dead object

Image of Jomon Pot © The British Museum

 

Image of Mold Gold Cape © The British Museum

On Fridays, on the train to Plymouth to teach at an inordinately early hour, at the moment I like to drink coffee and listen to podcasts to ease myself into the day. At the moment  really enjoy the bite-size narratives on offer from A History of the World in 100 Objects. I'm learning so much - and normally I quite like not having pictures of the objects, instead leaving things up to the imagination. But the two programmes above really intrigued me, so I have finally looked them up online.

As Sir David M Wilson (Director of the British Museum 1977 - 1991) wrote:

A museum is not a dead institution and anyone who accuses the British Museum of being dusty and boring is either ignorant or lacks a soul. The British Museum is full of life. To hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren it each year provides a sense of adventure; to millions of toursist and visitors it brings a sense of renewal, and to thousands of scholars a deep well of knowledge. It belongs to the whole world and is kept secure for all mankind.

From The Collections of the British Museum, ed. David M Wilson, British Museum Press, 1989.

I heartily agree.

the invent-ory

I'm so excited. For over a year now I've been meaning to put a .pdf download link on my website so that people can read the article I wrote for Ultrabold magazine back in 2008. Finally I've done it - and not broken my back (and my laptop) in the process. And doorways suddenly open! The potential is huge.

If you're interested in reading the article, called The Invent-ory: Words on Imagined Repositories, Endless Indexes and an Exercise in Collecting Beginnings then please click here.

all real lizzies?

From a student of mine at University of Plymouth,  Mella McKeown. It's so unusual to find old stuff with your own name on it - so thank you!

boundlessness

Split into an examination of lists that are finite and those that are deliberately without end, this is a pretty good summary of the visual list, albeit quite classically biased. Nonetheless worth a look at if you're at all interested in taxonomy, systems, collections and the neverending. I am.

To read a review of Umberto Eco's The Infinity of Lists, click here.

studies in indirect communication vol. xvi: colloquy

A colloquy is the most formal of all conversations (: a colloquy on nuclear disarmament); it can also be used to jocularly describe a guarded exchange (: a brief colloquy with the arresting officer). New Oxford Dictionary

notes in sketchbook

 History is silent.

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Sculpture exists in time.

You walk around it.

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Where narrative is prompted and defeated at once.

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Sitting quietly in a space between hesitation and action.

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Both empty and promising.

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studies in indirect commuincation vol. xv: dialogue of the deaf

A discussion in which each party is unresponsive to what the others say.

studies in indirect communication vol. xiv: a device to frame a mouth

Fancy-dress leftovers.

studies in indirect communication vol. xiii: punch

 

 

  

 

  

  

  

Just playing. Getting back into the swing of it. Nice to just to spend time in my studio.

a maker of cloth

I've just finished listening to this on the Radio 4 website: Ismini Samanidou, a colleague and friend here in Falmouth, talking to Sandi Toksvig on Excess Baggage about narrative in weaving. An erudite and passionate interview, that certainly states the case for traveling.

misty-eyed

 

I found this chair several years ago at the tip and bought it for a fiver. It needed a lot of sorting out but it was already clear that it was a gem. When I took the rotten padded seat out of it I discovered amongst the horse-hair stuffing a cheap fake-gold necklace. Odd that it was tucked away in there when it clearly wasn't valuable, and there's no way it just drifted there by accident: it was absolutely placed with intent.

After some investigation I found out that it was an old sea captain's chair - it rolls back on it's axis (rather squeakily) and would have been used in a ship's bridge.

This weekend when I removed the sheepskin on it to give it a dust, I discovered that it was covered in salt. The marks all over it looked like the trails of tears. Very mysterious. I've oiled it now, so we'll see what happens next.

studies in indirect communication vol. xii: lusty exclamation!

I'm a bit in love with these paper fluoro-bang things at the moment…
They're stuck on my studio wall and I keep looking at them.
Somehow they're linked to all my speech bubbles for the Studies in Indirect Communication series, but I don't yet fully know how.

the formal qualities of a drench

 

fanal

 

 

 

Fanal: an obsolete term for a small lighthouse, a beacon, a ship's lantern.

Found these old maps at a car boot several years ago and rediscovered them in my vast book shelf. Beautiful, beautiful quality of line that just deserved some small mention.

And whilst on the subject of oceans and clifftops and shorelines, this looks like it's going to be really interesting and may well help me with my (very) slowly blossoming ideas about the infinity of the sea and it's customs and tales…

The Ocean with Richard Hawley tonight at 23:30 on BBC Radio 2.
(Why so late?! Some of us have to get up at 6am to work. I hope they do a podcast…)

various unfilled spaces

Pieve di Cento, Vasco Ascolini, 1986  © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Fireplace, Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget, 1905 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Photographic study, Lady Clementina Hawarden, 1862 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

the duties of cloth

Cotton sleeve puff stuffed with down © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Cage crinoline © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Dress fabric from Robinson's Mourning Warehouse © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Some more visible spaces / voids / absences / vacancies all found in Search the Collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.