STORY DOLLS

Today is the first handover between the artists and writers involved in the Tunbridge Wells Art Gallery project, to be exhibited at the start of the next year.

I have written already about the ideas that didn't make it to the final round, (here) so here's the one that did.

Please welcome for her first outing anywhere apart from my radiator at home one of my little STORY DOLLS...



The idea is that each body part represents a different part of the story. Either you can leave the story as it is, or you can use it to write something new from it. Or you can swop in another body part and make a completely different story. Rather like those women who used the dress patterns could make up different parts of the doll's dress and therefore create a new story for the doll every time they used the pattern.

And here's one of my stories from the doll above..

PEOPLE LIKE US

I tell the guards I didn’t do it, but they tell me that’s what people like us always say.

Except in the papers there was no ‘us’, there was only me. EVIL BUS DRIVER’S ROYAL KIDNAP ATTEMPT.

I didn’t even know who she was at the time. Thought she was just another dumpy old mad woman. We got those a lot round here. Especially after 10am when they can travel for free.

‘Help me,’ she’d begged. ‘My train is late, and I must get to my sick mother.’

Everybody knows the Queen Mother is dead, they said at the trial, but I didn’t know she was the Queen then, did I? And it was the sick mother bit that got me too. I always go that bit extra to help customers. Plus it was a question of pride. I wanted to show that buses were better than trains.

There’d been a fuss going on at the station. The Mayor and lots of camera crews were there, so I wasn’t surprised that the trains were late. I took her through the back way where my bus was waiting. Behind us, someone started blowing a trumpet. There was no way the passengers on the 5.45 were going to get in on time so I could make it to the hospital and back.

Her hat blew off as she climbed on board. Perhaps I should have twigged then, but I was trying to work out who her voice reminded me of.

‘This is exciting,’ she said. ‘Much better than judging boring hanging baskets. And of course we have private buses at Windsor but not so thrillingly dirty.’

I was about to get cross because I have high standards of cleanliness, when I saw the police lights behind and the helicopters above.

‘Oh, this always happens,’ she said then, ‘just when I’m having fun.’

The others on the prison floor tell similar stories, but no one ever believes us. Not people like us.

She visited the prison this afternoon though. I watched from the window as that new warden escorted an anonymous dumpy woman in need of help through the side door. And then I heard the sirens.

They’re already making up a new cell.

***

To be honest, I'm rather worried about my little story dolls and hope they get a good reception. Luckily I'm much more excited though to see what the others in our group have come up with. I feel very lucky to be involved in this project.

ONE GOOD REASON TO LIVE IN TUNBRIDGE WELLS...

The Trinity Arts Centre...



Love this idea of volunteers from local schools organising this evening:

Sat 17 Jul 2010 7.30pm

Join us at Trinity for a special showcase night night with some of the best local bands and solo artists around.

the sound project aims to give local unsigned bands a platform in a professional venue to showcase their talent. It is run on a non-profit basis by a group of young volunteers from local secondary schools.

For the sixth and final event of the season, the project invites some of the best local bands to record a live album at the theatre.

Headline and support acts will be performing in the main auditorium. Acoustic acts will be performing in the foyer before and after the main show.

7.30pm Authentic Acoustic
A local talent performs in the foyer
Acoustic Stage

8.10pm In Tyler We Trust
Thumping bass and driving beat
Alternative Rock
Drum n Bass

9.00pm Sevenscore
Thom Yorke meets John Lennon
Alternative
Acoustic Rock

9.50pm The Good Ship Band
Infectious brand of indie-folk + memorable tunes
Folk Rock

10.40pm Midnight Music
More acoustic acts to enjoy in the foyer
Acoustic Stage

Acts are subject to change. Please check the website for the latest line-up.

£6 in advance | £8 on the door
Buy Now Online

For line-ups visit: www.facebook.com/saturdaysoundproject

MORE ON TYPEWRITERS

Further to my earlier post about the typewriter in the museum, I had forgotten this artist book I saw in Washington.



It's called 'The Swiss Army Book' and it's by M L Van Nice. She says it is a simple trope: 'Here is the written word; burn the written word; rewrite the written word; leave the matches for the next guy.'


Read more:

* BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE MUSEUM

BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE MUSEUM

One of the projects I'm working on next year will finish in an exhibition at The Tunbridge Wells Museum. It's a collaboration between a group of four artists and four writers, and all of us have been spending time in the storage rooms of the museum choosing one object that isn't normally seen by the public. We will then create something individually - either through words or visually, and then here comes the interesting part. For the second stage, each artist will pick a piece created by one writer, and vice versa, to create a further piece - something inspired not by the original object but by the artist or writer's interpretation of it. And so on for three rounds. It's a form of creative consequences, and the exhibition is as much about the creative process as the objects themselves. Remember the game, Chinese Whispers? I imagine the results will be something like that!

But how to pick just one thing?

I have been looking and looking at an old typewriter carefully stored away. I love how it makes writing so sensory - from the feeling of each key under your finger, the sound and the solidness of it. And just look at those almost cinematic reels of print. It really is it's own mini opera house.



I was almost convinced, but then something kept drawing me back to an old box of dolls dress patterns I spotted right at the top of one shelf. And this is what I've finally picked.



I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. I've been playing with envelopes of patterns on how to make a life, to make peace, to make a world. Or origami clothes made out of poems and stories. Or a short story on who would have dedicated themselves to making something so small and yet so complicated. Look ...



Even more poignant in my view is that some of the pattern pieces are cut out of pages from the Honolulu Independent of 1899. Here's a scrap of news that I desciphered:

… her character, and he wrote a letter to her ordering her to leave the house of his relatives, or if she did not await his return when he would kick her out bodily. The letter was produced in court and described by Judge Wilcox as being couched in the most filthy, dirty, obscene and scurrilious language that it ever had been his misfortune to see. the learned magistrate discharged the case and advised the woman never to go back to a husband who could act as the brute before him had done. The judge regretted that the defendant did not have a big brother or a father who would thrash the plaintiff within an inch of his life. It was one of the instances where the whipping post was sadly needed.

I can't help wondering if whoever it was who so carefully cut out a sleeve pattern from this read it, and perhaps got a thrill from the story? Maybe she needed a beer after? This is one of the adverts:

For That Tired Feeling
That steals over you as the days work is over, there’s nothing else so good as a refreshing glass of RAINIER BEER. It is the tonic you need, beats all the medicine you can take, brings on around refreshing and healthy sleep and makes one feel like a new person. On tap or in bottles at the Criterion Saloon.

There's something about it that reminds me of one of the most beautiful artists books I saw in an exhibition in Washington this year. The artist, Yani Pecanins, had made the 'book' out of one of her childhood dresses:



In a note by the dress, she explains that she was inspired by the diary of Anne Frank, and when her mother gave her the old baby dress, ... 'it brought me closer to Anne Frank's words of feeling fragile and strong at the same time, knowing that you are growing but have so far to grow, that you are someone but you know not who, that you are just beginning to discover yourself.'

A fisheye view of Tunbridge Wells ...

here and here and here and here ...

I know they're the same link, I'm just throwing you in a goldfish impression for free

... and here...

Christmas has come!

My home town of Tunbridge Wells is definitely full of surprises. One of which is, I'm sure, the window of the slightly stuffy department store that greets people getting off the train. Last year, the mannequin wore a very skimpy g-string but there were so many complaints that the g-string was soon replaced by a pair of very very big knickers. I kid you not. But now the Christmas windows are up, we're all very pleased the tradition has continued. So for strangers coming here by train, this is the first thing you'll see...



At least all the windows are beautiful, I have to say - they're not always. (The rubbish theme springs to mind here.) But this year the theme is ballet and fairy tales. I have never ever fancied a shop window dummy before, but TW has something for everyone, and just between you and me, here is a very fine specimen...



But, oh look, that hussy from the first window seems to have got there first. This has to be one of the most enthusiastic public wake-up kisses I've seen. 'Get a room', I heard one passer-by say. I expect a 'Disgusted from TW' letter any day soon ...



And my writing prompt for today is - waking up in shop window.

Three Wednesday Things

I know, I know, it's Thursday, but I was ill yesterday so my new bootcamp schedule went to pot, although I did manage to read some of the stories in Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things which cheered me up with thoughts of arm gnawing and dead men's parties. So... every Wednesday I'm going to put up three things that give me pleasure.

It's Claire's idea, but she's gone off running with a different idea of mine, so I reckon we just work well together. AND we both live in Tunbridge Wells, so my first three things are going to be local blogs, just so everybody can fall in love with Tunbridge Wells, come and live here and we can have the UK's first writer's town.

1. Three Beautiful Things, this is updated daily and is so simple that it's strange how you find yourself smiling by at least the second point.

2. Here's someone who really really loves Tunbridge Wells...

3. ... and here's someone who would prefer it if we all stood up a bit straighter and certainly never let our dogs off their leashes.

(and just because I'm late with my Three Wednesday things, here's another photography blog of Tunbridge Wells. I'm cross because I was watching those fireman at the world famous Paul Elvis Chan's Gracelands Palace, but can't find myself in any of the pics. Probably a good thing really.)