Wednesday

Began the day by writing a letter promptly posted thereafter. Silk jacket to accompany my heavy cotton drill skirt the silk being suited to a recently planned visit to the Tate. First, at the Stationer’s i sought in vain blue-black ink but he kindly pledged to get some in, i came away with a sheet of blotting paper that should last me a time. There is a difference to that to which i am used that i did not notice until removing it from its paper bag.

Believing a ‘bus would soon arrive i preferred to take it down to the office at the other end of town than walk. It soon became crowded and on arrival the crisp air was a relief. Trivialities tested my patience in the office, as is so often the case. The processes do not come naturally and acquaintance soon lapses such that i am frequently rudely reminded of difference. I was able to take a light lunch after completing some administrative tasks and delegating another, tomorrow will reveal the effectiveness of that approach.

Onward i left aware of the need to get to the Tate and back in time to meet the plumber who is to do violence to my home. Delayed by diligence my time was shortened and i feared i should have to curtail my studies unfinished for the sake of the ticking clock. My disappointment at finding three of the galleries i sought closed for re-hanging was alleviated somewhat by no longer being worried i should not see all that i needed to see. I do not go so often to the Tate as i once did finding when i do the picture or pictures i should like to study unavailable.

But there was giving to do as well. A group of adolescent girls on a school outing seemed to struggle to comprehend what their eyes beheld. One in particular stood open-mouthed as i approached and passed. I found the Turners have been joined by Mr Constable and a number of others. Some of the later works of Mr Turner were a treat as it has been some years since i last saw them. Of the Constables there was one i had not previously seen. I seemed to cause a stir there as well. There was some whispering and confusion on the part of the teacher. I had an image of her scanning the programme of events in hopes of discovering some clue to my presence. I was of course prepared to say the Tate have no interest in me, or words to that effect. As i studied the pictures i heard the click of a camera shutter nearby, someone was taking pictures of me before the masters. It is easy to take, people are good at taking. It is part of the work to offer the image to the beholder; I pass through and go about my business giving those who care to notice a nice image for their memory. This person with the camera did not ask, did not even smile or nod thanks but instead hovered beyond the corner of my eye with the ever present click of their shutter as i made my way through the galleries. Later a teacher with some shy students approached me as i studied a large mythological Turner. Of all things she asked if it took very long my getting ready this morning, to which i could only reply ‘no more than usual’. What a very odd question to ask someone, what a very intrusive question, and with no explanation of the particular course of study and no thought of risking impertinence. She also asked if there was a significance in my looking at the Turners to which i could only say that it was because the three galleries i had intended to visit were closed. Her response made little sense at the time but afterward it occurred to me she thought i meant galleries at different addresses seeing the Tate as just one gallery. I made my way about resolving in the end to visit the little room of Whistlers only to find it depleted. I have been in consideration of portraiture of late pondering it as a province of inquiry. Mr Whistler tailored his style to his subject. Onward to the cloakroom until i convinced myself to try once again to seek out a Gainsborough or even the master, Sir Joshua. Disappointment was mixed with joy at discovering instead the Tate’s Gwen John self portrait of 19o2 and her portrait of a nude girl, difficult to look at, but a treat nonetheless. After that i feared me in Bankside by mistake but then as i made for the cloakroom a smiling couple declared i looked like a painting come to life. A very nice thing to say.

It misses the point a little but it is all part of it i suppose, and better than shouting out some character in a children’s story. Afterward i made my way to the ‘bus passing some school children on the way, one of whom shouted Queen Elizabeth the First, which i think was aimed at me such a comment being otherwise decidedly out of context. Fatigue had robbed me of an open expression as i wound my way through Pimlico and the arrival of the ‘bus was a blessed relief. Home again in time for the plumber but he failed to arrive at all. My sacrifice for his benefit has proven to be in vain, but he does not care, he does not even know, though at the appointed hour i was in attendance and he was not. Were it in my power i should find another plumber, but were it in my power this unnecessary work would not be done.

I would benefit from a sponsor, or some form of patronage. It is one thing to give without expectation of reward, but quite another to have some photographic fiend take, take, take. I gave to the Tate as much as my fellow visitors, but it is not interested in me or my work and as a business if they can get something for free then why pay. The institutions behind my fellow travellers on London Transport and the streets of Westminster also gained a benefit. But i cannot charge for my presence, my performance in daily life. I do not know how, and i am not sure even if i have grounds, my work is not perhaps the province of institutions, but i would benefit from a sponsor. I could more often do what i did today, and would perhaps not feel so much that i had been taken advantage of when some photographic fiend takes and takes and takes, and i might be able to look like a painting come to life for those unknown to me i have yet to meet.

On Enquiries

My walk home today included an enquiry from a pair of passing bicyclists that i did my best to best to answer, but unfortunately i have endured a tiring day and my mind was quite elsewhere as i hurried toward the peace of home, i fear i did not answer well. It is always after such unsatisfactory encounters i hope for some further contact from the other party that might facilitate a more rounded conversation. I do my best to serve the unexpressed expectation for both a concise and complete answer but the nature of the work is so varied and can be read in many different ways and i am not very able at guessing the aspect that interests the enquirer most. It would take a conversation in a more suitable location than the public street in the midst of a journey to give due credit and share.

From our brief exchange it seems it is now the time to elaborate on this forum a little of my situation, which in 1904 would be understood without need of explanation, but i believe the work carries with it a responsibility to share a little of the history. It is not without wishing that i should have more clothes, i know of no woman who feels otherwise, but once other necessities are accounted for i have only a small dress allowance, though it is all from my own purse. Independence comes not without cost and the monetary cost places on me some undesirable limitations. I make an effort to dress as well as i can on what i can afford.

My independence also has a cost of time such that now as the nights draw in and i return home in the dark i must trim lamp wick by candlelight unable to do so in the morning for always being in a rush and there is of course no one else to perform this simple duty.

An Unconscious Choice

Earlier this week i realised aspects of my Edwardian lifestyle have become an unconscious choice whereas formerly they were a conscious choice. So accustomed am i to their nuance and finding myself in sympathy with them from the very earliest i have become comfortable. It is principally in matters of attire that i have been most aware of the change in my outlook. When wearing more contemporary styled clothes i have found them light and insubstantial, there is an absence of the security i have come to count on. I never knew i was missing it until i experienced it. Always cold, uncomfortable, ill-fitting. Even though most of what i wear is made to measure it is more than that alone, it comes from the layering, the natural fibres and the coverage, and perhaps something else. But now, those parts contemporary culture expects women to expose to all and sundry are reserved for private moments. In a way i have reclaimed what is mine.

How nice

The other day a delivery man raised his hat to me.

A Painting

Entitled The Fields Beneath it is in oil on canvas, a reused canvas, 18″ x 25 1/2″ depicting a street corner near my home. The corner turns away from the main road and onto a local road. Many times i have approached this corner with the anticipation of what may lie beyond it as i turn down the hill. The street beyond changes periodically in small ways. The initial painting on this canvas was a landscape of fields stretched out as diamonds into the distance, traces of them can still be seen beneath this depiction of the urban landscape. The title comes from a book by Gillian Tyndall on the history of Kentish Town that like many of the villages of London were fields until they were built on. For nearly a decade i have approached this corner but now i fear i can no longer afford to live in the area and begin to say my farewells. The changes being made to my home threaten to leave it as no longer the sanctuary it has been, already it is undermined by unpleasantness from the shop below. So i consider finding a new home but to my dismay prices have risen to such a degree that i fear i must leave the area i call home and move to some other part of London i can afford. I feel it keenly as a loss. The light in the picture comes from around the corner, it is morning light suggestive of new beginnings, but obscured. With the light there is the promise of something better than the darker, it is positive. But there is too the tinge of regret, a sadness.

A Performance

An appointment took me to the National Archives today. If i were asked i would have said ‘i am on my way to the archives’ and perhaps waited for some weak wit. I was not asked then but later. I was some hours reading documents connected with an active project dated to between 1897 and 1919 with the majority between 1908 and 1913 and ending ‘your obedient servant’ in most cases. I raised the odd eyebrow though most other attendees were there for professional reasons and intent upon their work. Time slipped by until i was finished with my research returning the fourth of four archive boxes. I washed a century of dust from my hands and joined the inevitable queue for a cup of sweet tea and sandwiches. The man in front asked me if i was to do with the Administration, i apologised that i was not, he may have been indignant about the queue. The man behind, with colleague, said it was nice to see someone nicely dressed to which i gave thanks and smiled and looked away. His colleague after if it was for an event, i replied every day is an event. This was the first time this reply has seemed appropriate, but it is weak. My implication was that this is every day for me and not associated with some event, but it does not go to enlighten and the reserved fellow was curious. I know not how to share the matter of it without sounding high minded and grand, or banal or eccentric and easily ignored. It is about the enduring role of history in everyday life, how people are much the same though the culture has changed about them, about the importance of elegance in dress, about how an artist is more than a producer of unique objects but also a lifestyle devoted to expression. I shy from ‘getting people to think’ or ‘challenging contemporary concepts of’ and such grand art-jargon. I still seek my reference point in 1904 that connects Me Then Now with contemporary art. I took the train there and i took the train back. I walked Burlington Avenue with its well mannered Edwardian terraces fitting in as only i can.

A Keenness Of Feeling

One of the differences I perceive of Then is a keenness of feeling that is less present Now. It is Now common to insulate ourselves from the horrors of the world so often are we presented them, whilst Then knowledge of such things was less frequent. A familiarity is a consequence of this frequent exposure that diminishes their ability to reach us. In response agencies go to greater lengths to make us aware of atrocities and in response we go from acceptance as familiar to the strengthening of defences for no one wishes to be so often exposed to such horrors. We lose the sensitivity, the vulnerability once experienced when stories of death and destruction on so large a scale as is so readily presented Now were less frequent and all the more shocking. These defences are perhaps not an immunity to the horror of it, but a means of protection.

In earlier centuries such knowledge was of local events alone, then as the media were made more affordable so their reach extended. In 1904 at the centre of a global Empire knowledge was indeed great, but not so great as Now and not so readily available. To cope we consider it ‘another’ and return our attention to other things. For the culture in general i fear there is some little loss of sensitivity in this and only experienced again when we are vulnerable or at rest, for example in the case of the response to the Boxing Day Tsunami of the recent past.

The impression is as though we are on a train hurtling out of control through a war zone with thunderous explosions and heart stopping destruction all about while we struggle energetically to pull the brake or stoke the firebox in the more immediate matter of our occupation.

Such defences to the large and global remain in place when addressing the small and individual and it is perhaps at this scale that keenness of feeling is lost.

With Some Surprise

I am continually surprised by how little is generally known about our history. Idle remarks in my hearing have included the questions ‘Why is she dressed like the sixties?’ and ‘Why is she dressed like medieval times?’ and though these are extremes i encounter a more general lack of knowledge with many people not knowing which period of our history is the Edwardian, and in one recent instance the mistaken understanding that the period occurred in the mists of time before Victoria ascended the throne. Sometimes i have found it necessary to be precise of the year and state i am making my life in 1904 to which the reaction has often been a somewhat ambiguous ‘ohh’ followed by a lull, or a change in direction or subject, or an end to the conversation. My assumption has been there is an unexpressed reaction along the lines of ‘how strange,’ but lately i suspect it is a consequence of just not knowing anything of Then and not wishing to make that plain with further questions.

Part of the scope of the work must be to inform those interested about Then. My attire, for example is entirely authentic to the period not using anything in the making that did not exist in 1904, plastics predominantly, in objects and fabrics, but zips and the like aswell. However most people are more familiar with the term costume in its current usage and the contemporary cultural practice of allusion-to or reference-to and are unable to accept the authenticity of what i do expressed through my clothing. I feel sincerity is regarded with suspicion. Mine is a humble point to make, not a big statement. Big statements are like fireworks that burn brightly, make a loud noise then are gone. This fits with a culture that is always on to the next-thing not so much for the thing as for the next-thingness. I try to make plain the enduring role of history in all our lives, that all we have today is a consequence of what has happened yesterday. Fashions may change but elegant will always be elegant.

History is very much alive and does not only exist in glass cases under guard. Historic architecture is still home to many people despite strenuous efforts to remove it. Our laws and Government have been formed over centuries, and the Monarchy is at the centre of British history and will continue. Even our beloved science and technology have a history that informs where they are and where they are going.

To learn more of Edwardian history please visit Edwardian Promenade.

The Project Has Potential

It is curious to think about how much there is to do, there is such potential though i lack the wit to realize it. My limitations prevent me going much further than i have to date. I have this most wonderful idea and see all manner of ways to apply it, to explore it, but i haven’t the resources or the means to get them. It is all beyond me.

One recent idea is to make film of visits to Heritage sites across the country from Living Museums to Heritage Railways recording the reactions and the contrasts. Perhaps in doing so there would be presented some consideration of the role of Heritage in contemporary culture as well as capturing some good images of and Edwardian woman, Me Then, amidst Victoriana seeing how we used to live. It is time travel after all, looking back from 1904 as from Now, recorded Now.

It is so far removed from the experience of most and yet it is at the heart of mine. It is curious to me, and incomprehensible to most as i struggle to articulate the experience, that i am so comfortable living as Then for better and for worse. For most it is the power of clothes, of dress but there is so very much more.

Reactions

I am sometimes thought a ghost often content to glide past deep in thought, my distant expression no doubt contributing to the impression. While painting in Highgate recently a passer-by asked if i were real. I had misunderstood at first and was overall quite taken aback. Earlier a Japanese Journalist had asked to take my photograph in support of an article she was writing about the area. Apparently she had seen me a few days before, but i think myself too atypical of the area to be an informative contribution to a character study. Later a woman approached saying she had seen me from the ‘bus and decided to get off early to take my picture so charming was the scene. It was a sunny day and i had set my easel in the shade of a tree; Highgate has an affecting charm.