Things We Do In Bed

Things We Do In Bed,

not my words but the title of a quilt exhibition in Danson House, Bexleyheath.

Wait! before you stop reading because needlework isn't your thing...

...I give you stories of Birth, Sleep, Sex, Illness and Death

The quilts are made by many different people:

The anonymous to mark a birth, the carers of the dying, the sufferer of depression, the widow, the wife, the daughter, the grieving, artists, prisoners, men, women, makers from the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

Looking at this list, there are some pretty significant events in people's lives that have been marked by the making of a quilt.

Birth

Quilts can provoke debate. Here Grayson Perry responds to the abortion debate, and perhaps the messiness of giving birth. Mind you this quilt is incredibly ordered, rhythmical and symetrical.

No mess, no disorder. 

This quilt was made for a baby in the 18th century.

This photo only begins to show how incredibly fine and delicate the stitching is.

This quilt was made later in the 19th century, again for a cot.

Each piece of fabric probably has its own story to tell.

Sleep

Like the patchwork squares in the last photo, these squares also tell stories, each one made by a different person, men and women.

Exhibited on a prison bed.

Each square was made by a prisoner, taught to sew by Fine Cell Work (a charity).

They work with prisoners to give them a skill and a chance to earn an income.

In this project they considered sleep, getting a good night's sleep in prison,

which can be quite problematic.

The green thread in the pillow in this square was picked apart from the prison sheets,

'...so there is a bit of the prison in my square'.

This blew me away...  the skills, the dreams!?

Sex  

Fifteen quilts with words, the connections of sex.

On a chaise longue!

Illness 

By the time Karina Thompson gets to 70, her heart will have beaten unnoticed 2.6 billion times.

Quilted images inspired by her echocardiogram. 

A quilt made at her husband's bedside.

The making of it, keeping her company when he could no longer communicate.

Again a quilt made in response to tragedy.

Encouragement sent to her son following his car accident, sewn into hexagons of hope. 

Stones and painkillers sewn into a quilt.

 

Intending to feel the weight of all this,

the experience of lying under this quilt of stones and painkillers turned out to be,

"not too heavy at all, it felt quite nice".  

Death

 A 19th century widow's quilt.

These two quilts, grey and white, were made by a daughter in response to her mother's dementia.

The grey fibres resembling her mother's hair and the crazy patchwork design, her skin...

...eleven years later, remembering her in white.

As I said, these quilts, essentially bedcovers,

were on display in the bedrooms of Danson House.

These two displayed where the original bed would have been,

underneath the ceiling from which drapes would have hung.

Whatever your thoughts on needlework,

it certainly doesn't shy away from addressing the big things in life.

Things We Do In Bed is housed in the bedrooms at Danson House, a Georgian Villa.

The quilts were chosen and brought together by the novelist Tracy Chevalier.

Things We Do In Bed is on until 31st Oct 2014 in Danson House.

Not open on Fridays & Saturdays,

and learnt by experience, not open until noon each day.

Visiting information here.

Tracy Chevalier quilts too

 Buy a rafflle ticket to support Danson House and you may win a quilted cushion she has made.

Bill Douglas Cinema Museum: The 'Flicks'

We went to the movies in my last post and saw Bill Douglas' extensive collection of film memorabilia, housed in the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum in Exeter.

His collecting didn't stop at all things 'moving image'.

He went back, to the time before we all started going to the cinema.

The magic of the moving image began before cinemas.

Like with this zoetrope with horses galloping.

Here's a selection of images, to have a go for yourself.

Here's a Mutoscope. Not a risque one!

It's brilliant, to be able to see how it works.

Turn the handle and the pictures flip by, making it look like things are moving.

Like a giant flip-book.

Apparently they were popular at the British seaside right up until the 1970s.

Now Magic Lanterns.

Stories told through slides projected onto screens. In colour too!

English Church History anyone?

Or the story of Robinson Crusoe?

Or perhaps Red Riding Hood?

A later, mass produced version for the kids.

A 'Mickey Mouse toy Lantern Outfit'.

If you hadn't got a magic lantern, you could always make your own amusement with shadow puppets.

Perhaps with your hands...

...or with this beautiful Shadow Theatre.

You could intrigue your friends and family with magic mirrors!

Or with pictures in 3D?

With the stereoscope.

My grandad had a stereoscope in the 1950/60s.

He had to stop using it in the 70s when he couldn't get the double slides developed anymore.

Sharing family photos took rather a long time, passing it round, waiting for our turn to look through the viewer.

But then we were rewarded with the magic of the 3D photo.

He was always taking photos, instead of asking us to smile, he'd say 'show us your teeth'.

I still keep my mouth closed now when someone takes a photo of me!

A Viewmaster.

'I've got one of those somewhere', my mum.

We probably have all got one of those somewhere.

Here' a much more low-tech way of making 3D pictures.

No scrabbling round for batteries, for the stereoscope light-bulb, when they run out.

And finally I give you 'sound'!

Thomas Edison's Phonograph.

Sound recorded with a needle on a hollow tube of hardened wax.

However did he come up with that idea?

The first recording was made in 1877,

of 'Mary had a Little Lamb'.

I do however save one last encore for the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum Activity Box.

It was magic, for both adults and kids.

Viewmaster, 3D pictures, magic mirrors, zoetrope, flick books, optical illusions, thaumatrope (spinning discs), shadow shows and more.

Kept us amused for ages.

Big thanks to Big Douglas Cinema Museum for this.

An authentic hands-on experience, and ironically not a screen in sight.

So following this, pictures began to move. You can read all about the moving image in my previous post,

Bill Douglas Cinema Museum; Lets go to the movies! here.

Find out more on the the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum website.

Not only will you find information about visiting,

but it also has a brilliant 'Kids Zone', which I think should be called an 'Kids, Adults & Everyone Zone'.

Bill Douglas Cinema Museum: Lets go to the movies!

It took living near Exeter, Devon for over fourteen years, before my mum heard about the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum in a chance conversation.

So at the first opportunity we went. We hadn't a clue what to expect.

This was my first trip to a museum on a university campus.
Actually this is not strictly true as the Grant Museum, UCL may count.

Bill Douglas was a keen cinema goer, a film maker and a collector of all things cinema and moving image. Of the 75,000 objects, over 1,000 are on display.

He began his obsession with the cinema as a child, preferring the cinema, 'the other world', to being at home or at school, his 'hated realities'.

He began making films in the 1960s and that's when his collecting really took off.

He didn't appear to have been collecting any one thing, like badges, posters, tickets, programmes, magazines or such like.

He collected EVERYTHING!!!

So to begin the tour

LETS GO TO THE MOVIES!
I use the M-word, despite being brought up going to the 'pictures', as this is all about the moving image.

Where do you want to sit?

 A worthy way to advertise a film studio. 'Educational'.

There are quite a few films on at the moment.

We got totally engrossed in the story of The Black Sheep.

No strap-lines to advertise this film, it's worthy of lengthy narration.

I love the way these colour posters advertise black & white films.

Or perhaps go and see a classic. He's back! Gritting his teeth, holding a gun and snogging!

Has anything changed?

Once you start collecting film memorabilia, the possibilities are endless.

Books and games

...minatures and baking cases

...plastic toys

...telephones and alarm clocks

...playing cards

...albums and mugs

...toys and writing sets

...games

...lollipop holders and board games

...lunchboxes

...police boxes

...and bottle stoppers.

Greta Garbo looks a lot more used than Rita Hayworth.

Then their are all the collectables to remember your favourite film stars by.

There are many magazines to chose from.

"Ooh I used to get that every week!", my mum.

Some people kept scrap-books (remember them) about their favourite film stars.

And if that wasn't enough, you get a map 'with home addresses',

with a red line to take you from the home of one star to the other.

The End.

Coming soon...

For your next showing, we go to the 'Flicks'.

To see what was around before the moving image, when pictures 'flickered'.

There is truly so much to see at the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. All this and more.

His passion for the cinema is infectious, you cannot help but be carried along, on a wave of enthusiasm, throughout the whole museum.

It is open seven days a week with details about the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum here.

You can tell I'm not a film buff. I found the Mickey Mouse baking cases too exciting!