Victoria College of Art Library

This is the 'Before' picture.
Barbara McCaffrey and I have put in a couple of days of work reorganising the library at the college.
We are going through the contents of every shelf and developing an organisation system that will reflect the courses taught at the collage.

After 2 days work we have managed to make it look worse than when we started.

But, look what happened as I was picking up my bag to get ready to leave.
A Student walked by, stopped, opened her back pack and got out a binder then started looking at books in a specific section.
It works!!! Even the make shift, tentative set up is already looking more approachable.
Barb and I have donated some books to start the Textile Arts section. And some angel donated what initially looks like the complete set of Threads magazine, including the premier issue. What a treasure trove.

Dialogues Continue

Last year i wrapped the 4 the trees i decided to have a 'dialogue' with. After a few months the unbleached cotton i had wrapped them with showed no signs of the staining i had expected. So I left the trees wrapped and continued the dialogues in other ways.
Yesterday, while i was outside doing fall clean-up in the garden, i checked my wrapped trees and this is what I found.
Staining on the Arbutus wrap...

...and the Douglas-fir (image above), and also on the wraps of the maple and the cedar.
It made me realise i can't rush these dialogues because i am wanting to respond to cycles of time that are different to my own.

I also checked on another dialogue going on out in the garden at the present.
Leaves have started to fall on the table cloth lying out under the maple. The cloth is no longer white but i don't know if there is just dirt from rain and animals walking on it or staining is starting to take place.

I spent today working on sessions for the class i start teaching in November, 'Mark Making With Thread'.
People have been generously donating materials and books for the students to use. I went through the bags and sorted them according to how they could be used in the different sessions i have planned. One lot of fabric is big enough for everyone in the class to have a piece so i planned a session around it.
I also did lots of reading for my dissertation and some brainstorming on a white board to organise my thoughts for the next few chapters. I have done enough reading for now. Tomorrow i get back to the writing.

Reading

Read this book all day, and finished it.
A great follow up to the previous book on the history of marriage.
Also did lots of gardening today.
I am pulling out invasive species, unwanted guests who have overstayed their welcome. A subject of one of my dialogues.

A couple of days ago...

A couple of days ago I posted about some books that have been influential in my studies and I forgot to add the one I am currently reading.

I am looking at how nurturing and housekeeping have gone on in the home and taking those activites out into the natural environment to extend our concept of what is our home.

I am racing through this book because it is such a good read. I'm not even stopping to make notes, which I may regret later when I am looking for something I know is is there.

A couple of days ago, I went outside to check my different textiles and I felt as though I was being watched.

"What is that crazy human doing? We can't eat anything she has put out. We tried them all."

I also found the early spring flowers were rather burdened that morning.

The good part was we had limed the grass the day before and we were looking for some moisture to take it down into the soil. By the afternoon the snow had done its job and was all gone. 

Censoring the Body

While doing research for a term paper I read a great essay by the art critic and historian, Edward Lucie-Smith. He is someone with the ability to look over history and pull out key ideas, trends and shifts in ways of thinking.
He begins his essay with the observation, "from the earliest times, humans have found it difficult to represent their own bodies in a straightforward way" and he continues to bring his observations of censorship of the body up until the present day. He raises lots of provocative ideas.

By A Lady

A kind friend sent me a yummy book. WACK!, the exhibition on in the Vancouver Art Gallery left me wanting to find out more about what women artists were doing in Canada over that time period and then this book arrived in the post.
One of the reviewers, Robert Fulford, wrote, "Maria Tippet reveals in By a Lady that the tradition of women's art in Canada is far richer than most of us ever imagined. Her book makes an important contribution to our understanding of Canadian art."
The title comes from how people in the C19th referred to a work of art by a woman.

'Costume In Detail'

I just received this yummy book in the mail & I have already spent several hours dipping into it.

Nancy Bradfield obviously loves costume because it shows in the inspiring, detailed drawings she has made of the outside & inside of hundreds of garments & accessories. Most of them have never been seen by the public and never will because they are too delicate or are disintegrating.
Most of the earliest costumes are drawn from a cache she discovered in the basement of Westminster Abbey on wax effigies beside the owner's tomb.
The drawings are so detailed they are an 'invaluable source of information for those concerned with fashion, with period dress, with history, and with theatre, film, or TV.'
ISBN 0-89676-217-3