Tuesday 15 March 2016

My rucksack







                                                                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                                           



The window I will 'write': 
  1. It will show some of the remains or imprint of past geological times thinking of Darwin and his contemporaries' finds .
  2. It will contribute to the discovery of Marga's life and artwork. It will keep the imprint of my anecdotal visual memories of a life in Shrewsbury as an artist
  3. It will present fossilisation of items of our late C20th and early C21st life (choice made later with participants to activities run in the museum at the time of the exhibition)                            



After a few visits of Shrewsbury Museum, I now have a rucksack of adequate pieces of its collections to build my artwork. 

Glass slides of fossils:
The Shrewsbury Museum has in its collection a box of microscope slides of the time of Darwin and his contemporaries. It is not only interesting for the glass slides but also for the patterns of the cardboards holding the glass slides as well as the hand writing, the colours scheme.


In 2012,  Dr Falcon-Lang found more "Inside the drawer where hundreds of beautiful glass slides made by polishing fossil plants into thin translucent sheets". "The fossils became "lost" because J. D. Hooker (1817-1911) failed to number them in the formal specimen register before setting out on an expedition to the Himalayas". British Geological Survey website
I wish to use the patterns of some of the glass slides fossils Dr Falcon-Lang found and some of the Museum's glass slides of the box on display.


Shrophire rocks/layers:
The agate gemstones cuts of nodules I chose earlier may be shaped with water jet technique to match the pattern of the landscape as drawn in the print chosen for display on the wall of the Hall of Rocks and Minerals.

agate gemstones cuts
the print on the walls of the Hall of Rocks and Minerals
            



Christian culture in Shrewsbury:
For the spiritual/medieval life of Shrewsbury, lessons and prayers would have been read during, otherwise silent, mealtimes from the pulpit when it formed part of the Abbey refectory.The pulpit close to the Abbey is also close to my stained glass studio and I always find it very neglected or lost in its surrounding of modern car parking. It was separated since 1836 from the Abbey Church by the London to Holyhead road.
The painting (Unknown painter, 1800-1860, SHYMS:FA/1991/193) in the Museum Collection has a mystery figure in the background who seems to be of black origins. Who was that person?



St Alkmund and St Julian churches are painted in two paintings of the collection of Shrewsbury Museum.
I had loved both at the time of my first visit of the Rowley's House Museum in 1999.
Those two churches are in the view I mention in the next piece in my rucksack.

Pnorama of Shrewsbury 1630 1658 oil on canvas SHRMS2009_00001














detail of the couple holding each other's hand
A Formal Garden in Dogpole,
attributed to John Bowen, oil on canvas C18th
 

My view also has a wall and I wish to play with the display of sculptures and pots in the Dogpole painting, choosing the display of items along the old brick wall I view each day. Those items can be defined in a workshop with teenagers or adults thinking of a colour scheme that would work with the colours taken out of the rocks/minerals of Shropshire.








The Medieval Times as reference to the Arts & Crafts:
Thinking of the Medieval Gallery/stained glass medieval art collections of the Museum, a period of reference to the Arts & Crafts movement of which Marga's artwork belongs, the Medieval Gallery shows a collection of painted roundels on the theme of seasons.
The theme of seasons is important as humans for our relation to the Earth. Seasonal changes is the ingredient of many photos of a view of Shrewsbury from my home. I took photos and photos of this same view through seasons for a few years. St Alkmund and St Julian's churches are on the line of the horizon of that view. There, all most common birds have made their observatory from a birch tree and found a rest corner of an other tree closer to my home (left of the photo bellow)
Birds are in Marga's windows of  Shrewsbury Cathedral. Birds are part of many anecdotal memories to me and to all people.

one of the photos I took of the same view, winter 2016 on the day of storm Imogen, a strong bird at the top of the birch tree

Darwin, Fire/Earth Crust mobility/Volcanoes&Corals:
So, Mt Erebus, a volcano named after the ship used by J.D. Hooker.
"In Greek mythology, Erebus was the son of the god Chaos, and his mother was Gaia, or Earth. Erebus was made of darkness and shadow, and he filled the corners of the world with his darkness."
A little bit more brain work for me to read again a few pages about the interaction volcanoes/corals.
It is in my rucksack as a Note...
brain coral

Marga, Water/Creation:
Shropshire underwater and forest fossils sculpted on glass or kiln formed on glass or with water jet abrasion?

Fossil_Shrewsbury Museum
Fossil_Shrewsbury Museum

Marga and monastic life:
As Marga chose to enter monastic life, I add in my rucksack the Effigy of Christ (Untraced Accession SHCMS: H.06498, Medieval Gallery)
It also recalls the artwork by Joseph Beuys whose work also had medieval references. In 1992 I had studied his social sculpture as part of my Fine Arts degree research titled Oeil Critique.

my research work on Joseph Beuys Crosses or Christ effigies
Shrewsbury Museum effigy of Christ


My effigy_  Earth on border line to crucifixion 1992

I will keep this 1992 artwork as an essential ingredient in writing of the window












No comments:

Post a Comment