Footnotes to a Conversation, September 20, 2021
It’s all about art this week – plus a story about possible dens of iniquity!
Community-Driven Art
I read an article about the Watts Mortuary Chapel in Landscape magazine (digital version available on Zinio) and was completely blown away by the concept and the artwork. When artists George and Mary Watts moved to Compton, they decided to gift their community with a mortuary chapel. Mary designed the chapel and decorated it in collaboration with village residents. From floor to ceiling, the interior of the chapel is an exuberant arts and crafts terracotta illustration of biblical themes intermingled with Celtic and Egyptian symbols. Mary also ran evening classes to teach interested villagers how to work with clay so that they could develop marketable skills. The participants went on to sell their work. I strongly encourage you to take the 360° tour of the chapel – it’s absolutely amazing. [Watts Gallery Artists’ Village]
Patience
The Victoria & Albert Museum has posted a 3-minute video demonstrating the different steps that must be taken to develop a wallpaper designed by William Morris in 1875. The design involves 30 different blocks that must be dipped in paint and placed on the roll of paper one after another. The pattern consists of 15 different colours and can take up to 4 weeks to prepare. It’s fascinating to see the pattern gradually emerge as each block is placed on top of the last. [Victoria & Albert Museum]
Van Gogh Discovery
A Van Gogh pencil drawing that has been in private hands for over 100 years has recently been discovered. “It was drawn in late 1882 when Van Gogh was 29 and two years into his career as an artist. He was drawing as many studies of people as he could, often recruiting models from the Dutch Reformed Old Men’s and Women’s House, paying them a modest fee of perhaps 10 cents and some coffee.” [The Guardian]
Purity and Poor Wages
Were department stores a century ago dens of iniquity? Did the female clerks supplement their wages as escorts and sex workers? Sent in to investigate, one individual found herself more concerned with the clerks’ poor wages and working conditions than with their morals. “She developed a ‘strong sense of the hopeless and helpless position of the girl in the ranks’ and came to ‘hate everything and everybody connected with department stores’.” [JSTOR Daily]
Footnotes to a Conversation is a weekly Monday feature covering an assortment of topics that I’ve come across in the preceding week – books, art, travel, food, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
If you share my love of nature, I suggest you also read EcoFriendly Sask that I publish in collaboration with my brother, Andrew. Check out EcoFriendly Sask’s Nature Companion, a free nature app for Canada’s four western provinces (downloadable directly from the website).