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Lambert

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And, now I wait 3-5(ish) days…

If I told you all that I’m not nervous, I’d be lying.  I’ve been checking my application status; with every email I receive, I get nervous with anticipation until I realize it’s from someone else..

Fingers Crossed.

Their 2 month research fellowship examined the role of improvisation in the generation of new knowledge and experience in artistic practice and everyday life. Using a range of archival materials they focused on austerity measures imposed during WW2, and contemporary revivals of make do and mend, and investigated how materials that have already had a first life come to influence a maker’s practice and capacity to innovate.

Work in progress by Antonia Riviere

The exhibition includes contemporary video, textiles and archival material that explores the personal and intimate histories of repurposing and recycling.

The exhibition is free and runs from 15th April-30th August at MMU Special Collections Gallery in the Sir Kenneth Green Library, Manchester. Visit Amanda’s blog (which is a great record of the research project at the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia) and MMU’s Special Collections for more details.

portrait drawing 2002

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The conference, Writing into Art, is aimed at poets and writers in general interested in ekphrasis and at visual artists whose work involves the use of text.  Poets from the Clydebuilt poetry scheme were invited to attend a practice-based workshop led by American poet Cole Swensen, that will elicit responses to the collections at Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery.

Ekphrasis is the graphic, often dramatic, description of a visual work of art. The word comes from the Greek ek - ’out’ and phrasis - ’speak’,  to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name. Originally it referred to a description of any thing, person, or experience. It has more recently (i.e. in the 19th Century!) been limited to visual arts, though the American Poetry Foundation includes “a scene” in its definition, which leads one on to film and performance, as one of my fellow Clydebuilt poets, Christie Williamson, who frequently writes about both of those, pointed out. I also thought of landscape and nature poetry, and of the recent scheme where Clydebuilt poets wrote about music in the Glasgow Jazz Festival.

Little Brother by Norah Neilston Gray

The traditional view of Ekphrasis as the process of giving a voice in text to a “mute” art object, as given in the excellent discussion lead by poet and academic David Kinloch, who is organising the conference, comes up against difficulty in contemporary art which can include performance art, video installations, and the use of voice, music and text in art. The relationship between literature and the visual arts is an interesting one, which I live daily, writing and working at the Glasgow School of Art. The Romantic and Modernist poets made much use of Ekphrasis in that more traditional meaning, as shown in the Guardian’s collection of Ekphrastic poetry, which includes “In the Musée des Beaux Arts” by WH Auden, “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” by William Carlos Williams, and “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats, to say nothing of Homer’s Iliad, which describes the shield of Achilles. But of course both poetry and art have moved on, as is recognised by the conference organisers.

Notwithstanding debate on the meaning of the genre, and how to practice it, David Kinloch moved us on with two excellent examples, one of Ekphrasis and one of almost anti-Ekphrasis, namely A Cornfield with Cypresses by Paul Durcan and Why I am not a Painter by Frank O’Hara respectively. He then directed us at photographs on the table of works of art within Kelvingrove that were chosen by the museum staff. All were of a more traditional nature, as befits a museum built in the 1900s, though ultimately we are not limited to those for a subject. I was amused to be presented with a mirror from the Museum’s Mackintosh Collection, designed by Frances Macdonald in 1896, and nicknamed “The Honesty Mirror” trust me to have come from the Art School, keeper of Mackintosh’s most famous building and a pretty good collection of our own, to be presented with that. Still, chance sometimes has to be taken on with an open mind, and of course the title alone is evocative, the object is beautiful, and it was intriguing to be handed a photograph of it, which of course, unlike the object itself, did not reflect the poet! Let’s see if this poet can keep herself and her reflections out of a work about it.

Mirror, known as the ‘Honesty Mirror’, c.1896 (tin, wood, & glass), Macdonald, Frances (1874-1921) / Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove, Glasgow, Scotland / The Bridgeman Art Library

We were then guided around some of the other objects, including many beautiful paintings, and Fulton’s wonderful orrery, (a three-dimensional model of the solar system designed and built 1823-33), which intriguingly puts scientific objects on a par with art for the purposes of Ekphrasis in this context. Released, it was liberating to roam free around the museum without being lead by my kids’ excited magpie minds, and amusing to run across other poets periodically, examining paintings excessivley and giving a nod of recognition across the gallery, like something out of a John le Carré novel. Above all, it was wonderful to meet up again with so many other Clydebuilt poets outside Mirrorball, especially Vicki Husband and Maggie Rabatski from my Clydebuilt 5 crew, and enjoy the kind of opportunities that follow on from this wonderful scheme. I’m very grateful for this opportunity, not least for giving me deadlines and subjects for writing again. Come along to the conference and see the results! http://writingintoart.wordpress.com/

Fulton’s Orrery at the Kelvingrove Museum (photo: Glasgow Life)

Self Portrait

Exhibited  ,John Player Portrait Award , National Portrait Gallery , London 1988

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http://allanramsayartist.com/

During an event at the British Library, Verhoeven spoke about where she gets her inspiration from. She started the event by spreading magazine covers, comics, pieces of fabric, clothing and photographs across the floor for everyone to see (her favourites were Misty comics and Smash Hits). She mentioned her love of libraries and archives as a place for inspiration – to find serendipity and visual stimuli at a fast pace.

Visit Verhoeven’s website and her blog. See also the British Library’s excellent Cultural Industries blog, from which we heard about this story, for more details.

From the end of the ‘Hungry-Thirties’ to the onset and aftermath of the Second World War, Mass Observation Online captures the daily lives, hopes and expectations of British society and beyond during the mid-20th century. The additional material made available in Section III features a remarkable array of topics, from responses to the Nuremburg Trials to sexual behaviour and holidays. Each will appeal to a wide range of disciplines from History and Literature, to Politics; Women’s Studies; Media and Film Studies; Sociology; Leisure and Tourism. The archive will also be an invaluable resource for those searching for inspiration for creative practice.

Part III includes:
Diaries, Men and Women, 1946-1950
Directives, Men and Women, 1946-1947

Topic Collections:
Propaganda and Morale, 1939-1944
Conscientious Objection and Pacifism, 1939-1944
Press, 1938-42
Police, Law and Invasion Preparations, 1939-1941
Reconstruction, 1941-1942
Coal Mining, 1938-1948
Industry, 1940-1955
Sexual Behaviour, 1939-1950
Health, 1939-1947
Family Planning, 1944-1949
Live Entertainment, 1938-1948
Sport, 1939-1947
Holidays, 1937-1951

All printed material is full-text searchable and visual or manuscript material has been keyword indexed.

Further information and access to a free trial can be found here.

An introduction to the history of the firm and captions relating to the materials on display provide more information. These can also be found, along with bibliographies of related sources, in the ‘Library Display Cabinets’ folder as part of the Archives and Collections course on the VLE.

Look out for more posts about our cabinet displays which we hope to fill with lots more interesting items over the coming months. Each display will aim to highlight the connections between library holdings and those in the Archives & Collections, and will cover a broad range of taught subject areas, and GSA alumni. Ask at the librarians’ office on Level 1 of the library or at the Archives & Collections Centre if you have any questions, and see the library’s Architectural Resources blog for further inspiration.

Addressing all who visit, research and work there, the artistic interventions installed across public spaces highlight how science and art have more in common than may seem apparent. The art in this exhibition deals with the nature of collating, categorising and disseminating information. Some of the artworks connect their enquiries to the British Library’s collection items and archives; others relate to the Library itself—the building and the people who visit.

A list of artworks included in the exhibition can be found here. See also this interesting interview with one of the artists involved in the project.

The exhibition runs from 1st – 24th March. For more information visit the event website.

To showcase her creations, Anna uses simple black and white photocopies of models who are then embellished with her fabrics. This unique way in which her work is presented takes this collection far away from the realms of craft to sit comfortably within the world of fashion. This collection is a work of art in its own right. I would love to have these ladies displayed on my walls as well as a roll of fabric!

A detail from one of the textiles in our collection, “Carnival”, by Molly Booker, 1932 (Ref: NDS 301) is the front cover image, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s watercolour “The Tree of Personal Effort” from GSA student publication The Magazine, 1895, is shown alongside the feature in which GSA Archivist Susannah Waters discusses our collections and the projects and workshops we’ve been involved in.

To view the article click here: broadsheet—issue-23

For more information about the Scottish Council on Archives visit their website.

Cartographies of Life and Death 

The exhibition is on at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, from 13th March – 17th April. See the event website for more information.

Celia’s designs have been reworked, resized, re-coloured and re-imagined. While some of her most famous designs, including Candy Flower and Mystic Daisy, feature in the collection, Celia has also reworked and updated some of her designs especially for Uniqlo. For example, she has amended some of her home furnishing fabrics for the purposes of fashion – her Beasties print, depicting mythological creatures inspired by a 17th century embroidery she found in the basement of the V&A, has been digitally resized to accommodate its change in purpose.

The collection will be launched on March 21st. Visit Uniqlo’s website for more details.

Embroidery sample showing a variety of stitches, by Dorothy Smith, c1940-1945

The Archives and Collections Centre holds a collection of material by Dorothy Smith, including her GSA student notebooks, her Jordanhill teacher training notebooks, textile designs and embroidery samples as well as two finished embroidery pieces, of which just a small selection is on display here. Library books thought to have been consulted by Dorothy Smith in her days as a student and still available for consultation today complement the selection from the ACC.

Studio 58: Women Artists in Glasgow Since World War II (Glasgow: Glasgow School of Art, 2012)

The display cabinet is located on Level 1 of the Library. An introduction and captions are provided alongside the display and can also be found in the ‘Library Display Cabinets’ folder as part of the Archives and Collections course on the VLE. Call in at the librarians’ office (just to the left of the display) or at the Archives and Collections Centre for more information.

Look out for future posts about our library displays here and on the Library’s Art and Design Resources blog.

Kim Moore (Zoey van Goey) was commissioned to create a live score to accompany the screening

Glasgow School of Art graduate Helen Biggar (1909–1953) created one of the UK’s most influential anti-war films with Norman McLaren just as the Spanish Civil War began. Hell Unltd (1936) is presented for the first time with a specially commissioned live score performed by Kim Moore (Zoey van Goey) and Gareth Griffiths. Kim Moore visited the Archives and Collections Centre recently to research Helen Biggar using materials from the School’s institutional archives. She also got to see some of Biggar’s work (2 pieces (pictured below) have recently been donated to the Archives and Collections by a family member).

Fawn by Helen Biggar, c1930s

Maime Biggar, the artist’s younger sister, c1945

The live performance will be preceded by a rare screening of Traces Left (1983), a documentary about the Glasgow art and political scene in the 1930s and 40s, which focuses in particular on Helen Biggar.

The event marks International Women’s Day and the contribution of women artists in Glasgow. For more information, visit the GFT event page or this really good blog.

Ann MacBeth (left) and fellow student, Drawing and Painting class, c1912

MacBeth was a renowned designer and embroiderer who was also heavily involved in the suffragette movement. Her commitment to women’s rights was expressed through her embroidery as well as in direct action. While her designs won international medals (she designed a banner for the 1909 Edinburgh women’s suffrage procession and demonstration, and a linen quilt with the embroidered names of hunger strikers for an exhibition in April 1910),  she also endured imprisonment, solitary confinement and forcible feedings in the name of the cause.

Suffragette banner ‘WSPU Holloway Prisoners’, 1910. Includes the embroidered signatures of 80 suffragette hunger-strikers. Image courtesy of Museum of London. 

MacBeth’s colleagues at GSA supported her protests.  Correspondence in the archives reveals that in May 1912 she wrote to the Secretary of the School thanking him for his ‘kind letter’.

I am still very much less vigorous than I anticipated…  after a fortnight’s solitary imprisonment with forcible feedings … but the doctor thinks this will improve when I get away.

She did not recuperate as quickly as expected. By June, her doctor told her that she needed at least five months’ care as a ’semi-invalid’. She may also have taken part in the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) window-smashing raid in London in 1912, but she is not mentioned in any sources.

Glasgow School of Art was a hive of activity for the suffrage cause, and between classes, students, including Ann Macbeth, took turns at stitching suffrage banners. MacBeth’s predecessor, Jessie Newbery (wife of Director Francis Newbery), was another active WSPU member.

Francis Newbery and Ann Macbeth in painting studio using easels, c1912

Jim MacKendrick was a Drawing and Painting student at GSA from 1938-1942. On graduating, he responded to a newspaper advertisement inviting applications for the position of Head Teacher at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) at Kumasi, Ghana, in West Africa. Jim attended an interview in London and got the job. He made steady progress, and by 1962, having reached the position of Director, College of Art, he returned to the UK.

Aviation painting by Jim MacKendrick

Jim’s love of art was reflected in his decision to leave his entire estate to the Glasgow School of Art for annual 21 student awards in recognition of the GSA’s contribution to his personal and professional life. The first MacKendrick Postgraduate Scholarship for painting was offered in 2000.

We were pleased to be able to help fill in the gaps about Jim’s time as a student at GSA with information from the archives. You can read the full article here: MAvAS Magazine 76 March 2013 pdf.

Since sorting the problem out was very effectively and reassuringly taken care if by much more knowledgeable people, I switched trains at the next stop, losing only the time it took to get to wherever-in-the-world I was, plus a seven minute wait for the next train headed in the correct direction.. Things slowly became alright. Which meant a very enjoyable lunch with my first exposure to spoon eggs, and a very exciting and accommodating tout of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art. The building was indeed incredible to walk through and learn about, especially for the level at which Mackintosh approached its design through a holistic approach which considered the designs of individual spaces, furnishings, fixtures, movement, social aspects, lighting and emotions each room would evoke. And naturally as a student librarian, the library was my favorite space, and somewhat reminiscent on my own three story library.

After the tour, the group made the long (and seemingly longer) urban trek with all our luggage out to the river’s edge to visit the Glasgow Science Museum.  It’s a very different thing, walking over in Europe.  The streets/sidewalks mostly paved in old worn stone from the many people it has carried over the years.  Inevitably, (soccer folk look away) due to the lack of fitness since arriving here in London, the increased strain from walking through the city, AND all these “cobblestones…” all that really does a number to a body that’s not getting any younger.  Let’s be honest, my friends, carrying around a backpack all day full of clothes and other necessities for a four day weekend is no picnic in the park, either – but this story isn’t about me whining!! SCOTLAND! The Science Museum was an interesting collection of buildings between the exhibition space, the IMAX theatre space, and the observation tower.  However, I was not fully prepared to pay for what appeared to be a children’s exhibit, so after snapping a few photos (or a few times a few), I wandered over into a nearby park to take a bit of a snooze in the gorgeous weather.  Long story short, evening came and morning followed, the second day.

Holy six o’clock a.m., we have seen each other far too frequently in the past few days!  This morning, though, was much MUCH different.  We had a bus tour to catch by 8:00, and had yet to book our spots on the tour!   Luckily enough, the tour bus of 16 people had exactly 5 spots left for that morning and I’d be a fool if I wasn’t occupying one of them up into the great Scottish Highlands.  Throughout the tour, we saw some of the most spectacular landscapes on the planet, passing by Loch Lomond, The Three Sisters of Glencoe, The Old Bridge at Invermoriston (which had a waterfall) and along stretches of road where James Bond’s “Skyfall” was filmed at!  Last but most certainly not least, I went to the home of the mythical beast at Loch Ness, getting to tour the Urquhart Castle on the loch (lake), and taking a small boat cruise across the lake!  I loved every minute of this trip, and have several hundred photos from all the sights.  It was absolutely fantastic, and as we set off on the small boat cruise through Loch Ness, it began to mist ever so slightly, creating a rainbow all around the cruise boat, perfectly framing the rolling mountains vanishing beyond the lake into the distance.  Along the horizon line (probably one of my favorite scenes from the trip) was the sun bursting through the clouds and illuminating a narrow strip of the water’s surface!  It was so incredible!

Sketchbook Journal: Notre-Dame du Paris 130223, 25 Anderson Quay 130303

Just some food for thought today before I have my leave..  I have been wondering in situations where you’re meeting someone new how I would honestly describe myself and my experiences to them.  And I thought for a second that, even at this time last year, I could have never said I’ve been to any of the great places abroad that I can admit to now, so that probably can’t be included to accurately describe myself.  So then, would I say that I’ve been skydiving? I’m a soccer official?  I’m an Architecture Student?  While all of those are true, I don’t know if they truly are able to get to the essence of who I am.  It was through this realization that, through a process of elimination, you begin to really get down to the most descriptive, honest evaluation of who you are.  You have very genuine interests, personality characteristics, ethics and everything else all hidden beneath the experiences which make you who you are. So now I have to wonder…what will I say the next time I’m in an interview and asked about who I am. It’s a discovery that has to be questioned, uncovered, evaluated and endlessly sought out in everything you do. But why would that be true at all??  How in the world could the apparent “least” or last answer we come to, the one that can’t be broken down any more be the best answer out of all – moreover, why would it be last in the first place? In cases like this:

“Less is More” Mies van der Rohe

Or maybe I’m just crazy.. (ignorance is bliss, am I right?)

We’re extremely pleased to have our all our archives and collections back on site now. After a week of tidying, reordering and preparation; two days of back-breaking work transporting a mere 24 pallet loads of boxes, we’re finally all back on site. Now all we have to do is reorder all the boxes(!) We hope to resume normal service and provide full access to all our collections very shortly…