Thursday Blog 5 HALF TERM!
ooooo its half term how much work do you think i have been doing today? weli have been inside a wind turbine windmill. who can say they have done that? i have also been to a play barn oh joy at least this one didnt smell of wee and wotsits!
back to the project yesterday my poster of hironimus bosh ‘cutting of the stone’ arrived so it can go in the brilliant gilt frame i bought. when i bought the frame it was very new looking so i took great pleasure in bashing it about a bit and covering it with shoe polish that has made it look old nicely.
im trying to get my website up and running again befor the exhbition starts but dream weaver is a bit time consuming when you have forgotten how to us it.
the back story is coming on graet here is the story so far.
Folly Stones
The cutting of the stone was a procedure in the 15th century involving trepanation (craniotomy) a surgeon or physician would extract a stone from the head of the afflicted. The stone in question is the “stone of folly” or “stone of madness” which, according to popular superstition, was a cause of mental illness, depression, or stupidity. Such stones could be located anywhere in the body, such as the bowels or back, but were most commonly assigned to the head, where a surgeon would have to cut into the skull to remove them.
The stones on display are part of a collection on loan to Durham University from the Wessynton estate from Washington in Northamptonshire.
The Wessyngton family were residents at the old hall Washington from 1183 until 1539, when the family re located to another part of the Wessyngton estate Sulgrave Manor (where they still reside now), where Gertrude Margaret Lothian Bell (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926) was born. Gertrude was an English writer, traveler, political officer, administrator, archaeologist and spy. She explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her skills and the contacts she built up through extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia. Along with T. E. Lawrence, Bell helped establish the Hashemite dynasties in what is today Jordan as well as in Iraq.
Gertrude discovered the stones in 1903 aged 17 and transcribed the original documents that were associated with them.The original was written by the physician Thomas Hertburn in 1496 (a family member by marriage to the Wessyngtons). These kind of documents are extremely rare as medical notes weren’t usually made until the late 1500’s. Sadly the original documents cease to exist.
Whilst cataloguing the Gertrude Lowthian Bell archive at Durham University, an entry in an early diary from 1903 was found describing the folly stones. The Folly stones are one of the first editions to her vast collection of rare archeological objects.
can i pull it off???????
someone sugested that i should let my five year old choose a stone and a folly so that will be a task for tme this week. my cotton gloves have arrived so that the viewers can touch the stones. how exciting.
things to do
find small canvase, hassle people for their stones, learn my story,make a name bage and poss make a video of me talking about the exhibit to see how i look, thinking about ways of not to be like me (not just the way i look)
the best bit about this project has been the process im worried the performance will be a bit of an anti climax. i suppose i will only find that out after the first performance so no point in worrying about it.
oh well back to the kids im off to play the teacher game, they love it! (dont ask)
