The Face of Coal

An extract of a transcription by Peter Livsey

2008-12-19T10:53:00.000Z

An extract of a transcription by Peter Livsey

Collections forming a General History of Coal, Collieries, Colliery-Engineering and Mining, Together with the Local History of the Collieries and Coal Trade of the North of England: Printed by John Gray Bell, 17. Bedford St., Covent Garden. Volume 9.

NRO 3410/ Bell 9/71-72:

Newcastle Journal, Saturday June 11th, 1842:

“The details furnished by the Commission of Inquiry are certainly revolting in the highest degree, but it is satisfactory to know that the employment of females and the binding of pauper apprentices are unknown in the colliery districts of Northumberland and Durham.”

“Lord Ashley’s Bill, if carried as originally proposed, will affect the employment of children in the coal mines of this district, for he proposes to limit the age of employment to thirteen years, and it is well known that many go to work long before that period. Their work, however, is not laborious, and the mines are in general well ventilated. The average period at which boys are used to work in the mines of Northumberland and Durham is between nine and ten years; occasionally some are sent as early as six or seven, but when that is the case it generally happens through the cupidity of the parents, who are alone to blame.”

Extracts from House of Commons Debate:

Lord Ashley: “Fourthly he would abolish the present system of apprenticing the boys [workhouse orphans] who were kept until 21 in a state of slavery exceeding the hardship of anything ever known in the West Indies, while their masters lived in utter idleness on their labour. There was no pretence for any binding; for the business had nothing in it that could not be learned in ten or twelve days. He instanced some cases of cruelty scarcely equalled in the records of African slavery; and attended with this aggravation, that the young sufferers in the mine had none to whose sympathies they could appeal.”

A Dying Breed

2008-12-05T21:54:00.002Z

The Grainger Women Writers will be launching their anthology, created during a series of workshops with myself, at the Lit and Phil on Thursday 11 December, from 7pm.

Here's the title poem to get you to come along:

A Dying Breed

Dark cold mornings,
a steady hum of industry all around.
Everything is grey or black.
No colour. No comfort.
The horn of the ship saluting the day.
The whirr of machinery in the workshops.
Ever increasing traffic bringing the town to life.
Serious, no nonsense, hard work,
until the weekend. Paydays. Playdays.
A dying breed and a dying art.
Redundant silence.

Sue Murray

It's the final count down ...

2008-11-24T23:24:00.002Z

My month of being away from the Mining Institute and working on the exhibition is nearing an end. To be honest, I'm not sure if I'm any further forward with the exhibition. I'm more certain about what I don't want rather than what I do want. But I suppose that's something,
Hopefully, my time in Barcelona visiting all those art galleries will inspire.

Granddad Tommy

2008-11-15T12:47:00.000Z

An ocean in your lungs,
as a smoker of Woodbines,
you sat, coughed and demanded.
You were a submerged memory
who wasn't man enough to fill
my father's shoes.

But now, my heart chooses
to honour you with a lone
whisper in the dark, hushed,
torch-beam tight as you must
have breathed, in
the buried river of coal.

The seam of something precious
gone, I think of you,
trying to scavenge a little warmth
by touching you. But I know
you're not what
I presumed you to be.

The subtle ripple of time passing
makes strange the familiar.
Reducing you to an object
you were no use to me.
Once again underground,
your tangibility is mined.

Exhibtion - The Big Meeting

2008-11-12T20:40:00.001Z

I'm working from home for the next couple of weeks. I;m trying to get my head around how to use the Mining Institute and the Lit and Phil for The Big Meeting, the Face of Coal Showcase running for the month of January 2009.
I must say that see the recent play We've Got Mittens Too taking place at the Lit and Phil has inspired me in how to use the building. But as always time and money are the issues.

Pitmatic - A series of haikus

2008-10-25T18:06:00.002+01:00

the pay packet given
from her soft hand –
an end of shift pleasure

***

nimble fingered
screen lasses sort
the beans from the rondees

***

pulled up from the shore
a canny-jagga-coal-
clean, bright and ready

***

the mothergate -the main
road into the pit,
nurses the men back, to life

Coloured Headgear

2008-10-22T08:23:00.003+01:00

The Face of Coal Lecture

2008-10-14T13:43:00.002+01:00

The Face of Coal Lecture
Creativity within the Mining Institute
Wednesday 1st October
( all images and poetry referred to throughout this piece have appeared within this blog in the past)
The aim of this lecture is to explore my residency within the Mining Institute.
I hope to foster an understanding of the creative process and explore the pieces of work I have created within the last 5 months of being in residence.
I’d like to compare the creative process to Mining, if you will allow me. I do not mean any disrespect here, and I am not saying that creativity is as hard and/or as dangerous as mining. No I am simply using this comparison to illustrate a point. Please bear with me.
A miner goes to work each day underground in a mine. The product he brings out each day is coal, maybe a bucket, maybe a truck but it is always coal. There is the expectation that coal is the production of his work. Day in day out, the miner goes to the face, works the seam to bring out the coal. It is expected. This coal is brought to the surface and then distributed to customers who will in turn use it to produce other products. The coal is a fuel for revenue and for other production.
An artist’s job is similar to this work of the miner, in the sense that the artist goes to work and she will mine her ideas, thoughts, feelings and memories to create a product. If the expectations are there to bring out a certain product day in day out then that is what will happen. This product can be likened to a bucket of coal. If you go to work expecting to produce a bucket of coal every time you work, you will produce that bucket of coal. A product that can go on be sold and fuel others.
But if the artist is being honest, truthful to and trusting in the creative process, then when she goes to work, when she goes to the face, which can be a desk, a computer, an easel, she is not really sure what she will create. She’ll not really know if she’ll being out a bucket of coal or a bucket of diamonds. She’s not sure what she will create. A bucket of coal or a bucket of diamonds, neither one is better than the other they are just different. Art is created and if the artist has faith in the process and herself, she can create a piece of art, something different every time. Something unexpected.
As Julia Cameron, the author of The Artist’s Way, has said, 'We cast our dreams and desires ahead of us, and as we move towards them, their content takes on solidity. We co-create our lives. This is both our responsibility and our privilege. A symphony moves both through and ahead of a composer. As he moves towards it, it moves towards him. In a sense, as artists, we both pitch a ball of creative energy and catch it.'
The Face of Coal started out from a continuation of my Writer’s in Residence position in the Lit and Phil. In there, I was exploring the North East’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade and slavery. Something that came up in this research was the secondary involvement of coal in this trade. Coals to London could have been fuelling the ships going out to West Africa to capture people to enslave. The coals from the North East could have been used in the ships that brought raw goods from the Caribbean to the Western markets. I was interested in these links. This interest expanded to explore the representation of women, children and black and ethnic minorities within the mining industry itself.
Through the help of volunteers we have unearth new evidence, new resources that will be added to the Institute’s catalogue for future research and will be available as part of educational resources for the future generations. These findings can be pinned down and documented.
This is not the creative part, the creative part of this project comes from me, comes from a commitment to the creative process. Comes from me and my interests, come from a gut reaction, a thought, a feeling, an idea sparked by some kind of fuel. This in turn fuels the process, then this process fuels the process and so on.
Coal is fuel and is used to create other things, as I’ve mentioned before. In order to have creative energy that triggers a creative response, an artist needs fuel.
I want to explore the fuel I’ve used to create a number of works of art, both text and images, that will form a showcase, and a poetry collection in January 2009. I’d like to see these as both buckets of coal and buckets of diamonds. Buckets that I hope will ultimately fuel other artists/ people to embrace the creative process.

Initially when I mentioned to a friend that I was embarking on this residency, we started to talk about the feeling of being underground and how once a miner surfaces how his eyes would have to readjust to the light, readjust to the surface colours of the world. This started me thinking about colour and how my ideas of coal and being underground were colourless, a blackness, a darkness. But this isn’t true, in one sense, look at these drawings and charts detailing the layers of sediment under the earth’s crust, underground. A different colour is used to represent different strata, a different rock or mineral. Because really each are a different colour, even black has different shades. These ideas fuelled the creation of a series of abstract paintings titled Yard Seam, in which I explore all the colours that are hidden underground in the dark.
These ideas around colour were further developed with a series of digital collages called Underwater Outcrop.
I’ve always felt an affinity with the sea. When I’m a bit depressed. I get in the car and drive to the sea, it has both a calming and rejuvenating effect on me. So when I read that there were underwater mines, I knew I had to explore this concept. Lynemouth and Ellington were my first port of call. I found out about the layers of rock that were underground at these points and the seams that were mined for each colliery. At the same time as this, I discovered a pastel making factory up in Northumberland, Unison Colour. This factory creates pastels by hand, each of their 200 colours is made from individual pigments. I took a drive to this place and was immersed in colour. It was glorious.
From the photographs I took on my visit to the factory, I used the jars, and imagined that these jars contained colours but these colours came from the different seams of the coastal mines. So this example is Lynemouth, and at Lynemouth colliery they mined a Main Seam as well as a Brass Thill seam etc.
This is a digital collage, where I’ve manipulated images of the jars, superimposed them over a sea background, a sea that was blue but now black to represent the sea of coal that they are mining, under the sea.
Amber Film produced Sea Coal, a film about the travellers who collected coal that washed up on Lynemouth beach from the colliery. They would sell this to make a living.While searching for this film, I also found a series of photographs taken during the miners strike, and also capturing the mining villages before they disappeared, Easington was one example. This image of Willie hit me. I’m not sure who he was, if he was a miner or not but I knew I had to write about him. The mood or feeling I gained from looking at the image was one of sadness. I’m not sure if it was the limp net curtains, Willie’s solemn expression or the empty bird cage.
The Lost State
The project The Lost State is inspired by the demise of coal mining. Which ever way you approach mining; the industry, the community, the history, you have to explore the closure of mines in the North East region. I've produced a series of largely black and brown still life photographs of objects against ambiguous backgrounds as a means of inquiry into the tragedy that is nearly impossible to reconcile. It’s not so much about a mystery of the death of mining more so the controversy that surrounds the dismantling of not just an industry, or the structural fabric of the community but also a way of life , the meaning of life within communities that were created to serve the mines.
The Lost State could be read as a tribute to an industry which is greatly missed and its people who have suffered a loss of confidence and a collective depression. I hope that I transform these objects, every day items of the industry- a hewers hat, a lamp, a gas mask, a clock – into signifiers of loss.
In contrast – the banner the symbolic and representational heart of the village, the community, can still be seen and heard beating.

12 July 2008, I left my bed early this Saturday morning to get to Durham. I went with my husband to the PARK and RIDE, and got into the city before 8.00. The barriers were up along the roads leading to the race course. Not a lot of people yet. A prime time to chose our spot to observe the Durham Gala, or ‘the Big Meeting’.
It's hard for me to find the words to describe what I witnessed that day.
Amazing just isn't enough.
I saw people laughing and enjoying themselves with their families, three or four generations.
I saw young children walking with a rope in their hand, a rope attached to the colliery banner.
I saw pride, solidarity and strength that day.
I went to the Durham Gala not knowing what to expect. What I found there was beyond all my expectations because it is a totally unique affair. Nothing could have prepared me it.
There was the still and quiet before the bands, people manoeuvring into position.
There were the police out in force but part of the day, as they talked and walked with the marchers. There were the bands and banners.
Brass bands and banners which walked down over the bridge and stopped to play to the dignitaries on the balcony of the county hotel. And did they play.
These were young and old musicians together playing with pride, playing for their communities, playing for their history and their futures.
It was so emotional to be there amongst the crowds. The crowds that might be drinking at 10 in the morning but crowds of people who are wearing smiles and carrying a generous spirit.
Tears well up now as I remember what I saw that day, what I heard that day, what I've felt that day. But I wasn't alone. That was the beauty of the day, the sense of togetherness. That sense of hope. The idea that all will be well as long as we stay together, as long as we stand together, as long as we live together. That day gave me back my faith in the humanity.
I've got photographs and video of the day. But they can not portray the true essence of the day, of the occasion. Within these photographs, lie trace memories, faint impressions of the day as a whole. As nothing could present the day and what that day represented for the communities that were present.
Hunting the Wounded

Beige-heeled, she struts
along the soft cushioned carpet of the Houses.
She has no net, she has no arrows,
but plenty of willing hounds and a gun.

With deep-seated breaths she ripples the air.
Crushed it tumbles down
her throat to her stomach
feeding her scorn. There really is no alternative.

With her handbag poised,
she crashes out of the black door.
Flashing light bulbs and provoking questions
can not disturb her iron composure.

She was only a grocer’s daughter
brought up on self-reliance not unity.
In broad day light, she shoots a 15 year old boy.
The rest will come, suffering the same slaughter.

I must say at this point that the people I have worked with and met through this Institute; the members, the committee, the ex-miners, the wives and children, have been very open and generous with their time, thoughts and memories. I’d like to thank them.
Hunting the Wounded, like other poems I have created for the collection, SEAM, out in January, came about from an interview with a committee member, who for a while was the only woman on the board. I find it amazing how many people mining has touched throughout the years and miles, one way or another. And how one woman, really, Maggie Thatcher who wanted to bring down the unions, used that 15 year old boy, the miners to do so.
With The Face of Coal, I suppose I wanted to prove, or show how the mining industry wasn’t a male dominated world as I’d always thought it was. I wanted to research into the women’s/the children’s/ black people’s involvement and contribution within mining.
What I am working on at the moment are a number of ink and pencil drawings that I hope will to pull together, will represent the whole of the industry, the men, women, children, but also the social side, the allotments, the pigeons, the being underground but also the life above ground.
I suppose I should finish now as others usually start. I’ve noticed in the number of events I’ve attended, in relation to mining, how those involved, the speakers usually begin with their connection to mining, either through them working in the industry or a family member doing so. Why they do this I can only really think of one reason and I think it’s to share with the audience, no actually show the audience, who are connected to mining in some way themselves, evidence that s/he is one of them, that they are from the same mining stock. S/he tries to make those connections.

Therefore, I feel I have to continue this tradition myself, and put my credentials on the table.
Thomas Richard Melgram, my mother’s father, did a number of jobs in his life, as you can see here he started off as a boxer, earning the money to feed his 12 siblings.

Later in life, he became a miner. He worked in the Havannah Pit, up near Hazelrigg, Newcastle. That is all I know, if anyone can shed any more light on it please get in contact. I remember though, that he would put on a corset and go out at night. Then come back hours later and peel the corset off, and scratch his back like hell. So this is my personal connection to mining so to speak. I hope this at least lets me into your circle, into your private club as I’ve heard that miners and mining communities are a ‘funny lot’ in fact a different breed.

But no I’ve got another connection. I have been down a mine. Over the summer I got the opportunity, thanks to John Crompton to go down Boulby Potash Mine, in Cleveland.
I know this is different to a coal mine. But I went underground. I didn’t know what to expect, a bucket of coal? A bucket of salt or diamonds?
The trip was much more valuable in terms of fuel. The trip down this modern potash mine fuelled my respect for the miner. It was hard heavy labour dangerous labour that I can not begin to imagine was like. Only a miner knows that experience.

I’d like to finish with a poem I created after my journey underground and later from talking about the experience with others who went down the mine with me.

The Synchronised Cage

When I give the signal
the ritual begins.
Let the cold iron curtain
pull towards you.
Glimpse the world you depart
through diamonded wire mesh.
Tread the space carefully
as you take the strain with your arms.
Steady.
There is movement
into a disorientating darkness.
You can be confident
that my stillness is matching yours.
Open your mouth to the air
thick with small heavy particles.
Rub your tongue across your lips
and taste the salt and something else – fear?
The important thing is to empty your mind
and forget the world above.
Open your lungs
and breath the stagnant black air.
Relax.
With all this practice
our progress is bound to be worthy.
Let the rattling metal soothe you
not jar. As the last fracture of sunlight
disappears allow the dark to invite you.
Eyes wide shut, shooting through the bowels
of this earth, let your tears and fears
roll with mine, in harmony.

Coming Soon

2008-10-04T15:28:00.001+01:00

I recently completed a lecture within the Mining Institute titled Creativity within the Mining Institute.
I'm rushing off to Spain , so people pop back in a couple of weeks time to read the lecture and see the power point presentation.

What am I?

2008-09-25T21:04:00.000+01:00

My real name is ancient,
laid down layer upon layer,
year upon year.
Yesterday my name was level,
a dark substance hidden from view.
Today my name will be fire
as my value is recognised and mined.
Secretly, I know my name is precious.

The Lost State

2008-09-23T19:52:00.002+01:00

The project The Lost State is inspired by the demise of coal mining. I, as an artist, began investigations into the details surrounding the closure of mines in the North East region. I've produced a series of largely black and brown still lives as a means of an artistic inquiry into a tragedy that is nearly impossible to reconcile. More so, however, the images from The Lost State read as an honoring tribute to an industry and its people which are greatly missed.

Mattie Goes to the Pigeons

2008-09-15T19:54:00.011+01:00

When all the day had fallen down and
the moon was in position, pale and proud,
he left the house, heavy coat and cap in place,
he left his self in the still warm bed and went out
to sleep with the pigeons.

Inside their shed that was hung with dust
and webs, the pigeons roosted in a row,
eyes closed, heads tucked to heated breasts.
They didn’t seem to mind an old man
sitting in the midst of them. When he

stayed, disturbing the air, his shoulders
too big for the coop, the pigeons on either side
moved in closer to him, took him into their
feathered breathing until they dreamed
of chrysanthemums blooming pink

at the top of the allotment. Dreamed of
plump juicy marrows peeping out
from under big floppy leaves. Tall
leeks standing in rows like soldiers,
feet planted deep in the soil, ready.

The reality, days run into one, bumping
and rolling into and over the next since
he lost the reason for sleep; the ache
in his muscles, the fear in his belly.
Now a different fear grips him, a kind with no sky.

Keeping Pigeons

2008-09-15T19:54:00.009+01:00

I suppose I'm reading about keeping pigeons in relation to my artist in resident position in the Mining Institute. It was a pastime of the miners, a very popular one. I would probably be deemed disrespectful by calling keeping pigeons 'a pastime' because it was an art and a science.I know it probably sounds logical but I didn't really know that keeping pigeons means specialized structures are built to house the birds.These pigeon houses often contain specially constructed openings to allow the pigeon keeper to give his animals liberty for purposes of exercise while allowing them to re-enter the housing without special assistance from the keeper. At the same time these houses are constructed to keep the pigeons safe from predators and weather and give them nesting places in which to raise their young.

Hands

2008-09-15T19:54:00.006+01:00

He peels back the grease proof paper
around his bait. Squares of bread
disappear into the storm of his mouth,
harsh white bread against his awkward
black hands.

And I think of my marra
stroking my sweaty head as I cry.
Sharing his water and saying
everything will be alright.
His hands dig me out of the rubble.

My body free, he carries me in his arms
like a baby. Then, I love him.
Enough to return to the dust and dark
and watch him make
mince meat of his bait.

The Big Meeting

2008-09-15T19:54:00.005+01:00

I've been back from Scotland for a week or two now. I've been into the Mining Institute too. But I haven't really managed to get back to this blog until now.
But have I got so much work to share. It's amazing what you can create and fulfil once you put your mind to it. It's really amazing how things take shape, once you commit time and effort.
The Big Meeting refers to the Durham Gala. I've created a film around that event after my experience of it this year.
I've also decided to call the end of project exhibition, The Big Meeting. This exhibition will take place from Monday 5 January - Friday 30 January 2009, across the Mining Institute and The Lit and Phil. The title came about through the experience of researching the mining industry but also to reflect the different art forms, ideas and themes that I have explored throughout the residency and how these pieces are coming together to form the exhibition.
During this exhibition, I will also attempt the show the films, or more accurately the photo montages I have also created during this project. I have to work this out though first as the films are accompanied with music and the aim is not to disrupt the usual everyday activities of the places. So it's a work in process at the moment.
Also on the evening of Wednesday 14 January 2009, I will be reading from the poetry collection created during this residency. Some of the poems I have posted here on this blog. But I have created a lot more since. The collection is called SEAM. This is where I started from, my interest in the sedimentary layers of coal. And this is where I will finish.

Cleveland Potash Limited

2008-08-26T22:01:00.002+01:00

I went down a potash mine today. It was a unique experience.
An experience I was lucky to have. A life-affirming experience.
I can honestly say that I would be useless as a miner. I don't have the strength of character or the physical strength to work the face, day in and day out.
I take nothing away from the men and women mining today by saying they've got it hard but not as hard as the men of the past who would have been breaking the coal, lead or potash seams with their bare hands. A pick, a shovel and brute force, in much more cramped conditions than today. Day in day out, long drawn out shifts. I couldn't do it.
Even the miners I met today still have it hard. There might be the cutting machines breaking out the potash and the shuttles taking it to the conveyor belts, to take out through the shafts, but the men still have to work theses machines and vehicles miles underground and miles out to sea. 34 to 45 degrees, humid dust filled air. At times hard to breathe. Each breath in and out is coated, weighed down with dust. The dust is in your eyes, mouth, nostrils, ears. Its under your skin.
I have to admire and respect the men and women who continue to make their lives as miners.
I know I couldn't do it.

Change of Shift

2008-08-23T18:02:00.000+01:00

After days of rain,
the sun shows up
through the kitchen window.
Knuckles, show white,
grip a mug of tea.
Untouched bread and dripping
sits solid, silent.
With bowed head,
the sun plays on my neck.

I just want to be.
Stay here forever.
But.

I hear the tick tock.
the gates slam,
the heavy steps
of shuffling feet.
Then the mournful wail
hailing the change of shift.
Calling us back, away
from our surface life.

I just want to be.
Stay in this sun filled world.
Forever.

Underground Forest

2008-08-21T18:49:00.004+01:00

They didn't have to bring us here.
Leaving the vast and shimmering world behind,
we, tiny men with knotted muscles,
are sunk in a cage,
into the sunless world.
Like wild swans,
we bruise ourselves as we try
to fly underground.
The air is hushed like a stone.
With the potential to spark,
we rock in this forest of seams.
Nothing makes sense except pain.

Treasure

2008-08-21T18:31:00.003+01:00

We're here because we like to keep things simple.
We like to think of nothing but this life,
but we know they'd be nothing without us.
This place is here for us.
This place is ours.
This coal is ours.
All we have to do is draw it out.
All we have to do is share.

Holidays

2008-08-03T10:36:00.003+01:00

I'm off on holiday for a couple of weeks, so depending on my moods, will effect whether or not I post anything here. The time away could well do me good, and allow me to return with some fresh eyes. There's so many strands that I've started to explore that I need to pull together. Time is moving fast and things are only going to get faster as September rolls along and workshops in the community. If only I had more time, I'm simply skimming the surface at the moment. Anyway, I'm off for now.

Allenheads

2008-07-27T11:33:00.004+01:00

I visited Allenheads yesterday with a few artists as there is a center for contemporary arts up there.
While up there we were given a guided tour by two lovely graduate students on residency with the centre.

We found this photograph on a desk in a blacksmith's shop. These are women miners.

There were extensive lead mines in the village. The opening to mine shafts are still visible amongst the landscape.

These women were phenomenal.

Work, Rest and Play - 003

2008-07-18T22:07:00.000+01:00

Work, Rest and Play - 002

2008-07-18T22:06:00.000+01:00

Work, Rest and Play - 001

2008-07-18T22:05:00.002+01:00

The Presidents' Wall

2008-07-17T13:21:00.002+01:00

Bearded.
Moustached.
Bespectacled
and not.

These are the walls
adorned with
black and white
photographs
of the Presidents.

Handsome.
Wise.
Suited
and not.

These are the walls
adorned with
black and white
photographs
of the Presidents.

Women.
Workers.
White
and not.

This is my wall
adorned with
the missing
black and white
photographs
of the Presidents.

the stain glass haiku

2008-07-14T13:20:00.002+01:00

excepts from a sequence
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within" ~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

I
stain glass windows
bevelled deep, pieces of glass
as the sea ice melts

V
metallic salts added
to warm malleable glass;
vermilion stain

XI
the last of the sun
abstract green on glass:
a hill, a shield, the ocean

XX
deep in the shaft
it is night all day long
no miners sing

XXII
yellow stain
snug fit, a rigid frame
withstand the test of time

The Miners

2008-07-12T21:01:00.002+01:00

The Banners

2008-07-12T20:57:00.001+01:00

The Brass Bands

2008-07-12T20:53:00.002+01:00

The Big Meeting

2008-07-12T19:24:00.003+01:00

It's hard for me to find the words to describe what I witnessed today.

Amazing just isn't enough. But it was amazing and much more.

I saw people laughing and enjoying themselves with their families, three or four generations.

I saw young children walking with a rope in their hands, a rope attached to the colliery banner.

I saw pride, solidarity and strength today.

I went to the Durham Gala not knowing what to expect. What I found there was beyond all my expectations because it is a totally unique affair. Nothing could have prepared me for the day.

There was the still and quiet before the bands, people manoeuvring into position.

There were the police out in force but part of the day, as they talked and walked with the marchers. There were the bands and banners. Brass bands and banners.

Brass bands and banners that walked down over the bridge and stopped to play to the dignitaries on the balcony of the county hotel. And did they play.

These were young and old musicians together playing with pride, playing for their communities, playing for their history and their futures.

It was so emotional to be there to be amongst the crowds. The crowds that might be drinking at 10 in the morning but crowds of people who are wearing smiles and carrying a generous spirit.

Tears well up now as I write this, as I remember what I've seen today, what I've heard today, what I've felt today. But I wasn't alone. That was the beauty of today, the sense of togetherness. That sense of hope. The idea that all will be well as long as we stay together, as long as we stand together, as long as we live together. Today has given me back me faith in the humanity.

Today was one of those beautiful days that I will cherish for years to come.
I've got photographs and video of this day. But they can not portray the true essence of the day, of the occasion. Within these photographs, that follow, lie trace memories, faint impressions of the day as a whole. As nothing could come to represent this day as it was so magical. I would like to thank my husband, Alan, for being part of this day, he was such a gem. And I would like to thank all those lovely kind people I met along the way today who showed were generous with their smiles, time and words.

Roll on next year. See you there.

Yard Chart 003

2008-07-06T15:16:00.002+01:00

Yard Chart 002

2008-07-06T15:15:00.002+01:00

Yard Chart 001

2008-07-06T15:09:00.000+01:00

Fiddle

2008-07-05T12:50:00.004+01:00

William (Willie) Neilson, St Lawrence Square, 1971

Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen (Photographer)

In the room where the sun is marmalade pink
and the net curtains parted are frayed and sad,
vulnerable,
sitting with his back to the mirror
is Willie playing his violin.

His hands are heavy on the strings
as his heart remembers his marras gone
in a cloud of dust, underground or over a lung.
A dying breed. Let us preserve him.
Sadness is an empty bird cage for company.

Dark Times

2008-07-05T12:37:00.003+01:00

The street lamp
glows over the staiths.

A ship rolls in
and rolls out lower,

leaving only black dust
and vulnerability.

After the Strike

2008-07-01T21:09:00.003+01:00

After Sîan Hughes

This is a seamless change, and I will learn
to go back into the home without screaming.
It is only right to find myself alone
all day. It is only right to keep quiet
and for no one to know my thoughts. I will adjust.

Already I have gotten used to the sound of my thoughts
squealing around in my head day after day.
It is almost like being empty to me, almost
like the days themselves. I will learn
to close the door, turn aside and breathe.

The Miner's Wife

2008-07-01T20:25:00.002+01:00

In the dark of the museum unhallowed arc,
they have glassed up an archetype of the fight,
curling the once supple fingers of her hand into a fist,
mortified pushing the air – Scargill’s Slag.

The closing mine her night terror, her newly
minted political mouth is open demanding justice.
And her fixed eyes dare anyone to cross the line.
Her fighting flesh, committed to the cause, is stuffed.

Her humungous heart, containing infinite
possibilities of human kindness,
is a festering sore drip drip dripping
poison into reproduced community veins.

Subdued to just meat, her brain, once active
and organised, is dull and heavy.
Every miner has stood on her back.
Every child has suckled on her breast.

Her mighty arms that wrapped everyone together
are leaden to extinction in this glass tomb.
In the dark, her magnitude is masked,
the memories of her monumental strength begin to die.

Sheila

2008-07-01T20:17:00.002+01:00

‘See that Kitchen?’ says Sheila,
‘That’s me life, noo.’
The concert room in the Colliery Club,

rows of tables, set out
with knives, forks and spoons,
glitter like gems.

Tiny Sheila, feather-weight,
wiry, lean, a whippet,
puts on her pinny.

Pleased to see you, she sets another place.
Once kept indoors
looking after Jackie and the bairns

now the life source of the Club;
chief cook, server, bottle washer
as five days a week

meat and two veg
are dished up to miners
with a smile.

A little whirlwind.
She stirs the heavy pan as community
spirit dances around the room.

A sea of heads are bent, feeding,
tugging at her,
needing her care.

‘Am not sure how we keep gannin
me and the lasses.’
She stares, eyes dark

as the black seams.
Bright as steel, and hard,
sharp as a pick when roused.

Sheila and her soup Kitchen
vital to the community
like the mine that does not close.

Planning - Thinking Out Loud 004

2008-06-22T21:35:00.004+01:00

I've also got some ideas circling about 'Women and Work'. We now know that women did work down the pit at some time. We now know that when this was made illegal women still worked in some capacity with mining, even if it was just sorting the coal out from the waste or playing in the colliery brass band.

I'm beginning to look at Easington, and the Miner's Strike of 1984-85, as the women of the mining community were heavily involved in keeping families fed and men's morale high.

S.E.A.M. ( Save Easington Area Mines) was a local campaign set up to fight pit closures which organised rallies, pickets and food parcels. Women were involved. Women's contributions, women's work is an overlooked area of study. Hopefully through my work with a few writers' and community groups this neglected area will be explored and brought to light.

Planning - Thinking Out Loud 003

2008-06-22T20:55:00.003+01:00

I've heard of the Comrades Club, Morpeth. I love that name. The social club was also part of the community. There would be a social club in each village where the miners would go to let off steam, drink, play dominoes or darts. Where the women weren't allowed in the bar.

Some are still going but the focus has changed. The young who get are there for the cheap drinks not the community spirit. Familiar faces are a thing of the past. This got me thinking of that Sting song called 'We Work the Black Seams' and the loss of that way of life and the miners who have 'sunk without a trace'. I must use these ideas and issues within some kind of visual art, still working on it but there's something there.

Planning - Thinking Out Loud 002

2008-06-22T20:53:00.002+01:00

By the way I've completed complete a three paintings called The Black Seam Series.
Again I'm exploring colour and the lack of it underground. But then black or the darkness can take on many different shades, light and dark, shadows and seams.

I'm fascinated with colour in relation to a series of mining drawings that I found in a book. The book has black pen and ink images of early scientific illustrations and statistical date in relation to the physical environment and mining machinery. I'm working on some kind of overlaying/collage of them onto coloured paper.

I'm continuing my search into indentured labour especially in relation to any coastal collieries. Holywell has come up. I'm still interested in sea coal and the community of people who lived on the beaches making a living by collecting coal washed up by the sea. I've watched Seacoal by Amber Films which was a good beginning.

Are there still people who collect coal off the beaches around the world?

Planning - Thinking Out Loud 001

2008-06-22T20:02:00.006+01:00

I should be really using this space as a notebook or sketchbook as my mind is overloading with all the ideas I want to pursue in relation to this residency.

So far I have concentrated on Ellington and Lynemouth collieries. From this study, I have produced a short film/photo montage and a postcard series.

I am now shifting my focus to a Newcastle pit, Havannah, over near Hazelrigg. Probably because my granddad used to work there. I've also been talking to some local people who remember the mining times and sense of community that developed around the pit.

Once the pits closed, the work dried up and people either moved on or stayed and struggled. In some cases, the special terraced housing built to house the mining families are knocked down. The last remnants of any sense of community bulldozed.

Newburn, 1968

Dogs howl in cobbled lanes,
running between ribbon-built
terraces, running down into the Tyne.
Rooms, two up, two down.

Look down, Derwent Avenue.
Community spirit thrives in
each other’s back yard.
Everybody knows everybody’s business.

The Glassworks, Havana Pit,
Spencer’s Steelworks put
food on the tables;
black pudding, pigs trotters

and freshly baked stottie cakes,
from The Beast, warming the
night-clothes. With a mantle hugging
family photographs and the clock.

The way it was.
Until the swinging ball
crashed through the walls,
levelling close-knit homes.

Coal Dust

2008-06-15T19:26:00.002+01:00

The William Pit Disaster, 1947
After Bob Beagrie

What do you think of the dust covered man,
who trails the old wagon roads of Whitehaven,
with baby weary steps as if the dark
is gaining fast, a living dark taking
on a hundred and four different shapes and shades?
And every Sunday, he walks down slow to
Parton church to see the ghosts of William
Pit, to hear their hearts beat once with his own?
You know it’s rude to stare but you observe
as he lifts his eyes to heaven – is it
the shameful truth of survival running
through his mind that triggers dust, coal black?

If you should see the dust man, walk away.
Don’t try to sympathise, just walk. Don’t stay.
A living miracle from that black day,
his guilt there, festering, never at bay.

Ignore his coal black clothes, his thick mourning
suit. Those rough calloused hands in prayer. Don’t gaze
like a gargoyle at his colourless eyes
or at the tear tracks through dust covered cheeks.
Just turn away, turn down another road.
Don’t study as his pale puckered lips tremble
as he whispers his trespasses to God.
Days are coming down. Deadly afterdamp
stalks under the peak of his cap, pulled low.

If you should see the dust man, walk away.
Don’t try to sympathise, just walk. Don’t stay.
A living miracle from that black day,
his guilt there, festering, never at bay.

No one else is troubled by the smell in
the atmosphere or the volatile dust
behind his each step he takes, like his very
essence is returning to dust, to dust.
He’s stuck in a perpetual wait for
the pit horn to sound him back to the yard,
the in-bye workings of the Six Quarter
Seam. He’s the last miner of the darkness
at the bottom feeling that rush of wind.

If you should see the dust man, walk away.
Don’t try to sympathise, just walk. Don’t stay.
A living miracle from that black day,
his guilt there, festering, never at bay.

Didn’t anyone mention he’s covered
with slag from dwelling at the brow overlooking
the mouth, staying for the bodies to be
carried out – one by one – like waves upon
his steel capped toes. Harsh survival dusty
shale, everything around him has become.
His skin is not skin but a cloak of black-
ness and dis-ease that surrounds an ice cold
heart clasping a dead marra in embrace.

If you should see the dust man, walk away.
Don’t try to sympathise, just walk. Don’t stay.
A living miracle from that black day,
his guilt there, festering, never at bay.

Easington, August 1984 - 003

2008-06-13T23:51:00.003+01:00

Like a fish trapped in concrete,

I stand with my marras on Ascot Street.

The coppers are our opposite number.

It's the principle.

Yet, let me go back to the place

where the night is worked.

I just want to work in peace.

To feel the dust coat my skin.

To feel my muscles take the strain.

To complete a shift, rise in the cage

and feel the rain on my cheeks

and see the strips of reds, yellows and greens.

Just let me provide for my family.

Just let me be a man.

Easington, August 1984 - 002

2008-06-12T19:09:00.002+01:00

Our lass must be using a new soap powder,
this uniform is itching like hell.
Can't reach it though, on duty in the wall.
Human barricade on Ascot Street.
If I nipped off home,
would anyone miss me?
There's enough of us.
Poor buggers don't stand a chance.

I hate these stand offs;
visors down, ready for anything,
don't look no-one in the eye.
If I did, they'd see my weakness,
I understand them.
In another time, I'd be standing
with them. Man to man.
Instead I struggle in deep water.

Know thy enemy.
My enemy is the miners strike.
My enemy is my brother.
My enemy is my father.

Easington, August 1984 - 001

2008-06-11T21:43:00.003+01:00

Easington: August 1984,

Keith Pattison, Amber Online

With Jackie in my arms
inside the net curtain, we stare
down from the bedroom window
upon a row of heads - the 'poliss'.

Their helmets shine like beetles'
backs in the afternoon sun.
A head turns, an expressionless
face behind reinforced plastic.

Twinkling tiny lamps are buttons

on lapels, shoulder to shoudler

as they block Ascot Street. Our men
stand opposite in their shirt sleeves.

The 'poliss' don't see men.
They don't see men out of work,
men losing their identities.
The 'poliss' only see their foe

that needs to be contained like vermin.

Women and Work

2008-06-10T13:29:00.003+01:00

Part of this project is to look into how women have been represented within the mining industry and community. Apparently, in Victorian times, both men and women worked down the mine. Women working in the mines caused a problem because work was carried out in the nude. So women had to get out of the mines. But that didn't stop them venturing back into the mines fully clothed at a later date.

In William Pit, Whitehaven, probably known for the disaster of 1947 where 104 men were killed, they had 'Screen Lassies'. 'Screen Lassies', a Cumbrain term, were women involved in the separation of different sizes of coal on a conveyer belt with bars set at fixed distance acting as sieves. Women separated the coal from dirt and other impurities. The process became increasingly mechanised, and before the conveyor belts women used to use riddles or large sieves, sorting the coal by hand. Pressure to push women out of mining work emerged usually in contexts of economic depression and with support from Miners' Unions.

Getting Back In

2008-06-04T05:00:00.003+01:00

I've been away for a week to Scotland. It was good to get a rest and a change of scenery.
And the scenery was beautiful. Back now with a new found enthusiasm with the tasks of moving this residency along. Things need to start on the volunteer front first with a tour. Workshops need to be put into the diary and maybe a trip to Woodhorn again. I gained some information a few week ago from a realiable sources that up in Woodhorn archives I'd find out some information about indentured labour which might illuminate the slavery focus of this project.

So to Woodhorn I will go.

Thank You Volunteers

2008-05-23T13:47:00.003+01:00

Yesterday, we had our open event at the Mining Institute. It was good to see a few people turn up with an interest in The Face of Coal. I hope these individuals plan to return and support this project. Their help is much needed as I feel that we can only skirt the surface of the resources available within the Institute within the time given.

It's exciting to see the project take shape and to feel that there are so many avenues to pursue in a creative way. This project's objective is to use the resources and stories found within the Institute as inspiration, as a spring board into a creative piece or pieces.

The end result hasn't been pinned down as that's part of the creative process; reading, mulling things over, writing something, creating a piece of art. I'm enjoying the process as I begin to express my response to stories, newspaper articles, even maps, in a visual or written way.

Hidden histories may be brought to light throughout this residency. Hidden facts and hidden feelings and thoughts. All are valuable and taken on board as each perspective adds to the whole picture that is created.

Just like any stained glass window, there are many different facets, shapes and colours that are brought together to create the whole master piece.

Call For Volunteers - Calling Again

2008-05-20T22:53:00.000+01:00

The Face of Coal is the project that Andrea Macdonald and Sheree Mack, Artists in Residence in The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineering, are working on from April 2008.

The Face of Coal will explore trade links within the North East in relation to the slave trade. As well as, exploring the representation of women, children and black and ethnic minorities within the mining industry itself.Your support is needed for this project.

Readers and researcher need apply.If you are interested in taking part, please come along to the open event which will be taking place on Thursday 22nd May, 2008, within the Mining Institute from 1 to 3pm.

For more information contact: mas.sample@gmail.com

Work, Rest and Play

2008-05-19T04:24:00.000+01:00

Black Woman in Unusual Places Series ( Body )

2008-05-18T12:13:00.002+01:00

My Body is a Temple

Black Woman in Unusual Places Series

2008-05-18T11:55:00.002+01:00

This a project that has been mulling around for a few months which has been spurred on by my time in Mining Institute and my visit to the Masonic Temple a few weeks ago.

It stems from the idea of the recent drives by organisations to create/increase access to cultural production for people whose voices are often excluded from mainstream society. Those hard to reach groups such as women, families, ethnic minorities are being targeted to encourage them to utilise facilities on their doorsteps that they have looked upon as closed and excluded from.

The thing is these heritage sites are foreign and alien, still carrying the signs and symbols of a colonial history and culture which has not been always open to the 'other'.

Black Woman in Unusual Places series is a reflection on this phenomena which is sweeping the country but for how long? How long will the Black Woman in Unusual Places be in vogue, be wanted? Maybe just as long as there's money flowing that way to fuel this current initiative.

Black Woman in Unusal Places Series ( All )

2008-05-18T11:51:00.004+01:00

All Together Now

A Fascination With Black and White

2008-05-15T12:00:00.006+01:00

I'm back in the Mining Institute today. I've been looking at some negatives donated to the library regarding different collieries around the North East region. I am interested in the Lynemouth and Ellington, the Big 'E', collieries. I've found a few that I'll need to scan to get a better idea of what each colliery looked like and how they worked. These are the few images that remain regarding these collieries as the actual buildings, structures and machinery have been removed, erased from the landscape, but not forgotten.

There are a number of negatives detailing the process of getting rid of scrap coal and rubbish. A big machine would power the coal through a dark funnel, spraying out scraps onto a fishing net kind of metal plate. This in turn would sift out the bigger lumps from the smaller lumps that would be no use to anyone.

This machine took on a metaphorical significance for me. This is what happened to the miners themselves. They got sifted out, the small fry rendered no longer useful and relegated to the scrap heap, with no chance of securing gainful employment there after. While the bigger, richer business men simply realigned their focus and profits to some other money making scheme.

All the time I'm rifling through these negatives of a harsh bygone age, my eyes dart towards the white light streaming through the stain glass windows within this institute. Their illumination, texture and colours pull my eye constantly making me gasp at their beauty. Forcing me to appreciate the gift of sight, of hope, of life.

I'm trying to marry the two images, the negative scrap heap and the positive stain glass windows together. Almost like the negatives black on white, white on black.

Freemasons

2008-05-11T19:25:00.004+01:00

I attended a rednile Factory Night on Friday night. This was an artist's date which took place at Queen's Street East Masonic Temple of the Phoenix Lodge in Sunderland. It was an interested building for a society which is cloaked in secrecy. Of course there are the Freemason's who meet at Neville Hall also, sharing the space with the Mining Institute.
I suppose in preparation for this art evening I did some reading up on the Freemasons. There's not a lot that you can find out except the idea of what ever they do when they get together is carried out through rituals. There is also the stone masonry link. I believe that their symbol or emblem, the large compass must have something to do with stone masonry. But again it's difficult to find out due to the lack of knowledge about them within the public domain.
I was inspired by the masonic temple as it got me thinking about the rules and rituals of a lodge. How women are not allowed to join. Women have created their own lodges and guilds in a similar vain, such as The Rainbow Girls or Job's Daughters.
I also got thinking of the materials that stone masons would work with. Sedimentary rocks such as limestone and sandstone would be carved into ornate buildings such as Durham Cathedral, with hammers, trolls and pointers. These rocks are quarried out of the earth, won from underground, just like coal.
I have images in my minds eye of the rows, or strata of sediments under ground; geological diagrams that give an indication of what layers lie under the surface of the earth that can be mined.And again I think of women not being allowed, or not being present down, not seen or heard.
All these ideas are running through my mind, the Freemasons, mining institute, sediments, layers, strata, geology, hammers, picks, compass, women, maybe even black women. Some how I need to marry all theses ideas, images and issues into some kind of visual display, some piece of art. As of yet the vision, the product is not quite there, it will only become clearer through the doing, the playing the working through the images. We'll just have to wait and see.

Woodhorn Then

2008-05-06T21:21:00.002+01:00

Call For Volunteers

2008-05-04T10:48:00.000+01:00

The Face of Coal is the project that Andrea Macdonald and Sheree Mack, Artists in Residence in The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineering, are working on from April 2008.

The Face of Coal will explore trade links within the North East in relation to the slave trade. As well as, exploring the representation of women, children and black and ethnic minorities within the mining industry itself.
Your help is needed to help support this project. Readers and researcher need apply.

If you are interested in taking part, please come along to the open event which will be taking place on Thursday 22nd May, 2008, within the Mining Institute from 1 to 3pm.For more information contact: mas.sample@gmail.com

Just Musing

2008-05-02T14:54:00.003+01:00

I've been in the Mining Institute three times this week.
It sometimes happens with residencies that you go to the place more times than you plan to.
You start to live the place. The place starts to get under your skin.
You start to hear the place's heartbeat.
I'm not sure if I got much work done each time that I went in, but I do feel as if I'm getting to recognise the place.
I'm just musing at the moment in regards to my focus for the residency.
We know that children went down the mines, as early as 10 maybe. Really as soon as they were old enough then a child could be down the mine carrying loads of coals, pulling horses, or leading the horses into the mines to bring coal out.
We know that women, may not have gone down the mines themselves, but they's be up at one in the morning for husbands coming off shift. Raking the fire, filling the bath tub. Breakfast to cook. When the husbands go off to bed, then it's time to get the eldest son up for his shift. Another breakfast, Boots clean, bait to fix. When he goes out to work, it's getting the young kids up for school. More breakfasts and the cycle goes on. When did the women of the house get any rest?
And we know that the mines, the industry, the wealth would not have been possible without the miners themselves.
I suppose what I'm interested in are the individual people their stories. Not the grand sweeping gestures but the day to day living, feelings, being part of a mining community.

'River-god Tyne'

2008-05-01T11:46:00.006+01:00

Heavy dark wood

manipulated into a face.

The 'River-god Tyne',

graced with a generous smile.

A shrine with a garland of plenty;

salmon from his clear waters,

rich cloth from his trade,

ears of wheat, no belly goes hungry.

Abundance overflowing like

the basket of coal

tumbling down about his head.

The bedrock of this city.

Yet grave looks his face.

Dark seem his thoughts

as all this prosperity

comes at a price - death.

The Great Northern Miners

2008-04-28T18:41:00.002+01:00

I attended the book launch at the Mining Institute of the recent publication by Tyne Bridge Publishing, The Great Northern Miners.

The lecture theatre was packed with ex-miners and their families. It was a sight to see. Another occasion where the enormity of the task hit home again.

How could any art that I produce do justice to this proud, hard, dangerous livelihood?

The thing that stuck out today was that they majority of the audience were old ( not meaning any disrespect here). But they were of an older generation. An older generation of ex-miners, miner's sons and so on. They are a dying breed. There are no young miners waiting in the wings to fill their shoes. This a dying heritage, a dying way of life, a dying service to the world as it was. Therefore, all I can do during the term of my residency, and hopefully beyond, is keep it alive.

Woodhorn Colliery

2008-04-27T12:37:00.006+01:00

Yesterday, I took a trip up to the museum at Woodhorn. I heard that they had an exhibition about a coal town so I thought it would be useful to my research to go visit. I wasn't prepared really for what I found there.

The museum and archives are based on the site of Woodhorn Colliery. The machinery of the colliery are still there, incorporated into the museum's design or is it the other was round?

In a way this attraction made me feel uncomfortable. I felt this attraction was cashing in on the North East heritage. I felt that if this was the only way of remembering the contribution made by this industry and the communities which fed it, through making the left overs a tourist attraction, then it is distasteful. But then I have to ask myself what am I doing which is any different, as I embark on my artist residency as the Mining Institute?

I know I went there to find out information and to get a feel for the industry. I had my detached research head on. So that meant that I didn't really think about what the trip would do to my husband, who's granddad died down the mine in 1973.

The exhibition starts from the experience of a 13 year old lad going down the pit for the first time ending( for me) with the 1984-5 miner's strike. It was heart rending, eye opening and effecting. Whole communities of families, who for decades fed the growing Empire's demand for coal, were in a matter of 12 months crippled and destroyed by a Thatcher Government(and Scargill had a hand in it too). It wasn't economics, it wasn't in the name of progress. It was class warfare, where the working class families came off worse and have never recovered from since.

I'll keep exploring this trip to Woodhorn and the surrounding villages in the continuing posts.

Sea Coal

2008-04-23T12:58:00.003+01:00

The Northumberland Coast

Strangely, all coal was often referred to in the Medieval period as 'sea coal, even if found miles inland. For example, in 1298 there is a record of 'sea coal' mined at Hett, near Spennymoor, even though Hett is more than 10 miles from the coast.

The term Sea-coal may have been used because coal arrived at other ports such as London by sea - more often than not as a shipment from Newcastle. However, a more likely explanation is that sea-coal was originally found in a washed-up form on the beaches of the North-East and other parts of the country.

Along the Durham coast, coal lay deep underground, but in Northumberland, where the coal measures outcropped along the coast, coastal erosion would have caused much coal to be washed ashore naturally. The 'Sea Coal' now washed ashore and occasionally collected on the Durham coast may be a waste remnant from coastal colliery activity in more recent times.

In the earliest times coal washed ashore was the most familiar kind, so when it was later found inland, it was still given the name 'sea coal'. However the Victoria County History of Durham (1907) suggests that by as early as 1313, the original meaning of sea-coal was forgotten and that it had come to mean 'sea-borne coal'.

From: http://www.northeastengland.talktalk.net/CoalMiningandRailways.htm

Seeing Colours

2008-04-22T00:19:00.003+01:00

I had an interesting day today when I went along to a talk at the Northern Print studios, down Stepney Bank in Newcastle. The talk was centred around colour. There were two speakers, one looking at colour from a practical level within her work and the other one looking at colour scientifically; how we can measure an individual's colour preference.

These talks were interesting for me. They got me thinking about my use of colour. At the moment, there is a lack of colour in my work.
For this blog, I purposely used muted tones; blacks, greys and blue to link to the subject of coal, mining, blackness and darkness. But a comment today got me thinking. The idea that miners spent all day down the mine, in the darkness. Can you imagine what colour would look like to them once they came out of the mine?
I imagine that colours would be sharp, brilliant and vibrant.
I intend to explore this idea further through my work inside the Mining Institute.

Inside The Mining Institute ii

2008-04-20T16:32:00.005+01:00

The New-married Miner

2008-04-19T12:12:00.002+01:00

My shift is over that was night time all day long.
My love, it's lowsan time. Alone among
these dog-tired colliers my drouth's for home.
Bank up the fire with small coal till I come
and before tomorrow I'll not think again
or how sore and small the space I have to hunker in
as at the pithead, black against the sky,
coggling front wheel clicks and squeaks,
my cold bones ache as hard for home I pedal
still blacked up like a darky minstrel.

My long path home is starved of light
so I must do without.
No moon tonight, so round and white -
its Davy Lamp's gone out.
Frost edges every blackened leaf,
black snot-flowers on my handkerchief.

Heat my bath scalding
and, bonny lass, I'll make
the white lace of the lather black.
Squeeze the hot soapy flannel
at the nape of my neck
and scribble long white chalkmarks down my back.
Put the dark fire to the poker
till the hot flames burst in flower.
Stretch out the towel and I'll stand up.
Hold and fold me
rub and scrub me as hard as you can
till in your white warm arms I'll end up
a pink and naked man, my love
your pink and naked man.

Liz Lochhead

Inside The Mining Institute i

2008-04-18T16:21:00.005+01:00

In the Beginning...

2008-04-18T16:00:00.000+01:00

We had a meeting today at the Mining Institute, with Jennifer the librarian, to try and get our heads around the project. It's still early days, and there's not many days to play with, so trying to pin down our interests and themes is a must, at this stage.
I have an interest in the link between coal and slavery. From my research last year as the Lit and Phil's writer in residence, I know there is a secondary link between coal and slavery, with coals being shipped down to London. This coal could have subsequently been used to power the ships sailing to Africa to capture Africans to take to the Caribbean to work the plantations.
But maybe the reality isn't this simple.
I also have an interest in the location of coalfields, especially coastal mine fields. I have a connection with the sea, an inner yearning that draws me towards the waves, that I hope to explore within, this project, The face of coal.

The Face of Coal

2008-04-18T15:43:00.001+01:00

Two artists, Andrea Macdonald and Sheree Mack, will be in residence in The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineering, working across a range of different art forms.

We are interested in a number of themes.The first theme will identify the trade links within the North East regarding coal in relation to slavery, the movement raw goods and the production of commodities such as sugar, tobacco and coffee. The second theme will relate to the representation women, children and black and ethnic minorities within this historic collection of mining industry in the North East.