Work in Progress

Building on the work that I did relating to Mrs Pool(e), I am continuing to reference marks and traces left behind, reminders that others have been here before me. My current focus is a suitcase full of old diaries and the sense I find in them of the obsessive recording of everyday life; and of symbols standing for things that happened, their secret meaning now lost.

Within the work I am experimenting with various media to create fragmented layers and stains, evoking glimpses of the past.

It's sometimes hard to know when a piece of work is finished. Sometimes it feels incomplete but I'm not sure where to go with it next, so I live with it for a while as I contemplate what it needs. Other times I continue and then think I should have left it at an earlier stage. And sometimes I know when it's complete! 

Feel free to comment as it's always useful to have some feedback.

To go further (in progress)

JZZ at work.

When it's gone, it's gone...

If Vestiges was your favourite, it's too late! You can still see it along with the rest of the You Lived Here Mrs Pool(e) exhibition at Hebden Bridge Town Hall until 4 March 2016 but after that I'm not sure where it will be; when I went over the other day as it had a red spot beside it! 

Relics of the Past

Relics 1 - 20 all started out in life as working ideas and test pieces but I really liked their fragmentary nature and wanted to do something more with them. I cut, tore, stitched, glued and worked them to make the twenty different Relics with their roots in marks and traces of the past.

You can see images of all 20 Relics here

The Relics are currently for sale on my shop page 

You Lived Here

Just dropped off the following piece of work for the 1 in 4 exhibition which will be held in Salts Mill, Saltaire 6 - 10 Oct.

This piece of skirting board, removed from our bathroom during renovations, reveals layers of history; traces of people who have lived here and made their own mark on this house. Old hand-cut nails held it in place, They remind me of grave markers, marking the lives of those past inhabitants. Each of them has stood at the window and seen the mill and moors beyond that I see. Their everyday lives may have been very different to my own but, nevertheless, we have all experienced a range of human emotions as we live and age.

Still There

In the last fortnight I have had two messages about this work. The first was someone who wanted to buy it (always exciting). The second was Anne who, as far as I am aware, I have never met. Apparently she saw the work at Saltaire Arts Trail recently and wrote the following poem in response to it whilst sitting on the wall outside the house where I was exhibiting.

STILL THERE

Still there,
Ice Age paintings,
After thousands of years,
Faint markings on cave walls.
Eyes of tiger,
Still there,
In the jungle,
Hanging on by its claws,
Because the creatures who draw pictures,
Took land,
Chopped forest down,
Survival or greed?
We can destroy
Or we can preserve,
To make sure paintings and tigers
Still there.

Anne Dowson

(Inspired by painting “Still There” by Jenny Zigzag, at 15 William Henry Street, Saltaire on the Saltaire Arts Trail 2016.)

I would love to have met you, Annie Pool(e)

Mrs Pool(e) has become an important part of my life over the last couple of years. My artwork has grown and developed out of the search for who she was and what trace she left behind. I am so grateful to a woman who I have never met and never will do as she died long before I was born. When I put the exhibition together at the end of last year I decided I needed to lay Annie to rest but it was not to be! Recently, in a cemetery about 5 miles away, I stumbled across her grave whilst looking for someone else.  I hadn't expected to find her there at all and was quite taken aback and emotional. Here she was with her parents Grace and Samuel Todd, husband Charles and son Samuel in a family grave. 

Annie Poole's family Grave

Once again, I felt that this brought to an end my search for Annie but it was not to be. A few weeks ago I went back to the family history research I'd been doing and discovered a new link to someone in America researching the same Poole family. Her great uncle, still living in the north of England, is Annie Poole's grandson. He phoned me the other day and we had a lovely conversation! He is 90 and remembers her from when he was very young. His uncle Samuel, Annie's son, was a tailor and used to make his school trousers and caps for him. 

Last year's write-up in a-n.co.uk/events #43

As I prepare for my exhibition in Shipley, I've just re-found this lovely write-up from last year. I'm not sure who wrote it, but thank you very much whoever you are!

You Lived Here Mrs Pool(e)
Jenny Zigzag’s new works navigate the mystery of Mrs Pool(e) who once lived in Zigzag’s home. Exploring the traces and markings that make up a building’s physical memory, along with the enigmatic bundle of historical documents that came with the house deeds, Zigzag uses a variety of media and found objects to conjure up this elusive life once lived, but scarcely recorded.
7 November – 20 December 2015, South Square Gallery, Thornton, Yorkshire
www.a-n.co.uk/events/you-lived-here-mrs-poole

Embers: sold!

This one has sold and will be making its way to Sheffield. 

I based it on the small tiled fireplace in the main bedroom of my house; probably a 1930s modernisation but now part of the history of the property. The form is reminiscent of a grave stone and the writing on the tiles relates to people who have lived in or owned the house: a memorial to those for whom this has been home.

A place called Home

At long last I have created a website!

You can still read my old blog at jennyzigzag.blogspot.co.uk but from now onwards I will post news, updates, images of current work and so on here instead.

If you'd like to receive invitations to exhibition openings, news and updates about my current work, please drop me a line at jennyzigzag@gmail.com or via contact on the home page of this website.