Some musings and meetings from the 4 weeks I'm spending in Somerset in spring and summer 2008
Archive:
I was delighted to drop in to Tom Lock's workshop in Hawkridge, after talking to a nice gang of Somerset artists at the 'Reveal' event recently.
I had asked Tom to consider making a 'head-dress' for the Exmoor National Dress a while back, but as his lifetime retrospective (at Hawkridge Show, see pic) was absorbing all his time he declined....But I know real no from a 'well....no' and I had a feeling he was going to come up with something.
Here Tom is modelling the prototype - it will eventually have little antlers in declining size all the way round. The head-dress 'ring' is made of 4 or 5 curved antler pieces carefully glued and sanded, it's quite a feat to find suitably curved pieces let alone to fix them together. What I especially like is the front-most horn, which Tom describes as "freaky" - its a tiny straight horn emerging from a misshapen, bony nugget. He'd had it for years, finding it useless for most of his work, but now has a good use for the freaky!
I tried it on and can confirm that it's actually comfy too....
Themes : Exmoor, antler, crown
Enjoying reading about the 'invention' of tartan as Scotland's national dress....
I knew of Sir Walter Scott's involvement in its 're-invention' for the King's first Scottish visit post the Jacobite rebellion (after which tartan wearing was banned for all but the military). Scott - who was a megacelebrity at the time - was given the job of organising the monarch's visit to Edinburgh. (This might be like David Beckham getting the job of organising the Queen's last Jubilee - imagine.)
Anyhow, Scott decided that mass tartan would look fabulous lining the streets and thus a trend was born, with the king apparently decked out in salmon pink trews (thats skintight trousers to you) in a bid to bond with this Scottish subjects.Hmm.
It turns out though, that Scott was more of a purist than I thought. Two brothers - the Sobieski Stuarts- predated Scott's trendsetting by publishing a copy of a spurious 'found' manuscript - the Vestiarium Scoticum. This fake supposedly verified the lineage of clan tartans, and also their own claims to the Stuart royal bloodline. The Frasers of Lovat even built them a villa on their island, Eilean Aigas, where they lived it up for quite a while in Highland style (the house and island was recently for sale BTW).
Scott publicly rebuked these claims and the veracity of the book, and though the brothers' reputations suffered, the book (and the brothers' lifelong mania for all things Scottish) remains influential on Scottish identity and culture to this day.
Themes : costume, national dress, tradition, Scottish identity
Today I tried to convince the nearest tattoo artist to Exmoor to contribute to the Exmoor National Dress project -with some difficulty!
I don't usually cold-call people I'd like to work with, I much prefer to meet in person, but circumstances mean that's hard for me to do at the minute so phone it had to be.
Neil at Under the Gun in Minehead sounded great, but he tried in vain to dissuade me as I listened to the sound of his needle on the go (tell me thats a hands-free set Neil) but I did my best to talk him into tattooing a pair of nice leather gaiters I have - maybe with an Exmoor pony I suggested. After a lot of 'no' I asked if he'd tatoo my arm with an Exmoor pony, when he said of course, I had found the chink in his armour! We left it that I could pop in next time I'm down to see what he can do with them - which I will certainly take him up on....
Themes : Exmoor, tattoo, Minehead
Today I finally knuckled down to some (dress) making, something I have a love / hate relationship with ever since the hell-and-back 10 day lock-in when Nina and I had to make our Tudor costumes for our last film. Let's draw a veil over just how long it took to get even the basics right for 1578 - well, all I can say is you try and design a fitted bodice without darts or lycra....
So - back to Exmoor National Dress - this lovely print on canvas donated to the project by Exmoor painter Maurice Bishop appeared simply as an Elvis-style cape at Dunster Show but I thought I'd better explore other treatments, so attempted my first bit of smocking with it this afternoon...
I think it's rather too stiff but nevertheless it's an interesting effect...
Themes : costume, Exmoor, smocking
