Earphone

This is an the earphone that accompanies the Hanimax Synchrocorder, Model 1400SL

Scapular

This is a six fold scapular. It was part of a house clearance that was being sold at the market. The scapular is worn by Catholics, it should be made of wool and should be worn close to the skin so you can feel it. You are required to pray to the saints represented on each fold daily. The folds are cased inside the blue pockets, but can be pulled out when praying so that each fold is touched as the appropriate prayer is uttered. Some people think think that the six fold is too many, arguing that the focus and potency of the prayer will be diminished when so widely spread and favour a maximum of three folds.

Herb chopper

Today at the market

Today at the market it felt exciting again. I was listening to the noises and to the words exchanged. I loved the clocks and the way they marked time, and that at the center of the display was the skull clock, grinning. I have a whole collection of clocks and time pieces on my shelf at home, that I got from the old man's collection in London. You can wind them all up at the same time so they all tick crazily, out of time with each other.

But the thing that was most surprising was the tool man, who I always walk past quickly on my way to the woman who sells ornaments and kitchen things. As I walked past him I heard him explaining what a carved piece of wood-worm-eaten wood was. He was explaining that it had been used to sharpen scythes, that it was hung off the belt and then covered in mutton fat and sand so that when the edge dulled you simply run the blade over it and continue. Suddenly my attention was intensely focused on the piece of wood, its shape, and its surface that was punctured by a hole for the string. The tool man was aware of my attention and started to show me pieces he had hidden under the table. I became aware of the other tools, and their handles, the curved shapes, the rounded handles all shaped to fit hands doing very particular jobs, jobs we no longer do. The tool man felt it important to explain their uses, and the details of the tasks they accomplished. But for me they suddenly became extraordinarily elegant sculptures, ornaments for a bygone modernist era evoking a lost past of good honest craft. Maybe Henry Moore might have arrayed such things on his mantle-piece. The herb chopper was the most beautiful, I picked it up and stroked the worn handle where the screws were sanded down and smooothed into the wood. It cost twelve pounds, too much. I wasn't sure, but it kept calling me back to it. I went away, looked round the rest of the market, but I found myself returning and I bought it. A homage to Barbara Hepworth perhaps.

curating

link to New York Times article on use of the term "curate"

Shadow of Death

I got this book from the flea market.

" There are only two sorts of pictures. good and bad. For the artist - the real artist - differs from all other workers inasmuch as he gives more than he is paid for; he puts in something of himself, his feeling for art....What are the qualities which to-day, are most worthy of development? Let us put down truth, courage, tenacity and tenderness, and examine a work of art chosen almost at random, say Holman Hunt's Shadow of Death, to ascertain if any of these qualities emerge. "

The Shadow of Death
Holman Hunt

Shadow of Death
Jesus in a bottle found in thrift store.


Shadow of Death
Head found in flea market, skull lying around in studio.

Insects

Collecting insects.

An insect that collects.

Today at the market

Today at the market felt very flat. The man selling Russian dolls, badges and religious icons was there, as was the war time collector, the house clearance man, and all the usual suspects. But today was one of those days when everything looked ugly and I was not inspired to actually get anything. Today it was all so tawdry and seemed to be such a waste. So much stuff and no one wants it. I forgot my camera. Yesterday I forgot my camera and when I walked past St Joseph's the priest was sanding Mary Magdalene down. I stopped and stared at him. So carefully he was moving the paper over the folds in her shawl, and the contours of her face. I was thinking about how people touch statues of Mary so lovingly and this seemed like that, only he was looking after her rather than hoping she might look after him. I felt abit awkward, staring like that. It felt perhaps that was too intimate. I moved on, tearing my eyes away. After a while I went back and went up to him to ask if I might film him. He was by now painting Mary. He was repainting her white as she had been before, only where he had sanded revealed that in the past her shawl had been blue and her face flesh coloured. He had already painted the upper part of the body and was now down to her legs. I had missed the chance of capturing it on film. Perhaps it doesn't matter because the image is in my head anyway. A wasp landed on Mary's nose as we talked. He said this coat would see her through the winter, and stop her from cracking anymore. Now I will always look at her when I walk past and she will look back at me.

Exhibitions in October:

Castlefield Gallery:

Apocatopia

Friday, October 09, 2009 to Sunday, November 22, 2009 (13:00 - 18:00)

Castlefield Gallery is pleased to present Apocatopia, a group exhibition including the work of Ruth Ewan, Evi Grigoropoulou, Siobhán Hapaska and Pil & Galia Kollectiv. Through film, painting and sculpture the work explores the relationship between production, presentation and consumption of contemporary culture examining the role of money, ritual and desire in a changing cultural, political and economic topography.

http://www.castlefieldgallery.co.uk/

Manchester City Art Gallery:

Angels of Anarchy

http://www.manchestergalleries.org/whats-on/exhibitions/index.php?itemID=55

Yorkshire Sculpture Park:

Unpopular Culture and Nostalgia for the Bad Times (curated by Grayson Perry)

http://www.ysp.co.uk/view.aspx?id=675

Seventeen: (London)

HOLLYWOOD WONDERLAND

Wednesday 7th Oct - Saturday 7th Nov 2009

http://www.seventeengallery.com/index.php?p=3&id=49&iid=1

Toy Shop

I’m checking what’s in the world. What’s left. What’s discarded. What’s no longer cherished….You’ll look. You’ll stray. You’ll lose track of time…It always takes more time than you think. Then you’ll be late You’ll be annoyed with yourself…You’ll be tempted. You’ll be repelled. The things are grimy. Some are broken. Badly patched if at all. They will tell me of passions, fancies I don’t need to know about. Need. Ah no. None of this do I need. Some I will caress with my eye. Some I must pick up and fondle…Desire leads me.

(From The Volcano Lover, Susan Sontag, p.3/4, 1992)

These toys are in the Model and Toy Shop and Museum in Todmorden. When I went in there and talked to Mike about all the toys and models he has accumulated I felt breathless to be surrounded by all these things that had been infused with a passion now lost. Empty of desire that they were once filled with. I spent two hours there and found it hard to leave. A little world of big worlds.

Museum Cabinet Number 3

This is the museum Cabinet that I got at the Old Lancashire Fusiliers Regimental Museum, via e-bay. The museum consisted of a large room that was full of large glass fronted, floor to ceiling cabinets, all empty as the museum has been relocated. A empty room full of empty cabinets, all waiting to be picked up. My cabinet, Number 3, with a key with a pink tag was the last get auctioned off. Now it is in my studio space at Todmorden Community College, where I am completing a BA in art. For the last year I have been collecting things, mainly from the Thursday Flea market. Getting this cabinet was a very exciting moment in this process of collecting and it has inspired me to start this blog as a way that I can share the objects that I collect with other people. Also I can use this site to collect and post links to events, artists and books that connect with collecting and with things. I will gradually and in no particular order introduce different objects to the site and see how it grows. The cabinet has been hastily filled with some of the stuff that was piled on my desk, but its contents will be changing and I would like suggestions of what could go in it, suggestions of what to collect next, as well as any responses to the objects that I post on the site.