Helmshore Mill Textile Museum

Helmshore Textile Mill is nestled in the dip of one of East Lancashire's many valleys, where it has stood for nearly 250 years, a period for most of which it was a working textile mill and the hub of the local community. Today it serves as a lasting reminder of the hard slog faced by hundreds of families who spent their lives working in the regions booming textile industry; it really was grim up north...

The textile industry in Lancashire and throughout the North West of England, has a colourful, promising story with an ending far from happily ever after. It is a story which starts in the 1700's, a period of great exploration, discovery and an English gentry besotted with the 'East' and the 'exotic'. Before this of course, wool and cotton were woven into useable cloth by families in their homes by skilled hand-spinners and handloom weavers, as it provided a useful second income. Wares would be woven as time allowed and sold to the passing trade of chapmen, who would walk their packhorses through the villages and then sell the cloth on markets in nearby towns. There was no industry ruling the lives of people in rural areas, just families getting on with such ‘cottage crafts’. The East India Company was formed, with royal blessing of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth I, on 31^st December 1600 and was set up to control the trade with India and China. By the 1700’s, this industry was vast and expanding across Europe, with the Dutch East India Company being the largest of its kind. Not only did these companies import new and exciting goods, such as tea, spices and even the humble potato, export was also big business. In the year 1701 around 2 million pounds of raw cotton was imported from America and the West Indies, much of which was spun into cotton and sold on to India.

As the demand for cotton and wool fabric began to swell, not only in the UK, but throughout the rest of the world, the cottages could no longer cope. By the late 18^th Century, vast changes were sweeping through the UK, taking the Lancashire cotton spinners with them. The Industrial Revolution had arrived; violently knocking cottage crafts, the homemade and even the villages out of its way. In order to survive, families must follow and go from skilled crafts people to mere cogs in well oiled machines. Such a fate awaited the families of Helmshore when, in 1789 Higher Mill was created by the Turner Family, wealthy textile merchants from the Blackburn area. This mill was primarily concerned with the production of wool.

All members of the family would be roped in to the production of this wool. Firstly, the raw wool fibres are carded to stretch them out in order to spin them into yarn. This was often a job for children who would be provided with carding brushes to pull the fibres apart. The carding brushes used, which Helmshore Mill still had original examples of, were made from tough, spikey teasels that were shipped in from the continent as the hotter temperatures made the European examples hardier than ours. Once the yarns had been spun and a woollen cloth hand-woven, the wool making process got really gruesome. Whilst children as young as six could be made to card the raw fibres, children even younger were necessary for the next part of the woollen cloth making. Being such a starchy fibre, the wool was required to be doused in ammonia before it had a marketable texture. Human urine was used as it was cheap and ammonia rich. The mills would provide local people with ‘piss pots’ which they would be paid one penny for once it had been filled. The phrase ‘not a pot to piss in’ literally means someone is so poor that they can’t even fill a piss-pot for a penny.

At Helmshore, the wool cloth would be washed in urine by large machines powered by the waterwheel. Seeing this in action was really exciting, but also showed off just how cold and loud conditions were for those working long days in the bowels of the mill.

Following this process the wool fabric was washed off and hung to dry on the Lancashire hillsides. As the finished cloth was sold by weight however, it wasn’t always completely dried out in order to make it heavier!

Not very much later, the cotton trade really took off in Lancashire and Whittaker Mill at Helmshore was added to the original Higher Mill. A most impressive demonstration of the cotton weaving process on an original working ‘mule’ machine, really showed off the vast scale of the cotton trade in Lancashire. In one demonstration run, about a meter of cotton fabric was woven, to think there were around 50 million of these machines in the UK at the peak of this industry really put the scale of the cotton trade into perspective.

What Helmshore Mill really excelled at though, was telling the story of the people who were behind these machines and what their daily lives were like. It is a fantastic place and I’m really looking forward to many happy working days there myself. Let’s hope there isn’t trouble at’mill!

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale

The exhibition 'A Pre-Raphaelite Journey: Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale' is being shown at the Lady Lever Art Gallery from 1 June - 4 November 2012

Now at the Watts Gallery, Compton, until 9th June 2013

What a fabulous exhibition! I had the privilege of having a preview of this exhibition and a guided tour from the curator, Pamela Gerrish Nunn, a few weeks ago. Now in full swing and open to the public, this fabulous show is well worth a visit. It is the fist time Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale's work has been exhibited in over 40 years and Pamela's astounding research has pulled some brilliant and little-known examples of her work from private collections certainly into the catalogue if not the exhibition itself.

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (1872-1945) was a celebrated artist in her own time, working not only as a traditional painter working with oils, but as a designer of stained glass and as an illustrator. Rejected thrice by the Academy following her art education at the Crystal Palace School of Art, she was finally accepted in 1897; quite an achievement at the time. She was also a highly accomplished watercolourist and worked on many commissions for flower books. What is most charming about her work however, is that much of it celebrates nature and is very accurately captued. Fortescue-Brickdale focussed not on the standard Pre-Raphaelite way of doing this through moralising or history genre painting, but by inviting fairy folk into her canvases, The Little Foot (above) is a fine example of a painting of a shy nymph.

Fortescue-Brickdale painted many marvellous watercolour portraits, such as this fine example below. It is a portrait of fellow artist Winifred Nicholson (nee Roberts), wife of artist Ben Nicholson. Testimony to the hard times of women artists being recognised for their work in the early 20th century, Nicholson is pictured gazing absently from the painting and from her occupation of reading out of the picture space, away from the viewer and out of the gallery. Her mind is very well occupied simply with her imagination alone. Around her of symbols of femininity in the blush-pink roses and the domestic setting. The couch is covered in William Morris fabric; a nod to the trends and fashions of interior décor gone by.

 Portrait of Winifred Roberts (1913)

 It is the vibrant luminosity of Fortesque-Brickdale's work however, that makes it really appealing. in June is Dead (1915), the dying cherub shrouded in the heavy foliage of late June, marks the end of midsummer and the onset of late summer and autumn. The radiant colour and effective use of light give the piece an odd melancholy.

The summer is over and the rains will come; something we can very much empathise with in the 'summer' of 2012! 

The Dairy

Tucked away neatly behind a large Victorian block of flats in the heart of Bloomsbury, there was once a dairy. As of today, this vast and unique tardis is the contemporary art exhibition space of prominent collectors Nicolai Frahm and Frank Cohen.

The opening event was a knockout. Guest were served White Russians in milk bottles from a milk float and gorgeous salted caramel ice cream from Nina's traditional ice cream van.

The actual exhibit that has been selected as the premier for this swanky new art gallery however doesn't quite live up to expectations. John M Armleder was invited to use his pieces in Frahm and Cohen's collections as a starting point to create an installation that filled the Dairy. Some aspects are brilliant and achieve the its aim to 'retransform art into a functional structure, merging aesthetics and function, contemplation and entertainment' the bar that's actually just a piece of art puts the visitor on edge and asks us to redefine the space we are used to, the window that holds the same pattern as the wall through which you can just see tyre plantpots identical to the ones around you indoors juxtaposes what is art, what is design and what is home.

The Dairy's old fridge is quite a masterpiece and it is in this space that the Dada movement which inspired Armleder and led to his association with the Neo Geo and Fluxus art movements can best be seen. Stuff. Shoved on to shelves in some spaces or eerily sparsely placed on shelves, stuff is piled onto the old fridge shelves. A taxidermy weasel, vases of flowers turning to death, fairly lights and TV sets are shown side by side. In this space Armleder has annihilated art and at once created it. These things question meanings of art, collecting and display an if those factors can be questioned- what is even the point of the show? It is an intelligent attempt at existentialism that Sartre couldn't have done better at.

However, the large glitter canvases and disco balls hanging in the reception area really don't add anything to the overall coherence of the installation. They are noticeable because they are unnoticeable. Visible because they might as well be invisible. It's a real shame that something bolder and more thought provoking couldn't have been done with this space. Then again, maybe it's annoyance at the the lack of proportion and awkward placement and sizes of the art in this space that Armleder wants us to feel. It's exactly the sort of thing he's after.

Regardless of the installation, this brand new art space is incredible and well worth a visit.

PICK ME UP

Pick Me Up is the annual graphic arts festival at Somerset House. It is a platform for up an coming graphic arts and design graduates and practitioners to come together and show off their talents. Talent being the optimum word as this year's show is fabulous! Over the ten days the show runs for their has been a nail bar, Aardman Shaun the Sheep making workshop and even a pop-up illustrated burger bar by Zoom, the 12 year old comic making prodigy.

Today I lent a hand with CMYK embroidery. Using the cheap, offset newspaper colour printing technique of four colours- cyan, magenta, yellow and black- the artist Evelin Korsikov has manipulated her yarns to follow this basic colour principle.

Everybody chipped in to attempt to finish a huge version of the pick me up logo.

She also kindly embroidered me at it!

The exhibitions of work support artist collectives, such as Fatherless the American screen printers and Coffee Club, who all met, surprisingly, at a coffee bar. These artists support each other to promote their freelance work.

There is also an exhibition of works by newly established illustrators and graphic designers. Called Selects, this exhibition gives a platform to some amazing artists such as the ever jovial Daniel Frost, whose little mr Ben-esque characters couldn't fail to put a smile on your face and the wonderful Katie Scott who presents her own versions of botanical drawings.

Alternative London

Graffiti gets a bad rep. And in many cases this is fair, buildings and streets defaced with scrawls of 'I luv Wendy' and tags with anxious political intent. Street art is a whole different kettle of fish though and this was demonstrated on the Alternative London walking tour which guided us around the Brick Lane and Spitalfields Market area of London to show us pieces by some of the worlds best street artists.

This area of London is like two worlds, separated by the old city walls but in no need of a physical barrier as the two worlds occupy the same space but are culturally and visually worlds apart. One the one side of Liverpool St for example is the great railway station, broad gate skyscrapers and the dripping wealth of the city. On the other, East End culture and the poverty to match. The street art is often considered a great rebellion, an opposition to culture but in situ it reads as more of a defence. A defence of hundreds of years of and old London melting pot of immigrant and East End culture. The city encroaches but the spray cans will prevail.

The art itself is fascinating. Not just paint on walls but a real exploration of people and their interaction with space around them.

Ronzo uses paint to define the juxtaposed worlds. His odd figures have a traditional graffiti look, but are more profound.

Vhils completely redefines the phenomenon of street art. He first plasters a wall an then implants explosives in the wet surface, blowing it away to reveal the image. Can it be graffiti and vandalism if he's creating the surface of his work too?

Space invader as the name suggests, creates tiny pieces from
Lego that recall the 1970s game. You move around the area spotting these tiny pieces which offer an aspect of the search. It's like hide and seek for the streets and enables people to fully interact with the area.

Despite the freezing March Saturday, we really enjoyed and fully recommend the Alternative London tour.

www.alternativelondon.com

Chris Bracey @ Scream

Chris Bracey's first ever solo exhibition of his incredibly fun art work. The pieces verge on the edge of. Being ready mates as Bracey uses neon letters and battered shop signs from reclamation yards. But he does something special to them, forcing them to be viewed as extraordinary kitch pieces. Some look like 1970s tattoos, some recall the Sex Pistols' iconic God Save the Queen single cover with the iconography of the deeply religiously symbolic teamed with Soho chic. As the pieces faintly hum with electric charge, you can't help but feeling similarly charged up in their presence. Professor Green certainly agreed, purchasing a piece for himself at the opening.