timeandthebook

The first public encounter with the project went off well with a bookmaking workshop within the record office at Lowestoft. As we were in an archive it seemed appropriate to focus the workshop on the idea of time and its relationship to the book – ‘this morning happened before now and later will happen next’ - it’s quite a complex concept ......the members of the group made individual books with original images and text. The formats of the books were inspiring and they all went away with starting points for new projects and ways to fulfil books and stories that they had started, some of which they brought with them.  If all the sessions are as positive as this it will be a joy.

connectionsmaking

I’ve started to work on the comparative slide show – this involves going through every photograph I have taken in the archives, editing and then cropping the images to portrait format so that they can be juxtaposed with an image of my work. The connection will be that the former has informed the making of the latter.  For this I have also started to document the work I have created so far and consider what has led to what! 

foldedtime

I've been looking at the vast collection of photographs of folded and creased documents that I have amassed over the past month. The images taken in the three archives and collections tell a story of once functional, everyday documents passing through many hands, the edges and layers exposing the patina of time. I've been recreating these then photographing and scanning. Have also been working with sublimation printing and the heat press - transferring onto fabric the marks of ageing - the image of thread, crease and the fold exists as a form of trace, leaving the marks without their physical presence. In some way this references the experience of the material itself. 

burnthemethodology

In the record office in Ipswich I almost abandoned any theory around the starting points and resorted to reading the descriptions within the folders opposite the desk (the second stage of searching after the card index). This has been a really successful research methodology as it has turned up a number of excellent things to think about from being able to view a very specific way of adding a seal to a document that I have been looking for to a revelation of new ways of fixing or joining individual papers together, HD/42/7/2/8 – a will and documents held with a metal pin joining. I was particularly absorbed by HD79/AA1/6/1-19 which had an interesting ways of joining with slits a number of folded documents that had been signed within and over the fold and slit.

The never ending record of names, places, dates and human activity – sitting in the record office and at this moment I am subsumed within the legal world of deeds and the documentation of exchanges of property and money between people – totally overwhelming and trying to find the individual narrative is challenging as there is so much individual activity in the form of names long forgotten that there is little space to find one’s own story. There is so much stuff – an almost endless tide of human activity.

The physicality of the objects I have requested today have heavily imposed on my soul – I have felt the presence of the people who owned them, embellishing and burnishing their covers with repeated use, touching and handling, - HD79/B3 – a blacksmiths account book – an aged tool representing hours, days, weeks, years of toil, metal, heat and sweat. HD79/B7 a small note book with examples of Suffolk silk lovingly held in with slits cut from the actual pages. These are annotated with notes about the diet of the worms. This is probably something that my project isn’t about – but.......... one can’t help but be moved by their presence.

accessingbytouch

a day at The Textiles research centre - a session with actual objects that I have requested to view - difficult to convey how exciting it is to handle the objects that were earlier an ascension number and short description.
Where to start - after a long conversation with volunteers and archivists about the project, focusing on ways of accessing the collection, and cataloguing which led to ideas around blogging tags, crowd sourcing, turning ICOM into a diagram/family tree and translation from artists language to curator/archivist language I got to have boxes opened by the very wonderful and knowledgeable Lisa.
After spending time with the smocks which were the starting point of the project and obviously they are extraordinary objects. I was pleased that I had chosen 'the best' examples In the collection - the richness of the materials and structure were obvious. Highlights were - NWHCM : 1969.47 - dressmaking or tailoring samples which was in a box (CT1020) which contained examples of sewing and garment construction - much of it in parts, 'apprentice' pieces as part of courses or as examples to aid in the passing exams or to get work.
Sidelines that took over today were issues of wear and tear and ageing on the garments. How the garments had worn away told you much about the people who had worn them and the world they lived in, the very basic fixing that had taken place held many stories.

postmoderncatalogueissues

The initial obsession with date classification that I have  encountered within curatorial circles has led me to ICOM – a system used within museums for categorising – the terminology and classification is fascinating – I'm particularly drawn to the line drawings – there is a body of work to be done here – especially around the mapping of how I work within the collections http://www.collectionslink.org.uk/assets/thesaurus_icombts/vbt00e.htm  I’m thinking about some sort of animation constructed from diagrams linked to labels.

How we catalogue the work within collections obviously has a history – from my reading and talking with curators (esp Ruth Battersby Tooke) the move from science based hierarchical thinking around the construction and reading of collections towards a more individual contextual understanding appears to of coincided with the breaking down of social barriers and the rise of valuing the individual in society.  The fact that each objects reference point can change with each viewing is something to consider in relation to mapping a way through the collections. Each object has a seemingly infinite number of stories attached and each personal truth illustrates multiple connections and possibly demonstrates what and how we value the objects around us.  This constantly shifting reconceptualising is a challenge to the rigours of traditional cataloguing.

Meanwhile I’ve been sidetracked by a wonderful punch less binder - ACCOGRIP – that was holding a set of paper patterns. 

dayoneexcitment

First day at Norwich textile collection was wonderful - just settling in, working out how the system works and  reading and thinking about the history of the smock - first titbits of information that may or may not go anywhere are - 1 the image of black smocks held by the church, lent out to pallbearers in rural areas, unusual in that most smocks are white, beige or grey, although blue smocks can be found in Newark, dyed with Wode from Coventry, (where I come from!) 2 the cutting scheme for a smock from a length of fabric.