Gaisymayknits

Museums and Archives

2009-02-27T09:20:00.000-08:00

The launch of Museums and Archives published byPest took place on Wednesday at Lancashire Museum in Preston. It began in the Victorian schoolroom with talks by Pest member-Rebecca Chesney and Leander Wolstenholme, Curator of Botany at Manchester Museum then moved to the education room where people could have tea and cakes and chat. If I say it also involved dressing up from the basket of Victorian clothes and a Blackpool FC football scarf you get more of an idea of the informal atmosphere. It was great. It was attended by curators, artists, students and aspiring knitters. If you would like a copy of the publication visit pestpublications.org.uk
My work will continue away from the herbarium for the next couple of months. I am continuing to explore the world of FLORICULTURE
Contact me if you are interested
Gaenor Deacon artist

Pest Publications

2009-02-24T06:32:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow will be the launch of the publication 'Museums and Archives' which is a culmination of the work which has been created in response to my experiences of the Herbarium at Manchester Museum. It will take place in the Victorian Schoolroom at the Museum of Lancashire. The title of the publication is Museums and Archives and it has been produced by Pest www.pestpublicastions.org.uk

Probably, by now, all the places will be booked. I'll tell you all about it via this blog!
Thanks to Pest-Elaine Speight, Rebecca Chesney and Robina Llewellyn for their support.
Thanks also to Leander Wolstenholme for coming along to give a talk at the book launch and thanks to Lancashire Museum for hosting the event.

Back to the herbarium

2008-11-10T04:48:00.000-08:00

I'm back. Summer has gone, and Autumn too. Last Monday I visited the herbarium again. Leander chose a specimen for me to draw. It is a Leontice Leontopetalum. After such a long time I found it difficult to concentrate on drawing. There were three more volunteers in the herbarium doing the vital job of entering details of specimens on to the herbarium database. Ages ago I mentioned the book by Dr Sam George "Botany, sexuality and Women's writing" (2007) It describes the impact of Linnaeus' new classification of botanical specimens on women's writing of 1790s and beyond. From the book I found out about the phenomenon of FLORICULTURE
I think my project is moving on from drawing to a more extensive revival of this 18th century
tradition
Floriculture consists of
botanical drawing
flower gardening
flower pressing
flower moulding
flower embroidery
crafting paper flowers (flower collage)
Because Queen Charlotte was an avid botanist Floriculture was very fashionable in late 18th century
I also want to revive the tradition of the "botanical dialogue".
Leander Wolstenholme Curator of the herbarium suggested I contact a member of the Botanical Society of the Brirish Isles If you are a member of the society and would like to enter into a dialogue with a faux-botanist i.e. ME please respond to this blog or email me at gaedeacon@yahoo.co.uk

My Knitted Timeline

2008-09-18T13:16:00.001-07:00

From May 27th 2005 to May 27th 2006 I knitted a timeline. When I wasn't working, travelling, running the home or socialising I knitted. Significant events (to me) either in my own life, or across the world, were recorded on luggage labels and knitted in. At the end of the year the timeline was 30 metres long. It was exhibited in PAD gallery Preston In October 2006 as part of the "Endangered Species" exhibition.

Miniature Endeavour

2008-09-17T06:47:00.000-07:00

On Monday I met the students from the Manchester College in Northenden working away in the herbarium. They were interested in a piece of work I made called "My Knitted Timeline". I promise I will put a photo of it on the blog somewhere tomorrow. Today I have made a miniature version (not totally authentic, I admit) of the Endeavour for the launch of the first Pest publication on Saturday. It is 5cm high and 6cm wide.

contact me at gaedeacon@yahoo.co.uk

I'm back

2008-09-08T14:08:00.001-07:00

I'm back. The drawings, photos and candy barrel knitted cactus knitting pattern will be gathered together with texts by artists and curators to become the second "pestpublication", due out in the middle of October.

Five more drawings

2008-08-27T06:49:00.001-07:00

Here are 5 more drawings of herbarium specimens. I'll be back blogging in the middle of September. I'm hoping the images will stay online but I apologise in advance if they don't and I'll sort it our as soon as I can in September.

Beaten by the weather

2008-08-25T09:09:00.000-07:00

My "studio" for art and photography is a small room at the back of my house and I rely on reasonable weather for lighting photos. I don't have any specialist lighting for photography and today it was just too dark and gloomy for decent photos. For the downloadable drawings the drawings will be photographed by Robina Llewellyn or Rebecca Chesney (who are both members of Pest) on a special photobed so they will produce a good quality image.
Instead I have spent the day checking on the identification of the drawings using the online herbarium -herbaria@home
www.herbariaunited.org/atHome/ If you are interested in herbaria you can help to put specimens on to the database from the comfort of your own home. There are instructions on the website. 27,616 specimens have been put online so far.

Not all the specimens were on the database yet and I suspect in some cases the TAXON (species name) has changed over time so I had to resort to google and wikipedia as well.

Vacation

2008-08-24T13:25:00.000-07:00

From next Friday the blog will be suspended while I am on holiday.
Tomorrow I will add more drawings. From October 22nd approx you will be able to download the drawings if you have the correct password which will be included in a FREE publication related to the work Acts of Endeavour. I'll tell you how to obtain a publication later. I'm sorry images keep disappearing from the blog-seems to be one of the drawbacks of the form.
I noticed Sotheby's are going to sell a boomerang that belonged to Captain Cook. He didn't know what a boomerang was and apparently Joseph Banks believed it was a form of spear.

Travelling

2008-08-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

One of the processes I have engaged in is travelling. Now it takes a very different form from the days of the Endeavour. I recorded my journey by foot down Oxford Road from Oxford Road station. I took snaps using a disposable camera. It turned out to be a time consuming choice when I wanted to use the images on my computer but the disposable camera is light and easy to snap with.
The museum is on the right. The herbarium is at the top of the building just beneath the tower.

Blog problems

2008-08-13T10:04:00.001-07:00

OOPS apologies if you are looking at my blog on Wednesday August 13th It seems to have lost most of my photos. I won't panic yet and will try to sort it out as soon as I can-sorry.

Botany,sexuality and cacti

2008-08-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

After a long wait I've got hold of a book (see list) by Dr Samantha George which "explores the cultivation of the female mind and the feminised discourse of botanical literature in 18th century Britain. "It also discusses British women's engagement with the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus.
It's a pretty dense read but, sad to say, I'm really excited and can't wait to find a quiet place to get to grips with it.

I have added a photo of a knitted cactus -my own design this time-which will be featured in pestpublication .
see pestpublications.org.uk
Also my email is gaedeacon@yahoo.co.uk if anyone wants to get in touch with me.

Blogging on

2008-08-12T04:25:00.000-07:00

I've still got notes, photos and books to share with so the blog will continue.

The latest amazing botany story was in the Times on Monday August 4th If you've ever had lilies in your home you'll know what a strong stain the stamens can make on fabrics and furniture. The powerful staining property of the oriental lily and the white trumpet lily is now being used by scientists to create a minute stain which will be coated onto bullets and together with an abrasive chemical can produce a unique tag to link the bullets to anyone who handles them. An added abrasive increases the chance of a DNA profile. The tags can be constructed to have an structure which is unique to specific batches of bullets.

Moving on

2008-08-11T13:08:00.000-07:00

Today I visited the herbarium, but this time it wasn't to draw a specimen but to discuss with Leander how the project will develop away from the herbarium. Over the past few months I have spent hours sat at a bench with a view across the rooftops of Manchester, concentrating so hard on getting a drawing finished and looking as much like the original specimen as I could and enjoying every minute of it;the quiet,studious atmosphere of the herbarium made an excellent artist's studio. I also enjoyed the company of the staff and volunteers and I have made some new friends.
My work will be part of a publication which will be produced by pest publications in October of this year.I will explain more about that later.

stuck at home

2008-08-06T09:11:00.000-07:00

I haven't been able to go to the herbarium for a while because I had appointments at the hospital. I am missing the quiet, concentrated atmosphere of the herbarium which is an ideal environment for drawing. I am filling my time reading about botany and following botany related issues-hence the knitted fruit covers. The bananas I bought were 89p a kilo, which seems really cheap to me and they were Fairtrade bananas from Booths. I assume Fairtrade is a good thing, but being me I'd have to research it all first before I decided whether it was good or not!!

Do you take a banana to work?

2008-07-30T06:58:00.000-07:00

Does your banana or apple get bruised at the bottom of your bag as you carry it to work?
The latest knitting rebel Mazz has come up with a solution........knit a cover for them.
I'm going to have a go and I'll take a photo and add it to my blog....and when you eat that fruit just think about where it came from? how much did you pay for it?

The battle of the banana is lost

2008-07-30T06:40:00.000-07:00

The World Trade Organisation, which is made up of 124 countries has failed to come to any agreement about world trade after 7 years of negotiations. Although the financial issues are complex it basically means that the better-off global economies are reluctant to allow developing countries, such as African nations, to compete for trade in their markets. To put it simply, as things now stand, Kenya sells one pound of goods to the UK and we sell five pounds of goods to them. It is hoped that individual nations can make individual arrangements with developing countries to make the trade of goods, particularly food, fairer.

2008-07-30T06:33:00.000-07:00

botany=plants=habitat=climate change
=agriculture=food=starvation
=medicine=forensic science
=biodiversity=survival
=textiles=shelter
=illustration=decoration

21st century sensitivities

2008-07-26T09:10:00.000-07:00

In 2008 we are embarrassed to celebrate the exploits of 18th and 19th century explorers. Their adventures were not altruistic; alongside the acquisition of knowledge was the aim of acquiring wealth for their respective countries, and usually that meant benefiting the upper classes. Linnaeus, for example, believed that introducing flax in Sweden could become a commercial venture, making Sweden the foremost supplier of flax to the whole world but unfortunately Sweden did not have the right growing conditions for flax.
Explorers could not discover countries, they were there already and their inhabitants often had a superior understanding of their environment than their invaders: if Western European explorers had appreciated and adopted the symbiotic relationship that the Maori had with their environment then we may not be facing the global challenges of energy shortage, food shortage and the threat to our natural environment that we are experiencing today. All a bit heavy I know so how about solving my oak tree problem?? since from little acorns large oaks grow. I was throwing away plant pots from the rubbish bit of my garden and found that this acorn (see photo) had fallen into the pot and started to grow. I was going to throw it away but I didn't have the heart to. My garden isn't big enough for an oak tree so if anyone wants it I'll post it to you.

The Manchester Collection

2008-07-23T07:26:00.000-07:00

The collection of botanical specimens at the herbarium in Manchester Museum is made up of the collections from three people: Charles Bailey, Leopold Hartley Grindon and Benjamin Carrington plus countless smaller collections from amateur botanists. The information on the museum's website will tell you more and an article written by Dr Sam Alberti (in the BJHS ) describes the establishment of the museums in Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield and their relevance to the role of natural history in 19th century society.

I know the Endeavour didn't look like this, but this is my Endeavour mark 2.

Supposedly with the right paper and sprayed with 3M Scotchguard it could be waterproof-so watch this space.

Joseph Banks

2008-07-22T08:47:00.001-07:00

The National Library of Australia has books and correspondence by, and about, Joseph Banks.

Celebrations

2008-07-17T01:09:00.000-07:00

It is graduation time. To walk through the quadrangle on my way to the herbarium I have to negotiate my way passed groups of excited young people wearing gowns and mortar boards. They are accompanied by parents, also dressed up. They are obviously very relieved that the thousands of pounds they have invested in their child has not gone to waste.

The Endeavour

2008-07-16T02:31:00.000-07:00

The Endeavour was a refitted Whitby coal ship that set sail on July 30th 1768 on an expedition organised by the Royal Society of London. The aim of the voyage was to travel to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus. The ship, led by Captain Cook, also had a secret mission; to discover the (non-existent) mass of land south of Australia and claim it for the British.

On August 13th 1768 the Endeavour called at Plymouth for 5 days to pick up the amateur botanist Joseph Banks and his seven assistants, which included Daniel Solander, a past pupil of Linnaeus. The artists Sydney Parkinson and Alexander Buchan travelled with Joseph Banks to record the voyage and specimens in drawings and paintings. They both died on the journey. Buchan, who was an epileptic, possibly died from a fatal epileptic attack while working with a shore party on Tierra del Fuego on January 16th 1769. He was buried at sea. Parkinson became ill while the ship was moored in Java for repairs and he died on board as the ship neared Cape Town on 26th January 1771. He was 25 years old. Buchan's role was to create a pictorial account of the voyage and the places visited whereas Parkinson's role was to make botanical and natural history drawings. Parkinson produced 280 botanically accurate paintings and 900 sketches. They are all stored in the Natural History Museum in London.

A piece of timber from the Endeavour is in a museum in Kurnell, Botany Bay.

The collection that Joseph Banks brought back on the Endeavour increased the total collection of botanical specimens in Britain by one third.

2008-07-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

I am infiltrating the herbarium with an interest in where and how the knowledge is stored, preserved and managed. I have realised that the people, the staff and volunteers, are excellent sources of knowledge. I can ask questions that show how ignorant of botany and history I really am and I always get a patient and clear answer.

I am able to engage more fully with the herbarium by drawing, being in it, experiencing it and as Leander (Curator of Botany) described it, using a Victorian work ethic, the ethic on which the creation of the herbarium and museums is founded.

If you contact Leander Wolstenholme 01612752671 or Lindsey Loughtman 0161275267 you can arrange a time to visit the herbarium.

Rain and invitations

2008-07-07T12:08:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day that the view from the herbarium window was of torrential rain, shooting out of rain spouts and making the Hilton hotel take on a white shade, like a giant white wardrobe sticking up above the skyline.

Lucca Ghini was the first person to create a herbarium in Pisa in 1544. He dried plants while pressing them between piece of paper then glued them onto cardboard. A herbarium contains plants that have no need of soil or seasons. Isely 1994 (See the booklist to find out where I find these bits of knowledge).
Today was also the first day I gave out invitations to the Herbarium on Oxford Road. I am taking the connection between the herbarium and the local community one step further by physically presenting the public with an invitation to the herbarium. Perhaps I am fulfilling the collecting process by collecting people to visit the herbarium.
I am also interested in the behaviour of the people I approach. I give out the invitation by holding an invitation out to them and saying "Excuse me. Can I give you an invitation to the herbarium"
Most people looked at me as though they did not understand what I was saying. Many put up their hands to ward me off and walked away, trying to avoid looking at me. Some people just took the invitation and one person took the invitation and read it. No-one asked me any questions. Most people wouldn't take the invitation from my hand. Giving out a significant number of invitations is going to take a long time and I need help and an extra strategy, like leaving them in cafes etc.

From my travel journal

2008-07-05T07:17:00.000-07:00

Walking along Oxford Road is familiar because I was a student here from 1970 to 1973 . I did a bit of protesting here and survived the three day week, sitting in a miserable bedsit with my sister Ann and her nutty friend Ursula, eating raw carrots and sweetcorn. The food was Ursula's idea of a good meal. She bought all her clothes at Oxfam shops and always looked like a left over female from World War Two. When she moved I expected moths to come fluttering out of her.
The noise of the traffic is overwhelming and everyone moves at a fast, determined pace. They wear dark clothes . I am taking snaps as I walk along. I don't stop to focus the camera I just snap at scenes as I pass by. They pass by-charity collectors, disheveled homeless people, THE BIG ISSUE, CANCER RESEARCH. Some charity workers shout out at me but I take no notice. Some people are silently slipping small cards into people's hands but they don't give a card to me. I'm probably too old for that experience in their opinion.

2008-07-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

The pencil drawings illustrated are drawings of the specimens as they are presented on the herbarium sheets. They are dried, pale brown and sometimes have holes in or pieces missing. They are attached to the paper with small strips of paper or stitched on.
Botany has a history of being built on a relationship between the expert and the amateur and that relationship continues today. Every week volunteers come into the herbarium to maintain the collection: they count and order the specimens, replace delicate herbarium sheets and record details of the collection onto a database. The aim is to have the whole collection on a database which can be accessed from around the world. The task will take many years to complete-an act of endeavour.

June 23rd

2008-06-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

Imagine a Dickensian setting without the malevolence. I sit at my allotted bench space with a view over the rooftops of the museum and university. Behind me the daily activities of the herbarium unfold-a meeting, visitors from other places, a party of school children. Whoever the visitor is I can sense the excitement they feel at entering such an amazing place.

I am using my experience in the herbarium to engage with a new body of knowledge, in this case botany and I am doing it by carrying out conventional historical processes related to the subject. Traditionally people,experts and amateurs travelled to collect specimens to be stored in the herbarium. The herbarium has one million specimens and is only interested in the unique. My chances of finding a unique specimen on the journey between Chorley and Manchester are slim so I decided to reverse the process and travel to the herbarium and draw the specimens in the herbarium. Apart from transporting plants across the globe in a living state the only other process available to the earliest botanist was drawing The specimens are chosen for me. I find each drawing takes an hour and a half. The drawing is challenging but always enjoyable, a bit like an hour and a half of meditaton. I am also recording the journey in photographs.

Getting to the herbarium involves a car journey, a train journey and a walk down Oxford Road. Today I noticed a police van outside a garage on my way to the station and as I passed a woman PC was stood outside an old garage building which is still in business. The door had been forced open and its window was completely smashed. A young man was standing half in the doorway.

Acts of Endeavour

2008-06-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

For the past eight weeks I have been visiting the Herbarium at Manchester Museum, creating artwork relating to the Herbarium and its collection of one million plant specimens from around the world. Next week I will record my experience in a six week blog so WATCH THIS SPACE