On a cloud

I did something different today. I just did a 'Blog Page' which allowed me to babble on a bit more extensively about Sarah and Hagar. I think you can get to it by looking at the menu at the side, and it is there at the top right, 'Sarah and Hagar explained on a cloud'. It contains the 'blurb' that I sent in to Southwark when I delivered the pieces to them, and which I gave to the very nice Will Harrison  from Lincoln diocese's in-house mag, Crosslincs, which can be read online:

 http://www.lincoln.anglican.org/page.php?n_@DC_40

Preparing to sail

and in which I am to appear, next issue if there is room (well it IS the Christmas edition, so that's very apt - will there be room for me? As there will be a new bishop rightly taking up a lot of space; and we have high hopes of him poor thing; bet he's as nervous as I am at the thought of next year's exhibition. I must pray for him whenever I get the collywobbles. Funny, he was consecrated on Sept 21st in London, the day after I got my prize. We go in a kind of tandem, his new life and mine.)

So if it is of interest, do go to my very first Page.

I'm really happy that I've managed to complete a yearly task which holds terrors for me, creating the SOTS Autumn Address List and other related lists. Otherwise, today is the day I hope to really get to grips with the washing up, and tiding up my lair in readiness for my year of hard labour. Once I'm on the water, I'll be fine. Much love to all my readers! Please pray for me!
Viv
XXXX

What has Grayson Perry done for me?

Being a Grandma means that every time I lean forward while typing on the laptop, there is the noise of some farm animal (no, not ME, silly!) because the kiddies' book I'm resting on is a clever one. Eric pointed out tonight at story time that I have a very wrinkly neck and hands, and look VERY old. Funny, I don't seem to mind at all. Reading yesterday's blog, I could see just how old I am - thinking that the new generation is not going to learn to make stuff etc etc, yawn yawn, 'In MY day...'! - well maybe they aren't going to do the same things that we did, but no doubt they will do good things.

Opening day at Knitting & Stitching Show

This morning I went to Ally Pally just to get the catalogue for the Knitting & Stitching Show that I'm going to tomorrow, and there were these hordes of women arriving, showing that making is alive and well, and I'm sure it won't all be cross-stitch kits. I know; I'm a craft snob; such kits are fine, but I wouldn't see the point for myself; I want what I make to me mine, all mine.

You can see what a tribe these women are, and I'm obviously identifiable too, since two of them approached me some miles off Ally Pally asking 'Where is the shuttle bus?', just expecting me to know that they meant the bus supposedly laid on from the station to the Palace itself. I sympathised. I'm so lucky to have family just round the corner from the one event I'd hate to miss the most. That bunting is all made of knitted triangles by the way. I'll find out more tomorrow!

Today was Grayson Perry Day for me at the British Museum, the first day of his new exhibition 'The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman', which he said could be another name for the British Museum. I wrote down many things he is quoted as saying, as well as some the things he has written on his pots. I love the one called 'The Frivolous Now', on which he lists many things that are very much the thing of today, as all the stuff in the BM was at one time. Thus he listed, among many other things, phrases like 'Going forward', 'The Big Society', Botox, Corporate spirituality, Mumsnet, and much more. All without comment, except that he refers to them 'Banalities and buzzwords'.

It's bigger than it looks here

I like the words at the entrance: 'Do not look too hard for meaning here. I am not a historian, I am an artist. That is all you need to know.' Of course, he understands a lot about the objects he has chosen from the BM, which stand alongside things he has made himself. Often, from a short distance away, it is hard to tell which objects are GP's creations, and which are antiquities; that's the point, well one of them.

I like it that he says, 'Part of my role as an artist is similar to that of a shaman or witchdoctor. I dress up, I tell stories, I give things meaning and make them a bit more significant. Like religion, this is not a rational process, I use my intuition. Sometimes our very human desire for meaning can get in the way of having a good experience of the world. Some people call this irrational unconscious experience spirituality. I don't.' Oh good. I'm not myself a big fan of that word either.

GP is a big fan of Joseph Beuys, about whom I must find out more, and here is some stuff to be going on with:
http://www.quotes-famous-artists.org/joseph-beuys-famous-quotes

What really impresses me is GP's humorous turning of his teddy Alan Measles into a kind of god. I love the embroidery where Alan is shown with his arms spread over the adherents of other religions, giving them wise advice 'Hold your beliefs lightly'. GP is an atheist, but he doesn't hate religion in the way that some atheists do, and instead of mounting an agressive anti-religion campaign, he makes a gentle plea for, well, for gentleness among the religious, I suppose. He has a lot more sense on this than some intellectuals who ought to know better.

The idea of pilgrimage is one that appeals to GP, and there are objects arranged in categories such as maps, shrines, souvenirs of pilgrimage, magick etc. I'd say that like me, he is religious but not spiritual, though of course I stray into belief into the more usual god.

Have a look at this sneery review by Brian Sewell: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/review-23995089-grayson-perry-british-museum---review.do
and if you like GP, go to this exhibition and enjoy; see http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/news_and_press/press_releases/2011/grayson_perry.aspx and http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/crafts-magazine/latest-issue/upfront/1 Maybe I'm a simple soul, but I just loved it, and I don't want anybody to be nasty about him.

I'm still in London, of course, and I suppose this sort of thing is normal. It really does just sell fruit and veg and stuff, so maybe it just lacks a grocers' apostrophe, and there is someone called Ero.

Adding, subtracting, transforming.

 Mmm, London, love it! Today I met the vibrant 'hanging committee' of Southwark Cathedral, regarding the exhibition of things yet to be created (aaargh!) for next November, after my success in the Lancelot Andrewes art comp. Some prize - a year's hard labour; but for me, this is a real gift. Lots of things seemed to 'happen' today.

 

The nave of the cathedral was full of clergy, recognisable by a band of white around many of the visible necks. There was some interesting-sounding lecture going on when I arrived, so I asked the bod on the door what it was. In the manner well known to me from visiting many cathedrals, I was treated to, 'The Clergy of the Diocese are Having a Talk' - which I had in fact noticed! And despite being dressed in the pink hat and various give-away what you might call 'artistic' garments and accessories, I was addressed by the man-on-the-door as though I were a  trainee in  counting envelopes, and only 5 years old to boot. So I stayed on for 15 minutes or so and heard some 'Blah blah.. theological reflection.. blah blah artists....' and thought it was really up my street, though in fact it seemed to be arguing the case for taking art seriously as a medium in which to exegete the Bible, and I think I'm a fully-persuaded practitioner now.

Southwark Cathedral peeps in here just R of centre

So after a discussion of what I might produce for next November, I went on to the V & A museum for the afternoon, and was disappointed to find that the fashion and textile stuff is very much Not There, as it is being reshuffled and will not be available until some time next year. But there was an interesting exhibition on called 'The Power of Making', celebrating, well, making! My reactions were mixed. Great that the exhibition is taking place, and I couldn't agree more with the basic premisses of it, and the blurb - see link below - talks of

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/power-of-making/power-of-making/ 

making involving adding, subtracting or transforming; for embroidery, the process is mainly is adding, combining. Sculpture would involve subtracting, and ceramics, transforming. Geddit? I liked this bit of blurb:

Old holiday place for bishops of Winchester

"Thinking by making: Many people think that craft is a matter of executing a preconceived form or idea, something that already exists in the mind or on paper. Yet making is also an active way of thinking, something which can be carried out with no particular goal in mind*. In fact, this is a situation where innovation is very likely to occur.
Even when making is experimental and open-ended, it observes rules. Craft always involves parameters, imposed by materials, tools, scale and the physical body of the maker. Sometimes in making, things go wrong. An unskilled maker, hitting the limits of their ability, might just stop. An expert, though, will find a way through the problem, constantly unfolding new possibilities within the process."

*Jez was once making something with scrap card etc; his gran asked 'What are you making, Jeremy?' 'I don't know', he replied, 'I haven't finished it yet'. Out of the mouths of babes...

Timber Wave at the V & A

So what didn't I like? Mainly the fact that this exhibition is necessary, that these things need to be said. I have a weary sense of 'I have always said that the demise of all kinds of making in this country is a very Bad Thing, and now it has become fashionable to Make, and to do so is out of the reach of many people. Well, it isn't totally, but it is not now part of the everyday; it has been driven out by the ruling classes, and then sold back to us now that it has become unavailable to ordinary folk'; (for this analysis of just about everything from weddings to looking after your own kids, thanks to t'Owd Man.)

Timber Wave again

What I like about London is that round any corner, you find a view that combines something old and something new.  Thus at the V & A, here is a brilliant wooden structure calle 'Timber Wave' designed by AL_A, and made IN LINCOLNSHIRE by Cowley Timberworks. http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=17592I love it! (Remind me to get some new coathangers too when I get home.) While I was photographing it, I dropped my notebook, and a few things fluttered out, business cards, a pressed leaf. A line of young adults sitting on the steps nearby failed to bother to leap up as I think I would have done, to help me gather it up. I got the paper bits, but I clutched at various dry leaves forlornly, as none nearby was the right one. But then an elderly man about to get into a taxi approached me with The Leaf, a pale green dotted with white flecks - no idea what it is - and said he thought I'd dropped it. This made me feel sad, that the young people had just left me to flail after my stuff, but this man had followed the leaf that fluttered away from me, and he knew it was precious, even though he didn't look as though he had ever been a hippy, and he did something to help. I hope that young people of now will be able to 'be bothered' to master the skills of making with a bit more application than the sample before me who didn't bother to get off their bums to help a poor little old lady whose stuff was blowing away in the wind.

There are certain ways of smoothing and manipulating cloth when you're working with it that you just can't teach people, you have to find it out by having an aim in mind and problem-solving as you go along.

So how do I feel at the end of this day? What have I learned? What concerns do I have? Mmmm. There seemed to be a lot of shops selling food ready made (restaurants, they call them) and none selling any of the raw ingredients for me to sew. Even The Globe theatre had no Tudor straw hats in the shop, only baseball caps. I feel uneasy. Can the young - and I mean a larger swathe than just those attracted to art colleges etc -  be given the time and the wherewithall to be able to 'make'? Or will they tire quickly and get back to the Blackberries, iPods etc? The idea of 'craft' as the book of the exhibition says, is a bit of a tea-cosy over present-day Anglo-Saxon thinking, as though we are trying to get back to Old Ways; and yet if you really try to make anything, you find that it is far from a blood-pressure-lowering activity taking you back into the days of yore. I 'make' while I read the Bible and listen to Radio 4, and the making has the effect of making me think more sharply about the here and now. No way is it some form of escape into the past. I'm both optimistic, but also not at all optimistic; uneasy in fact. I hope my pessimism is unfounded.

The Golden Year, Day 1

Oh I do love it in a non-vicarage! There isn't that feeling that someone can just come and GRAB one of the inhabitants and take them away to deal with Something Else. I've had a lovely day so far. Had to spend 2 hours walking round Hull camino-style with my big rucksack (packed with apples, sloe gin and cake) 'cos my over-55s ticket (Damn! I didn't have to PROVE my age!) was only valid on certain trains and I just missed one. So I chatted to a Big Issue seller, who was a young woman expecting a baby, but her ankles were swollen up, poor thing. I tend to buy a Big Issue when I have just, or am about to do something a bit extragavant. Going to London for 4 nights is sort of extravagant, except that now I call it 'research' since I'm going to be going to 3 museums/exhibitions - the V & A. Grayson Perry's thing at the BM, and the Knitting & Stitching Show. But I do a lot of sitting on park benches with a sandwich and some orange squash. I chatted to someone who was working for the Red Cross, and I said Sorry mate, I look richer than I am, 'cos I make my own clothes; or is it the opposite? He politely didn't say, and when he found out I was called Vivienne, he said that was a good name for someone who makes her own clothes (thanks, Mum!). I said, honestly, in this country, we really grumble about the weather, and all the time, the Red Cross is having to deal with places where the weather actually KILLS people. I'm in that state of camino-like openness when I'm on the road, and I talk to anyone and everyone.

No pics taken today, but here is a pic of the bags that my accomplice and I made at an embroidery and spirituality thingy: Today I loaded mine (the one on the left) up with sloe gin, apples, tomatoes, something called 'Grandma cake'.... so it now has a bit of a used look, but I find that things improve a bit when they get that slight patina of London Underground-ish muck.

So now I'm at Sonny no. 1's place, and the poor thing keeps yelping whenever some kiddie comes to give him an enthusiastic hug, and he says he is not going to want to go out tonight and be sitting on bar stools. (THAT operation). So now those grand-kids are a limited edition.

While in central London, I paid a visit to the British Library, and went to the Ritblat Gallery and saw a lot of stars: the Luttrell Psalter http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/luttrellpsalter.html, the Egerton Genesis http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8780&CollID=28&NStart=1894, the Holkham Bible http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/holkham.html, the Golden Haggadah http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/hagadah/accessible/introduction.html, some beautiful Qurans http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/quran/accessible/introduction.html. I contributed toward the purchase of the St. Cuthbert Gospel too http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2011/07/the-st-cuthbert-gospel.html- formerly known as the Stonyhurst Gospel - http://www.gbwny.org/news/2007/11/st-cuthbert-gospel-of-st-john-formerly-known-as-the-stonyhurst-gospel/ - a piece of bookbinding from the 7th Century (DO judge a book by its cover sometimes) - OK, 50 pence, but look, I'm a sump, not a wage-earner. The kept-woman's mite. I was rather bowled over, and this on top of a sudden surge of inspiration for my exhibition (some quite unsuitable, but I accept it all gratefully) next November, that I felt quite worn out. Grandson Eric, having last time paid me the - to him - compliment of  'Oooh, Grandma, you look so OLD!' asked me if I had my brain with me, so I said I might have left it on a train, or it might have plopped down the drain.

Today is maybe the first day of what, in the absence of a better title yet, I call The Golden Year. This is the year when I have to work hard to produce an exhibition of up to ten works commission-free in the Southwark Cathedral teashop. Mock not; they get more people passing through that than through the average London Gallery. So this is an unrivalled opportunity for me to make my fortune. Lets do the maths: I work all year and make ten things. Let's award me a salary of £10,000 a year for working, say, around a 3/4 full time job. Thus I will have to charge £1,000 per piece in order to generate that. Oh dear! I think not! OK then, 20 quid. My aim is to make enough so I can do the camino again. Then when I've done it, I'll have nothing left, be totally skint, and have a sketch book full of blisters and one of my ideas for embroidery will have got going. But I will have heard that holy nun, or similar, sing that song.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6az7f1n_HU Go on, watch, turn up the volume! Weep! The more I make on this exhibition, the more baths I can have along the way; I thought maybe every ten days I might stop in a proper hotel?? and go to the museum of Pilgrimage in Astorga http://www.trivago.co.uk/astorga-102453/museum--exhibition--gallery/museo-de-los-caminos-192031/pictures where there is also a museum of chocolate http://www.spain.info/en_US/conoce/museo/leon/museo_del_chocolate.html  but I won't be going to that.

Oooh! Sonny has just brought me dinner, his sausage and bean casserole; he might be sore down there, but thank goodness, it has not affected his cooking skills!