In July this year I exhibited in the Leigh Art Trail with SEVEN artists. We chose ‘Ghosts’ as are theme and we each took a different direction into how we interpreted it. I took inspiration from the book ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghosts‘ written by Sandra Lawrence and, in particular, the quote below:
“The book recalls a world that no longer exists, populated entirely by shadows. A grainy, b&w world in which even major players have become phantoms, sometimes without even a monochrome snapshot to their once famous names.”
Sandra Lawrence (2022) p327
Background
Miss Willmott loved to take photographs. These now gives us a glimpse into her life at Warley Place where she lived from 1875 until her death in 1934. Photography began around the 1840s, and during the mid 19th Century the Spritualism movement contributed to the Victorian’s fascination with spirit photography (or ghost photography); the aim was to capture a ghostly impression of someone in the afterlife. The most likely causes of such ghostly images would have been from scratches, dust, lens flare, double exposure etc that occurred during the photography process.
The aim of my artbook was to take inspiration from Miss Willmott’s Ghost, Warley Place and ghost photography to create my own ethereal images. Collaging layers of b&w photographs, mono prints, drawings, text and stitch. I created seven signatures which I bound together with a concertina spine.
My completed ‘Ghost’ artbook with concertina spine…
Our venue
We were in venue 1 at Metal Culture, in Chalkwell Park…
The Leigh Art Trail was on from 6-14 July.