Museum of Photocopies

I Never Tell Anybody Anything #4

A reminder that life can be flippant. O, cleanse my flippant soul. By the powers that be, o, stop me from thinking everything can be a joke.

A papier-mâché badger. In Clover. — A photograph of a negative of a photograph taken by the curator of a friend, in a pub car park on the Whalley Road. At his feet, a papier-mâché badger. The curator had made the badger as a wedding present for another friend. Taken shortly before a journey to Bedford to present the badger. And shortly after eviction from the pub.

Photograph of a photocopy of a pen and ink sketch by the curator of two Soviet Cadets. Drawn around 2005. From the book, ‘Russia from the Inside’, by Robert Kaiser and Hannah Jopling Kaiser.

Witchfinder Generals #3

Everyday, we feel the weight of the presence of the New Age of the Witchfinder Generals. Blinding everything with a cruel light. Projecting a grey film just behind our retinas. Photocopy and use these images as charms against their powers.

A photograph of a colour photocopy of a collage made in 2003. The figures are sketched in dip pen and ink and depict a vote being cast in the USSR. From the book “Russia From The Inside”, by Robert Kaiser and Hannah Jopling Kaiser.

A photograph of a colour photocopy of a collage, inserted into the press release of Ceramic Hobs’s LP, Oz Alice. The curator found this image increasingly interesting in the light of our ever-present digital lives.

I Never Tell Anybody Anything #3

A mini-series of posts dedicated to our Patron Saint, (somewhat slipped), Eddie B. Why should we tell each other anything anyway? What’s the point? Every time we do, things just get worse.

A photograph of a photocopy of a dip pen and ink drawing. The term, ‘Circular Beast Exhibits’ is taken from a song by the band, Guided by Voices.

Photograph of a photocopy of a sketch in byro and pencil taken from a Vice NL magazine, around 2007.

Witchfinder Generals #2

We switch on our devices and see the New Age of the Witchfinder Generals. Perched on their glass thrones. Photocopy and use these images as charms against their powers.

Photocopy of a photograph of a performance in the SUB071, Leiden, sometime in 2007. A reminder of Little Gwion dipping his thumb into the digital cauldron.

A photograph of a photocopy of a pencil sketch of Ainu women from the book, “Life and Survival in the Arctic”. To be used as a charm against Witchfinder Generals.

Witchfinder Generals #1

All hail the New Age of the Witchfinder Generals. Wrapp’d in a cloak of goblinned code. Photocopy and use these images as charms against their powers.

Photograph of a photocopy of a digitally altered drawing made by the curator of a photograph of a “typical” Dutch family from the early 1900s. The digital extras were originally added by Mr N Spong. The drawing was shown at the “Music Shouldn’t Look Like This” exhibition, Leiden 2004.

Photograph of a photocopy of a sketch made by the curator of Hungarian horsemen. From a postcard bought at the Museum of Ethnology in Budapest, 2003.

I Never Tell Anyone Anything #2

A mini-series of posts dedicated to our Patron Saint, (somewhat slipped), Eddie B. Why should we tell each other anything anyway? Our emotions are being turned into clean code. Very soon we will be shared to death.

Members of the CPSU, pen and ink drawing, photocopied, then extra colour applied with coloured pencils. From the book, Russia from the Inside by Robert Kaiser and Hannah Jopling Kaiser, 1980 (Withdrawn from Lancashire Library 1991.)

Pen and ink sketch of a photograph of Uncle Lawrence on a day trip, late 1940s. Flanked by two bowler hatted men drawn from the curator’s imagination. Colour pencil added to photocopy.

I Never Tell Anyone Anything #1

A mini-series of posts dedicated to our Patron Saint, (somewhat slipped), Eddie B. Why should we tell each other anything anyway?

I Never Tell Anybody Anything #1 — Members of the CPSU, pen and ink drawing, photocopied. From the book, Russia from the Inside by Robert Kaiser and Hannah Jopling Kaiser, 1980 (Withdrawn from Lancashire Library 1991.)

Accrington Red Brick Coalbunker Interzone

Coal, brick (whether sooty or bright red), clay, soil, stone. These are my elements. I adore the smell of coal cinders. Like the dun green colour of the painted prefabs and shelters then still to be seen at the top of Moss Hall Road, the dank, tangy smell of cinders constitutes a very early memory.

Every week the coal man (a jolly, noisy chap I recall) would drop off a few bags in our concrete coal bunker in our new house on Whalley Road. I would then clamber onto the structure, and try to look into next door’s garden, for their cat Milly (was it Milly?), an irascible tortoiseshell. Or peer over the road to the NORI brick stacks. I would bang my drum (a 2nd, or 3rd birthday present) and wear my dad’s Heworth Colliery Band hat.

My past is my playground.

J. Clegg throwing the ball back to the curator and A. Curran. 1974. Photocopy of dip pen sketch. Photocopy coloured with pencil.

Heworth Colliery Band. 1972. Sketch from photograph. Photocopy of byro sketch. Photocopy coloured with pencil.

Interplanetary Accrington Trench System #1

Whether through tending allotments in Felling and Accrington, throwing up improvised saps at Gallipoli, Antwerp and the Ypres salient, or mining East Lancashire (by way of Altham Pit), my family has had long experience of digging. I used to dream of giant horses cavorting, huge limbs and half torsos writhing in the mud under our house; maybe the spirits of buried pit ponies, returned in giant form to remind me of this subterranean heritage.

When my parents moved from the bungalow on Moss Hall Road to a semi detached (with a back garden and a backs) on Whalley Road I grasped the opportunity to dig trench systems in the overgrown, toad-infested No Man’s Land of our backs. I would wage war with spirits seen in the Larousse Dictionary of Mythology (introduction by Robert Graves). My brother went further, seeing the garden as a form of Stalag, tunnelling under the trellis to escape into the Eden of the front garden.

My past is my playground.

Richard the Photocopier in warlike pose, with cricket stump. Early 1975. Photocopy of pencil sketch of photograph. Coloured with pencil. Tea stain.

Masked Indian Dancer. Bella Coola, British Columbia. Drawing from the Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology (1959). A mortal enemy of the curator. Photocopy of pencil sketch. Coloured with pencil. Tea stain.

Our Visions Became Laden With Willow-Wept Grief

To the people of the British Isles. Although these are times of great division and no little confusion. Remember, your greatest strength is your easygoing tricksiness. I have witnessed this at first hand in factories and at check-out counters. Keep it up.

Drawing my strength from Watkins, I bring balm in the form of two early 1990s photocopies, aligned on the Mill Hill-Felling leyline. A North Yorkshire spanner is thrown amidships, courtesy of some pre-Foot and Mouth sheep. Staring into the camera with a disinterested patience – and the countryside not caring.