It’s in the South-West!

In the South-West: Exhibition!

It’s in Torquay, to be more precise, at the Artizan Gallery, to be most precise! And I am in

it, and the Private View is tonight! February seems to become my exhibition-month, as I

was in the last exhibition last year February. That was with “Traditions” in the Art Pavillion, now it’s “The Art of You”.

“The Art of You” is about our art-process as artists, it’s an explorative and a personal show. So I love that, as I always combine the inside and the outside– and not surprisingly, for me it’s a psychogeographic art process. It is psychogeographic exactly because it allows me to do what I instinctively have done: combine inner and outer worlds. This

inner/outer combination, the inner: personal/psychic, and the outer: place/space/geography/public/political. It’s an approach, too, where things are spaces,

with angles, perspectives, forms, shapes, with lines, circles, edges, and bridges over boundaries, hinterland and unconscious. This interplay can be sheer beauty, but it can also be tense, highlighting injustice for example. So it’s here where the stories are that I want to show, write, tell.

Story spaces   These story-spaces range from the magical to the political, so there’s a desire, or even a need, for an identification and recognition of these stories and engagement with them. You can read or see this in my contributions to this exhibition.

I look forward to the other artists’ contributions to the show, there’ll be an interesting dialogue in our work I can imagine. It’s all very exciting as we all don’t know who the other artists are, so we’ll all be in for a thrilling surprise! So let’s go and see!

Private View is tonight –which would have been my grandmother’s 108^th birthday. I’ll miss the pv but will go there later, and to the sea! The show is on until the 2^nd March. The Gallery is at nr 7, Lucius Street, right in the middle between Torre and Torquay train stations – i.e. between hill and harbour!  Opening times are 12 – 6, Monday to Saturday.

Enjoy the space, the show, the place, the private view – or any other viewing afterwards!

100 years + 10

100 years + 10 of Women’s Suffrage this is of course! 100 years old today on the 6^th February 2018. 100 years old for the over-30 year-old women and the property owners. So that really means that I, for example, who is merely renting and quite poor,

 

would still have been disenfranchised! I am old enough, but not a property owner. Hard luck, I would have had til 1928, to get my vote, another 10 years! That’s why the title 100 years plus 10. Or maybe I should say 100 years minus 10, because my centenary anniversary is in 2028, whereas this year marks is 90 years.

Isle of Women

Of course, how old my right to vote is depends on which country I am in. In Germany, women’s centenary of the right to vote is in November of this year, whereas on the Isle of Man – Isle of Women I’d say! –our right to vote is well over a hundred years old. Women received the right to vote in as far back as 1881! Well done to enlightened them!

Marking the Day

To mark the day, I grabbed an old T-shirt of mine, bought a marker (see, I marked the

 

day!) that lasts on fabric, and wrote Votes for Women on it! After all, I need it for another 10 years until I can mark the centenary of votes for poor women like me, who don’t own property.

Then I left the house and before going to work, I went down to my local suffragette! I mean, I went to see a sculpture of her! She stands outside Finsbury Park station since

 

2013. I had read that she stands there, but I could never find her, so this time I wanted to find her! Most people don’t seem to notice, nobody I asked, knew about her. The things we don’t see, it’s alarming!

To get to Finsbury Park station from my house takes me through Finsbury Park park! This is always a treat, since it is so full of history right up suffragette street! It’s also been named the People’s Park. Sylvia Pankhurst spoke here in 1916. Throughout the first

 

world war there were many pacifist gatherings here. This tradition continued later with CND, and antiracist meetings, rallies and festivals. CND lived in the road next door.

 

Suffragette Appreciation

Back to my local suffragette: Her name is Edith Garrud and she is the one famous for teaching Jiu-Jitsu to her fellow suffragettes, so that they can defend themselves.

The sculpture is in form of a silhouette, as you see on the photo, and, though she is there with two other local heroes, and all of them are outside this busy tube- and train station, they all seem to be easily overlooked. The other local hero in that silhouette-trio is Florence Keene, who founded Manor Park Centre (then North Islington School for Mothers) in 1913! The third local hero to be honoured is Jazz B, co-founder of Soul 2 Soul.

 

Sisters, and all, next time you pass by Finsbury Park station, look out for your suffragette, and give thanks for your right! And try to find out who your local suffragette is, so that we could all know this just like we know who our local MP is – and then we can make a suffragette-map!