UNRAVELLING UPPARK: 1. A modest proposal

 

Uppark - West Sussex UK (National Trust images, Matthew Antrobus) 

Unravelling Uppark, the latest set of 10 contemporary commissions for the National Trust curated by Unravelled Arts and supported by Arts Council England, opens at Uppark in West Sussex from 4th May to 2nd November 2014.

Unravelled Arts www.unravelled.org.uk  commissions site responsive works and interventions from makers operating at the interface of craft and fine art and the pieces are installed in historic settings in order to draw out the multiple stories, characters and artefacts associated with the site.

I've worked on a collaborative commission for Uppark with my partner ceramist Robert Cooper www.robertcooper.net Titled 'Dish of the Day: Chicken in a Basket' our piece was inspired by three characters from Uppark's history; the writer H. G. Wells, best known for his science fiction novels, whose mother Sarah was housekeeper at Uppark in Victorian times, Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh, owner of Uppark in its  Georgian heyday and Amy Lyon (later to become Emma, Lady Hamilton the lover of Lord Nelson) who spent a year there from the summer of 1780.

 

The red drawing room at Uppark

 

We first visited Uppark on a May afternoon last year.  The primroses were out in the spring sunshine on the banks by the car park but it was chilly inside the house and we had to move briskly through the rooms to keep warm.  If I'm honest I was also left somewhat cold by the fine array of furnishings, paintings, plasterwork and object d'art on display in the drawing rooms, parlours and bedrooms - testament to the wealth, patronage and taste of successive owners.  Uppark also bears witness to the dedication of Lady Meade-Fetherstonhaugh, an early pioneer of textile conservation and to the skills of conservators and craftspeople who helped restore much of the collection after a devastating fire in 1989.

 

Scullery

                                                            
                                                         The larder

 

the kitchen table

Looking back through the images I took then I was much more engaged by the downstairs world of the servants - all the bustle and repetitive drudgery of domestic labour now frozen in time and orderly array.

 

The housekeeper's room at Uppark

                                           Underground passage at Uppark

This was the below stairs world that H.G. Wells would have inhabited as a boy and the underground passages linking the kitchens with the upstairs servery and dining room are thought to have inspired the subterranean world of the Morlocks in his novel 'The Time Machine'.  It's one of my favourite science fiction stories - a first for having introduced a mechanism for time travel.  I think the novel captures some of the ambivalence towards both the upper and lower classes that Wells might have felt as the socialist son of Uppark's housekeeper and the rigid social stratification he might have observed there. Wells' vision of a future dystopian arcadia in which the human race has evolved into two distinct species descended from the upper and lower classes, one of which feeds on the other, can also be read as social critique in the grand tradition of Jonathan Swift. 

Swift's 1729 pamphlet 'A Modest Proposal' is a biting (no pun intended) satire of 18th century mercantilism - the prevailing economic system in which the rich merchant classes prospered at the expense of the poor whose wages were kept deliberately low to maximise profits and increase incentives to work.  Labour was a commodity and no child was deemed too young to work.  In many cases wages were non-existent, slavery for example, and the fact that there was no legal requirement to pay girls under 16 so they were often used as cheap domestic labour.  Swift proposes a macabre solution to the dual problem of over-population and famine in Ireland - selling the children of the poor as luxury food for the rich.  It caused outrage at the time because many simply didn't perceive the irony and thought he was being serious.  The double irony is that he sort of was!  The poor were dying in their millions of starvation whilst the rich lived life on the hog in an orgy of conspicuous consumption and the pursuit of pleasure - the legacy of which we can still see today in houses such as Uppark. 

 

Ceramist Robert Cooper (centre back) in the dining room at Uppark

 

One of the stories we heard on our visit was that in 1780 fifteen year old Emma Hart had reputedly danced naked on Uppark's dining table to entertain Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh's  male guests. It was this story, which chimed so discordantly with our modern knowledge of child sexual exploitation, coupled with the cannibalistic imagery of H.G. Wells' 'Time Machine', in which his time traveller refers to the childlike Eloi as 'delicious people', that stuck in our minds as we went home to work up our own 'modest' proposal. 

 

 

    Mid 18th century Sceaux faience dish - tin glazed earthenware

with hand painted floral decoration

 

What we submitted was a proposal to combine our craft disciplines of ceramics and basketry (the upstairs/downstairs of the craft world?) to weave a large ceramic basketry dish, reminiscent of an 18th century Sceaux faience basket in the Little Parlour at Uppark, which would re-contextualise the relationship between Sir Harry and Emma Hart. 

 

We titled it 'Dish of the Day: chicken in a basket' - playing on the multiple connotations of the word dish; shallow serving vessel, a serving of food, an attractive person, scandalous gossip and, in modern US slang, destroyed reputation.  'Chicken in a basket' not only got in an actual reference to basketry - but also to pretentious fast food and sleazy under-age sexual entertainment.  We knew very little about Sir Harry or Emma Hart at this point but felt instinctively that our dish would somehow interweave their story with modern day slavery and the world-wide trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of women and children. 

 

                                      

                         Making a start on 'Dish of the Day' on our dining table

 

The collaboration would also be a challenge for both of us. We'd never worked together before and our ways of working are very different. Though we each have our own studio neither of us wanted to work in the other's space so we decided to work on the dining table in our living room at home.  A recipe for domestic conflict in the making? Time would tell ...  

A MEASURE OF CHAOS

A MEASURE OF CHAOS: my new solo show at the Pound Arts Centre, Corsham in the heart of rural Wiltshire.  It was a privilege to be asked to exhibit for the annual Corsham Festival and I want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who helped with the show - I thought it looked fantastic.

 

It was such a lovely surprise to walk into the exhibition and see how Celia the gallery technician and Martin the centre manager had displayed the work in the listed Victorian school house which is now the Pound Arts Centre. 

 

My 'happy snaps', taken just before my 'meet the artist' event on Saturday evening, don't really do the show justice. So, for those who couldn't make it to Corsham, here are a few shots of the work in situ - augmented where possible with studio images and close up details.

 

 

Stella Harding, A MEASURE OF CHAOS, 2013 - plaited vintage steel tape measure and telephone wire - both 'redundant' materials.

 

The theme, A MEASURE OF CHAOS, came partly from my love of weaving with vintage steel tape measures, many of them made in my home town of Sheffield, South Yorkshire - once world famous for its steel industry and precision calibration tools. Generations of my family worked in the factories before they were closed down.  Others had worked in the nearby pits - supplying coal to fire the furnaces. Both my great grandfather and my great-great grandfather were colliery blacksmiths. In the 1980s whole communities fell victim to political forces that measured everything solely in terms of  profit. 

 

The theme also refers to the fact that many traditional baskets were in themselves official measures.  A bushel, a half bushel, a peck, a cran and a sieve, for example, were precise measures of different produce.  Their production, by highly skilled basket makers who would have served a long apprenticeship, was controlled by Customs and Excise officers checking that the baskets measured up to the standard.  In several instances I've inverted this tradition by using 'measures' to make contemporary basketry.

 

In addition, many of my weaving techniques explore the intricacies of three dimensional geometry -   the term geometry itself  meaning earth measure. 

 

But in the modern world, in the words of Leonard Cohen, 'There ain't nothing we can't measure any more'. Even chaos! 

 

 

 

Stella Harding BLOOMING (left) and A MEASURE OF THE STARS (right)

 

 

Stella Harding A MEASURE OF THE STARS 2013 - plaited vintage steel tape measure, spun paper tape and telephone wire.

 

In addition to a vintage steel tape measure made in Sheffield by Rabone-Chesterman circa 1950 this piece uses painted spun paper tape, another redundant product, that was made in West Yorkshire on the same machines that were used to spin wool before the decline of the woollen industry.  The tape was originally used as strapping on the machines and later to bind packages before it too was replaced by polypropylene strapping tape.  I'm now eking out the last few metres of my dwindling supply. 

 

 

                    Stella Harding BIG BANGLE 2013 - plaited etched steel tape measure circa 1920

 

 

Stella Harding BIG BANGLE - work in progress - using approximately 25 feet of  etched mild steel exquisitely patinated with age and wear.

 

A local gallery owner who came to the show asked if  I would consider lowering the price of these tape measure pieces.  I politely declined. I may look like a soft touch but my heart is pure steel when it comes to respect for my 'redundant' materials and the craft processes that underpin my practice.  (Wannabe gallerists take note: a small measure of respect wouldn't go amiss sometimes.)

 

 

 

Stella Harding NEW BLOOM 2013 painted willow, jute and rattan

 

 

Stella Harding NEW BLOOM 2013 (detail)

 

Not all the work in the exhibition uses measures though. This 2 metre high wall piece is part of my on going exploration of a hyperbolic-paraboloid form I came across by chance manipulation of a twining technique.  For me it resonates with the control and release of energy (as in exploding super-novae for example) and the chaotic, contrasting, kinetic effect of intersecting hard lines and soft shadows. 

 

Some people see Native American feathered head dresses, Zulu spears, Zoroastrian sun rays or broken bird wings.  There's a measure of chaos in all creativity, I think, and in the range of meanings it evokes - long may Chaos reign.

 

 

Stella Harding  ARCHEFOSSILS, JEWELS and HAGSTONES

 

I liked the way the Pound  displayed these spiral plait pieces in deep boxed cubes.  Each cube  becomes a little installation of these ambiguous forms - part engineered/part organic - as they take centre stage - singly or in pairs - in a frozen moment of time and space.    

 

 

 

 

Stella Harding KEPLER'S JEWEL - photo Trevor Springett

 

 

Stella Harding SHOW YOUR WORKING OUT - photo Trevor Springett

 

Kepler's Jewel and Show Your Working Out both reference the three-dimensional geometry underlying many basketry techniques and forms and my own attempts to negotiate the fine line between order and chaos to find a balance between mathematical precision and gestural spontaneity.  The grey 'ball' of fine rattan on the bottom left formed itself  when I plunged several very orderly and tight sprung coils into a pan of hot dye.  They ravelled themselves together in a trice - hours of pans-taking work undone before my eyes; a happy accident so perfectly imperfect that it's probably unrepeatable.

 

 

 

Stella Harding CHINA BLUES - painted lime wood and rattan. Photo Trevor Springett 

 

I also allow the long fine painted stems to arrange themselves as I weave around them.  It seems I need an element of unpredictability or surprise in my working process.  The more I make though the harder this is to achieve - one's hands and eyes become too knowing as the level of tactic knowledge increases with repetition.  When there is no further measure of chaos to take me by surprise I know it's time to move on;  the wonder is gone and only tried and tested formulae remain.

 

CONTEMPORARY BASKETRY at MORLEY COLLEGE

I'm thrilled to have been appointed as basketry tutor at Morley College, London where I'll be teaching an evening class CONTEMPORARY BASKETRY for BEGINNERS and IMPROVERS. 

The class will run for three 10 week terms per year on Tuesdays from 6-9pm and the start date for the first term is Tuesday 10th September.  There are still places available if you'd like to join us.  No previous experience necessary and tools and materials are provided.

Week by week you'll be introduced to all the major basketry techniques including coiling, looping, twining, stake and strand, plaiting, interlacing and assembly as well as a wide range of exciting materials.  We'll explore form, texture and surface decoration and there'll be plenty of opportunity to work on your own projects including making functional containers, sculptural forms, jewellery or fashion accessories.

See http://www.morleycollege.ac.uk/courses/art_design/938-contemporary_basketry_for_beginners
for more course details or contact enquiries@morleycollege.ac.uk quoting the course code VTX027A

Here's a small taster of some of the techniques we'll be exploring.

 

Open hexagonal plaiting with bias plait sides and windmill plait border

 

 

Cobbling (random coiling)

 

 

Looping

 

 

Check weave plaiting

 

 

3D Looping

 

 

Covered core coiling

 

 

Spiral plaiting

 

 

Interlacing (random weaving)

 

 

Pinwheel plaited base

 

 

Stake and strand - waling and twining

 

We'll be working in the newly refurbished textile studio at Morley and there'll be opportunities to exhibit work in Morley's own Gallery as well as the textile department's showcases.

 

If you want to learn exciting new skills, enhance your creative practice or relax into the weave in a friendly and supportive environment come and join us.

 

 

Crafting the Genome Lab: MRC open day

Scientists all around the UK are celebrating the centenary of the Medical Research Council this year and the geneticists, structural biologists and crystallographers at the Genome Damage and Stability Centre, University of Sussex, are no exception.  They've planned a whole day of discussions, demonstrations and lab tours to promote their ground-breaking research.  A particular specialism is  damage caused to our DNA and what the body's attempts to repair it can tell us about cancer and rare genetic disorders.

Back in 2012 they hatched a plan to invite artists with an interest in science to contribute to the day and I was one of the ones who responded.  Land artist Chris Drury, who has made several works inspired by genetics, will show one of his large-scale pieces and Shirley Chubb will install Darwin's 'Thinking Path'. 

 

Stella Harding BLUE JEWEL 2011, Photo Ester Segerra

 

People have often suggested that my spiral plaited forms look a bit like the DNA double helix, but rather than show an existing piece I proposed something a little different to the organising committee.
They wanted the day to provide an opportunity to communicate with members of the public, an opportunity for dialogue and active engagement.  My suggestion was that on the day scientists, artists and members of the public should work together on making an interactive installation crafted from the very 'stuff' of the genome labs.  At the initial meeting I wasn't sure exactly what this stuff might be - I had some vague idea it might involve waste paper - lab reports, research papers, old journals and the like.  This was before I'd actually visited any of the labs in the centre. 

Plastic! fantastic!! Far from the sterile, orderly white-coated stereotype here was a myriad of colourful chaos.  And, after one use, most of it goes in the recycling bins! 

                Of course, it's all colour coded and sorted into hazardous and non-hazardous waste.

 

All handled with equally colourful gloved hands.  This is the everyday stuff of lab craft.  So, if  DNA is 'the stuff of us' - the building blocks of life,  then all this plastic paraphernalia from the research laboratories would be the building blocks for Crafting the Genome Lab - a fantastical experiment in collaborative making and repairing and having fun! - which is what a celebration should be about.

 

I've certainly been having fun playing with some of the tip-box covers and six-well dishes in the studio - their perforated, cellular grid forms remind me of Lego and Meccano building blocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, somewhat predictably, I couldn't resist making my own tip-box high rise.

 

 

 

Eat your heart out Norman Foster.

 

Who knows exactly what we'll make on the day.  There's a large space in the entrance of the Fulton Building to fill and to get things going I'll be contributing a 2 metre length of my plaited 'DNA' (each 2 metre double  strand of tightly packed DNA is unravelled and copied every time a cell divides).  Participants will be invited to 'damage' and repair it in whatever way they see fit.  There'll be plenty of scientists and PhD students on hand to help out and answer questions.  After talking with crystallographer Tony Oliver I've a hankering to grow a large glittering crystalline structure out of hundreds of 5mm pipettes - but I've heard the students are a dab hand at making elephants out of plastic gloves so it's all to play for on the day............

 

If you'd like to learn more about DNA damage and repair, have a look through an electron microscope or if you just want to get your hands on some plastic see www.mrc-genome-openday.com for details. 

FOR PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE

May justice prevail today as writers, publishers, journalists and students go on trial again in Turkey.

Professor Busra Ersanli, translator and women's rights campaigner Ayse Berktay, publisher and Nobel peace prize nominee Rajip Zarakolu and student Deniz Zarakolu are amongst many others who face long prison sentences if convicted for speaking out against injustice.  Pen International, English Pen www.englishpen.org  have been campaigning on their behalf for nearly two years during which time many have been held in detention. 

My piece for 'Maggs Between the Covers' was made to highlight the plight of prisoners of conscience throughout the world and the humanitarian work of organisations such as English Pen. To give support to writers at risk you can sign up to their rapid action network by visiting their website www.englishpen.org  

LINE OF BEAUTY

"Beauty is the First Test", curated by Liz Cooper, 27 April - 30 June 2013, National Centre for Craft and Design, Sleaford

When I heard last year that this exhibition was opening at the Pump House Gallery in London I felt a twinge of regret that I wasn't part of what was one of my 'wish-list' exhibitions.  So I felt very privileged to have been asked to participate as a case study as it travels to various new venues around Britain.  I've been banging on about the mathematics underlying basketry techniques for years not to mention my own past experiences with the subject.

 

 

Spot the pattern - six around one never fails to delight and Lesley Halliwell's spirograph drawings are one of the highlights of the show

 

 

 

Views of the exhibition at the National Centre for Craft and Design, Sleaford.  Showing work (on the walls) by Lesley Halliwell, Janette Matthews, Michael Brennand-Wood, Janice Gunner and Ann Sutton and (on the floor plinth ) textiles by Lucy McMullen.  Four of the five case studies can be seen  displayed on specially commissioned furniture by David Gates.  Photos: Liz Cooper

The brain-child of curator Liz Cooper, herself a former school maths champ, this exhibition brings together artists and makers whose work (mostly in textiles) "explores how mathematical concepts underpin craft techniques and artistic development".  The title is a quote from British mathematician G. H. Hardy - one of the first to propose mathematics as a language for describing patterns:

"...the mathematicians patterns, like the artist's or the poet's must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colours or the words must fit together in a harmonious way.  Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics" (Hardy, London: 1941).

'Beauty' may have lost its currency as a standard for judging works of art since Hardy's day, being now considered too subjective or socially constructed a concept.  And there are many 'ugly' patterns of human psycho-social, political and economic behaviour that claim the attention of contemporary artists.  But as Liz Cooper herself points out in the Pump House Gallery exhibition booklet, the word sets up a challenge and a subject for debate - especially when applied to craft practices.

"In craft it is debateable whether one wants beauty as an end result - especially if one eschews the bucolic vision of William Morris and an idealised ruralisation of craft practice that conveniently ignores the location of most art schools and colleges, and the majority of the population, in cities and towns." (Cooper, London 2012)

 

Contemporary bobbin-lace making by Gail Baxter and Carol Quarani - two of the five case studies - with sculpture and drawings by Peter Randall-Page (centre) and Ann Sutton in the background. Photo: Liz Cooper

The inclusion of the five craft 'case studies', including lace-makers Gail Baxter and Carol Quarani, furniture maker David Gates, basketry by Stella Harding and woven textiles by Margot Selby, not only adds focus on process and materiality but also challenges perceptions of contemporary craft practice. 

Contemporary basketry case study by Stella Harding with sculpture by Suresh Dutt in the background.  Photo: Liz Cooper

My own case study, showing three-dimensional geometric forms in a plaiting technique more often used to make straw 'corn dollies' and a wearable structure plaited from a redundant steel tape measure - disrupts preconceptions about the materials, techniques, forms and functions associated with basketry.

 

A book, with text by Liz Cooper, giving insights into each case study maker's studio practice, materials, inspirations and artistic development is displayed alongside the work.  In some cases the makers have also provided sketch-books, tools, models or work-in-progress.

David Gates' case study showing scale models of his bespoke furniture, a range of carpentry joints and a developmental sketchbook is exquisitely engaging.  Photo: Stella Harding

 

 Carol Quarani's case study illustrates how she uses lace as a medium for conceptual work.  Her doctoral research explores how lace curtains can be used to re-read the relationship between the domestic, the uncanny and the Gothic 

 

 

Contemporary bobbin lace by Carol Quarani

 

Pattern  recognition may be a basic human attribute and one of the ways in which we make sense of and come to understand the world.  Order, symmetry, balance, harmony and repetition can be safe and comforting. Often though we only recognise the significance of a pattern when it is disrupted in some way - by small irregularities, asymmetries, discord, accidental marks leading to unintended consequences.  This for me, is the beauty of  this exhibition.  If we look closely it reminds us that chaos is part of the equation - that the devil is in the detail and that beauty is only ever skin deep. 

Oh, and I loved the way the shadows of the case studies on the gallery floor grounded the structures, animated the space and created a dramatic film noir effect.

Which allows me to segue shamelessly into a plug for a forthcoming experimental film of the case-studies, commissioned by Liz Cooper from film makers Electric Egg and funded by Arts Council England.  The film will be shown alongside the exhibition from the end of May.

But I'm going to leave the last word to G.H. Hardy - ever the one for a pithy quote:

"It is a melancholy experience for a mathematician to find himself (sic) writing about mathematics.  The function of a mathematician is to do something (...) and not to talk about what he or other mathematicians have done. (...) There is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain." (London: 1941)

Better get making then!!