of others

Illustration by Catrin Morgan in The Age of Wire and String by Ben Marcus

While hooning around the internet (I do a lot of that these days while lounging at my nursing throne. That and reading) I was pleased to see that:

i) Ben Marcus is publishing a new book called Leaving the Sea — A New Collection of Short Stories in 2014.

ii) Granta has just republished The Age of Wire and String in a new edition with illustrations by the awesome Catrin Morgan (a PhD student at the RCA. I saw her speak a few months ago at the annual Falmouth University Authorial Practice Forum and it was great to hear someone talk so very intelligently and thought-provokingly about images and time). See a a review of the book here.

iii) On Ben Marcus's own blog there was this interesting piece of text from a never-completed questionnaire with David Markson:

The title of your book, Reader’s Block, draws attention to the fact that a reader can fail at something too.  The book evokes something not so frequently discussed: readerly ability, willingness, motivation.  While it would seem dangerous to become nostalgic for a time when reading was a skill and not just the opening of a slack orifice, it does create a challenge for an artist who happens to work with language.  Is being demanding a function, or a necessary result, of writing artistically?  If the actual ability to read and decipher a sentence is diminishing, does that concern you as a writer?  And do you have a particular relationship, at least in theory, to readers? 

It reminds me of thoughts that I was having while making this some time back and which I would still really like to take further. 

maude wren

This isn't a place to go on about babies, or make excuses, but by way of an explanation for months of non-activity here, I feel somewhat obliged to mention that in February, Maude Wren Ridout Bond arrived in this world. And there was a lot of non-creative stuff that needed doing before she came along - like bashing down knackered kitchens. We're all doing great, but it'll take some time to work out a new work-life balance. More soon.

wool foot vol. iii

Image 1 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Image 2 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Image 3 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Image 4 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Image 5 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Image 6 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Image 7 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Image 8 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

We were at a small village market the other day and there were hand-made socks on sale on one stall for 5 Euros. My friends were balking at the price, but I feel I have to lead the defensive on this - do you have any idea how long these things take to knit? And you have to make two of them…

While rummaging around on the V&A Search the Images I stumbled across these beautiful images of socks and stockings from across the centuries. Once you start to learn just how to make these things, you start to appreciate them as small but wonderous (and somewhat unappreciated?) works of art. 

Images 1 and 2 have bible mottos woven into the upper part of the stocking. These were both most likely produced for the Great Exhibition to show the high quality that manufacturers' machines were capable of. 

Image 3, 4, 5 show socks produced in Egypt in 250-420 AD, 410-540 AD and 200-499 AD respectively. They all use the single needle method of knitting which was much more time consuming than knitting with two needles and more like a form of sewing to knitting with two needles. The double-toed design meant that they could be worn with sandals, although the patching shows that wear and tear was common, though the socks were repeatedly mended.

Image 6 has little information but was knitted  in England in 1838.

Image 7 shows a pair of women's stockings made of knitted silk, in Spain, during the mid 18th century.

Image 8 shows a pair of hand-knitted men's stockings in coloured wools, produced in Kashmir in the 19th century.

in the basement

 

 

The wonderful Erja Huovilan at Paperitalo here in Fiskars loned me kit and paper to ramp up the press in the basement this weekend. It was good to just change the pace, work with inky stuff and try to play for a while. All the above very childish and crude really, and not neceessarily a means to any particular end. But the exercise has made me stop to think a little bit more about the nature of the shadows. Particularly the knitted one I'm making. It's so very static. I like this - but in the above prints the ones I think captured the qualities of a shadow the best are exactly the opposite: the ones that shift and waver, the ones that are more enigmatic. And of course, all the most interesting things in print are not the pieces you try your hardest on, but the ones that on the throwaway newsprint behind the print intself… Always the way.

it grows vol. iv

Modeled by Peter Pan himself, the sock is complete. Finished a couple of days ago but forgot to photograph it. It comes complete with grass and other small scraps of nature and smells of sheep and hedges and woodsmoke. Perfect for a boy who would rather not wear socks at all, but this way gets to spend all year round treading on meadows.

Now, onward with the much larger shadow. And the writing…

swing time

Just watching Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams and came across this incredible Fred Astaire Bojangles of Harlem dance sequence from Swing Time (1936). Start from 5:00 minutes in for the part I'm talking about…

pinned

Studio wall. Things amassing ready to try my hand at printing over the weekend on the big press that's down in the basement here. Will be nice to do something different and just have a play with some ink for a day or so.

it grows vol. iii

glass domes

Time - and dust - stops under a glass shade…

Still gathering things for the Black edition of The Paper Museum. Not sure this exactly fits, but the idea of a visual pause seems synonymous to me with blackness, darkness, shade.

it grows vol. ii

it grows vol. i

So imagine you are looking at the top of a sock…

The left image is as if you were looking at the sock from its toe towards the heel, the right image is looking from the heel towards the toe…

You will note that I have managed to knit in a round…

And how to shape what is the beginning of the heel…

Onward.

I actually feel like I'm learning something.

(From this pattern here, using these tutorials here.)

a collection of things that may well be called absences

1

2

 

3

4

5

 

 

I'm still gathering things that might be called absences to potentially go in the Black edition of The Paper Museum…

 

1. A black-out lantern: Photograph taken in Fiskars Museum of what was once a regular lantern, but which, during the war, was blacked over to hide the light during night-time raids.

2. Shadow of a plane: This image of the shadow of a plane on a landscape, by Lois Darling for the Japanese translation of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Found at the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

3. Painted-in windows: I remember seeing a lot of these in Bath where I grew up, but I never knew why. And then SB told me about the peculiar window tax, which required occupants to pay property tax based on the number of windows in a house. Houses built during the period between 1696 and 1851 (when the tax was revoked) are often seen with bricked-in windows, ready to have glass put in at a later date.

4. Author as shadow: Photograph by Hugh M. Neighbour Snr. Found at the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

5. Scipod: The name derives from the Greek skiapodes or σκιαποδες meaning shadow feet. Also known as monopods, these mythical creatures had one leg with a large foot that they used to shade themselves from the sun with. Some illustrations also show the little dudes with two legs, one of which has a much bigger foot. More information here. Image found at the British Library.

the alienation of objects

Image © Zabludowicz Collection/Toby Ziegler

Image © Zabludowicz Collection/Toby Ziegler

Image © Zabludowicz Collection/Toby Ziegler

Image © Zabludowicz Collection/Toby Ziegler

Image © Zabludowicz Collection/Toby Ziegler

While we were out at Sarvisalo, quite a few of the Zabludowicz Collection's publications were spread about various locations. They're impressive in quality, integrity and design and it's lovely to see books produced with a decent budget from time to time, reflecting the philosophy of the artist or work in some way. My particular favourite was this one The Alienation of Objects by Toby Ziegler, which was produced on the occasion of the exhibition of his commissioned piece at the London branch of the Zabludowicz Collection. 

I guess it struck a bit of a chord with what I'm trying to trying to produce with my Paper Museum newspapers. A publication that doesn't reproduce images of your work, but which presents a little of some of the thinking and inspiration behind the pieces themselves. Whilst intermingling it with texts that aren't just art historical / academic garble… In this case, Ziegler presents images that relate to his practice. Some thought provoking  narrative texts by Elizabeth Johnson are interwoven amongst the pictures and at the end an index of images is included alongside artist's notes.

An example of EJ's text…

He develops a disregard for the objects around him – Silly lamp for believing it is on the countertop. Ridiculous chair for concurring to hold me up. Lamp and chair stare back at him blankly. He forgets, he agreed to all this, he gave consent for each second to murder the last.

And from the Notes on Images section, for the two penultimate images above:

p.119  'The meaning of fasten, attach, make firm, is first recorded about 1386, that of establish, settle, assign, is first recorded in the form of fixed (before 1500), which evolved into adjust, arrange, put in order (1663, Samuel Pepys' Diary), and mend or repair (1737, in American English). The sense of tamper with (a jury, etc.), is first found in American English, in 1790.' Ed. Barnhart R. K. 1988. Chambers Dictionary of Etymology. p.386.

And:

p.123 'Perception of an object costs/Precise the Object's loss–' Dickinson, E. [p.1071]. The underside of a chair that Emily Dickinson may have used at the writing table in her bedchamber.

Perhaps, ultimately, I prefer the book and its philosophy to Ziegler's actual works… certainly though, the book helps you apreciate the sculptural works on a level beyond just that of aesthetics. Compared to if I hadn't read the book at all, I feel like I really know something about Ziegler's work. This seems to me to be no bad thing. It uplifts and reiterates what I knew right at the beginning: that making the editions of The Paper Museum is worthwhile.

sarvisalo vol.ii

Felt stupidly privileged to be here in Sarvisalo. The lap of luxury. Fed bounteously, driven around, spoon-fed art and sauna-ed. The sun even shone and burned off the mysteriously beautiful mist that fell over the island both the evening that we arrived and in the morning when we awoke. The locals in the know thought that Madonnna might be there so there were a few unexpected guests - but they only got SB and me, half feral, basking in the sun and very, very happy.

breakfastlunchtea

There's a good working routine going here. Hard at it all morning, then rewarded with lunch. A proper pause, outside, discussing the mornings activities - and the plan for the afternoon. I do not take lunch seriously enough when I'm back at home…

[And I had a go at making cinnamon rolls (korvapuustit). They were an absolute disaster - not at all like the ones in Café Antique down the road but they looked good. And anyway I thoroughly enjoyed making them - they make excellent cinnamon toast. I will attempt again in England when I have some scales to hand…]

night work

Knitting by lamplight: never a good thing… And it turns out I'll need bigger needles anyway, so a trip to Helsinki tomorrow is well timed. At least I now know how to knit in a round with double-pointed needles, so all is not lost. First challenge: check! 

(I realise that to anyone who doesn't knit, this seems meaningless and mundane. But I can assure you that it's no mean feat. A lot of swearing at you-tube videos late last night is testament to this. It's a good reminder for me in my lecturing role that telling people that something looks really complicated 'but is actually soooo easy' is utterly irritating and guaranteed to wind them up…)

sarvisalo

All images © The Zabludowicz Collection

Oooh. Excited to get to go here tomorrow for a couple of days, courtesy of a dear old friend. Particularly timely when it was in the Finnish press last week due to the island's official online opening.