Week 4

So, today was the day an ipad nearly went through a glass case.... I've been experimenting with Frame Artist with a view to using it for workshops. I've spent a morning chasing text boxes that disappeared and saved templates that were never to be found. I almost never lose patience with people but sometimes I wish apps were sentient so I could hurt them!

But I've also been drafting a couple of poems - one about the parade of souls at the breakfast table and another about Hermes. He's the god of travellers and traders, the god who crosses borders and boundaries. In my mind's eye I imagine him hanging out at Calais and among the refugees of Iraq and Syria. I don't know how much help he'll be - he's not a straightforward god. He's inventive but he's also a trickster. He's mercurial - literally, he later became the Roman god Pan. Perhaps he's Loki too. I've even come across a suggestion in my research that his modern incarnation is Wily Coyote.

I like him. He makes more sense to me than most of the gods I come across. I guess I'm ok with a god that plays dice!

While researching I also discovered a poem written about him by H.D., and it's wonderful (damn!).

Hermes of the Ways

By H. D.

I THE HARD sand breaks, And the grains of it Are clear as wine. Far off over the leagues of it, The wind, Playing on the wide shore, Piles little ridges, And the great waves Break over it. But more than the many-foamed ways Of the sea, I know him Of the triple path-ways, Hermes, Who awaiteth. Dubious, Facing three ways, Welcoming wayfarers, He whom the sea-orchard Shelters from the west, From the east Weathers sea-wind; Fronts the great dunes. Wind rushes Over the dunes, And the coarse, salt-crusted grass Answers. Heu, It whips round my ankles! II Small is This white stream, Flowing below ground From the poplar-shaded hill, But the water is sweet. Apples on the small trees Are hard, Too small, Too late ripened By a desperate sun That struggles through sea-mist. The boughs of the trees Are twisted By many bafflings; Twisted are The small-leafed boughs. But the shadow of them Is not the shadow of the mast head Nor of the torn sails. Hermes, Hermes, The great sea foamed, Gnashed its teeth about me; But you have waited, Where sea-grass tangles with Shore-grass.

Week 3

First things first. Cardamom buns! The museum cafe is back open and serving cardamom buns. These are new to me - they're made of a bread dough, the colour of brown sugar, flavoured with cardomom and I suspect cinnamon and served warm and they're absolutely delicious.

While I ate my bun and waited for Debbie and Cat I sketched this out. My drawing skills aren't all that great - but I wanted a visual way of expressing something I'd been sensing more and more - that our feelings about migration and about the interaction within the human world and between the human and natural world are strongly linked to how we view the connectedness of the world. 

While we were discussing this and the idea that in early human societies the need to trade and exchange must have formed much of the basis for migration - and also that none of us have what we need. Solely we can achieve very little - the greater our ambition, the greater our need to co-operate. Cat wondered if we could mimic that in a word game where children had to trade cards to get the words they would need to create sentences. It reminded me a bit of 'Fish', a game we used to play as children, or 'Old Maid' without the maid (and obviously I like positive messages about single middle-aged women these days!). 

Sitting there eating my bun (I told you the bun was important) and drinking coffee I thought about how even our breakfast involves the contribution of a whole parade of souls - including the cow. There's a poem there!

Debbie also handed over a special camera for me to try. It's a Polaroid camera except it prints out stickers. We talked about how we might use this in a workshop based around the questions I used last week to write the poemlets. We also talked about using the ipods for the same job - so I get to test out an ipod (I'm an android user) and practice using Frame Artist. 

Then I went back up to the money gallery - a gallery I hadn't previously realised existed. I came to it through the live reptiles and frogs, which has always been the end point of my visits. I went back to have another look at this. 

This is a contract on papyrus from Egypt in the 1st century BC. It's an artist's contract committing to perform at a number of festivals in return for a set fee. I've got a drawer full of these - though none of them on papyrus. 

I also spotted him. He's Hermes, the God of traders and travellers. I thought I might write a poem about him too. 

When I started this project faced with the two themes of Water and Migration I was tempted to spend most time on water because the subject of Migration is so fraught. But it occurs to me that if it's place in it's historical, global and natural context it becomes less so. I spoke to Tania from Sustain Education about this and she agrees that maybe school's would be helped by having a way into those discussions. It's very topical. And there is, I think, a moral imperative. They're tricky things, both in poetry and in education, so it needs to be handled carefully. 

I went back through to see the tree frogs. I thought about the evolution of fish, amphibia and reptiles and about how that movement from sea to land is a kind of migration. Nearly every textbook talks about 'conquering' the land. That's weird when you think of it. I started to think about the language that was used - invasion, colonisation, exploration - for more or less the same thing. Could I use these in the card game. Dare I give these words scores - using the highest for the most or the least manipulative? 

Back through Nature's Library, I started to notice things (particularly plants and invertebrates) named after other things. This is a kind of migration of ideas, which I suppose is what a metaphor is. Could a writing exercise be based on naming? Here are some of them - I love that there's a chocolate chip starfish!

   

 

Week 2

This week I met Debbie the Primary Co-ordinator in the Education Department at Manchester Museum and had a chat about the project. Debbie's going to be working with me for the next few weeks. One of the things we talked about was how our perceptions of things shifted depending on what we brought to the experience. In this way a museum was like a work of art. Debbie also wondered if we could use music to influence a child's experience of a museum.

The first job was to go round the 12 key objects I chose last week and answer my own questions, which you might remember from last week were;

1. What do we say about the object?
2. What does the object say about itself?
3. What does it really mean?

This was fun! I didn't think too much about it. I just wrote down the first things that occurred to me. I have tweeted four of them which were short enough - this might be a nice way for visitors and school children to engage.

Here they are:

Maharajah: walked 200 miles from Edinburgh to Belle Vue zoo in 1872

Look at my huge feet, how easily they carry my weight.
It was a long way. It has been a long time.

Spice Racks: India 1865, wood

I have treasures. I have secrets.
Spin me fast enough and my pods pop off, fizz like stars.

Bark Cloth: made of beaten Masi stems, stencilled, Fiji, before 1942

Roll me out. I will hold your nights and your days, your lives and your children.
I will whisper to you in my patterns, sing the wind in the Masi.

Chinese Dish, Porcelain and enamel, decorated with bats and long life symbols, for export

Sprinkle me with leaves, lay me with fruit.
I am yellow like the sun. I came across the miles. I was always here.

Helmet: metal, Iran, donated 1946 

I was Persia, the Orient, Asia Minor.
I was war, death, dignity, defence.

Head-dress: Manchu, China, Kingfisher feather, bamboo, silk, more than 60 years old. 

I know your greatness. I will make you great in the eyes of the world.
I am pain - the kingfisher, the oyster, the silkworm, the hands that cut. Did you think it could be otherwise?

Iron Core of Meteorite:  Campo del Cielo (Field of Heaven) Argentina, 16th Century. 

I am alien. I am earth.
We are all spacedust.

Jaw: Hammerhead Shark

It was only ever hunger, life.
When there were nerves, this mouth knew the whole world which spewed into it.

Cabinet of Tiny Fossils: 19th Century Collection

I am the deep history of the earth. Collected, ordered, classified.
The earth resists this project. It flirts with chaos, comes back to us giggling with surprises.

Plaster Cast of Dog buried in Ash: Vesuvious, Italy

I am every dog, scratching his back. I didn't see it coming.
I might have followed you, begged for scraps, licked your face. I have smelly breath.

Green Tree Python: Modified muscles, prehensile tail, climbs trees, sleeps during the day, head tucked in the middle of its coils, bites, Australian rain forest. 

This is my tree. I have not moved all week.
I am more threatened than threatening. Let me sleep.

Fragments of Pottery: Archaeological interpretation and analysis. 

Each one of us was part of something, a jar, a dish, a cup.
Our mismatched fragments become a new whole.

Frog and duck weights: Mesopotamia, 2-3rd Millenia BC

The balance, the baking, the baggies. I am your history too.
How might it be not to apportion - mass, time, value, love?



I realised I had not given much thought to the themes of water and migration during this. So I've picked two ideas to think about this week - trade and poisoned and polluted water.

Week 1

Cat and I met for a chat at the museum - we both got quite excited about the possibilities. One of Cat's suggestions was to look for key objects so I took my tablet round the museum and took 12 photos. I didn't think too much about it. I just took things that made me react in some way or another.

After my journey round the museum I felt quite overwhelmed and went for a walk. I thought about whether children could take ipods round and take pictures and then organise their pictures into groups, like their own personal galleries. 2 groups of 6, 3 groups of 4, 4 groups of 3 (wasn't it lucky I chose the number 12!). What would connect the items in their groups? Could you have 6 pairs of opposites.

Then I started thinking about something Cat had said about the need to keep looking again at objects that had become familiar in order to see something more in them - and about how we wanted to encourage children to do that in a limited amount of time.

I came up with 3 questions:

1. What do we say about the object?
2. What does the object say about itself?
3. What does it really mean?

I wasn't really sure if those questions would get us anywhere but it felt like a good start!

Here are those images. More about them next week. 

Buckles and Butterflies is an Arts Council funded project based at Manchester Museum. I will be exploring the themes of Water and Migration and writing poetry for children.