Adding the Gloss

Having spent ALL day yesterday watching the telly, i got up early this morning to make up for lost time. I have managed to add the gloss to the woodwork in the back gallery, and apart from the perspex on the sink screen, the room is done. When the paint is dry tomorrow, i will put the empty frames into their  final  positions.

Debating what to put in the frames. White. Off-white. Black.

I am really pleased with how it is looking. It is very good stage set. Now the drama begins.

Undercoat

After another long day of preparation, caulking and sanding, the wood has been undercoated, and there is a new layer of clean white paint on the walls. No prizes for spotting the bit of missing skirting board (I'd forgotten that was why i had a seagrass screen around that corner.) I'm sure there'll be a bit upstairs somewhere I can steal for the cause!

So happy that I can see the stage set beginning to appear in the gallery now.  

Tomorrow I shall be adding the gloss to Christmas. 

More Panelling Required

I have finished the construction of the screen for the sink in the back gallery (apart from the perspex panels) and measured up for the position of the work itself.  I realised that, visually, the panelling on the walls needed adding to, if the work is to hang two frames deep. So, thankfully before I started the painting, I have added two more rows of batons to increase the appearance of regularity and structure within the space.

I am very pleased with the way the project us going so far, and I think I am just about on target, timewise. It's only my own target, but i find it easier to relax in the evening if i am happy with the work I have done.  My intention is to have both rooms ready for the exhibition, and all the frames hung (empty) in time for Rob Tyson's music evening on 10th January, when the programme of events at The Studio Gallery for 2014 will also be available. We have some very exciting things planned for next year. But one thing at a time!!!!, 

First Steps (or first waves of muscular contraction)

This exhibition is as much about the space, as it is about the work itself. In my mind's eye, I have always seen "The Movement and Action of Worms" being set here in The Studio Gallery.

I think when i first moved into the space 4 and a half years ago, i knew it was where my next significant exhibition was going to take place,  but the space needs to look, clean, precise, white - something of the look of a laboratory - yes 'clinical' is the word! And those of you who know the gallery know that it has gone through an enormous number of 'changes' - none of them looking particularly clinical to date.

So starting with the back room, (since the front is my Christmas sitting room) I am clearing it. Adding a screen around the sink unit, which folds back and looks like a window shutter (!). And then painting the whole thing white. 

Although this feels a little bit like it might be a 'displacement activity' from making the work itself, actually setting the scene is vital for my ideas to take shape. The work is already in my head. I need a stage to act them out on.

Hibernating with Worms

The Studio Gallery is closed for the winter, and will now evolve - through my Christmas sitting room - into the exhibition for Coastival - The Movement and Action of Worms. Although I went quiet on this blog, I've been working hard on ideas and images for the exhibition, and I'm really excited to see it come to fruition after 3 years preparation.

“I must own I had always looked on worms as amongst the most helpless and unintelligent members of the creation; and am amazed to find that they have a domestic life and public duties!” (Joseph Hooker, 19th century British botanist)

You will be amazed too!

The "Coastival"  Programme has now been issued. There are 100 events in Scarborough over the weekend of 14-16 February 2014.  Www.coastival.com  www.facebook.com/coastival. Twitter. @coastival

Make sure you try to leave a slot in your busy weekend to come and see the exhibition. 

Friday 14 April  10.00am - 9.30pm 

Saturday and Sunday 15 and 16 February 10.00am - 4.00pm

If you find there is just TOO MUCH to see over the weekend, the Exhibition continues 

Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday 20-23 February 10.00am - 4.00pm

I just need to fulfil a commission of Contemporary Quilting by 9th December, and then full steam ahead with the worms.  I can't wait! Try not to be too concerned if worms take the place of tinsel this Christmas!!

Rediscovery of No 8. Barnacle fossil

This piece was No 8 from the 'Voyage of Discovery' exhibition in Cambridge. 

"Barnacle Fossil"  Mixed Media Collage. 

It was bought by Marion Heasman and is in her collection in Bonsall, Derbyshire. Whilst visiting her today, I saw the work again for the first time in 3 years. It was one of the largest pieces in the show (larger than A1) and i was really pleased to see how good it looks in situ at her new house. I was also very surprised at how "worm-like" the barnacle shapes look. probably because I've been focussing on information for my new exhibition.  I may use one of these photographs as the starting point for Movement of Worms piece No 4 'Stucture'

Exhibition Poster

No 26 Ledges on hillside

No 26 ledges on hillside

"If the accumulation of disintegrated and rolled worm-castings were  to become 

confluent along horizontal lines, ledges would be formed." Charles Darwin 1881

Well I really can't expect this to carry on, but the first piece of work for the exhibition is "in the bag". 

Along with the tin design, and the front cover of the accompanying book, 

Work Number 26 is complete.

It is a short video (6 mins) which will loop. And from that a set of 12 prints (stills from the video).

One will appear as a page in the book/catalogue and the whole set of 12 will be available as a 

limited print edition. Very very pleased with it.   Here's a taster.

Still No: 7/12

Tin design

Now this is beginning to look how I want it to look. Progress has been made!

Tin and front cover of book:

Playing with Tins

I'm getting on really well with my initial ideas and sketches for the 30 pieces of work ; seem to be in my element. I've missed this method of working. 

When i studied for the Voyage of Discovery exhibition in 2008/9 I began by reading The Origin of Species and making notes. So that's how I started this project - reading Worms and Mould. I was a bit worried that the language might be a bit turgid, as I had found The Origin, but actually, it was fascinating, and even funny in places. 

In my last blog I mentioned that I will be documenting the work in this exhibition with an edition of 50 handmade artists books, and that they will be contained within A5 size tin boxes. Well the tin boxes arrived today! By courier - 72 of them. It was a very big and heavy cardboard box!!

I spent a very happy couple of hours this afternoon playing with the lids. Scratching, inking, sandpapering, drawing, printing and then putting them in the oven to fix the inks. I haven't come up with the final version yet, by any means, but I'm really enjoying getting there.

More playing tomorrow.

I'm glad I've given myself enough time to really be in control of this work. I'm really enjoying it, and having time to savour the experience. The stress will come, and the doubts and the challenges, but hopefully I'll be a way down the line by then, and more able to cope with inevitable problems.

Scribblings

Now that NEEDLE & FORGE is nearly launched, I have some time to really start concentrating on 'The Movement and Actions of Worms' exhibition. I've started making notes on each of the 30 pieces, and have decided to create small books (again) to accompany the exhibition. They will be presented in tin boxes, to represent opening up a 'can of worms'.  Excited by this new boost of activity.  Keep watching this space. 

Publicity for Coastival 2014 application

Friday 14th February until Sunday 23rd February

"The Movement and Action of Worms"

By Helen Birmingham

An exhibition of mixed media textiles and print, showing an artist’s unique visual interpretation of one of the world’s oldest ongoing scientific experiments. The images are playfully based on a Darwin’s book “Mould and Worms” (1881) in which he investigates how the action of worms can cause objects on the surface to become buried over time.

This exhibition is the long awaited “next evolutionary step” for Helen Birmingham’s work and shows the continuing inspiration she has found in Charles Darwin's studies. It follows her very successful 2009 exhibition in Cambridge “Voyage of Discovery” which was a visual interpretation of Darwin’s thinking behind “The Origin of Species”.

 

"The Movement and Action of Worms"  includes altered photographic images, together with textiles and quilting, etching and silkscreen printed images.

More detailed background studies for 30 works

1. Sites inhabited

Worms are seen in extraordinary numbers on commons and chalk-downs. I have seen worms in black peat in a boggy field; but they  are extremely rare, or quite absent in the drier, brown, fibrous peat. On grassy paths worm-castings may often be seen. On dry, sandy or gravelly tracks, hardly any worms can be found.

2. Nocturnal

At night worms may be seen, but usually with their tails still inserted into their burrows.

3. Wander from the burrow

On one occasion, five tracks were counted crossing a space of only an inch square.

4.Structure 

The body of a worm consists of 100 - 200 almost cylindrical rings or segments.

5. Senses

The whole body of a worm is sensitive to contact.

6. Mental qualities

They pass the winter either singly or rolled up with others into a ball at the bottom of their burrows.

7. Food and digestion

They will eat particles of sugar and liquorice.

8. Calciferous glands

When a gland is completely filled with a single large concretion, there are no free cells, as these have been all consumed in forming the concretion.

9. Manner of prehension

A vacuum is produced beneath the truncated slimy end of the body.

10. Protection of burrows

A leaf being dragged a little way into a cylindrical burrow is necessarily much folded or crumpled.

When worms cannot obtain leaves, they often protect them with little heaps of stones. Whatever the motive may be, it appears that worms much dislike leaving the mouths of their burrows open.

11. Intelligence 

The condition of 89 triangles (65 narrow and 24 broad ones) which had been drawn in by the apex was observed. The bases of only 7 of them were at all creased, being at the same time generally dirty. Of the 82 uncreased triangles, 14 were dirty at the base.

12. Excavation of the burrow 

This is effected in 2 ways: by pushing away the earth on all sides, and by swallowing it.

13. Earth swallowed as food

Why the worms should have burrowed into the chalk in some places and not in others, I am unable to conjecture.

14. Depth of the burrow

Worms usually live near the surface, yet they burrow to a considerable depth during long-continued dry weather and severe cold.

15. Construction of the burrow

The burrows run down perpendicularly, or more commonly a little obliquely.

16. Ejection of their castings

I have watched worms during the act of ejection, and when the earth was in a very liquid state it was ejected in little spurts, and when not so liquid by a slow peristaltic movement.

17. The collapse of old burrows

It is certain that old burrows collapse in the course of time.

18. Their wide distribution 

How they reach such isolated islands is at present quite unknown.

19. Brought up by worms

Objects of all kinds, left on the surface of pasture land, after a time disappear, or work themselves downwards.

20. Undermined by worms

The straightness and regularity of the lines formed by the embedded objects and their parallelism with the surface of the land, are the most striking features of the case.

21. Number of worms

There must exist 53,767 in an acre of garden.

22. Annually accumulated

Their chief work is to sift the finer from the coarser particles, to mingle the whole with vegetable debris, and to saturate it with their intestinal secretions.

23. Burial of the remains

Archaeologists are probably not aware how much they owe to worms for the preservation of many ancient objects.

24. Disintegration and denudation

Swallowed stones serve as millstones.

25. Aided by worms

A worm had bored through a flat circular disc of recently ejected castings, and heaped up a fresh vermiform mass in the centre.

26. Ledges on hillsides

If the accumulation of disintegrated and rolled worm-castings were to become confluent along horizontal lines, ledges would be formed.

27. Castings blown to leeward

Recent castings were found after a heavy gale blown up the slope.

28. Ancient mounds

A bed, even a vey thin bed, of fine earth is eminently favourable for worms.

29. Anciently ploughed fields

In attempts to ascertain how long crowns and furrows last, obstacles of many kinds were encountered.

30. Mould over the chalk

Castings ejected on chalk downs suffer some loss by the percolation of their finer matter into the chalk.

Introduction

Friday 14th February until Sunday 23rd February 2014

An exhibition of Mixed Media Textiles and Print entitled:

"The Movement and Action of Worms"

By Helen Birmingham

at The Studio Gallery

5 Belle Vue Parade

Scarborough

YO11 1SU

 www.thestudiogalleryscarborough.co.uk

www.helenbirmingham.com

This blog is specifically to record the progress of work for my new exhibition. 

Here is the background information and inspiration for the work.

The Wormstone at Darwin's home in Kent, is an instrument designed by Horace Darwin, to record the movement and action of worms. It is one of the world's oldest ongoing scientific experiments, measuring how bioturbation gradually causes objects on the surface to be buried. The results of these experiments formed the basis of Darwin's last published book:
Darwin, C. R. 1881. MOULD & WORMS: The formation of vegetable mould, through the action of worms, with observations on their habits.

One of my most prized possessions is an original copy of this book.

Charles Darwin was the first person to realise the importance of bioturbation (although the word was yet to be coined), and this book on earthworm bioturbation continues to inspire studies in the fields of ecology, hydrology, geomorphology, and archaeology. Not bad for something that Darwin himself described, with typical modesty, as a 'curious little book of small importance'.

One of the mixed media works from my "Voyage of Discovery" 2009 Exhibition was called "Wormstone". It was a series of altered photographs of  Darwin's stone. In places in the book Darwin talks playfully and even affectionately about the worms, and I had fun imagining that the worms had been playing a game with Darwin, and purposefully not going underneath his stone,and so spoiling his scientific results." Wormstone" was the result of these imaginings.

 

 Detail (altered photograph)

I will be exhibiting a series of 30 mixed media textile pieces and prints which visually represent some of the experiments and observations which Darwin made on the action and movement of worms. They will relate to the titles of paragraphs in Darwin's book. All 30 pieces will be individual works, but will make up a whole story.

Movement and Action of Worms

1. Sites inhabited

2. Nocturnal

3. Wander from the burrow

4.Structure 

5. Senses

6. Mental qualities

7. Food and digestion

8. Calciferous glands

9. Manner of prehension

10. Protection of burrows

11. Intelligence 

12. Excavation of the burrow 

13. Earth swallowed as food

14. Depth of the burrow

15. Construction of the burrow

16. Erection of their castings

17. The collapse of old burrows

18. Their wide distribution

19. Brought up by worms

20. Undermined by worms

21. Number of worms

22. Annually accumulated

23. Burial of the remains

24. Disintegration and denudation

25. Aided by worms

26. Ledges on hillsides

27. Castings blown to leeward

28. Ancient mounds

29. Anciently ploughed fields

30. Mould over the chalk

Whilst in London, cat and dog sitting, I hope to be researching and sketching for this new project.

(As well as undertaking a reconnaissance mission for the 'screen' project, which I am undertaking with artist/blacksmith David Stephenson.)

Hopefully - more information on that available shortly!