time in November!!!

Imogen likes footnotes, Jill does not.  I've never used footnotes, but they seem to be used to indicate you know there is a huge debate about something you touch on but choose not to use your essay word count on, but you need to show you know there is more to it - surely you could footnote virtually every sentence in your essay on this basis!

They want lots of evidence of analysis, evaluation and synthesis.  They say I do it, but I'm really struggling to demonstrate it in academic language.  Within the word count.

They want multiple references from people who have written about key themes to show the themes are well chewed.  Except I've often only read one or two, not the whole gamut.

Imogen wants a list of all the places I've been, things I've looked at, events I've attended, and what I saw when I was there.   I'm meant to look at what I've made and research that cascaded from it. I've only ever written from theory leading to practice, not the other way round.  I need to reference a book on interview technique so I can account for why I did the semi-structured interviews the way I did.  Except I did not refer to a book beforehand.

Montenegrin stitch is very important - all the reasons why I rejected it - but it goes in the appendix, not main body.   I really have an issue about fiddling the word count by dumping so-called important stuff in the appendix.    I'm also meant to dump a load of stuff from the Introduction in the appendices because it is well chewed ground, that needs to be covered to show I know it but not in the main body.

It seems a lot of pointless fiddling with details that add nothing to the integrity of the work.