Today was the second stage of the ‘Evocation’ project but this time I was one of the four writers, not the photographer. So unfortunately I don’t have a picture with all five performers as I did with the first stage – only of the four paintings and one of me with the painting which ‘evoked’ my story.
David, with a picture of a Norwegian ffiord gave us a wonderful mixture of myth and fact spanning from Viking times to the present day; Jo, with a drummer boy and his fife-playing companion on the battlefield, had us shedding a tear; James, given the unlikely subject of a couple of horses in a snow storm, had us in stitches. Sam (Samuel Moore) surpassed his usual brilliant self with astounding virtuoso performances of his flamenco compositions ‘evoked’ by a combination of the picture and the writer’s interpretation of it.
Unfortunately I cannot give you the three other stories as the authors may wish to enter in some competition and previous publication would prevent this. So, sadly, you have only my ‘Evocation’, as follows.
An interesting paragraph
Haynes King, who painted this picture called ‘An interesting paragraph’, was born in Barbados but came to England in his 20s. The two female figures are typical of many of his paintings but what has struck me more is the window, which also appears in several of his works. As I am a keen photographer it was his use of natural light, reflected from the newspaper to illuminate the reader’s face, which particularly appealed to me. I think the light and the newspaper are clues to the time of day: quite early in the morning.
When I first saw this picture I immediately thought of the Brontë sisters, though the environment is wrong – a quite humble cottage rather than a vicarage. Nevertheless, I chose to think of two young spinster sisters, relatively well educated so they can read and are quite well informed of world events. Research failed to uncover the date of the painting, only the date it came to this Gallery. So I chose to date the scene as 1865 and believed these sisters would have read Wuthering Heights and something from Charlotte and would have been aware that the male pen names of Currer Bell and Ellis Bell hid two talented women authors. Intelligent, well-read, they surely have dreams of meeting their own heroes and taking at least a small step up in society.
So, we might imagine the following conversation:
“Here’s an interesting paragraph Emm. It says that slavery has been abolished in the United States of America. What do you think of that?” Sitting in the window reading a newspaper by the morning light, Lucy enjoyed scanning the paper and calling her sister’s attention to things she found interesting. Although she could read herself, Emily was happy with this usual arrangement.
Emily thought deeply before she replied: “It seems strange to me that a nation which fought so hard to win independence, freedom, from Britain, could retain slavery for so long. But of course there’s effectively been no slavery there for a while. How long ago was it abolished in the British Empire, thirty years or more?
“Yes, something like that,” Lucy paused, then continued, “But I think we still have some kinds of slavery here, in particular for women. Because we can’t vote for members of parliament it’s very difficult to change that. It seems sad to me that the Brontë sisters felt it necessary to publish their wonderful stories with men’s names for the authors. Otherwise no one would have taken them seriously.”
Emily, always the more proactive of the two sisters, said thoughtfully, “Maybe we should try to do something about it. It’s all very well leaving it to a few ‘posh’ women in London but maybe we could push from the bottom of the pile. I kept the story about those women in London who set up a society; we could write to them. What did they call themselves? I can’t remember.”
“Oh, I think it was something like ‘The Chelsea Society’, but that’s not right. It was ‘the something society’, a place in London but I can’t remember exactly,” Lucy replied.
After a minute’s silence, Emily shouted “I’ve got it, ‘The Kensington Society’, that was it! Please see if you can find that story I cut out.”
“Yes that was it, and I cut another from the newspaper about some movement in Manchester. Maybe it would be better to write to the women in Manchester; we could ask about forming a group here, even go to one of their meetings. We could get a train from Leeds”. While speaking, Lucy jumped down from her window seat, shuffled through a drawer, then, “Here they are”, waving the cuttings.
“What does it say about Manchester?” Emily asked.
Lucy quickly scanned the cutting: “Oh, only that some women were thinking of setting up a society, not that they’d done it. But there is a name of a woman who was interviewed about the idea – Lydia Becker. There’s no address, but we could write to the paper I suppose.”
“Yes, let’s do that Lu. Meanwhile we can make a poster proposing setting up some kind of group locally and see what response we get. We might even get some more free-thinking men, our own Mr Rochesters!” Emily paused. “Even a Heathcliffe would be interesting,” she added, with a mischevious glint in her eye.
So, there we’ll leave our sisters, busy with paper and pen, with the hope that they did find their heroes though they would not get the vote in their lifetimes.
It was not until 1918 that women got the vote in the UK, and they had to wait another ten years before all women over 21 got the vote on the same terms as men. But the slavery continues even today, for example by women frequently being paid far less than men for the same job. Can you believe that, more than 150 years after my fictional conversation evoked by Haynes King’s painting?
You’ll find more information about our club, ‘Writing on the Wharfe’, on a recently created public Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/writingonthewharfe/
September 24, 2018 at 7:58 am
[…] Literature Festival ‘Fringe’, several appearances in Ilkley or Menston library, and two appearances in Leeds Art Gallery earlier this year, has this year been invited to present ‘Evocation‘ as part of the main Ilkley festival […]
June 10, 2018 at 9:15 am
This area of inspiration for writing is excellent, I feel men are just greater risk takers than most women like or choose to be. They ask for more money even though they may not get the job instead of being safe.
June 10, 2018 at 10:51 am
That’s a really interesting point of view Charlotte. The first ‘Evocation’ line up – 50/50 female/male – reflected fairly well the club membership. For the second it was originally an all-male line up (no more females ‘volunteered’), before one was asked to withdraw for reasons I won’t go into. Jo stepped in at the last moment – brave lady, you might say ‘risk taker’ – with a superb story, despite being our newest member.
June 5, 2018 at 5:11 pm
This is cool!
June 5, 2018 at 6:13 pm
Thank you. I’ll acquire one of your novellas when I remember how to get into my Kindle acct; my attempt just now failed. I’m just maybe halfway through attempting my first ‘novella; the longest so far has been around 1,500 words!
June 5, 2018 at 7:56 pm
I have a tricky time with the kindle stuff too. Prefer the simplicity of good old brick libraries for accessing books with leisure and ease, no purchases necessary- but, what a neat way technology has of getting things out there anyways.Thank you for wanting to check that out on kindle when you can. ✌
June 5, 2018 at 7:58 pm
What is your novella going to be about?
June 5, 2018 at 8:16 pm
Yes, I like ‘brick libraries’ too and spent some time in a rather beautiful one and posted from it a few times late 2017. The ‘novella’ in progress has the working sub-title ‘A tale of unlikely love in 60s-70s London’. You’ll find more about my wrestles with it at:
https://grumpytyke.com/2018/04/23/picking-up-my-long-story-again-trials-of-a-would-be-writer-research/
June 6, 2018 at 12:30 am
Managed to download ‘The White Coyote’. Look forward to reading it.
June 6, 2018 at 3:29 am
Wow! Thank you! I would love to hear your critique after.
June 5, 2018 at 8:10 am
Great read and great imagery, dear Roger. It makes my heart and mind ache at the possibilities of so many “objects” of beauty so close to us. Just reach a hand and a thought and it is ours. I wouldn’t call them objects as they are alive.
Thank you for your words 🙂 and indeed I should reopen the window. 💚
June 5, 2018 at 5:51 pm
I’d love it if you reopen the window Iulia, and I’m sure I’d be joining many others.
I may be one step closer to seeing you in Herestrau in August 😃
June 3, 2018 at 6:25 am
“We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without”.
Khalil Gibran
I have a few pocket books. They have collections of inspirational quotes or are small books of poetry, short stories, etc. The above, I.e. Gibran, is a favourite and another is Rumi.
“There is a window from one heart to another heart”.
Rumi
I wonder how many ‘window’ sayings there are that are apt to your insightful piece here. Great read by the way.
June 3, 2018 at 7:16 am
June 3, 2018 at 7:11 am e
Thankyou for your kind comment Gray and for the quotes. I have a blogging friend in Bucharest who used to blog a piece of art and an apt quote every week but she hasn’t been doing it recently; a pity as I learned a lot from her (I still keeo in touch with her off blog).
This project has changed completely my approach to pictorial art. I’ve previously said that two of my great loves were music then words, with ‘art’ a long way behind (with two great exception – van Gogh and Hockney. Now, belatedly, I’ll be visiting art galleries more often.
June 4, 2018 at 8:27 pm
Good read and a great activity to be involved in. I used to go to the Aberystwyth Art Centre. Mainly to see photographers and their exhibitions. Met and spoke with David Bailey. Got him to sign his book The Lady is a Tramp. Brandt, Bailey, Salgado, etc. were exceptional. But every so often paintings. I loved the contemporary exhibits. But haven’t been to a museum or art gallery for years now. I’ll have to change all that. Nice to hear from you again. Hope all is well and your intended holidays are being planned with gusto.
June 5, 2018 at 2:24 pm
Holiday and, who knows?, may be my next post. Things are happening 😃