Museums and Archives

The launch of Museums and Archives published byPest took place on Wednesday at Lancashire Museum in Preston. It began in the Victorian schoolroom with talks by Pest member-Rebecca Chesney and Leander Wolstenholme, Curator of Botany at Manchester Museum then moved to the education room where people could have tea and cakes and chat. If I say it also involved dressing up from the basket of Victorian clothes and a Blackpool FC football scarf you get more of an idea of the informal atmosphere. It was great. It was attended by curators, artists, students and aspiring knitters. If you would like a copy of the publication visit pestpublications.org.uk
My work will continue away from the herbarium for the next couple of months. I am continuing to explore the world of FLORICULTURE
Contact me if you are interested
Gaenor Deacon artist

Pest Publications

Tomorrow will be the launch of the publication 'Museums and Archives' which is a culmination of the work which has been created in response to my experiences of the Herbarium at Manchester Museum. It will take place in the Victorian Schoolroom at the Museum of Lancashire. The title of the publication is Museums and Archives and it has been produced by Pest www.pestpublicastions.org.uk

Probably, by now, all the places will be booked. I'll tell you all about it via this blog!
Thanks to Pest-Elaine Speight, Rebecca Chesney and Robina Llewellyn for their support.
Thanks also to Leander Wolstenholme for coming along to give a talk at the book launch and thanks to Lancashire Museum for hosting the event.

Back to the herbarium

I'm back. Summer has gone, and Autumn too. Last Monday I visited the herbarium again. Leander chose a specimen for me to draw. It is a Leontice Leontopetalum. After such a long time I found it difficult to concentrate on drawing. There were three more volunteers in the herbarium doing the vital job of entering details of specimens on to the herbarium database. Ages ago I mentioned the book by Dr Sam George "Botany, sexuality and Women's writing" (2007) It describes the impact of Linnaeus' new classification of botanical specimens on women's writing of 1790s and beyond. From the book I found out about the phenomenon of FLORICULTURE
I think my project is moving on from drawing to a more extensive revival of this 18th century
tradition
Floriculture consists of
botanical drawing
flower gardening
flower pressing
flower moulding
flower embroidery
crafting paper flowers (flower collage)
Because Queen Charlotte was an avid botanist Floriculture was very fashionable in late 18th century
I also want to revive the tradition of the "botanical dialogue".
Leander Wolstenholme Curator of the herbarium suggested I contact a member of the Botanical Society of the Brirish Isles If you are a member of the society and would like to enter into a dialogue with a faux-botanist i.e. ME please respond to this blog or email me at gaedeacon@yahoo.co.uk

My Knitted Timeline

From May 27th 2005 to May 27th 2006 I knitted a timeline. When I wasn't working, travelling, running the home or socialising I knitted. Significant events (to me) either in my own life, or across the world, were recorded on luggage labels and knitted in. At the end of the year the timeline was 30 metres long. It was exhibited in PAD gallery Preston In October 2006 as part of the "Endangered Species" exhibition.

Miniature Endeavour

On Monday I met the students from the Manchester College in Northenden working away in the herbarium. They were interested in a piece of work I made called "My Knitted Timeline". I promise I will put a photo of it on the blog somewhere tomorrow. Today I have made a miniature version (not totally authentic, I admit) of the Endeavour for the launch of the first Pest publication on Saturday. It is 5cm high and 6cm wide.



contact me at gaedeacon@yahoo.co.uk

I'm back

I'm back. The drawings, photos and candy barrel knitted cactus knitting pattern will be gathered together with texts by artists and curators to become the second "pestpublication", due out in the middle of October.

Five more drawings

Here are 5 more drawings of herbarium specimens. I'll be back blogging in the middle of September. I'm hoping the images will stay online but I apologise in advance if they don't and I'll sort it our as soon as I can in September.