Skip to main content

Three Hull Mice




A non-productive seven days. I've been ill for an entire week and not left the house since Monday, missing three days of work. I'm not going to moan on, it has reminded me of being poorly as a child, lying on the sofa with a blanket watching rubbish TV, having soup for lunch and a soak in the bath to clear my sinuses. 

 So no photographs until today. My last blog entry was called 'Precious' in which I was starting to think about how we preserve human culture in museums and galleries and photographing the paraphernalia used to display and conserve.

 Whilst lying at home surrounded by my 'stuff' I've been thinking about what would go in my own private museum, what is precious to me? The first three items are the Hull mice. These were knitted by volunteers and sold by other volunteers in a charity shop to raise money for the Caring For Cats Charity in Beverley on the outskirts of Hull. These now live in a drawer in a 1960's dresser in our dining room as they were bought and brought back to Manchester by our Hullensian friends for our cat Olive. I like this little chain of kindness and so does Olive who will sit by the drawer and use her most dramatic sounds to demand we get them out for her so she can drag them around and give them a good kicking. It makes me smile that they look dishevelled (thanks to Olive) and homemade, probably using up some leftover bits of wool, they show their own history. They were photographed on the mantelpiece, the place where traditionally family treasures are displayed for the world to see.

 Whilst making these pictures I had Keith Arnatt's work in my mind. I wasn't trying to reproduce or copy his style, in fact I was trying to avoid making them too similar. He made some beautiful, quiet photographs of human possessions and his images make me think about what we treasure and what we discard in this world. I've written about when I met Keith Arnatt, my photographic hero in a previous entry:

 http://marcprovins.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/peter_19.html

Some examples of Arnatt's work:




© Keith Arnatt
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Lovely Pair of Pins

I knew the expression 'pins' referring to legs but had to Google what the Cockney rhyming slang comes from. It looks like 'pins & pegs', but there are some great alternatives like 'bacon & eggs' and 'dolly pegs'. I think I might start trying to incorporate more Cockney into my everyday speak, I do have London roots but they are more South  (Saff)  London than East London, where I think it originates.  Anyway this is all to illustrate a new picture that sits quite neatly with an older picture. So brogues, legs and a sea view from my two main muses. This might be turning into a set...  Oh by the way the top view is Morecambe Bay and the lower image is from The Wirral looking across towards Wales. The North West of England is a beautiful place, with some stylish residents. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Hold Your Hair In Deep Devotion

At last after a week of being indoors, I walked into the light! I went solo and had a photography day in Liverpool, just what the doctor ordered, as they say. I'm a bit out of words at the moment and was going to include a Philip Larkin poem, but I've been thinking that Alex Turner is my modern day poet hero and this is my favourite track on AM, tucked away at the end. He's in his twenties and yet the words suggest a time before he was born, filling my head with images and memories. I've included a link to the track if you want to listen to The Arctic Monkey doing their thing whilst taking in my pictures... UPDATE Well since writing the above it has been pointed out to me that the song is actually based on a poem by John Cooper Clarke, which makes sense of the time frame (being written in the early Eighties) and the fact that I responded to the lyrics like a poem. Apparently Alex Turner first heard it read by his English teacher whilst at school. So mayb
Post a Comment
Read more

Liverpool Periphery

L1 City Centre L2 City Centre L3 City Centre, Everton, Vauxhall L4 Anfield, Kirkdale, Walton L5 Anfield, Everton, Kirkdale, Vauxhall L6 Anfield, City Centre, Everton, Fairfield, Kensington, Tuebrook L7 City Centre, Edge Hill, Fairfield, Kensington L8 City Centre, Dingle Toxteth L9 Aintree, Fazakerley, Orrell Park, Walton L10 Aintree Village, Fazakerley L11 Croxteth, Clubmoor, Gillmoss, Norris Green
Post a Comment
Read more