Mishap at the museum

At Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood - a cavernous place, and dimly lit. Full of interesting toys and objects (like this wave machine, which will turn its cogs on insertion of 20p into the slot) -

My mission was to take photos of "feet and floors" to try to figure out where the museum-maze project might go next. Also I was looking for ...something... to add to The Large Sketchbook.

The perspex cubes that are used as plinths in the display caught my eye - or rather, the way they cast light did, and the interaction of that light with the shadows -

and also the way they repeated and/or chopped up objects nearby, according to the viewing angle -

When it came to the feet-on-floors, I discovered how quickly children could move past the camera -

 and even adults could just about disappear in the low light -

The cafe was brighter, and just look at that psychedelic floor! -

The floor was made by women prisoners at Woking Gaol; the building was opened in 1872 (it was built as a museum for the new working class masses of the area - before the days of compulsory universal education, and after 1922 slowly became a Museum of Childhood through donations of collections of toys).

The floor consists of 6,000 square blocks of just two designs. On the outside of the building are 13 illustrative mosaic panels, carried out by students of the National Art Training School (now the Royal College of Art) and "female students of the South Kensington Museum Mosaic Class". In the 1870s mosaics were thought to be a suitable occupation for women.

"Museums" course - March meeting

We brought in the projects we've been working on, and laid them out. In a variant of speed dating, we went round the table leaving "three words, and a question" at each display, with three minutes to spend in each place.

Unfortunately the "tropical explorer's survival kit", in its many-pocketed container, is covered by the blank paper - but you can see the bits of wood, which Flea found in an old cabinet, that have been wrapped with cloth also found there - 

Ilana is using the history of the site of Tate Britain, which was once a prison, and has been incorporating the idea of prison bars; perhaps they will lead to jewellery (etching on metal), perhaps to something else-

Karen's mind-map about pins finds its first expression in this child's coat, ambiguously lined with hundreds of pins - protection, or malevolent intent? -

My focus has been on the museum as a maze to be travelled through, resulting in a book structure, ceramics incorporating that kind of structure, and double-sided embroidery on cloth and paper -

Marianne's starting point is a chapel in a cemetery, looking at the tiles and at other patterns, and at the memorials to people buried there -

Pam's work with a 1960s primary school, making murals with each class (and coincidentally teaching motor and perceptual skills) is producing results, and she has personal work alongside that -

Polly, a basketmaker, has been making (weaving? plaiting?) shoes from paper - she's planning to make lots more of them -

Rose's visits to the Horniman Museum have resulted in a collection of annotated photographs and work on colour and patterning -

The 19th-century Red Barn Murder, local to where she lives, has given Sara material for prints and various artefacts, including these "authentic replicas" of shoes worn by the protagonists -

The Micrarium of microscope slides at the Grant Museum of Zoology led Susie to make a micrarium of her own tiny objects; her next step will be to "sit with the sewing machine" -

Sylvia's focus on hand has led to stitched panels as well as much sketchbook work (I'm drawn to the "unconsidered" back of the work, which to me conveys the difficulty of stitching with painful hands - even though the front doesn't show this) -

General agreement was that this is a good exercise and that the words and questions were something to ponder on. 

The afternoon included talk of targets, timescale, and endpoints. Considering how much time we have to spend on the work, and our own working methods. There was mention of "the great disappointment of finding out that you're not self-motivated", and wanting to be able to work more fluently and think more easily, and have more confidence about one's choices.

Other things that came up were Ken Robinson's TED talks, and RSA animations of them. And the possibility of "an internet museum". When the work is "out there", somehow, what needs considering is: the context; who sees it (or looks at or for it); and whether the works are meant to "disappear" or rather meld into a context or collection - how will it be related to the place?

Some practical techniques - waxing paper by heating it by ironing it (on a pile of newspaper to retain the heat), then rubbing it with a wax candle, and using more paper and the iron to absorb the excess wax; or, lightly rubbing paper with baby oil (on a cotton swab) and ironing off the excess. Transferring an inkjet image printed onto acetate onto fabric that has some hand sanitiser rubbed onto it, laying the acetate (ink side down) on the fabric, and rubbing off the ink with a credit card. Using photos as sources for drawing - photograph details and blow them up even more.

"Museum labyrinth" - second thoughts

Photographing, or filming, a ball of thread making its way through the museum is no longer my first choice of format for this project. I still like the idea of the thread as path - this is connected with labyrinths in or near cathedrals that are walked by the faithful as a form of pilgrimage, and with the mazes that appear in stories as a test of perseverance in the hero's quest.

To abstract the idea - and to get away from the images that photography would produce - I started folding small pieces of paper* -

and then cutting on the folds in various ways and stitching the "path" in each of them. These can be folded to make a variety of "books".

Some of the patterns are unicursal labyrinths, with a straightforward, flowing path - in others the thread doubles back on itself in maze-like byways.

I joined the books by tying the thread ends together, then realised that with a minimum of unpicking they could be sewn together; this involved overlapping the front and back "pages".

 When the entire vigorous thing is unfolded it can lie quietly in layers -

Does this remind you of a map??

*The paper comes from a small but fat, cheap pad of newsprint from Muji. It's been so useful this week for drawing on and for this folding, and is top of my "must have in the studio" list. The colour and texture are so much nicer than the bright white of printer paper!

"Museum labyrinth" - first thoughts

Waking up with an idea about a ball of thread going through a labyrinth (think Perseus and the Minotaur...), I thought it could be used to join museums by rolling out of the door of one and in the door of another - this would be filmed or an animated video. The logistics were daunting though - rainy steps and pavements, the ball of yarn in puddles, ugh ... could it roll through the museum? Could it be carried along, seemingly unrolling? What view would the camera get? Would it be possible to film in the museum? If not, what would be Plan B?

Trying out the "ball of yarn" at home, by taking photos of it going round corners and past bits of "scenery" -

Appalling photos - I immediately ordered a new camera, something that's been on my list for ages! Drawn as thumbnails, however, with words added (words that revealed themselves during the process of drawing), they yielded a few more ideas -

Developing practice course - session 5

In small groups, we talked about our projects at some length, and then everyone gave a compressed presentation to the entire group - three minutes (timed!) to set it out, then two minutes (timed!) of open questions, the idea being that rather than answering them there & then, we'd write them down and think about them.

It's so interesting to hear what everyone is up to! In the small group I was in, Sara is doing prints around the Red Barn Murders; Ilana is looking at the history of the prison that was on the site before Tate Britain was built; Sylvia is bringing together hands and fans. In presenting my possible project(s), based on the travel lines and the memory balls, I had a big realisation - that I was working from what I'd already been doing and trying to fit that in "somewhere", rather than starting somewhere fresh and not worrying whether either of these would "fit in" - a breakthrough moment!

Having rejected my own proposals and talked about why, my notes from the Open Questions segment are: shops/history/archives?; connection of travel lines and memory balls; writing about travel; Walk On exhibiton Birmingham (8 Feb to 30 March); art on the underground; line/time; connecting museums.

Other projects include a school-based project using the site and "strata of time"; responding to the mask collection at the Horniman; responding to the slide collection at the Grant Museum of Zoology; personal history of objects; an effigy with spiritual power; invented objects into a traditional collection; shoes, footprints; tiles for Abney Park cemetery chapel.

From this I wrote notes about the importance of starting points: the impact, ie first impressions, of a collection - how to share that ... personal/emotional starting points ... relation of the work to something current, ongoing. And a reminder to myself: who is the audience?

In the afternoon, a presentation by Caroline Bartlett of how she approaches making her work, within the context of objects and the systems that control them. Her "case studies" included "The artist's journey", shown at Leighton House and Orleans House - two different artists, both in places that were notable for the absence of their personal objects. To represent Lord Leighton, she hung labels with information about his objects sold at Christies, whereas for explorer Richard Burton, she worked from a box of things connected with him that had lost the story of the connection - by not incorporating what his widow had written, the official label was very "dry". (Read about them under "response to museum collections" on www.text.freeuk.com/.)

"On the Shelves of Memory: To Mnemosyne" by Caroline Bartlett

The paired pages with their erasures represent the way Burton's widow edited his works
to sanitise them and make him fit into the values of the time

Another work used the archives at the Whitworth Museum in Manchester. New associations are made when items enter a collection; their history, often incomplete, is recorded on catalogue cards -

and they undergo conservation, with specialist tools, processes, and handworking skills. By layering images and text, "Conversation Pieces" embodies these relationships -

"You can't touch the textiles in a museum collection, but they hold the touch and the care of their makers and of the conservators."

This longer article gives insights into Caroline's work, which is so thoughtful, meticulous, subtle, and quietly brilliantly astonishing. (Disclaimer: I've enjoyed several courses with Caroline at City Lit over the years and have been a big fan of her work since first seeing slides of it, back in the 90s.)

After the break, some talk about research, formal vs creative (having a hypothesis, versus homing in on something and waiting for "the click"). Exploring, editing, collating information, pondering - these are research methods. I'm not sure if the next pix are Caroline's slides or Kate's, but they are useful -

Group brainstorm -

Then, to the Personal Action Plan - a prompt to help with finding a collection or object as a starting point, how it links with current ideas and practice, how it extends these, new skills that might be needed ... I found this so helpful especially because one of the suggested ways of working was to enter the "Inspired by the V&A" competition. Hurrah, a focus, a starting place! (Though looking at entries from previous years, and the 2012 winners,is rather intimidating...)

(On the subject of "inspiration" and how to develop it, have a look at the "folk couture" exhibition website, which shows how 13 designers were inspired by folk art. The show is on till 23 April at the American Folk Art Museum in New York.)

Also available at the class, inspiring books showing interesting artists -

Tanvi Kant works with reclaimed and organic textiles;
The House of Fairy Tales champions the role of creative play in art and life

Julie Arkell; Su Blackwell; Samantha Bryan; Jennifer Collier; Lowri Davies;
Rachael Howard; Carys Anne Hughes; Jayne Lennard; Cathy Miles