getting your head around it

I spent a couple of days up in BARC getting a feel for what they do and what I might be interested in taking as starting points for my work.

A big thanks must go out to the staff especially Tom Sparrow and Andy Holland who tried to explain the black art of 3D modelling.  I think they would agree that they have probably failed.  I have been playing with one of the images at home in meshlab trying to get my head around how the program works but it is this image that has surprised me most.  It reminds me of one of those cut out and make your own models at home kit.  I just cant get my head around the technology behind this image.  All the tiny bits are the facets of the lumps and bumps at the back of the skull.

So whose skull is this?  It’s from the collection of the Royal College of Surgeons.  It’s a historical piece that was used a long time ago as a teaching aid. It’s the skull of a young man with Downs Syndrome.  I have very mixed feelings about it.  The number painted on it seems a little disrespectful but if it was a well-used sample that helped people learn and understand and if the writing on samples was an established protocol of the time to stop samples being mixed up then is it okay? I don’t know and it’s something to think about.

The error bred in the bone

Polygon model of skull from Digitising Diseases website. http://www.digitiseddiseases.org

Some of you may well know that I have been working on getting a project off the ground with the Biological Anthropological Research Centre (or BARC) at the University of Bradford.
Thanks to Arts Council England funding the project will finally begin next week with an extended visit to the Centre.

So how did it all happen…… At the opening of Cloth and Memory2 last summer I met Professor Keith Manchester  who was worried about my ECG in the piece.  In fact a number of people expressed concern at the ECG until it was explained to them that for most of the ECG on the piece my heart rate was at 181bpm and that’s why it wasn’t looking ‘normal’.  At the very beginning where my bpm was 60 you could see it was fine.

 

So Keith and I got talking and he suggested that I should visit the University and see the fascinating things they do.  8 months and a G4A award later the chance for me to make a body of work in response to what is going on in the Centre is now finally about to begin.

So what will I be looking at….?  To be honest I am not sure what the focus will be yet.  They have some amazing stuff in their collection or passing through their hands…everything from medieval leper bones to ancient and modern ivory and scrimshaw having its DNA analysed.  They have been very involved in the Digitised Diseases project that allows you to examine and rotate a whole range of archaeological bones indicating various diseases.
http://www.digitiseddiseases.org/alpha/

I intend to tell the story of this project through my blog so please keep reading!

Things we do in bed

My piece ’60 beats a minute’ will be part of the exhibition 'Things We Do in Bed'.  This was the first major piece in the echocardiology series about my heart and therefore, if you excuse the pun, will always have a special place in it.  In fact the whole 100m piece at Salts Mill wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for this piece

The show has been curated by author and quilter Tracy Chevalier and will have 7 different rooms focusing on ‘Things we do in bed’.  She asked if she could show the piece in the room that will focus on ‘illness’.  Even though this is piece that is about my healthy heart (fingers crossed), I am happy for it to be shown in that context.  The images are the result after all, of a medical diagnostic test.

I hope you can get along to the show. 
It runs from 1 April – 31 October at Danson House, Bexleyheath, Kent DA6

http://www.bexleyheritagetrust.org.uk/dansonhouse/

 

 

View from the other end

Quite a few people have asked me about the ‘top end’ of the piece.  Because the public aren’t allowed up the top end of the Spinning room most visitors cant see all of my piece up close.

So here are a couple of pictures showing the piece from up there.  There is a view of the piece down the room and a close up looking towards the very end.  If you are paying attention you’ll notice the ECG (the red line) is very different to further down.  That’s the difference between 60 bpm and 181 bpm.

Studio shots

A couple of people have asked if I have any more detailed photos of the piece.

Here are a couple taken in the studio.  You can see one photo shows the piece in ‘folds’ the others are details.

I hope you find them interesting

here it is

So here it is

This isn’t a proper photo, just one taken with my i-phone but the give a good feel as to the piece and how it looks in the space.  The figure in red is Nicky cardio technical advisor and work horse when we installed.  Big thanks.  Her being in the photo gives and indication of the scale of the piece

Let me know what you think

what every textile artist is wearing this season

Now the Lobby is a dirty ol’ space.  And I upset someone when I said that I was taking footprints off a 150 years of dirt.  She was a cleaner in the mill many years ago and said that there wasn’t any dirt in her day.  That’s as maybe but there is now

So when I was installing I had a choice either to get very dirty or look like and extra from CSI Bradford.  I opted for the later.  I needed to redo a running stitch of about 10m which did involve me on the floor sewing quite a bit.  I had bought kneelers BUT it was the one that I attached to my ankle that really made me comfortable.  I sort of sit on my foot when I work on the floor and that was definitely the way to do it.

Want to see the piece properly?  Log on tomorrow