Haptic

On Tuesday 15th December 2009 Liz, Alex, Sharon and I went to a conference in Leicester. It has been a LONG tiring term at MMU and I wasn’t sure I had enough energy to join them on the drive there (Thank you Liz for driving). Glad I did, see the link below to read all about it. I also picked up a word which I will use more often as it is vital to teaching and learning.HAPTIC.

http://materiality-intangibility.blogspot.com/

Crowdsourced Treasures

In truth this post should have been written last Wednesday following Tuesday evening’s Social Media Cafe (smc_mcr) when, along with David Edmundson-Bird from MMU Business School, I presented a ‘What-if’ idea to a group of about 15 keen social media types. It was a conversation with David almost a year ago at an earlier smc_mcr that had kicked off the idea of crowdsourcing the documentation of Mary Greg’s collection in the first place. The presentation was called Crowdsourced Treasures, a social media action to open up access to the city’s art collections.

David has much loftier ambitions than me around increasing public access to the collections in storage and very much played devil’s advocate in the discussion that followed. And there was some genuinely engaged discussion too. Not everybody was convinced that unmediated access to photograph, record or write about objects from the collection would be a good thing. Surely, it was argued, the role of the gallery was to provide the authoritative context to the objects, providing a way-in for the uncertain viewer. The hierarchies and taxonomies developed over the last century or more have an important place and help provide threads of meaning and connection between disparate objects, documentation without these wouldn’t really be documentation. Or, would it?

Ben’s photographs helped bolster the proposition enormously, here was a purely visual record that elevated the object to a different aesthetic realm. Does it matter that you don’t realise that what you are looking at is a thimble if you are entranced by the sheer quality of surface or by its simple form? Is it always necessary to know everything about the object, or can you take from it what you want or need? There was some agreement that any social documentation produced would be supplementary to the ‘official’ documentation, it couldn’t replace it.

The idea of producing an open invitation to the stores to take part in a crowdsourced action did hold some appeal and there were a number of people in the audience who would be keen to take part if it did happen. Perhaps the single most interesting idea came up in discussion after the presentation. Natalie Ireland, Manchester Science Festival Director at MOSI, suggested that perhaps the best way to test the idea would be to hold an smc_mcr in the stores themselves, bring the social media advocates right into the collection as a piece of action research. This seems like a real way forward and we will plan how we might make it happen early in 2010.

Links

Social Media Cafe Manchester smc_mcr
David Edmundson-Bird @groovergenerator
Natalie Ireland @McrSciFest

Sarah-Clare Conlon, author of the Words & Fixtures blog, has posted about the proposed social media action too, Rumble in the Jumble. Ignore the apparent initial cynicism, the collection worked its magic on Sarah-Clare too.

More work in progress

Pondering on folding tools

There are some lovely penknives in the Bygones collection too, they seem to be an essential piece of a chatelaine. Another way to pass the time on the train has been wondering what other types of folding tools I could make for my 21st century chatelaine. Some ideas that came to me were:- testing the gaps on custard creams, tiny brushes for small crumb piles,string gauges, crevice scrapers, loose thread snipers, button checkers… I made a test folding tool last week, it needs a lot more work and I I should make some card ones next to work out the mechanism.

Notes from a train notebook.

Hazel

Is this Mr Batho?

Mr Batho?

Whilst we have been looking through Mary Greg’s Bygones collection in the museum store this painting has been looking down on us. There is, in the records, a note about a painting of William Batho in the same store.

We had a look around the walls and this painting seemed a possibility. It was a little too high up on the wall to see the signature but the date looked like 1926.

We have been reading Mr Batho’s letters to Mrs Greg and feel we know him a little, the thought that he may have been watching over us sent a shiver down my neck. I do hope this is him, he has a faint smile of approval, but also a look of take care of my collection or else..or am I reading too much into it?

Hazel

Twelve Things to Remember

Mary Greg's Maxims

This is the printed card which encouraged me into the letterpress room at Manchester School of Art (or MMU as some know it).

I am unsure if Mary Greg wrote them, but I remember something in her letters about printing cards to hand out. These ring true for us all now,especially the last one.

Hazel

Damage Indicators

Ideas for Damage Indicators

As I said in my last post, the Mary Greg project has sent me into areas of work which I had never considered before. Amongst her letters were hand printed cards. I took the opportunity at MMU to join the students in a letterpress induction as I really liked the aesthetic of the cards.

Creativity isn’t aways a simple step by step process, and the idea of the printed cards has combined with another idea I had about the chatelaines and how they are often mending kits. I thought how the rips and lost buttons needed to be pointed out to the mender and how this could be done. I have embroidered red arrows onto some of my own coats to show loose seams and lost buttons and have begun to make metal arrows. The problem being that indicators will cause more damage in themselves. I have only done my first proof copy of the Damage Indicator card so I can see what to change, David in the letterpress room has offered to help me add a border and arrows. It is a trickier process than I had first thought, David has a real skill in setting up the tiny pieces of type. I do also plan to reprint one of Mary’s cards if the Gallery give me permission. (do you think it would be a problem Liz and Alex?)

Hazel

Train Project

Bugs from Mary Gregs Nature Diaries embroidered onto material.

One aspect of this project that I hadn’t foreseen was how it has encouraged me into other areas of work. After going to see Mary Greg’s nature diaries in the Graves Museum, Sheffield, I have started a “train” project (I have a 50 minute train journey to Manchester and back). Mary had painted a series of insects and animals (awaiting permission to add photos from her actual book). I thought it would be a tribute to her to try and sew her drawings…not being a great embroiderer it is proving harder than I thought. It will be an ongoing project , not sure what I will do with them yet either.

When I looked at Mary’s Nature Diary I was very taken by her interest in animals and plants, she had included a rubbing from a fence post of the tracks in the wood left by a wood beetle, she had a fascination with the small and everyday things and a real pleasure in recording them.

Hazel

Packing Artefacts

Selection of Mary Greg's collection packed ready for transport to MAG.

This is a picture of the art of Museum packing,as done by Linda, an art in itself.

I have found working with all the staff at Manchester Art Gallery to be a real pleasure and a huge education. It is a very rare privilege to be invited behind closed doors of any institution and to be able to work with and talk about the Mary Greg collection over time with them has been a very rewarding experience. Just being able to watch the care and attention given to the collection was beautiful. The broken birthday candle wrapped in bubble wrap and gently cushioned in huge pillows of tissue was afforded the same care as a priceless roman artefact. Once an object gains a museum accession number it is a treasure, and so it should be.

Hazel

JONES

Jones

Sharon found the chatelaine in the Platt Hall collection and insisted I went back to see it. She was so right, I usually make work that sits on a mantle piece or in a box on the wall. I have been considering for a while making objects to carry and wear (but not jewellery) and chatelaines are the perfect example of how I had already been thinking.

It was good to find a well made piece of silver stamped with the name Jones. I usually stamp all my work with the A1 Scrap Metal name..but from now on Jones will be stamped somewhere upon the objects I make.

Hazel Jones.

Chatelaine

Chatelaine

I thought it was about time I started recording the projects I am doing based on the bygones collection. The first, and most important to me, is based around the chatelaine. practical objects, attached by a short chain to a womans belt. Pins,thimbles,pencil and notebook. I especially like this one in the collection as it is so simple, one that looks like is was used. I have already made pencil holders (before seeing this one), string holders and am now making a list roll (based on the roll of paper in a tube we found recently), also folding tools, quick repair kits and damage indicators.

Hazel