These Are A Few Of Her Favourite Things.

I recently had a family meal and used this to ask around about my nanna's favourite things as I can only remember the stuff she liked later on in her life. I got quite alot out of a slightly intoxicated grandma and decided to change the lyrics of the original song from The Sound of Music 'My Favourite Things'. Here it is...

Crosswords in papers, gold necklace and earrings,
Cherry madera and knitting in evenings,
Vodka and orange, and long pleated skirts,
These are a few of her favourite things.

Extra strong tea, no sugar and bingo,
Cadbury Roses and pies with potato,
Max Factor lipstick, and drinking in the club,
These are a few of her favourite things.

Casual Auburn, hair up in rollers,
Holidaying in a caravan in Great Yarmouth,
Frecias and cornations planted in pots,
These are the things that my nan likes alot.

Velvet blazer,
Frank Sinatra,
Playing Bandits too,
These are my nanna's favourite things and I'm sharing them all with you.

Ada Blackledge, My Nanna.

I remember my nanna sat on a rocking chair with a bag of knitting at the side of her. Nanna's house was like the hub, or meeting place for the family and when she went, God bless her soul, the closeness in the family went with her.
For my final piece I want to recreate this meeting place that is my nanna's house. I'm going to use this picture for inspiration.
(NEED TO SCAN IMAGE!!)
The main feature for my installation is going to be a rocking chair like nanna Ada's that I'm going to re-upolster. I might be being a little bit optimistic given the timescale and my budget, but I'd also like to recreate the lamp, only the lampshade will be filled with photographs and memoribilia from nanna's life. I also want a bag of knitting and a family album to be on the chair. I want my installation the be an interactive piece of art work, I want my audience to be able to sit in the chair and flick through the family album, maybe start some knitting and get a real feel for my nanna's life.

Take Me Back To My Roots.

I moved away from Darwen (a small town in Lancashire) nearly two years ago, but what I didn't know until doing research for this project is that my family have lived in Darwen since 1891 and they have lived in Lancashire probably further back than 1787, but I couldn't get further back than that. Darwen isn't that big or well known, however it's most recognised feature is Darwen Tower, also known as Jubilee Tower.

The tower was opened on 24th September 1898 and was built at a cost of £80 000. It stands eighty five feet high and 1250 feet above sea level. During the second world war, it was thought by some that the tower was being used by the Germans and there was calls to dismantle it.

Darwen was also famous for it's cotton during the industrial revolution due to the links to other towns it had to thanks to the Liverpool - Leeds canal. It was also one of the first towns to have the steam train. Darwens motto is  Absque Labore Nihil  which is latin for 'Nothing Without Labour' and is featured at the bottom of Darwen's coat of arms.

Spiderwoman.

I was struggling for artist research in my sketchbook when some one told me to have a look at Louise Bourjeois as a lot of her work is influenced by her mother, like my project is based around and influenced by my family. A lot of her work is structural and I'm more textile based, however she does have quite a few textile pieces, I can appriciate the skills involved, but it's just not to my taste. However, there is one piece that I have fallen in love with. PEAUX DE LAPINS, CHIFFONS FERRAILLES A VENDRE, 2006, which I think is French for SKINS OF RABBITS, RAGS SCRAP TO SELL.

"I always had the fear of being seperated and abandoned. The sewing is my attempt to keep things together and make things whole."

Where Do Broken Hearts Go?

My project has led me to look into hypoplastic left heart syndrome as a year before I was born my mum had another son, Robert, he died of this disease after only living a few days.
Hypoplastic left heart syndrome is when the left side of the heart hasn't developed properly in the uterus. This case is more common in males than females and generally babies with this have other birth defects.

Psycho Buildings Exhibition

On one of my weekly reviews of my sketchbook, a tutor was looking through my sketchbook and saw that at the beginning I was looking at od buildings and she suggested I looked at the Psycho Buildings Exhibition. Having looked at it, I think it's amazing, my favourite was the sort of 'paused explosion'. It was reallly nice to see people completely break the rules of architecture and come up with something new. Here are a few of the artists work.

Gelitin



Normally, Proceeding and Unrestricted With Without Title

Atelier Bow Wow




Life Tunnel

Do Ho Suh




Fallen Star 1/5



Staircase-V

Rachel Whiteread



The Finished Place (Village)



 Los Carpinteros

Showroom

 

Bradlegh Hall, Hall Lane, Burtonwood

At the beginning of my project, I took the title very literal and was actually looking at old houses and the atmosphere they had. I was told that there was a big house for sale in Burtonwood, severa miles from my house, in town I'd never been in before. I had a look on the website of the agents that were selling the house and saw that it was an open house on Wednesdays and Saturdays 2pm-3.30pm. The following Wednesday I dragged two of my friends on two bus journeys to get to Burtonwood, as I didn't have a clue where abouts in Burtonwood it was we just got off in the centre and asked in the local pharmacy (the only shop that was open) which way we needed to walk to get to Hall Lane. It took us 20 minutes to find Hall Lane and about 40 minutes to get to the end of Hall Lane to find that we must of completely walked past it without knowing. At this point we were absolutly freezing as it wasn't the warmest of days so we went into the Fiddle I'th Bag pub. Lets just say that had an atmosphere.

Bradlegh Hall

Fiddle I'th Bag