ARTISTS TALKING

# 147 [1 May 2008]

 For those still in doubt over what constitutes art click on the following link.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7370842.s...

a group of artists are living in a museum with lice in their head. 

Seven German artists are living with lice in their hair in an Israeli museum for three weeks in the name of art.

The Berliners aim to stretch boundaries of what is art, saying they are toying with ideas about hosts and guests in line with a theme set by the museum.

"The idea is that we live in the museum as their guests, and at the same time we are hosting lice on our heads," said artist Vincent Grunwald, 23.

The artists are wearing shower caps to prevent the lice from spreading.

Milana Gitzin-Adiram, chief curator of the Museum of Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv, said: "Art is no longer just a painting on the wall.

"Art is life, life is art." 

# 146 [29 April 2008]

When I began this project into the collective memories of a community dealing with a taboo disease I little dreamt that it would include having men breaking down and crying on the phone as they re-lived memories of 50 years ago.

Listening to a tape recording of one such interview yesterday -I couldn't help wondering how much more suppressed grief there is around this subject not only  in the country but other countries too where they imposed this strict militaristic regime on children often in prison like conditions.

One interesting development is that another group has sprung up in the Southampton area which is beginning to explore  its own medical history and they have started a blog too. 

This photo of Winnie Gardiner ( if I manage to upload it on my Apple without having to resort to my partner's PC again!) is of a child who spent five years in this remote TB sanatorium and was treated for a disease she never had.

She came home aged nearly six years on calipers, a cripple from so many years in bed. Many years later it was discovered she had celiac disease, an allergy to gluten. 

# 145 [25 April 2008]

I don't believe it!.....I have just had an email from a girl I met in Iceland some 40 years ago.

She was a student , part of an expedition, and I was working in the British Embassy ( better not to ask what I was doing).

She is interested in medical history and she is thinking of doing an MA, She had picked up some leaflets and brochures from The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine and read an article on my project. 

It is uncanny the way things are slotting together.  Yesterday I edited an interview with an ex-patient now living in California who still has her original diaries from Craig-y-nos and another, still living in Wales, who has the same doll that was with her throughout her three years in hospital.

# 144 [17 April 2008]

Who writes history?

I ask this question after reading Jan Morris book:”The Matter of Wales”.

  I do not recognise this country she portrays  which is described as a “magnificent celebration of Wales and all things Welsh”, a country drenched in druids, mystic folk tales, grand houses and endless battles with the world I am writing about in “The Children of Craig-y-nos”.

On closer reading it is a book sourced on secondary or tertiary material - she has read extensively on   Welsh literature cultures, history,likewise  she has travelled widely throughout in Wales.

But has she spoken to the people?

There are a few paragraph eulogising the Welsh sheepdog. Fair enough.

She has watched some farmers are work. 

But there is no mention of the poverty stricken disease riddled world of  the  Welsh valleys in South Wales during the industrial revolution and even up to  the 20th century, a world where  women who had TB were forced to have abortions  part of a unspoken programme of unspoken eugenics  (“ we were told not to have children...if we did we were forced to have an abortion.,..they said it was for our own good”) and how this shaped the lives of men and women who were little more than serfs owned by rich English mine owners.

 Not even one sentence. 

No, this is the comfortable history of Wales. 

This is  the official side of Wales: cultured in a  quaint, charming, folksy kind of way produced from secondary and tertiary source material.

It has nothing to do with raw world of primary source material- ( oral history)  the  voices' of people from 50 60 even 90 years ago that’s  the basis of ”The Children of Craig-y-nos”.

 I am disappointed for Jan Morris is a travel writer I much admire.

# 143 [11 April 2008]

I have come across several accounts of children who tried to run away from Craig-y-nos, were caught and punished.

But only one who actually succeeded.

In fact she was a young woman. Her "escape" was remarkably easy: she simply walked out with the visitors and caught the bus home, a journey that took several hours and across the mountain range of the Brecon Beacons.

But it was dangerous thing to do because if you ran away then doctors would  refuse to treat you. In the case of Eileen Hill though the doctor ignored the regulations and continued to treat her.

# 142 [9 April 2008]

My 2,000 words a day regime is slipping - instead of 7.30am it is nearer  8.30am before I switch on the computer.  Still we are getting there..

For relaxation I trawl through some of the other blogs on this site and I am fascinated to read the ones from Glasgow School of Art as they prepare for their degree show.

Seven years ago that was me. 

# 141 [6 April 2008]

 I have received over 1,000 images  for my internet based community project  "Children of Craig-y-nos",  photos taken mainly by children using Brownie box cameras as they recorded their experiences of life  inside a TB sanatorium some 50 years ago. 

This is one such image, of a young girl, Ann Williams, also known as "Ann on Blocks" because her bed was raised on 12 inch blocks, who had tamed a wild bird which she fed daily from her balcony bed.

# 140 [3 April 2008]

BBC request 500 words on project update to tie in with the news item that we have been given a £5,000 Welsh Heritage Lottery grant.

# 139 [30 March 2008]

How do you know when an internet based community project works?

Well,  when you start getting e-mails from people saying the project has helped them talk about their childhood experiences and to bring out into the open a social disease that was once regarded as taboo.

 It is as if the simple decision to bring  those repressed memories out acts  as a liberating experience from that childhood trauma which so many of us experienced.

I was reminded of this yesterday when I got another e-mail:

“Great news  about the lottery funding. am pleased for you as you have worked so hard, but the most important thing to come out of it all has been the fact that you have helped patients meet up once again, it has also been therapeutic for many of us. I shall look forward to the exhibition in Swansea.” - Beryl.”

Looking through all my research notes  I find several from people who say it is too painful to talk about , except for a brief email or phone call -even after half a century.

This has been the most astonishing fact to come out of the project:   that there  exists so many people within the  community with unspoken about grief from a time when the emotional needs of children were never acknowledged.

Another woman has done an entire in-depth interview on email -because she can’t bring herself to talk, even on the phone, about those traumatic experiences of her childhood over 50 years ago.

# 138 [26 March 2008]

Great news! We have been awarded a £5,000 Welsh Heritage Lottery Fund grant to publish a "print-on-demand" book of "The Children of Craig-y-nos".

Just when I think that all my research is complete yet another email pops into my mailbox offering a social history gem complete with photographs - this time from the son of one of the first female doctors who worked at Craig-y-nos in the late 1920s, early 1930's. 

It is not clear how he heard about the project : was it on the medical grapevine or did he simply "google" Craig-y-nos?