The Following Morning ...

L.A. - looking very sci-fi to me.

William Morris and the Trellis Wallpaper

Illustration: William Morris. Trellis wallpaper design, 1862.

Trellis was William Morris first commercially available wallpaper design. It was sold through the company of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co, which was later to become Morris & Co, in 1864. However, the design itself had been completed by Morris two years before in 1862.

Trellis was said to have been inspired by Morris new family home of Red House which had been designed and built, with assistance from Morris himself, by his friend and architect Philip Webb in 1859. Whether Morris was literally inspired to create this particular wallpaper design while wandering the gardens of his new home, is ultimately not particularly relevant. However, it does add to the character and legend of the designer and it is perhaps what we would presume to be typical of his creative character, and that probably is more important today, than whatever the truth may really be.

Illustration: William Morris, 1857.

Interestingly, the design itself was an inspired combination of talents, rather like the designing and building of Red House, between Philip Webb and Morris. Morris throughout his life lacked confidence in his drawing ability and while he was secure enough in his ability to produce excessive amounts of flower and foliage throughout his career, he was always less certain when it came to anything biologically more complex. Therefore, in Trellis Webb produced the birdlife while Morris produced the rest of the design.

Compared to later design work, both for wallpaper and textiles, this early example appears much more stilted and compositionally heavy. If you have ever seen a room wallpapered in Trellis you will have some idea as to how overpoweringly busy this domineering wallpaper pattern can appear.

Illustration: William Morris. Trellis wallpaper design, 1864.

In its defence, it must be remembered that although this was the first example of a Morris wallpaper design that the market had seen, it was also very different from what was immediately available for interiors during this period. The design work is purposely naive and unsophisticated. A strategy has been taken by the designer in producing pattern work that bears little resemblance to any machine produced wallpaper of the period and this was obviously a conscious factor in Morris creative output. The flattened graphic appearance of the pattern work and the disregard for any form of naturalised three-dimensional quality sets it aside from much of the excessive floral and topographical wallpaper design work that was so much a part of mid-Victorian interiors. That many of these wallpapers are now long forgotten while Morris Trellis is still as well known and familiar today as it was one hundred and fifty years ago, says much about the designers own conviction and strategy towards the decorative arts.

Illustration: William Morris. Trellis wallpaper design, 1864.

Despite the early date of this wallpaper, it was always one of Morris favourites. It was part of the decor of his bedroom at Kemscott House during the last two decades of his life. Morris may well have been sentimental as to the perceived origin of the design. It perhaps reminded him of the period of his life where opportunities abounded. It was an era where he was starting out on a new creative career, a new marriage and a new house. However, Trellis can also be seen on a much wider scale as one of the first steps in a career that was to fundamentally change so many aspects of the English decorative arts world, much of it permanently.

Further reading links:
William Morris Wallpapers
Pimpernell, Design For Wallpaper, Morris, William Giclee Poster Print by William Morris, 18x24
William Morris. Wallpapers and Chintzes.
"Rose-90" Wallpaper Design Giclee Poster Print by William Morris, 9x12
"Mallow" Wallpaper Design Giclee Poster Print by William Morris, 12x16
Morris, William, Designs for Wallpapers
"Rose - 93" Wallpaper Design Giclee Poster Print by William Morris, 18x24
William Morris Designer - The Special Winter Number of the Studio
William Morris Full-Color Patterns and Designs (Dover Pictorial Archives)
William Morris: Patterns & Designs (International Design Library)
Designs of William Morris (Phaidon Miniature Editions)
William Morris (Temporis)
William Morris
William Morris on Art and Socialism
V&A Pattern: William Morris: (Hardcover with CD)
William Morris and Morris & Co.
The Beauty of Life: William Morris and the Art of Design
William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Home
William Morris Decor and Design

Mark Wallinger at carlier | gebauer as part of Gallery Weekend Berlin

Mark Wallinger opens tomorrow in Berlin as part of Gallery Weekend with new works. This is the artist’s fourth show at carlier | gebauer. The first piece, Steine (2010) is comprised of one thousand numbered stones that cover the floor in the main room. Immediately probing the viewer to ask, is there an order to this system? What happens when we number something? However, there’s no taxonomy involved. These stones, with their inherent contrast of human labour and the monumental timescale of geology, catalyse thoughts of mortality, of catalogues of the vanished and the anonymous.

Creating an uneasy sense of contemplation through the surrounding photographs - camera phone images taken from websites dedicated to pictures of unknown people who have fallen asleep on public transport. Now these photographs, magnified, make up The Unconscious (2010). Liberated from the tense consciousness of the waking state, their faces seem to exist somewhere beyond them, and yet, following an unconscious ordering principle, they resemble themselves more in this lapsed state than when awake. Wallinger’s inversions of individual and social consciousness are continued in a series of further compositions in this exhibition. In Word (2010), a wall filled with text from The Oxford Book of English Verse 1250 – 1918. However all punctuation and grammatical signs have been removed. This renegotiate the meaning, making it disorientating looking for rhythm and rhyme. Without titles, devoid of those conventions that otherwise endow this publication with its incontrovertible authority, a single word containing centuries of linguistic and aesthetic evolution.

In The Magic of Things (2010), Wallinger edits, in chronological order, all the unpopulated moments and spaces where acts of sorcery occur; in scenes that reference memories of suburban culture, in locations peripheral to the main action, in its unconscious interiors. Removed from their agency, floating teacups, self-mending mirrors and a car that arrives from the afterlife through the living room wall all acquire a level of supernaturalism as the internal rationale of the fiction is removed. There is an awkward parity here between The Magic of Things and contemporary art’s exorcism of the “aura” of the artwork, where the recipient of cherished ideas and peerless skills of the now absent artist animate inanimate material. And yet for all the obvious trickery we are not disenchanted.



In the second room Wallinger opens up an auditorium: 100 second-hand chairs, which are all different. They have been organised in ten miscellaneous rows of ten. Quite literally, making his mark, the word MARK is handwritten in marker pen on the rear of each chair’s back-rest and white threads run like perspective lines from each of these to meet their vanishing point.

In According to Mark (2010), everything belongs to MARK. In the reflection of the gaze the artist becomes his own audience here, his only perspective. In his book The Logic of Sense, Gilles Deleuze describes a critique of the dominant ideology, which no longer seeks to pull back the curtain behind which it assumes truth will be found, but instead feels its way across the curtain, moving along it and mimicking its structures. Wallinger’s works unfurl across this surface. In his oeuvre social consciousness is dragged up to the surface.

If you’re in Berlin this weekend, don’t miss this show. Opening 1 May and continuing until 5 May.

For further information visit: www.carliergebauer.com or www.gallery-weekend-berlin.de

OHC Spring Series #5: Year-Long Cattail Study

We have been looking forward to this challenge for a few weeks now. Watching our little patch of cattails, my boys observed that the new growth is coming in and we will be anxious to take a closer look using this challenge.

I hope that you will complete this challenge even if you are just finding and starting your year-long cattail study. Please feel free to jump in and join us!





Outdoor Hour Challenge
Spring Series #5
Spring Cattail Observations

“It is an interesting process to take apart a cattail plant; the lower, shorter leaves surround the base of the plant, giving it size and strength. All the leaves have the same general shape, but vary in length. Each leaf consists of two parts; the free portion, which is long and narrow and flat toward its tepering tip but is bent into a trough as it nears the plant, and the lower portion, which clasps the plant entirely or partially, depending upon whether it is an outer or inner leaf.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 500

Inside Preparation Work:
Read pages 500-502 in the Handbook of Nature Study if you have not done so before. It might also be beneficial to read it again this season and highlight the parts that contain information about the leaves of the cattail plant. We will be focusing this season on where the cattail grows and what the leaves look like as they grow up from the plant. Prepare yourself for this week’s outdoor time by reading #1, #2, #4, and #5 suggestions for study on page 502.

Note: If you are using the free version of the Handbook of Nature Study, the cattail section starts on page 551. If you are using the free version from HomeschoolFreebies, you need to look in Plants and Trees, page 65. (Thanks Angie.)



Outdoor Hour Time:
Enjoy your outdoor time this week at your cattail spot. If you have been participating in the year-long cattail study since last autumn, you will know just where to look for cattails. Use the suggestions from the Handbook of Nature Study to talk a little about the habitat where your cattails are growing.

Please note: If you do not have any cattails to observe in your area, you may wish to choose another local plant to observe in each season throughout the next year.

Some Suggestions for a Spring Cattail Study

• How wide a strip of land do the cattails cover?
• Are they near a stream, brook, or pond?
• Observe the kind of soil where your cattails grow.
• How are the leaves arranged-growing opposite or alternating?
• Describe the leaves’ texture, color, shape.
• Have your child make as many observations as they can during your outdoor time of the cattail. (Keep it fun.)

Follow-Up Activity:
Make sure to allow some time after your outdoor hour to discuss any subjects that your child finds interesting. Encourage the completion of a nature journal entry recording your observation of your cattails. You can use the notebook page created for the Spring Series ebook, the notebook page from Autumn, a blank page, or any other general notebook page listed on the sidebar of my blog.

Make sure to encourage your child to sketch the cattail leaves. Also try to include a little of the habitat that your cattails are growing in during this season. Include in your sketch any insects, birds, or animals that you observed near your cattails during your outdoor time.

Please make sure to come back and post your link on Mr. Linky after completing this challenge and writing your blog entry. I always love to come by and see what you are up to!

If you would like all the Spring Series Challenges in one place, I have an ebook gathered for you to purchase for your convenience. The ebook also contains art and music appreciation plans for the spring months as well as custom notebooking pages for each of the challenges. Please see this entry for more details:

Spring Nature Study with Art and Music Appreciation

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Short Film Competition Deadline Extended Until 4 May

Over the past few months, and especially the past few weeks, there has been such a buzz in the office! The Short Film Competition has brought filmmakers from all over the world together. We’ve had filmmakers from the USA, Canada, Mexico, Israel, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and just about every European country!

The one thing that makes me so incredibly excited about this is that we’re going to get the opportunity to experience first hand the creativity and skills from all across the world. I think as humans, we all share similar experiences – the range of emotions, and to see these anecdotes interpreted through film is an honour.



I know that the judging process is going to be tough, but we’re prepared. To those of you who have already entered, I am wishing you luck and if you’ve thought that you missed the deadline, we’ll there’s an extension until 4 May, and your films can reach us up until 15 May.

I would also like to extend a warm thank you to our partners The National Media Museum, Glasgow Film Theatre, Shooting People, Kerry Film Festival, Rushes Soho Short Film Festival, Wallflower Press, and Raindance.

This award offers winners and runners-up a fantastic prize package, including:

·Screenings of your film at: The National Media Museum (Bradford), Rushes Soho Shorts Film Festival (London), Glasgow Film Festival, Kerry Film Festival, Glimmer: Hull Film Festival, Project Space Leeds and on the Aesthetica website.
·£500 first prize, £250 runner-up.
·12 months membership with Shooting People.
·Collection of film books from Wallflower Press.
·A weekend course with Raindance.
·Winner and 10 runners-up to be included on a DVD that will go to all Aesthetica readers.

Films should be up to 25 minutes long.
For detailed guidelines and entry visit www.aestheticamagazine.com/film_submissions.htm

EXTENDED Deadline: 4 May – films can arrive until 15 May.

City Stroll

A late afternoon stroll through Trafalgar Square.

Today is the draw for the Shhh competition.

The correct answer was Poland.

All the correct answers went into the Red Hat for the draw.

The winner is:

David Hyde

Thanks everyone who participated.

Come back next week I have another treat on offer.

Tatar Leatherwork

Illustration: Examples Of Tatar leatherwork, 1925.

In 1925 the then Soviet Union held, amongst its various exhibitions at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, a large display that highlighted the ethnic diversity of the Union as seen through various traditional craft skills. Amongst these displays was some Tatar leatherwork. The catalogue produced for the exhibition highlighted one page dedicated to the Tatar craft skill of leatherwork. The example shown here was merely named Tartar, but we can probably be certain enough to say that the items originated with the Volga Tatars of Kazan.

As well as there being Siberian, Crimean and Volga Tatars, there are also sizeable minorities of Tatars within Central Asia, the Baltic States, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe and across the Russian Federation. The total Tatar world population is presently thought to be about ten million. This broad and extensive Tatar homeland says much about the history of the Tatar people and particularly their links with their early nomadic lifestyle.

Illustration: Satellite map of the Volga River.

Leatherwork was often an important component of nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples and Volga Tatars were no different. They were extremely proficient at all levels of the craft from processing the hides to detailed cutting, dying and applique work. Whether the Tatar penchant for leatherwork really has anything to do with their nomadic past is uncertain. However, what is certain is that Volga Tatars were well known across Russia for their craft skills including ceramics, metalwork, jewellery and leatherwork. Tatars of the region were also great traders with the Volga being a great natural trade route. This helped to spread their leatherwork goods and reputation well beyond their own communities.

The decorative design on the leatherwork shown in this illustration has definite links with other Tatar groups in Europe and Asia and shows significant similarities to decorative pattern work that stretches back into Asia as far as Mongolia. Therefore, although the work shown may well have derived from Kazan, the larger Tartar community that stretches across two continents should also be considered as the greater origin of the decorative leatherwork that was shown by the Soviets at the 1925 Paris exhibition.

Illustration: Official flag of the Republic of Tatarstan.

Although Tatars are still scattered across a large geographical area and many find themselves ethnic minorities within various states and nations, the Republic of Tartarstan now within the boundaries of the Russian Federation, with its capital at Kazan, is a central focus of the Tatar culture, crafts and lifestyle. 

There are a number of online sites dealing with different aspects of Tatar culture and crafts, some of which are listed below in the Further reading links section, along with a list of relevant book titles.

Further reading links:
Official website of the Republic of Tatarstan
About Kazan
Go To Kazan
The Peremech Lounge blog
Volga Tatars: Ural Mountains, Tatars, Tatarstan, Kerä?en Tatars, Na?aybäk, Tatar Language
Kazan: Russian language, Tatar language, Types of inhabited localities in Russia, Tatarstan, Russia, Tatars, Confluence, Volga River, Kazanka, Kazan Kremlin, World Heritage Site
The Volga Tatars in Central Asia, 18th-20th centuries: From diaspora to hegemony?
Tatar Cuisine
Tatar manual: Descriptive grammar and texts with a Tatar-English glossary (Indiana University Publications. Uralic and Altaic series)

There's Always Tomorrow Limps Onto DVD

Hurtling through cyberspace comes news that Universal botched the screen ratio on its DVD release of There's Always Tomorrow, Douglas Sirk's 1956 melodrama that Europeans thought enough of to release in a pair of (done right) special editions. Two questions: For how many buyers does this matter, and who's caring about (few) ones that complain? There's Always Tomorrow is part of a six feature Barbara Stanwyck set from Universal. Retail is $49.98. The film was exhibited 1.85 widescreen in theatres (and was, I'd maintain, composed for that ratio). Since 1956, showings have been mostly full-frame and on television. The latter reveals a lot of dead space at the top which was masked out by 50's projectionists. Universal has both transfers but gave us the one that's cropped. The same thing happened several years ago when they loused up The Deadly Mantis on DVD. These were likely oversights the company would consider unimportant. Both are the same movies, after all. Who'd be concerned beyond nitpickers like yours truly and the similarly anal retentive? Bless us one and all for wanting the best, but we're never going to get respect for that. Not so long as home video divisions are staffed by those outside hardcore movie life (I'd get fired off Uni's staff in a day for constantly second-guessing exec decisions) . At least there's compensation of labels that do satisfy. Sony/Columbia's Hammer Suspense box for one. I'm still in disbelief that Cash On Demand and Never Take Candy From Strangers are now available on pressed disc, let alone bunched with four others equally rare.

So as to see There's Always Tomorrow properly presented, I ordered the Masters Of Cinema UK offering. Being Region 2 means you'll have to either get a multi-region player or hack your own to watch. MOC did a fine wide transfer with documentary extras and a forty-page booklet. The movie runs 84 minutes and is black-and-white. Director Sirk was something of a color specialist, that most evident in just preceded All That Heaven Allows, so reverting to B/W for this one comes unexpected. Maybe Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck weren't so big a names (by then) to justify such expense. I perused trades and found Universal's bigger selling guns trained on All That Heaven Allows, with nary an ad for There's Always Tomorrow, released but weeks behind Heaven and surely regarded by press and public as a poor relation. Sirk's melodramas were special for at least trying to intersect more with real life, however overblown general audiences might find them today. I'd be reluctant to watch one with a modern crowd. You'd need a persuasive host to calm the hyenas in advance. There's tendency to lump There's Always Tomorrow with so-called "women's pictures" of the era when it's actually a man's descent into conformist 50's hell we're addressing. Fred MacMurray buckles 'neath combined weight of family obligation and tempting presence of infatuated Stanwyck, middle-aged crises any number of husbands might have identified with, but were they attending There's Always Tomorrow or sitting home with shoes off watching Roller Derby?

Douglas Sirk gets a lion's credit for pics bearing his directoral signature, but I note Ross Hunter's participation as named producer on all the best ones and wonder ... how much did he contribute? Interviewed Sirk spoke of "the young man" Hunter who learned a lot (presumably from him) and never interfered. The director's recall was salted with reference to Freud, Berdolt Brecht, and Oedipus, an imposing triad that certainly would have shut me up had I been inclined to press Sirk further as to Hunter's creative input. I don't know of any Hollywood product (let alone out of Universal!) that inspire such serious analysis as Sirk's. He was boxoffice when that paid in the 50's and dedicated artist when cinéastes came knocking in the 70's. You might say he kind of lucked into a brace of atomic age mellers we now applaud for exposing hypocrisies of the time (all of us being so much more enlightened). By sheer chance or maybe design, Sirk (and/or Hunter?) fed our assumptions to come about repression our parent's generation labored under. We all get to feel quite superior watching poor Fred MacMurray navigate indifferent family waters all the deeper for his surrender to Establishment precepts. Sirk characters are like bugs under modern sensibility microscopes. Our lives may suck, but not so much as hapless Fred's in his suburb prison with bourgeoisie bars. Domestic settings in There's Always Tomorrow are an art-directed Alcatraz, all lattice and banister laden to nail down hopelessness of MacMurray's plight. Children endlessly whine (so that doesn't go on anymore?) and eavesdropping is rife (with layers of misunderstanding to result). There's even Ma Joad Darwell braying about in a maid's uniform. Rays of hope for a finish are but tentative. Sirk said he wanted to strike an even sourer note there. I'd guess 1956 male patrons all but opted for gas pipe concessions either way after seeing There's Always Tomorrow.

Last Glimpse

This may be one of your last glimpses of this building. Part of a disused building around the Kings Cross area. The whole area is being redeveloped with a new arts university, shopping complex and apartments. Most of it is currently old railway yards and warehouses.

last chance to enter your chance to win Nigel Kennedy's about to be released album. Visit here to enter.

From my iPhone - L.A.

To my pleasure and surprise, when I checked in to the Sunset Tower Hotel, I was informed I was being upgraded to a suite with a balcony and city view. But best of all, when I got in from dinner, the view from my room was this spectacular moonrise over L.A.!