needled

Needled reviews: The F-Word. Tuesdays, 9pm, Channel 4
Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (Allen Lane, 2008)

Don’t get me wrong, I do not like The F-Word, but it is worth watching it occasionally for a few cheap laughs. You know the bit I mean: when Gordon tells you how to make his pea and lettuce soup in just one minute, all in words of just one syllable. Riotous! We are somehow meant to see Gordon’s failure to use any adjectives at all as the signature of his virility, “full of balls, energy, and really great food,” as the Channel-4 tag-line puts it. (Full of balls? Sure is. . .) And the gender stereotypes peddled in Gordon’s brisk how-tos are just as strange and crass as those associated with Nigella. Man does not describe. Oh no. Describing words redundant, and unmanly. Man only know how to use imperative. Imperative style of cooking instructions works best with short, firm words. More difficult with two syllables. Very hard to make the word “mushrooms” sound manly. “Mushrooms” does not sound like manly decree. Man quickly mutters “mushrooms” then gets on with real business of shouting Real Man Words. “WHISK! TOSS! STIR!” etc. If Nigella’s mellifluous, adjectival style is supposed to be read in direct relation to her cleavage, then the F-Word’s use of the imperative might be seen as the culinary equivalent of a wanking circle, with wee Gordon in the centre, braying out commands (Shaft! Girth! Beat! Etc)

Gordon.

But I bring the F-word to your attention because of a particular moment in Tuesday’s show. The redoubtable Janet Street Porter appeared on set, fresh from her carefully stage-managed experience of rearing and slaughtering two veal calves. The viewer had already been treated to the money-shot of the poor beasts’ deaths, and what we clearly needed now was Janet to preach at us about our lamentable food-buying habits. We must never buy cheap meat again. No we mustn’t. Instead, we should feast only on luxury meat products humanely reared by media luminaries. While dispensing her new-found farming wisdom, Janet was dressed in a formless top, machine-knit in a vibrant shade of puce. It was a truly hideous garment (sorry, Janet).

“I suppose you knit that yourself?” said Gordon, inferring that Janet’s experience of slaughtering “her boys” had turned her all rustic, or something.
“No I fooking didn’t, Gordon,” retorted Janet, “this is a designer item.”

puce

Now, I know that I’m more sensitive than your average jane to anti-knitting slurs, but this was about so much more than knitting. Janet enthused about how raising the calves, and watching the process of their lives and deaths, had completely transformed her perception of meat. She now knew what was involved with what she put on her plate. And everyone should think about how the meat they eat is raised and killed. Apart from the patronising attitude, and the unavoidable questions Janet did not address about cost, class, and the ethics of raising a niche luxury product like veal, this is sort of fair enough. Yes, Janet. We should all think about process, and production. But, the problem is, that she hadn’t really engaged with process at all. She had merely played a game to camera: a game with a neatly plotted narrative arc, with contrived hooks and encounters, with a particular rhetorical language (that of reluctant maternity—quite bizarre) and with moments of typically ‘direct’ and ‘irreverant’ Street-Porter-like entertainment. “’Oh no, it’s pooing again’, moans Janet,” to quote The F-Word website. Janet had engaged about as much with the slow processes and difficult realities of farming as she had with the making of her sweater, and her quick retort about the obvious superiority of ‘designer’ to ‘hand-made’ spoke volumes.

So is it just me, or does so much of this currently popular moralising about process (particularly as it concerns food) have an incredibly hollow ring? It is just far too easy for Gordon, Janet and their like to preach to the middle classes about the importance of the means of producing edible luxuries, before nipping out to snap up, promote, or sell other commodities with little thought about the process of their making—or the livelihoods of their makers, for that matter.

But one place where such discussions of process are neither hollow or easy is in Richard Sennett’s excellent new book, The Craftsman. If you haven’t read it yet, you definitely should. In a series of radical, lyrical essays, this venerable sociologist makes the case for a reassessment of the idea of work itself. The making of things for use or beauty are never, he argues, a matter of individual brilliance, the romantic imagination, or isolated talent. Rather, for him, excellence lies somewhere between the eye and hand, in material practices and processes, and the slow engagement with them over time. Sennett’s notion of craft is something equally applicable to the design of a mobile-phone or a line of linux code, as much as a Stradivari violin , or a particular recipe for Poulet a la d’Albufera. For him, all these ‘crafts’ involve the same struggle with tools and processes, the same issues of encountering and solving problems, of developing and refining skill and focus, of learning how repetition itself can be creative, and of coming to know the singular pleasure of doing something well for its own sake. It is a book of tremendous breadth and sweep but which is also rich in details. In fact, for me, Sennett’s singularity, both as a writer and a public intellectual, is found in such details: in the bumper that really bothers him in the parking garage of a post-modern building; in his discussion of the symbolic values of bricks; in his thoughtful self-awareness of being an outsider as he watches a group of healthcare professionals transfixed by the image of a troublesome large intestine. And any man who can begin a sentence with the words “consider, for instance, an irregular tomato” and from that opening build an argument about the how an idea of virtue inheres in thing-ness, is OK by me.

Epinglier (pin making) Diderot, Encyclopedie (1762)

Lurking around the back of Sennett’s thesis is a familiar argument about the de-humanising effects of the modern and post-modern division of labour. He is quite explicit about his fondness for the all-encompassing curiosity of the mid-eighteenth century, or the undifferentiated artisanal labour of the medieval workshop. Not for him Adam Smith’s efficiently produced pins. This practical resistance to the division of labour—and the division of knowledge too, perhaps—is something he clearly applies to his own intellectual craft-work. He writes about the way children treat the spaces and equipment of playgrounds just as articulately as he does about Martin Heidegger.

Sennett’s thoughts about process have multiple and resonant contexts for me. For example, his remarks about being-in-the-thing came to my mind very strongly, when I read Mandy’s account of the pleasure of the rhythm of knitting her swallowtail shawl:

“We might think, as did Adam Smith describing industrial labour, of routine as mindless, that a person doing something over and over goes missing mentally; we might equate routine and boredom. For people who develop sophisticated hand skills, it’s nothing like this. Doing something over and over is stimulating when organised as looking ahead. The substance of the routine may change, metapmorhose, improve, but the emptional payoff is one’s experience of doing it again. There’s nothing strange about this experience. We all know it; it is rhythm. Built into the contractions of the human heart, the skilled crafsman has extended rhythm to the hand and eye.” (p. 175)

. . .and his section on mess chimes very strongly with Felix’s and Kirsty’s Messy Tuesdays posts:

“To arrive at that goal [that of being fit-for-purpose] the work process has to do something distasteful to the tidy mind, which is to dwell temporarily in mess—wrong moves, false starts, dead ends. Indeed, the probing craftsman does more than encounter mess; he or she creates it as a means of understanding working procedures.” (p.161)

And what Sennett has to say about the importance of modesty, and the awareness of one’s own inadequacies, while engaging with material processes is very moot too. Perhaps this is something for Janet and Gordon to bear in mind.

*You can hear Richard Sennett talking with Laurie Taylor and Grayson Perry about craftsmanship, and process in this episode of Thinking Allowed.

Hurrah! Apple have agreed to replace the logic board on the computer. We do not have to shell out. There is An Adventure planned for later. But I have a few hours this morning for reading, knitting. . .

. . . and taking a new direction with Belle’s quilt

(warning: long post!)

Guess where I’ve been this weekend?

(Bruno, the North Ronaldsay ram).

. . . to marvel at some wonderful beasties . . .

(these two lovely ladies belong to Robin and Caroline Sandys-Clarke of Why not Alpacas)

. . .and the stuff that comes off their backs . . .

. . . yes, I was at WOOLFEST!

This year I am writing an article about Woolfest, and this gave me an opportunity to meet and chat with some really lovely people, and to hear about some inspirational businesses, projects, and initiatives. My piece will be about what makes this show so distinctive: its contemporaneity and energy coupled with a deeply held respect for regional identities and long-established craft and textile traditions. And all of this is thanks to the women of the Woolclip co-operative who organise the show.

Woolfest is wonderful! But I have to save its bigger picture and my thoughts for the magazine article. So heres some stuff about what I did and (gulp) bought this weekend.

Some of my work at the moment involves writing about a group of Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century women whose attitudes to consumption are hesitant at best, and I think that their negative view of shopping (as something in which you are inevitably exchanging/ losing part of yourself) rather rubs off on me. As a consequence, I tend not to talk about my stash, or about buying yarn or fabric on this blog. And my not-buying-clothes-for-a-year project-thing has also made me regard stuff and its acquisition with a weird, nigh pompous embarrassment. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I discussed my stash-ambivalence with Felix, who among her many other talents, is a fount of tremendous Good Sense. In response to my problem with yarn as just another soul-sapping commodity, she spoke articulately about 1) how her stash represented a series of promises of time saved up, time that was going to be well spent in the future; 2) how her stash spoke to her of a whole world of creative possibility, enabling any project or experiment that might spring to her mind; and 3) how it was an incredibly positive thing to be spending one’s money in support of yarn producers, spinners and dyers — the artists and artisans one respects and admires. In the face of this wisdom, my concerns about commerce, stash guilt, and yarn p*rn all seemed rather foolish, frankly. Why should I be embarrassed about the stuff that I buy?

My experience as a Woolfest consumer was Immensely Satisfying. So I thought I’d show you the stuff that I bought, and why I bought it.

Evidently I am in my blue period, or summat, as I bought a lot of blue things.

1) Bowmont Braf 4 ply. A few skeins in a few different colours — enough to make a fairisle-ish top. Bowmont Braf is a new Welsh cross-breed and the wool these sheep produce is completely amazing. It’s a shame you can’t really see how it feels — otherwise the knitters among you would be making peculiar appreciative noises. It is incredibly soft and springy and, knitted up, has a very pleasing velvety, matt quality that is very distinctive. It feels like cashmere, frankly, but with much more loft and body — it behaves like wool — which of course it is. I saw and felt a sweater knitted in it at last years Woolfest and haven’t stopped thinking about it since. I had to get some. It is spun and dyed in Wales too.

2. Linen embroidery thread from Mulberry Dyer. The dye is woad and on linen it is luminous and lovely. I can stitch with it and foolishly imagine I am back in the early eighteenth century.

3. Several skeins of wonderful Blue Faced Leicester DK from Artisan Threads. (My photo here does not do the range of subtle blues in this yarn any sort of justice). Jill and Penny are two talented textile artists based in Nairn, in the Scottish Highlands, who just launched their new company selling naturally dyed fleeces, yarn and thread. (Their website is not up yet, but should be very soon). Most of what they sell is locally sourced and produced, and they talk about the animals from which their yarn originated as articulately as they do about dyes and dying. Their knack with colour is really amazing and their yarns are all utterly beautiful — subtle, and slightly semi-solid. At every stage, process is an important part of the end product — and the end product is very good indeed. Perhaps the best compliment I can give this yarn is to say that the only place I’ve ever seen anything remotely like it is at Shilasdair. It is truly beautiful stuff and, if I was a spinner, I’d have been snapping up a fleece or two as well.

Top and bottom left are laceweight cashmere/silk and bluefaced leicester ‘dazzle’ sock yarn, both from the Natural Dye Studio. Their yarn is Very Nice. Top right is merino sock yarn from The Yarn Yard. Natalie is based just outside Edinburgh, and this is the first time I’ve met her or her yarns — which are gorgeous. She runs a sock club which is unlike others I’ve come across as you can drop in and out as and when you like. Tempting. Bottom right is rather a poignant purchase — this is Cheviot Aran dyed by Carolyn Rawlinson, who established Woolfest in 2005, and who recently sadly died. I actually bought two skeins of this same raspberry coloured yarn last year at the WoolClip’s shop in Caldbeck and have been playing around swatching with it and thinking that two skeins just weren’t enough to do justice to the yarn — which clearly wants cables. I bought a few more skeins in exactly the same colourway yesterday with mixed feelings — this was the last of her yarn. When I make something with this, it will have Carolyn Rawlinson’s memory knitted all the way through it.

and finally . . .

. . .no, I did not buy myself a ram. In fact, I only purchased the last item — a herdwick-themed gift for Mr B. The other three pics provide context for his Herdwick obsession. Item one is a noble animal I saw at Woolfest on Saturday; item 2 is himself cavorting in his Herdwick sweater, knitted by me from the wool from Pam Hall’s Herdwicks, and item 3 is his proudly-owned Herdwick tie, bought last year at the Woolclip. He likes Herdwicks. So I bought him item 4 — a rather nice china mug with the phiz of a herdwick upon it — just one of many new products designed by the talented team behind Herdy, an interesting new initiative now lending these quintessentially lakeland animals a new identity and, through their range of lovely bespoke wool products, a vital new lease of life as well.

Other weekend highlights included these beautiful hand-carved sticks on show at the Ullswater Country Fair. . .

. . . and the lush variety of colours in the Cumberland Pencil Museum in Keswick.

Did you know you can see the world’s largest coloured pencil there? Well, you can . . .

Wot? Actual knitting content? Warning: I’ve got a little over-excited by the fact I’ve actually knitted something, so this post is picture-heavy.

Given all my quilting/ stitching / sewing activities, knitting has been taking something of a back seat recently. It is nice to stitch when the evenings are so light and this is a novelty I feel I should take advantage of. So this shrug thing has been on my needles for some months, now. I’ve been rather faffing around with it — knitting it on and off — and finally finished it last week.

The pattern is built around the basic shape of the shrug in this book (see pic in purple toward the bottom of the page) but there are a few mods.
1) The stitch pattern is different: I used a 10 row back-and-forth version of the lace pattern in Cookie A’s ubiquitous Monkey, alternating with a 6 row front-crossed cable.
2) Why is there so much berloody seaming in these patterns? I just picked up the edging and knitted it in 1×1 rib one one circular needle, in the round, all the way along the back and two fronts. This has drawn the front in nicely and gives a good fitted shape. Can’t see what would be added by knitting the back and front edgings separately. This is a garment that needs to hug the body. It would not benefit from tailored seams. Weird.
3) I knitted this with thinner yarn, at a tighter gauge, on smaller needles: 3.25 mm and 6 stitches to the inch. I used Rowan 4 ply soft. Not a particularly interesting yarn, but I am actually quite fond of it. It comes in some nice colours, wears well, and has super stitch definition.

So I got to wear the monkey shrug out for a nice lunch in Leith. Here come the pics.

(Nce view there of my midge-bitten calves. Highland walking wounds. Oh well . . . )

And because I felt you should see some of Leith as well as me:

This is Paul Grimes tribute to Leith, its working people, and their history. I am very fond of it.

Pattern: Debbie Bliss Shrug (with mods)
Yarn: Rowan 4 ply soft. 4 x 50g. (I used exactly 4 balls).
Needles: one 3.25 circ for the whole thing.
Ravelled here.

I really like it — all except the shoulder seams — which I reckon it would look better without. If only I had thought beforehand I might have devised a way of kitchener-ing it together, or just having a seam at the underarms. Shrugs and boleros do not need seams. Hmm. I am now very tempted to knit Ysolda’s lovely Briar Rose which neatly illustrates how this is the case.

Today is my birthday. I have been enjoying so many Nice Things recently. Here are just a few of them.

1. New fabric with swallows. You can find it here.
2. FRRS postcard. Hurrah! I met Felix!
3. How nice to see an old finished object again. I stitched this cushion.
4. Lemur birthday card made by my niece.
5. Chadwick’s Black Pudding (the highlight of any trip to Bury Market) Tasty!
6. Robyn’s necklace
7. Dad’s flourishing greens
8. Ma stitching
9. Sashiko gift dress. I can wear it. Cor.
10. Old OS maps. The contours are shaded!
11. Vogue patterns. Oh my.
12. Dryad handicraft leaflet.

This last — which illustrates a paper cutting entitled ‘birds in their nests’ — is the tip of a mind-boggling iceberg. So good — I have been making odd yelping and cooing noises since I got it. It belongs to a volume containing 150 instructional leaflets, kindly bequeathed to me by my Ma. Dryad Handicrafts are the MOTHERSHIP of British crafts, and these leaflets treat the reader to the combined wisdom of Harry Peach and all the other makers and teachers of the Midland’s arts and crafts movement. There are careful instructions on making everything from leather gloves to wooden toys. . . book binding, embroidery, weaving, spinning, lino printing, marbling paper, felting, smocking, hat making. . . Ye gods! It’s absolutely wonderful. I haven’t even started skimming the surface of whats on offer in these leaflets — what a fantastic resource they are, and what intriguing insights they afford into the history and practice of a whole range of British crafts across the last century. Thanks Ma!

My niece’s birthday lemur did not come out well in the mosaic — so I really must show it to you again.

How good is that? All her own work (well, her and the spirograph).

I have three finished things to post about and will do so later this week. Now, for some birthday fun . . .

The postie has been bringing me a right bag of treats lately. Here’s a selection.

Big thanks to Lara, Felix, Jesse, Annushka, and Philippa!

The top pic shows some absolutely delicious Oxford Kitchen Yarn’s sock yarn in the plum colourway. The colour (which is not quite true in the photo) has a precise and very evocative childhood association for me — of blackcurrant jam mixed into rice pudding (thanks so much, L!) You see here also lovely buttons, badges and ribbons, as well as the Fantastical Reality Radio Show activity booklet which has brought me untold joy over the past few days. It has also made me strangely — nay, not a little obsessively — aware of ordinary household sounds. Mr B was bemused to discover me with a dictaphone, recording the sounds of making a pot of tea. And you’ll see from the last photo that I’m already putting Philippa’s red grossgrain to good use. More of this later.

Meanwhile, miscellaneous weekend things.
A sunday lunch of bread and beer:

I made the bread (unusual, this, as I don’t bake much) but not the beer. It is a dark mild - much lighter and more refreshing than it looks in that picture - delicious.

Also, I made a keyring with a bee in it. Just because I could.

did you know you can get a bag of blank keyrings for around 3p each on ebay? well you can . . .

Finally, something to see and something to avoid from the past couple of days.

ONE TO SEE: The Writing in The Sand, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Amber Films (1991).
Having frequented the Side Gallery, cinema and cafe in Newcastle, and admiring the work of the Amber collective, I was looking forward to this DVD immensely, and it did not disappoint. Built out of of Konttinen’s fabulous photographs of the beaches and people of the North East, The Writing on the Sand is a miracle of editing: narrative-driven and highly cinematic. I am fond of British documentaries about leisure, and particularly seaside-associated leisure, but am often troubled by how treatments of this theme patronise their subjects. Lindsay Anderson’s O! Dreamland is a case in point (much as I love Lindsay Anderson). Written in the Sand, though, is a frank and affectionate, exuberant and celebratory portrait of people enjoying themselves outside. It’s really a great piece of work. And, as well as being a stunning document of the changeable and well-loved beaches and climate of the North East over the past 20 years; and providing an evocative, poetic critique of the effects of marine pollution, this short film also also conveys a very powerful message about the importance of public (and particularly recreational) space, and the threat to it from the wholescale privatisation of the British landscape — our beaches in particular. Eat that, Donald Trump (together with your plans for turning the dunes of Balmedie into golfing-hell)

I’m now very tempted to buy this book of Konttinen’s original photographs.

ONE TO AVOID:
Why, when I read the blurb (Michael Jackson connects with Marilyn Monroe on a Scottish island retreat for celebrity impersonators) did I think it might be a good idea to go and see Mister Lonely? Why, having disliked with a passion every other film I’ve seen by Harmony Korine did I still go and see it? I suspect the presence of Samantha Morton swung it for me, but that was two hours of my life I will never get back again. If I start going on about just how bad a film this was I’ll never stop . . .but it was seriously vacuous twaddle, made all the worse the worse for thinking that it actually had something to say. I soon got bored of noticing James Fox and David Blaine, or wondering what on earth Werner Herzog was doing there &c &c, and had to divert myself for the last hour and a half of the film (groan) by thinking about the design and construction of the lacy cardigan worn by the Shirley Temple impersonator. One final thing, though: by anybody’s standards, Diego Luna makes a terrible Michael Jackson.

I almost fell off the not-buying-clothing wagon — I purchased fabric and notions in a kit, which one cuts out and sews at home. Does this count? Nearly, but not quite, I reckon. Anyway, said kit came from Clothkits. I remember the original Clothkits very clearly from when I was a kid. Ma made a lot of our clothes back then, and while I’m pretty sure that none of them were ‘actual’ clothkits, there were certainly a lot of their catalogues hanging around being oohed and aahed over. (You can get a flavour of the full-on 70s feel of their garments here .)

Anyway my clothkit skirt arrived this morning. Wot a treat. I was in near raptures when I opened the package. Its just so bloody tasty. I had to make it up right away. The pieces are printed directly onto the fabric:

and it comes with zip, thread, instructions and a Liberty print lining:

The instructions were very clear and straightforward. In just a few hours, I had a skirt. This skirt made me seriously happy making it (so satisfying). And yet I am (if possible) even happier wearing it. It is a very jolly skirt. Just check out the lining and facing:

how jolly are those buggies on the lining?

Anyway, we just went out for a pint (to what, to my mind, is the best pub in Edinburgh — and also, happily, my local) and I got Mr B to take some pics. Here is the skirt from the front:

And the side:

and the whole shebang:

How nice to have lovely, long, light, Scottish evenings again.

So I heartily recommend the big-birdie. The pattern covers a good range of (5) sizes, and is a good fit; the fabric amounts were generous, and the instructions completely failsafe (I inserted zip, and attached facings and lining without breaking into a sweat or (what’s more usual) making some sort of bobbly, wobbly, rumply mess). But it’s the quality of the fabric and design that really swings it for me — a super matt baby-cord cotton exterior, a very appealing print by the wonderful Jane Foster, and a tana lawn lining. And everything made and printed in the UK.

I’m really enjoying the badge swap. Here are a selection of the wee treats I’ve already received:

Joy! Thanks so much, Anna, Amy, and Claire! I was particularly impressed with the speed of the post from Canada and Sweden.

Meanwhile, badge madness continues. This time, though, I’ve managed to turn out some I can actually wear about my person.

These are made from tiny samples given to me by a friend and originally from (sigh) Linnet. The quality of their fabrics is just superb — theres the same sort of pleasure handling them as there is in the fabrics I’ve seen in nineteenth-century sample books. They are priced accordingly (particularly if one is considering buying them from Japan). I also attempted to make a couple of badges out of my bag of saved selvedges (inspired by Jodie’s keyrings) but these were less successful. But my Linnet-fabric badges have the same sort of appeal as covered buttons. In fact, the badge maker might very easily be put to use making some of these . . hmmm . . . .

I’m following the train of a thought here, and very much bouncing off the ideas of Felix — who has just written a superb post about the joy of the tiny, one-inch, button badge. The tale of her numinous birds — separated from their childhood context, immortalised on a badge, then re-united with their original source — really gets to the heart of the allure of the badge-object, and has made sense of why I find badges so appealing. Its got me thinking generally about the miniature, and the metonymic.

If you are wondering what on earth I mean, you will find both in the work of Edinburgh Jewellery artist, Grainne Morton.

(image courtesy of the artist)

Morton works with found objects — tiny pieces of old lawn and lace, details, buttons, scraps of things — and, through a precise and very beautiful use of settings, combines all this wee stuff into small, numinous objects. In the brooch above, for example, the floral setting joins the unconnected scraps it contains, lending them the cohesion of a single, lovely thing. But what is so interesting about Morton’s work, to me, is less the formal unity of objects like this one, but rather the way that, in other of her pieces, the tiny fragments of stuff suggest themselves as figures or metonyms: they seem to be the last remaining parts of an absent whole. For example, the wee details in the piece below seem to be bits of a half-remembered story; what remains of a buried memory; the relics of a lost narrative that can’t ever be told again:

(courtesy of the artist)

The setting does so much work here. It acts like a spider-diagram of memory — drawing threads and connections between the different fragments — but it also lends each fragment the luminous quality of a piece of stained glass. Through the setting, the piece becomes a window, shining out of a pale-blue past which will never be regained. Proustian jewellery!

Miniature, wearable objects have long carried this kind of metonymic function (that is, as parts of an absent whole). In the Eighteenth Century, wearing a miniature portrait of one’s beloved made a presence of their absence as the tiny representation of the person stood in for the person themselves. When combined in lockets, friendship boxes or mourning bracelets, the miniature took on an even greater commemorative potency, as actual parts of the lost person (such as hair) might be preserved alongside their image. Wearing the fragments of one’s sentimental attachments about one’s very person reached a sort of peak in the eye miniatures popular at the end of the century:

(© Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

These miniatures were often produced following bereavement, and there is so much more to say about them than I can here*. What really interests me, though, is the way that this particularly powerful part of a person suggests (in a very distinctive way) the lost memory of the whole person: a memory which, like those called up by Grainne Morton’s brooches, will never be fully regained. For it is not just the past, or memory, or the dear thoughts of your beloved that you see in the eye. It is loss itself, looking right back at you.

Grainne Morton’s pieces do not (of course) suggest The Void, but I think theres an obvious comparison to be made between the use of settings in her work and that of this eye miniature. Surrounded by jewels, and jewel-like itself, the eye is made precious by its setting. It is made into a separate thing — a fragment separated from its whole — a tiny detail that, because it is broken from its context, can now be looked at, scrutinised, properly treasured.

It is Grainne Morton’s use of settings that makes her brooch of pale-blue fragments seem so precious and evocative. And this brings me back to Felix’s button badge, and to badges generally. Setting any detail or fragment into a tiny wearable badge-thing has an effect that is just powerful as that of the portrait miniature. It makes the scraps precious, as well as calling up the wonder and absence of a lost, proustian whole (See Felix’s post again!). And what’s so great about badges (unlike eighteenth-century miniatures) is that they are cheap, portable objects that everyone can wear. As such, they highlight how the ordinary is also immensely precious, intensely numinous. This is what’s so fantastic about the work of the Mundane Appreciation Society. By setting incidental stuff in an object that is tiny and lovely — but also democratic and accessible — their badges make jewels out of the everyday.

*See Hanneke Grootenboer, “Treasuring the Gaze: Eye-Miniature Portraits and the Intimacy of Vision” Art Bulletin (Sept, 2006). See also Marcia Pointon, “Surrounded With Brilliants: Miniature Portraits in Eighteenth Century England” Art Bulletin (March, 2001). The Philadelphia Museum of Art has an incredible — and quite spooky — collection of late eighteenth-century eye-miniatures.

Well, if you actually want one (or more) of these babies just let me know. I offered Richard Widmark to my Ma, but she wasn’t interested. And The Man who Fell to Earth is already taken.

Just look! As well as Burt, Clara Bow, St Jude, and a cheesy still from Blow Up , there are two (that’s two) Mick Travis’s in there. I saw Malcolm McDowell give his one-man show reading from the diaries of Lindsay Anderson at the Edinburgh Festival a few years ago. To this occasion, and an associated screening of O! Lucky Man, I wore a T-Shirt on which I had printed the words “How much are they paying you?” This reference will be lost on anyone who hasn’t seen the film (that’s probably most of you, then) but I can assure you I felt stupidly happy wearing it.

Anyway, I would be happy to swap anything wee - eg button, ribbon, chocolate. . .you can leave a comment here or email me (address is on the ‘about’ page above). This is a one-off exchange and they are not for sale.