James Unsworth

Today, James Unsworth gave a talk about his work. Although some of it wasn't to my taste (The video especially) I did like his style of drawing. He drew in a compulsive way, often with simple tools - perhaps not the content but his style of drawing was one to be envied - I really liked it.

I had previously seen some of his work before he gave the talk, and I'll be honest - I believed it to be thoughtless and grotesque. I still think it's grotesque, but hearing him talk about his influences and reasoning for the imagery I no longer have that opinion.

Woolf diaries

Today I bought Virginia Woolf's abridged diaries. She avidly wrote a diary, reading it is so interesting. She seems to be obsessive with vanity. Not the way she looks mind, more the way society looks. She has little habits of listing things, and she is always cleaning her silver cutlery.

The most prominent factor in the book is her big gaps of absence from writing, were the reader can only guess that being unwell has prohibited her from writing.

I have taken to writing notes of the things that she has written, like:

"One of the queer things about the suburbs is that the vilest little red villas are always let, and that not one of them has an open window, or an uncurtained window. One house had curtains of yellow silk, striped with lace insertation. The rooms must be in semi-darkness: and I suppose rank with the smell of meat and human beings. I believe that being curtained is a sign of respectability - Sophie used to insist upon it."

It's backwards.. Sorry.

Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?

I haven't spoken about Virginia Woolf in great detail as of yet, at the start of my project I was focusing more on her novel rather than the actual author.

Woolf was born at the start of the Edwardian era, although her birth was at the start of new beginnings she was raised in a stern Victorian household, her parents were both remarried with previous children. Woolf experienced heartache at an early age, her mother died when she was 13, quickly followed by the death of another sibling and then a few years later, her father passes away.

Woolf's mother.

Reading this information about her life, I quickly understood why she suffered from bouts of anxiety and depression, her family was important to her and losing them caused unbelievable heartbreak for her. The death of her parents was something she carried with her all of her life. I watched a short documentary about her and a historian claimed that her famous novel 'Mrs. Dalloway' was her way of proving herself to her parents:

“The adult Mrs. Dalloway imagines carrying her life in her arms as if it were a baby, and walking towards her parents who are both dead in the novel. And putting this thing that’s in her arms down in front of them and saying, this is my life, this is what I’ve made of it. And I’ve always feel that, that is autobiographical, and what Virginia was always doing. She was proving herself to her dead parents.”


The link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN_lpbEOzbM

Woolf continued having bouts of depression and periods in her life where she couldn't leave her bed. She found these times frustrating, not only did she have mental health issues - she was also incredibly frail. It is also believed that she suffered from anorexia, whether this is true or not is another issue, but one can imagine that she might have been, given how troubled she was. She even wrote a book on her periods of incapacity calling it 'on being ill'.
Another fact that should be mentioned is that, Woolf also hallucinated frequently when going through a 'mad' phase. She noted that one summer she believed that birds in her garden were chirping in Latin and that the King was hidden behind bushes cursing at her. 

Through researching about her I also found that, while she was at her sister’s birthday she fainted and then for the next few months, continued to have periods of fainting. Woolf found this incredibly irritating, as she wanted to write again. During this time she also suffered from severe headaches, and a racing heart. Upon investigation at the doctors, she was diagnosed with a heart palpation, or a ‘tired heart’. She really did have a rough time with illness; a remedy suggested to her for her headaches was teeth pulling, its effectiveness is questioned.

Her treatment is something that has interested me, and as a result I have become concerned with other Edwardian remedies and also a few Victorian tips and tricks. I am particularly interested in the diagrams that were used to illustrate the body and illness, I feel they look fairly similar to my type of drawing - heavy use of line and scratchy details.

Victorian textbook

I love the detail on this.