Excavating London's History

I see the images for my last post didn't show so I have reposted them - not quite in the right order but you will see what I was rambling on about.

Digging Into the Past

While attending the JC graduates exhibition, I noticed a construction site across the road - a mosque building was being extended.

A construction crew had spent 6 weeks hand excavating behind the behind the building down to about 15 feet below grade. Access to the site was along a narrow alley way between buildings so no heavy machinery could be taken to the site. This conveyor belt carried the excavated soil up to grade level.

Micheal was one of the hard working people whose job was to run between the top of the conveyor and the skip outside on the street with a rotation of 2 wheel barrows, one being filled while he emptied the other.

Wherever I go I look for old glass and pottery shards, usually on beaches but I spied some in this skip. I got talking to Michael and checked that he didn't mind me looking for treasures in his soil. I told him he was like an archeological digging down into the past.

Then he told me about some of the things he had found. They had dug up many old glass and pottery containers and literally hundreds of animal horns.

Animal horns! I needed some for my art work. Micheal put aside some for me.

He also gave me this old pot that looks like what was used to hold beer and other fermented drinks. I was very interested in this because in the 18th century my family were malsters in London. I don't know exactly where they lived but other family members had lived nearby to this mosque in Hackney, when it was a trendy new suburb in the late 1700s.
So it was a great day for finding treasures.
I declared the cattle horns when I entered Canada because we have had major problems with mad cow disease. Even thought the horns are fossilized, the officer sprayed them with disinfectant and they are now drying out and bleaching on my balcony at home. 

Menier Chocolate Factory

While Ingrid and I were in London, one of our missions was to look at the space we will be exhibiting in next year, the Menier Chocolate Factory, near London Bridge.

There will be approximately 12 of us graduating so we need a bigger space than the gallery this year's 6 graduates had.

There are 2 floors to the gallery...

...and a variety of exhibiting spaces.
It is good to know what the space looks like but I don't know if it will influence my work or not, or if I should let it be an influence - I'll have to ask my tutor on that one.

Wendy Harris Williams - 2011 JC Graduate

Postcard images of Wendy Harris William's graduate exhibition work, 'The Caress'.
She exhibited large scale images of body casts and a book of images.

From her Artist Statement: 'This body of work explores the belly of sisterhood. it is concerned with honouring the inside and outside space of women: their elaborate connections symbolized by the navel.'

Diana Bliss - 2011 JC Graduate

Post card images of Diana Bliss' graduate exhibition work, called 'Transversing the Surface (a series of walks along the River Dee in Cheshire)'.

From her artist statement: 'My work is dominated by a sense of place and by exploring Landscape through the rhythms and mark making of stitch and paint, the works can be seen as panoramic or under close inspection.'

Valerie Huggins - JC 2011 Graduate

Here are post card images of Valerie Huggins graduating exhibition work, 'The Poisoned Heart' series.

She used a variety of  stitching techniques including broidrie perse - the cutting out of motif from a textile and stitching it onto another ground.

Valerie says in her artist statement: 'Myths, legends, superstition, religion. Where does one end and the other begin?

'In the wayside chapels, shrines and home alters of Europe and Mexico, beneath a veneer of propriety and prettiness, is the still-beating heart of ancient archetypes.'

Chris Spencer 2011 Jc Graduate

Here are postcard images of Chris Spencer's graduating exhibition work. 

The series is called 'Through the Woods'.

Inspired by woodland near where she lives, Chris made felt with an embellisher then added stitching.

Sorry about the quality of my images, which has added to the problem of what is lost when textiles are photographed.

These images show the work insitu, in the woods that inspired them.

They do look as though the belong there.

Sass Tetzlaff - JC 2011 Graduate

'Domestic Bliss Series'

These are postcard images of another BA(Hons) Julia Caprara School of Textile Arts 2011 graduate - Sass Tetzlaff.

Sass told me the images are taken directly from 'pin-up girl' posters. She thread painted the images by machine than appliqued them onto pieced backgrounds.

The backgrounds are all used men's shirts and she also incorporated men's suits in the above work.

Sass says in her artist statement: 'My current work focuses on the tensions that exist between what women in Western Society want to do and what cultural stereotypes still seem to suggest they ought  to be doing.'

Barbara J West - 2011 JC Graduate

Here are post cards of Barbara West's exhibition work.

She calls the installation 'Drinking Games'

From her artist statement: 'This installation draws attention to one example of alcohol misuse in western culture, with potentially violent consequences for young women.'

It is powerful work, personally relevant to every parent who has sent a daughter out into the world.

New JC BA(Hons) Graduates 2011

Ingrid Lincoln and I have just returned from the private view of this year's graduates of the Julia Caprara School of Stitched Textiles BA(Hons) degree programme exhibition in Redchurch Gallery, London.

6 students had a selection of their final work displayed in the gallery.

Viny Smit, Principal of the school, welcomed everyone.

Alice Kettle gave the address to the graduates.

Congratulations to all the graduates: Barbara  J West, Wendy Harris Williams, Diana Bliss, Diana Halbert, Valerie Huggins, Chris Spencer

I'm sorry I can't show you images of the wonderful work - photography was not allowed.

More Sampling of Food While Travelling

Of course i also sampled cream teas as we travelled across the English and Welsh countryside.
So far my vote goes to the cream tea in the Old Stables Tea Rooms in a small village in the foothills of the Welsh Black Mountains, Hay on Wye.

They have won many awards with their own fresh clotted cream, yeast unbleached flour scones warm from the oven when you order, rose-flavoured strawberry jam (all ingredients from their garden and their father's garden), and a delicious blended tea, all served on a piece of slate.
But i will not decide on my favourite cream tea until we have explored the Devon coast next year when we return for my graduating exhibition.

Each village has a bakery or two with a bow or glassed window where they display that morning's baking. All very tempting.

What i couldn't resist was a cone of vanilla-flavoured sheep's milk ice cream - that's the cone on the left. It was delicious. We sat out in a market square with our backs to a 700 year old church wall and watched village life pass by while licking.