So my last project is just come to an end. It was a project about Mary Greg. Mary Greg was a collector of every-day objects in the late 1800's to the early 1900's. The main of her collection is owned by Manchester Art Gallery and is displayed there and she also has a selection at Platt Hall in Manchester. She collected examples of almost everything you could imagine - from spoons to portraits, dolls houses to keys. such a wide selection - it seems like she wasn't too fussy at all! she contributed parts of her collection to museums and collections around the world like our very own V&A to somewhere in New Zealand (i think i was told she had family or friends there).
A very interesting woman.
the project is an ongoing live research project ran with the manchester art gallery - our course is involved as my tutor is one of the researchers on the project and she involved us in it making it one of our official projects. the website for the project is - http://www.marymaryquitecontrary.org.uk/
I began by looking at a pair of miniature portraits within her collection. I fell in love with these almost immediately. i have researched and researched all types of miniature portrait and cannot find any other examples which look the same as these. they have a black frame, are oval in shape and are concave - from the front, yet on the back they are different. the frame is backed with blue leather and the portraits (yes there are portraits on both sides) are domed and not the same figures as on the front. I decided which was back and from on the basis that the hanging ring was fastened on the side of the blue leather and also the portraits on this side were much more roughly done and scratched.
from the research i have done, i have come to believe that the portraits are enamel - probably on a metal such as copper or brass as this seems to be the most common base. the figures are male and female (same sex on either side of the pieces -e.g. female on both sides and on the other male on both sides) and they are facing different directions the male is looking left and the female is facing right. This made me wonder how they would have been displayed? would they be facing toward each other as though they were in love? or would they be facing away from one another? i couldn't help but imagine that the owner would change them depending on their relationship (this is imagining that they were portraits of the owners - which looks unlikely) for example if they were happy together they would face each other and if they argued they would be changed to face apart to show that they had nothing to say to each other??
just a silly imagination.
though, as i said, i doubt that they were portraits of the owners. the figures look roman - i guess this by the leafy band around the male's head and the hairstyle of the lady. this was a major difficulty in researching the pieces as miniature portraits are usually of loved ones - e.g. a gentleman would carry a miniature of his loved one at home or vice versa or they were carried across the country and used to introduce people over great distances - like when people were trying to find a suitor for their son/daughter. very similar to how people carry photos of their loved ones in their purse or wallet.
Although i found out that miniature portraits actually began as ways to illuminate manuscript - so maybe that was what the ones i was studying were used for? perhaps they were used to illustrate characters in a fable told by storytellers by a big roaring fire - that could explain the figures on both sides - especially as the figures are different on each side - the male on the front has a band of leaves around his head and the man on the back looks like a roman soldier - with a helmet etc.
so, i began looking at other miniature styles such as cameo's and some more contemporary examples of miniature portraits, one thing led to another and i began looking into self-portraits. the idea of illustrating myself in the way these story characters were being displayed. one problem, it takes decades to become that good at enamel and carving cameo's and seeing as i don't have decades within a 6 week project, i began exploring other ways to portray myself through portrait. i began doing simple line drawings of myself - mainly facial only. i experimented with these - carving into plaster and hand-made soapstone and printing with these blocks. i did a lot of tests and playing around.
i wish i had been more organized so that i would have had time to experiment more fully with image transfer onto glazed ceramic - i did one test piece but nothing relevant to the project.
but i am happy with my outcomes. they were supposed to have been submitted yesterday but it was postponed due to the lecturer strikes so i haven't had any feed back yet.
i will post a picture of my outcomes. they are all mixed media - incorporating ceramics, metal, fabric, papers, graphite, stitch. they have a bit of everything in them. this is how i love to work - not purely in one media.
Variety is the spice of life!
