First attempt at artist statements

Part of the Furniture collection

This collection refers to a time when the tiring nature of a long spell cooking was acknowledged by providing a cook's chair in the kitchen. This chair recognises that cooks need to sit on a comfortable chair when tired, and to put their feet up to be rejuvenated.  And a cup of coffee helps revitalisation.  This artwork is designed to gain a wry smile of recognition from all women who have felt taken-for-granted or unrecognised after a day of Women's Work.

Or:

The cook's chair is an analogy for the way in which women's work improves the family daily life.  Good quality, home cooked food is comforting and warming, particularly when tired.  A comfortable  chair to cushion and support the cook when tired, a stool to rest aching legs and a cup of coffee for revitalisation may gain a wry smile of recognition from all women who have felt unrecognised or taken-for-granted for their labour

80/75 words

Jam Covers (One year's Supply of Jam)

There are 64 jam covers - celebrating the 20lbs marmalade, 40lbs jam and 4lbs lemon curd - made in a typical year by my Mum.  It took 45 hours labour, to create wonderful preserves, for the benefit of the family.  Each jam cover depicts a detail of kitchen equipment, used in the jam making process.  The preserves are unseen, having long been consumed, so the jam covers trigger the memory of labour given freely to her family.

75 words

Roller Towels (Never Ending)

These roller towels represent the never-ending nature of Women's Work.  Cooking and preparing food is a daily process, and cooks wash and dry their hands constantly.  The three roller towels show an activity that moves from being ordinary, to dragging you down, to the realisation that it is unending.

50 words

Needs a lot of refinement, but ok as a starting point.  Now I need to get some photos of my hands working on each collection.  I am too self conscious to put a face shot on the artist statements, but am quite happy to show my hands, as manual work is important to me and part of what I want to represent.

I should take my own advice!

I was talking to people in class, about how to use the feedback they had been given for their Planning for Final Major Project module.  I suggested they might list all the suggestions given in the feedback, work out what needed to be done, how long each thing would take, and create a timetable for action.  (In business terminology this is called a Gantt chart).  Then I realised what a jolly good idea this was, and that I had not done it myself!  Hmmm!  Do as I say and not as I do!

So, I have categorised the different collections that I want to make.  Jam Cover Collection (portraying the unseen volume of women's work);  Part of the Furniture collection (portraying the tiring nature of women's work); The Roller Towel collection (portraying the unending nature of women's work); Knitted Samples collection (portraying women's work as unfinished).  There may be more!

Jam Cover collection - done

Part of the Furniture collection.
Colander and pastry drawn.
Percolator yet to be drawn. Need to source plain mugs and decal print sheets
Drawings queued to be printed on digital textile printer  Collect Friday 31 Jan
Create cross stitch script samples on hemp ramie fabric by 7 Feb
Make up chair cover and footstool cover with digital print by 14 Feb.

Roller Towel collection
Images drawn
Request Colin to make roller towel woodwork by 7 February.
Photoshop and queue to print by 14 Feb
Cross stitch script samples on selected fabric by 21 Feb
Make up by 28 Feb

Knitted Samples
First sample done
Identify suitable patterns for 4 more samples by 7 February
Commence next sample by 14 February

Artist statements
Write artist statement for Jam Covers by 11 Feb for Progress Review with Steve.
Write artist statement for other collections by 28 Feb




Printed by 21 Feb

Refining my artist research

Antje told us last week that our artist research was very limited and often irrelevant to what we were making.  So today I had a look at my artist research folder, in order to improve its pertinence to my work.

I realised that only about half a dozen artists had any impact on my work at all.  So I flagged every relevant page with a post-it note, and listed the artist names on the cover of the folder, along with a bullet point about which aspect of their work was relevant, and could be applied to my work.  I think this will also make it easier for the assessors to mark the work, come assessment day.  (No point hacking off the assessors by making their job more difficult!).

Edmund de Waal at Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Brenda, Jane, Karin, Vanda and I had a thought provoking day out in Cambridge to see Edmund de Waal's display of pots.  I find his art quite hard work.  His pots are tiny white plain porcelain pots, arranged in multiples.  They have infinite variations in shades of white, glaze, height, edge finish, throwing marks, eye level of display, position of maker's mark, and display spacing.  Because they are so plain, I find it difficult to see their appeal.

 The first time I walked round the museum, I found it difficult to appreciate anything in his work - although it was more to my taste than most of the rest of the highly decorated ceramic wares from all over the world!  Maybe I am a bit of a philistine!  However, I drew a selection of his pots which were displayed on a glass case so that they were viewed from below, and started to understand that the spacing was what provided a lot of the visual appeal.  Then I went back to a display of white ceramic from the Fitzwilliam collection, which de Waal had set out so that disparate pieces were "in conversation" with each other, and I get it!  I might not be the quickest student to grasp a concept, but I can get there eventually!

Brenda did some ace sketches.  As the pots are white, and she works with texture, she created dark pages with graphite, then drew into them with an eraser.  Her drawings were fantastic.  I would never have thought of doing this, although I have worked negatively into charcoal and enjoyed it.  The marks of the eraser gave soft textured marks that represented the pots very well.

Work in Progress and V&A Lady Painters to Professionals

I had taken quite a lot of time over the last week working on my jam jar covers.  I have completed 63 (I thought it was 64, but it was a miscount!), and starched them, and cut them out.

A rare sight - me at the ironing board!

Covers layered in pairs

Covers overlapped in a line

More overlaps

and again

Different combinations of layering using the silk circles

Not sure this gives the right feeling.
Too closely spaced, too busy, don't like the different fabrics together

I was quite pleased when I finished sewing the covers, but now I've seen them set out, I'm a bit disappointed.  I tried out a selection of background fabrics, but I don't like them mixed up together.  I think the white starched cotton cambric works best.  I think the 8x8 grid is too much and will try setting out 7x7.  If this works, it might mean I don't need to stitch any more, even if I remove all the non-standard fabric covers.  I quite like the black and grey hand stitched covers, but the coloured ones don't add to the message.  The silk cambric is rigid enough, but I don't have many of these covers.  The cotton ones, even when starched and laid out flat, were starting to curl in the heat of the studio.  They would curl very badly if pinned to a wall.  Further thought required.

I cheered up once I went to the V&A class. We had 3 excellent lectures: Lady Painters to Professionals; Women and Impressionism; and Amateurs, Artists and Women Photographers at the V&A.

In the 19th century, art training moved from being done with the family business, to external tuition provided for individuals.  Provided funds were available, art training was done via art school, formal training and the obligatory to Rome.  There was a Battle of the Styles: Neoclassicism (Line, intellect, discipline, studies of past masters) and Romanticism (Colour, emotion, excess, spontaneous).

We were shown an image of a story by Pliny where a woman traces the outline of sleeping hero on the wall before he goes to war, and were told that this is how the idea originated that women were imitators who copied outlines rather than worked from original ideas.  Women were excluded from art academies and therefore did not receive the training to portray the male hero.   Exclusion from art academies also meant women did not have the opportunity to work on big canvases (space requirements), and big pictures have more impact.  Size matters.  If you only produce small images, you only achieve small recognition.

Women painters were categorised into two groups:

Talent and no need to earn - "lady painters" therefore amateurs
Talent and need to earn - "professional copyists" who were alleged to "infest the galleries" as there was a big demand for traditional copies of European masters.

Amateur is a word derived from Amore (to love) which means a person who works for the love of the subject, rather than as being a skilled craftsman who earns a living this way.

We looked at Women's Work by Florence Claxton which was a satirical take on works by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

In the centre is a pampered male, surrounded by women who are content to minister to him by reading, singing, adoring and attending to his male baby.  On the outskirts of the image, there are portrayals of alternatives for female occupation: 3 governesses competing for the attention of one male child; women migrating (the preferred Government solution for the surplus of single women!); women obeying the preferences of religon and law by taking on the traditional mother/homemaker role; a locked door indicating the exclusion of women from Medicine; or an escape via Art!

Women and Impressionism covered how the art world mushroomed in the 19th century due to the evolution of a large wealthy middle class.  It was noted  that Art was largely a male career - men closed ranks, and affluent middle class families sponsored a son who chose art as a career. Women who were skilled were accepted into this environment provided they were grateful for a lesser role, and accepted less money than men for their artwork.

Impressionism suited many women.  Open composition; light dabby strokes.  Lake, beach, mountain scenes, en plein air.  It moved away from the traditional forms of art portraying the indoors; heroic, dark, male, nudes.  We looked at Braquemond, originally a copyist, who moved mid-career to impressionism, but when her husband actively prevented her exhibiting because he hated her new works, she gave up painting.  Eva Gonzales was influenced by Manet, but had a short career, dying after childbirth, aged 34.  Berthe Morisot portrayed modern life for 19th century women and represents a major strand in the Pre-Raphaelite movement.  She worked with a restricted colour scheme and free spontaneous brushwork.  Typically is seen as producing socially constrained pieces, but also did some outdoor cornfield pieces, so the whole picture may not be clear.

Dr Marta Weiss, V&A Curator for Photographs did a wonderful session on Amateurs, Artists and Women Photographers at the V&A.  In 1852 the first photo collection in the world was created by the V&A.  Women were involved from the start - no need to study from the nude, and photography was a practice pursued by amateurs.

Anna Atkins did the first cyanotype collection for a book British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns in 1843.  This was the first photographically illustrated book (previously watercolour plates).

Mary Dillwyn created salted paper prints in 1853 and Isabel Agnes Cowper contributed to the documentation and recording of photographs in 1868.

Julia Margaret Cameron was a key figure.  She was living on the Isle of Wight and had been working as a photographers assistant to John Herschel (key male photographer), when she received her first camera at the age of 48 in 1864.  She was a rule breaker and was deliberate and pioneering in her technique.  She deliberately created portrait photos with soft focus (which her peers severely criticised) and used her children, family, friends and servants in allegorical, historical and tableaux formats.  She was neighbours with Tennyson on the Isle of Wight and used him (and other famous people) as a model.  Photographic process was easily flawed by cracks, hairs, finger prints on the glass negatives but she worked with the faults.  She tolerated and embraced them.  Cracks from the glass plates can be seen on the prints in the Archive.   There was a lot of debate about how she worked with the flaws in Double Star, where faults in the negative actually enhance the portrait of two little girls by appearing to give them a halo.

By 1865 (one year!) she  sold a collection to the V&A.  Her husband was friends with Henry Cole, director of V&A, and Henry Cole recognised her value.  Cameron positioned herself well by donating a further collection of work to the V&A around the same time.  She was known for having an influential husband and for being pushy.  She was knowledgeable about technical issues regarding why plates deteriorated and used this to ensure the prints were accepted and stored correctly, rather than trying to save the plates.  She photographed staff at the South Kensington Museum and demonstrated her astuteness on how to position herself both as an artist and a museum worthy.  A very astute networker.

Tennyson requested Cameron to do photos to fit his work, then used her photos to create woodcuts for the published books.  She was displeased by this, so made her own albums, with pages of script from his poems facing the photos.

We were also shown collages from the 19th century using photos.  Kate Gough had taken a drawn image of monkeys and cut out photographed heads of people and stuck them on top of the monkeys bodies.  This was meant to have been created when Darwin was publicising his Evolution of the Species monograph.  Gough also did a similar image using ducks.  Although this is done in photoshop frequently now, it makes the point, nothing is new!  The Victorians were there before us!

A lovely day out.

RCA Work In Progress and Flow Gallery

Today I was out of the house from 9am to 4pm and only spent two hours of that time actually pursuing my studies.  I spent more time waiting for, and travelling on trains.  It is a lot of effort and I needed the time, motivation and money to do it.

The RCA exhibition gave a lot of food for thought.  The displays were from first and second year students.

Charlie Hetheridge had done some lovely prints working in puff then foil on assorted base fabrics - silk, spandex, chiffon, leather, felt and blanket.  The foil was not tacky because some lovely muted colours had been chose, and gave a lovely broken effect.

Kalia Cox had done some bold and delicate textured mark making and had printed them on both dense and sheer fabrics.  She had then combined and overlaid them to excellent effect.   She had overlaid different patterns in layers of sheer, and single or double patterned layers on a dark solid ground fabric.  Very interesting. Grid patterned fabrics were folded in a grid layout, set out flat on a low table.  She had created a little 6" flip book with an image of her on each page, with little cut out pieces of paper using her textured patterns, in different combinations.   A very illustrative way of showing how her mark making fabrics could be applied to a fashion application.

Carolin Milon had created organically textured fabrics.  She had put a 1m square printed piece pinned flat to the wall, then over pinned two draped pieces of sheer fabric over it.  The draped pieces both had one corner suspended from the ceiling, and other pins ensuring the sheers floated and draped.  Excellent display.

Miles Dunphy had listed on the wall the characteristics that inform his style - masculine; aggressive; dominant; materialistic.  Although the golden streetwear was not to my taste, the words enabled me to understand what the garments were stating - and they stated the characteristics very, very well.  I need to think more about my key words!

Flett Bertram had used a clever display technique.  She was working with small exploded shapes on a grid of machine sewn lines, for the back and shoulder area of a garment.  It must have been worked with dissolvable fabric but for display purposes a small area of chiffon had been sewn to the shoulder area, then pinned very simply to a metal coat hanger.  Very effective.

I might suggest to our tutors that these people could be considered for visiting lecturers, as what they had done was very interesting, both from a technique and display perpective.

Then I went to Flow Gallery in Notting Hill.  Quite a small gallery but beautiful objects, with a very high standard of finish.  Lovely ceramics - to be recommended to our students; and very attractive jewellery.  Limited textiles.  I liked the jewellery that used tiny fragments of old letters and envelopes, with tiny pieces of writing visible.

A long and tiring day out, but well worth it for the insight that I gained.

Short course at V&A - A Woman's Touch

I am doing another course at the V&A - A Woman's Touch:  Women Artists and Designers 1600-2000.  The first class was excellent.  Jan Marsh focussed on artists from 1600-1800.  She noted that in medieval times most artists worked on medieval manuscripts and were anonymous, although she had found one piece of illuminated work where the letter Q incorporated a drawing of a woman  in the stroke of the Q and a tiny name, Clarissa, which was believed to be the artist's signature.

Sonfonisba Anguissola was active in the times of Michelangelo and produced a large number of portraits.  She was accepted into the art establishment because she could paint in a style that conveyed expression and emotion ie more than a serious face that the model could hold as a pose.  This was the criteria used at the time to be deemed a competent artist.  She was popular with Philip II of Spain and a part of his court (and commentators at the time that she had painted him very skilfully and made a flattering portrait by reducing his lantern jaw).

Caterina Von Hemmessen was the first female artist to paint a self portrait at the easel, and also made the background appear to have a shadow on the wall from the easel, rather than the traditional flat dark ground.

Judith Leyster shocked the Dutch art establishment by portraying women with their mouths open (licencentious!), and bring a sense of comic appeal and fun to her portraits.  Leyster means low star, or comet, in Dutch and she signed her work with a J and a star with a tail.  She was the first woman to set standards for pricing her portraits.  Prices rose upwards from head and shoulders, half, whole person, and finally multiple people.

Artemesia Gentelschi made wonderful portraits, usually showing violent emotions with sexual content.  She did several images of Judith and Holofernes, and often portrayed wronged and strong women in her portraits.  During her artist apprenticeship she had been raped, abandoned, took the man to court, and was tortured under questioning to check the validity of her testimonial!  Subsequently her work developed to portray her experience, and apparently her rendering of Judith is a self portrait, and Holofernes having his head severed, is a porrtait of her rapist.

We also looked at portraits by Mary Beale and Angelika Kauffman.

As a class we were taken to the Prints & Drawings room to see significant works by women artists.  Lots of wonder full prints, some hand coloured, showing how prints were enhanced by colouring, usually done by anonymous women.   A modern piece was shown by Christine Borland who had noted most medieval-Victorian print books named the engraver (a man) but ignored the women colourists.  When I saw this piece, I thought it was an old work.  Borland has created a portfolio of etchings named The History of Plants According to Women, Children and Students.  This name alludes to the unnamed figures behind the historical tomes, rather than the men who had the high status roles such as etchers.  Borland's works only refer the colourists.

Jan Marsh said she had selected the women artists mostly by seeking out artists who had produced a considerable volume of work, and who had continued working for their entire lives.  She noted that Mary Moser (flower painter) and Kaufmann were both founding members of the Royal Academy, although no other women were elected to the RA until Laura Knight in the 1940s.  We saw prints and paintings by both Moser and Kaufmann in the V&A print room.    This is what is so amazing about V&A classes - you get to the actual original prints, real and close up!!

Jan Marsh also commented on the hierarchy of status in art, and where women's art fits within it, and provided some comment on why.  Historical painting (christian, allegory, heroic, male nudes subject matter, on ceilings and in oils); then sculpture; still life; genre (everyday life, familiar, humour); botanical; decorative art; copies; and finally amateur.  Materials have a status grade of marble; oil; watercolour; crayon/pencil, and this is on the grounds of durability. Marble and oil paints require more space and equipment, and often require a separate room because of the mess.  Marble causes a lot of dust; oil paints need pigments to be ground, mixing to take place and often need a technician or apprentice to do all the ground work.  Women needed work that was more portable and simpler to conduct in a multi-purpose room, so water colours were more convenient for them.  Middle class women were also encouraged to portray what was within their domain - so the everyday, mundane and botanical were frequently available.  Also women were forbidden to participate in life class, so if you do not practice drawing the well muscled male form, you cannot participate in the higher art forms of portraying the heroic male nude due to lack of artistic practice and lack of materials (oils or marble).

All in all, a very informative class.  Roll on next week!

Other Students' assessments

Today, the full time students had to submit their practical work for Preparation for Final Major Project.  I did mine last year, and viewing other people's work was an eyeopener.  Some people had done very little work, and others had done some really good stuff.  I liked three textile students work in particular.

Katheryn is working to the theme of animal welfare.  She hand stitches and is working with slogans like "free as a bird" and is doing some very interesting stitch using feathers.  She has used peacock feathers, and what looks like brindle hen feathers.  She does not use illustrative techniques but uses lettering and appropriate use of colour to get her message across.  I like contentious subjects.  Katheryn is making the point about how much animal produce is used in UK society, while the animals have a pretty poor time of it.  One piece is about how many geese are slaughtered to give feathers to fill a pillow, using white, pink for goose flesh and black for the quills.

Shannon is working with the theme of child soldiers.  She is working imagery of child soldiers into hand made felt.  She had a touching image of a 6year old sucking his thumb, who has also been forcibly recruited as a boy soldier.  The samples can be pushed further, and I think it would be enhanced by making the felt less perfect.  I think the addition of some plant debris, mud, footprints, and maybe some shot marks would make it more powerful.  This concept is a powerful one.

Nikita had done some impressive work in print and stitch.  Her concept is about being brought up in a  modern English environment, while having orthodox Indian parents who had a strong cultural heritage. She is producing some very interesting work using a combination of print techniques.  I particularly liked her feather prints that combined digital and devore and flock and foiling (both combinations required bold confident technique, applied with considerable skill).

It will be very interesting to see how their work develops over the next 4 months.

Back to uni

Back to school.  I had a tutorial with Steve which went rather better than the last one 8 weeks ago.

I showed my stitched domestic utensils. He felt I had made progress compared to the previous session, where I felt I was running in treacle. Steve was unconvinced by the idea of cutting them into jam jar covers, but liked the way that they could be layered and wrapped.  He liked the difference in density of stitch, and felt they should be wrapped around an object so that the object becomes concealed, and the focus is on the work in the stitched details. Maybe a jam jar wrapped up, or a christmas pudding in a cloth. We debated whether the inner wrappings could be printed or stitched but felt the integrity of the piece required stitch throughout.  We had a debate about how I could incorporate class in my work - I have recently been looking at Grayson Perry's 6 social class tapestries (raw edges for working class, gold edging for middle class; linen pulled work edging for upper class).  We had a discussion about whether my work was polemic.  I don't see it as such - I am not having a rant from an extreme position (my definition of polemic).  My work is feminist, but not in a hectoring tone.  I seek recognition for the value and benefits of women's work but I don't see it as overtly political.  I think Steve sees it as feminist and political and although he conducts himself professionally, he is not comfortable with it.  I am quite disappointed that my work is being pushed back to stitch, which I could already do when I started uni 5 years ago.  I would like to be using at least some skills that I have learned since starting uni.  Otherwise, what is the point?

Today I went back to class where Beth, Amy, Nikita and I had a critique with Antje.  I explained my feedback from Steve, and Antje was not convinced.

Antje felt doing all the hand work, then using it by concealing a lot of the work in layers of wrapping was inappropriate.  She very much liked the machine embroidery of the utensils and understood the individual work on each item emulated the amount of work in jam making.  She liked the use of individual motifs in a multiple, but felt the idea to use jam jar covers displayed in a grid could be better developed.  She suggested looking at Damien Hirst for work that utilises circles (circles are important to my work because they are in saucepans, jam jars, lids, drain holes in colanders etc).  She suggested some stitch in a jam colour (I have already worked in orange).

Antje asked who was my audience, and where was the work going to be displayed?  This changes every time I think about it. It is definitely directed at women, where there will be recognition and familiarity of the items portrayed.  Antje thought that once I have the imagery right, the completed pieces should come back into the kitchen.  Larger pieces could be made for a gallery setting, but smaller pieces - more affordable - would be the spin-off.  Tea towels, runners etc, as Caren Garfen had done.  This very much surprised me.  For months I have been pushed away from any practical application and towards pure art objects.

I mentioned my ideas about putting a colander with the word "drained" on a upholstered chair, a mixing bowl, rolling pin and lump of pastry with the word "resting" on a footstool and a coffee percolator with the words "perked up" on a coffee mug.  Antje liked the humour, and the relationshp between the human and utensil. I was told to continue to engage with my pieces.

Antje was unconvinced about using cotton organza as a medium, whether or not it emulated muslin as a fabric true to the domestic kitchen environment.  She was very much in favour of linen for tea towels and hand towels.  We had a big debate about roller towels - the youngsters did not know what they were!!  But I could very easily see my little hand sketches along the centre or side of a roller towel.  Either the drawings or the embroideries would work as a print.  My work is simplifying and I think sections of single images are working well, although they could be used as a selective repeat.  I was told to continue to link appropriates words with the imagery.  More thought required.

I was told to work up a series of outcomes.   I was told to work up both stitch and print forms.  (I am OK with both of these and they fit my intentions).  I was told to bring my work back to the kitchen to make it contemporary.  I am still struggling to understand this.  I don't get how using domestic heritage ideas can become contemporary, without it being "vintage".  How can a roller towel be contemporary? By the application of wit and wording?  I lack understanding!

But at least I'm making progress.

Grayson Perry and the Vanity of Small Differences

This set of 6 tapestries were on display at Manchester Art Gallery.  They were absolutely wonderful when seen for real, much better than when seen on the documentary on the tv.  The first two tapestries portray social class from the perspective of the working class, the next two represent the middle class, and the final two represent the upper class.  His key character throughout is Tim Rathbone, playing on a similar character to Hogarth's Tom Rathbone in A Rake's Progress.

I focussed on a couple of small details in each tapestry.  Each one has a version of his personal logo, which is an anchor surmounted by a W.  In the first tapestry, The Adoration of the Cage Fighters, the logo is on the Davey Lamp held by the miners in front of Tim as a baby.  The logo is a simple line drawing. On the second tapestry, The Agony of the Car Park, it is on the meat safe, which is a prize in a raffle held at a working man's club.  Again it is simply portrayed as Tim is still a child and remains working class.  By the third tapestry, Expulsion from No 8 Eden Close, when Tim is chucked out from home for going to university, the logo is on a bottle of olive oil and is more fancy and considered in style.  On the 4th tapestry, Annunciation of the Virgin Deal, the W-Anchor logo is surmounted by a simple crown, and has the tiny initials RA, indicative of his Royal Academy status.  It is portrayed on a chinese pot, which also has a sketch of his teddy bear Alan Measles on it.  The 5th tapestry, for the Upper Class at Bay, the W- Anchor logo is surmounted by a fancy crown, a large RA and is on the portico over the entrance to the stately home.  In the final piece, Lamentation, when Tim dies in a car crash, the W-Anchor logo has lost its crown, and is being spray painted by vandals in the background, and the comment "RA is .." is being written as graffiti.  

Throughout the work, there are references to classical paintings, alongside references to his life experiences.  For example in the second one, the characters look like his hated stepfather, his mother's adoration of a rogue, and Tim wearing Grayson Perry's old school uniform.  In the third tapestry, the home of his parents looks like Beaulieu Park in Chelmsford (affluent yet tacky new property in my opinion) and the gas guzzling motor car has a number plate CO2, which could be an environmental reference, but is also a Colchester postcode.

I could have spent a whole weekend looking at it.  Absolutely brilliant.  It works on a number of levels: classical, social, personal narrative.  He is a very clever man, and I think his narrative tapestries are his best work.

I also had a trip to Manchester Cathedral to look at the beautiful modern stained glass windows.  As cathedrals go, it is comparatively small, but full of wonderfully carved gothic woodwork, and brilliant windows.

A few days in Manchester

Jim and I decided to have a few days away before I return to uni.  We are staying in Stockport as it is cheaper than Manchester.

Today we drove up from Essex, and had a look in the Hat Museum.  Quite small, but very interesting.     The most intriguing object was a head measurer, called a Conformateur, from Lock's, one of the few remaining hat making companies in Stockport.  It looked like a top hat made from vertically sliding cylinders , which created indentations on a piece of paper, in the precise outline of the person's head, which turned out to be highly individual.  The display showed Kenneth Branagh and Tracey Emin both have virtually rectangular heads, Harold Wilson had a head that was oval but quite a lot wider at his ears, and Jackie Stewart and David Niven appeared to have a considerable dent in thier respective heads at the right temple!

Tomorrow we plan to go to Manchester Art Gallery to see the Grayson Perry tapestries on social class.  Roll on tomorrow!

Work in progress - making good time

I have worked diligently on the jam jar covers and now have 44!  Almost enough to do something with!  I would need 49 to create a 7 x 7 grid.  But enough have been done for today.  At present, they are uncut and unironed.

Handle fixing on mincer

Bowl of mincer

Handle of mincer

Mincing disc

Profile of mincing discs

Fixing of mincer handle

Lemon squeezer

Lemon squeezer with pouring spout

Maurice and I had a lovely trip to London to go to a couple of exhibitions.  I had already been to the Elizabeth I exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery but needed to see it again to draw the Elizabethan jacket that was embroidered all over with blackwork.  I thought it was amazing the first time I saw it, but when I came to draw it, it was even more astonishing.  Maurice enjoyed the exhibition but his focus was on the minatures and maps, which had completely passed me by the first time.

Then we went on to the Art Under Attack exhibition at Tate Britain.  This had examples of destruction of stonework under the Reformation, destruction of artworks by the Suffragettes and aesthetic destruction by people like the Chapman brothers (this bit left me cold).  The best piece in show, for me, was a modern poster by Kate Davis 2011.  She had found, in a library archive, a pamphlet written by Christabel Pankhurst, which had had the portrait on the front scratched out.  She had had it enlarged to poster size, commenting that the original pamphlet had been maintain in its defaced condition, whereas artworks (such as the Rokeby Venus) which had been vandalised by the Suffragettes had been lovingly and expensively restored.  This was symbolic of the relative worth given to the defaced and the defacer, depending on the value placed upon the message behind the object.