The Art House Co Op Chronicle Project - The Day

The Art House Co Op Chronicle Project - recording my chosen 24 hours. Initially I thought I would I choose the Miles & Dacombe Light Walk day at Sywell Country Park as we would be taking lots of photographs and making a map. But then it seemed a bit lazy to record the event twice so I decided to chronicle the 24 hours from 12 pm May 4th - 12 pm May 5th. May 5th saw us making a day trip to see relatives in Stoke-on-Trent. I noted down times and events but not thoughts or emotions to use as the starting point for my Chronicle artwork.

Chronicle in notes and images

Sleeping

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 23:00 to 01:30

Continue sleeping

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 01:30 to 02:00

Still sleeping

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 02:00 to 03:00

Dog wants to look at the moon

(it may not be this exact moon)

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 03:00 to 03:30

waiting for dog to finish moonlight garden ramble 

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 03:30 to 04:00

back to bed

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 04:00 to 04:30

Check email on phone

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 04:30 to 05:00

Check Twitter & Facebook

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 05:00 to 05:30

Sleep

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 05:30 to 06:30

Wake, bathroom, coffee, bed, internet

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 06:30 to 07:30

Feed dog

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 07:30 to 08:00

Shower, wash hair, dress, assemble gifts

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 08:00 to 09:15

Drop dog off at parents house

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 09:15 to 09:45

Join A14 - I am the passenger

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 09:45 to 10:15

Reading The Pleasures of English Food, watching cloud

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 10:15 to 11:00

A50 Services before derby Turn off. Coffee. 

Magazine. Buy miniature Rosebush

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 11:00 to 11:30

Rejoin A50 heading for Stoke-on-Trent

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 11:30 to 12:15

Passing Britainnia Stadium - 

ring Andrew's parents to explain late arrival 

of fish and chip lunch

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 12:15 to 12:45

Packmoor - David's Chip Shop. 

Cat on a lead on a wall. 

view of Mow Cop from Chip Shop window.

 Millenium Breathing space garden and Millennium Throne

(artist on the project Phil Hardaker)

Finches and sparrows investigate plants

and perch on satellite cables. 

Explore remains of terraced street life. Breath in. scheduled 5 May 2012 from 12:45 to 13:30

Arrive at the inlaws to have lunch scheduled 5 May 2012 from 13:30 to 14:15

The rest of the boyz arrive

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 14:15 to 15:00

Talking in the back room

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 15:00 to 15:30

take family snaps, say goodbyes

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 15:30 to 16:15

Visit Trentham Gardens - shopping, eat pie, buy new lime green shoes in the sale

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 16:15 to 17:00

Leave Stoke head out to A50. As I am not 

driving I read the Pleasures of Engish Food again which is strangely engrossing

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 17:00 to 17:30

Stop at A50 services to stretch legs, have a break

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 17:30 to 18:00

Rejoin A50 heading home

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 18:00 to 18:30

Join M1 road getting pretty busy

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 18:30 to 19:00

Join A14

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 18:45 to 19:15

Collect Charlie Whippet from my parents. 

Have tea and chat about the day.

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 19:15 to 19:45

Arrive home, unpack, check emails, 

make coffee, download photos

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 19:45 to 20:30

Make food

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 20:30 to 21:00

Watch back to back episodes of The Bridge

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 21:00 to 23:00

Watch unremarkable TV programmes

scheduled 5 May 2012 from 23:00 to 23:30

Bed

scheduled for 5 May 2012 at 23:45 to 6 May 2012 at 00:45

Close to the Skin - Patterns & Petticoats - Snibston CPD

Apart from looking at the collections under my own steam and meeting with my Mentors Barber-Swindells, I was also able to select items from the Collections Resource Centre. I was keen to look at old shift patterns and the some of the petticoats that were supported by hoops or worn under / over the bottle cages. Sarah Nicol, Inspiring Collections Officer, Leicestershire County Council, Communities and Wellbeing was a wonderful guide through my chosen items and we had a wonderful time talking about the items she had brought to show me.

 

I was very taken with the layout instructions and have a feeling I'll be coming back to these in the near future, especially as I have a whole box of vintage Vogue patterns stashed away! As I don't have the figure for couture or faith in my pattern following abilities these elements these may just become part an image but there is something very tempting about these maps of the body.

I found the shapes, crumples and wrinkles fascinating and was very drawn to the colours an textures of the old cloth. There was something playful, joyful about the swing and swish these petticoats create when in motion. I was amazed at the many variations on a theme, I thought about the restriction, freedom and support these garments brought to the wearer and even though they had lost their crisp newness they still whispered of display and attraction, dance and drudgery.

It is hard to imagine just what this metal clasp 

must have felt like next to the skin

the metalwork and the rusting hoops were 

a strange reminder of the male and female.

There was also something very moving about the signs of wear and tear. The patches, darns and repairs encased beneath skirts, the bottle cages, bustles and padding all hidden extensions of the body. Shape shifters.

Then there was the surprising, joyous red flannel, offering protection from the cold but it was also believed that the colour itself offered protection from disease and could be used to draw out inflammation.

 

It is quite bewildering to think about the amount of time it must have taken to dress and curious that many items of clothing were either there to enhance shape or protect the fabric from the body.

I was only able to make the visit to view my chosen items two days before my proposal was due to be completed and I had to write something to send to Claire and Steve the day before this visit was to take place. I didn't feel ready, nothing was flowing and to compound my anxiety, my partner took a tumble down the stairs and had to be rushed to A&E. Thankfully he hadn't broken his shoulder, just partially dislocated it, but seeing him lying in a grey, forlorn heap at the foot of the stairs did fracture my powers of thought! Whilst trying to get my thoughts in order, I felt compelled to experiment with the notions of soft (wadding, fabric) and hard (machine stitches) as a way of sorting out the jumble of seams, shifts and pattern pieces living in my head! 

I enjoyed the raw edges and the flyaway threads, but I think Claire and Steve were a bit bemused by my strange samples and having seen their meticulous work, I'm not surprised!

However there are just some times when it's important  to follow your own processes and ways of working, these samples are fragments of thought, beginnings not finished ideas.

Growth and Connections - Some Thoughts

Snibston Visit One - Part Two

Growth and nourishment are vital to life and creativity

Cabbages growing outside Barber-Swindells 

When studying English at school we had to read a story, The Wharf by Walter De La Mare which has often come back to me in later life, particularly when seeing vegetation (plants or weeds) sprouting out of the most unlikely places. In the story a young mother is sent to a farm to convalesce, it sounds as though she has had a breakdown, her nerves are in a very fragile state and the world has become a terrifying place. She hasn't been sleeping, her appetite has vanished, she can't connect with the joy and brightness of her own child. This is the only quotation I could find for the story

"Confronting her, farther down the wharf, and moored to it by a thick rope, floated on the river a huge and empty barge. There was a wrapped figure stooping there, where the sweeps jut out, as if in profound Sleep. And above the barge, on the wharf itself, lay a vague irregular mass of what had apparently come out of the barge. It was at the spectacle of the mere shape of this foul mass, it seemed, that she had begun to be afraid. It would have horrified her even if she had been alone in the solitude of the wharf"

From what I recall, the "foul mass" is a large pile of horse manure and it seems to conjure up all of her fears about mortality and death. I can't remember the entire plot but what stayed with me most vividly was her reinterpretation of the spoil heap towards the end of the story. With the arrival of spring she notices that flowers (weeds?) are starting to grow on top of the heap and the Farmer explains the part  the manure plays in the cycle of life and fertility. She is able to look at the world differently, she is able to go home and resume her life.

Things decay but out of decay new life is possible.

I was struck by the message on the front of the crumbling milk float

As part of his Residency Paul Conneally created a piece called Three Jars of Coal Dust Jelly as part of his Spoilheap Harvest which again made me think of this quotation, particularly relevant today

"The art of our necessities is strange,

That can make vile things precious."

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 2

 Walking round the scrap yard at Snibston it was

possible to identify much poignancy, beauty in decay. 

How can I use this to create something new?

Possibly by making connections 

between the literal and the abstract

Site intervention - Judo Belts - Steve Swindells