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16/03/2018.

Today I went to the museum for a second time and this time I was greeted by Wendy, rather than Donna. She took me into the office and I put my bags down. Then I was taken into the Herbarium and I picked out some of the specimens that I wanted to draw. These were all specimens from the Liverpool Botanical Garden.

I chose these because I wanted to make a collection of pieces for the museum in order to tell the story of this garden, that not many people know about because it was bombed in the war. Therefore by making an exhibition for the museum, more people will see the beauty of these specimens.

Below are the images that I took of the specimens (Credit to National Museums Liverpool, Liverpool World Museum). The images are my own photographs.

Then Wendy let me sit down and study these specimens and draw them, as long as I didn't lean on them or spill anything on them. Basically handling them with the care they deserve.

I adored every minute of this time in the museum as they really looked after me and treated me as one of their own. I was even invited to the museum coffee break!

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“Your poppet doll should have a human face, the heart of a human so it has human feelings and wear clothes that a person would wear. Then your poppet doll is complete.”

Then bind it with a spell:

‘I bind you (name), from doing harm to yourself and from harming others.’

This is my poppet doll. I tried to follow as many instructions as possible so that I could in keep with how it would have been made at the time. This in the form of it wearing human clothes, which I hand made myself dyed the fabric to make it grey. The fabric is like one they would have used, which is a cotton calico. I stitched a face onto a separate piece of material, which gave me a lot more freedom. I am usually about things being totally perfect, but this gave me restrictions that with thread you cannot be totally neat and I had to use those materials and nothing else. 

I am happy with the end result, it made me explore things I otherwise never would have done. It was hard for me to break out of a box that I had created for myself in undergraduate degree. But by doing this embroidery, there was no way it could be neat and I had to just go with it. But I like how this turned out.

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This is a drawing that I produced based on one of the witches that was executed in the Pendle Witch trials. Her name is Elizabeth Device and she was the head of the Device family who were all executed. 

The reason I wanted to put this on my research blog is because I want to see if there is any way that I can use this in my final piece. I feel that there could possibly be a way to use this as an embroidery piece.

I thought that I could embroider this face onto a piece of fabric and then stitch that onto the poppet doll I have already made. A poppet doll is something the witches would have used at this time to harm and kill people that they had bad feelings toward. But the people executing the witches would not have used this method whatsoever, it was completely out of the question. But by juxtaposing this by using a witches method of punishment and punishing a witch with a method that they would normally never use could be an interesting idea.

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Poppet Dolls.

So, its the Christmas break... finally. Which means time for me to get my ideas together and do some further research with the time I have off to finalise my idea.

The first thing I decided to do was find out exactly what a poppet doll is and therefore this can inform my work and it can be more in keeping with the time frame that it is from. I found an excellent website that was full of useful explanations on what exactly a poppet doll was and its uses. 

“A poppet is, for lack of a better term, a voodoo doll. It is one of the most commonly used implements in sympathetic magick, which entails the idea that “like creates like”. Thus, if you create a poppet of a person, anything to do to that poppet will affect the person it represents. Poppets are especially useful for spells that attract (or keep) a lover, heal, or banish. They can be used anytime you need to affect a specific person. Usually, a poppet is made out of cloth, but it can also be made out of clay, wood, wax, or other materials. It is can be filled with herbs consistent to the purpose of the spell and a few personal items (called taglocks, but more on them later) that tie the subject of the spell to the doll. Of course, you can always use your creativity and add your own stuff. If you don’t feel like using all those herbs, you could add some “filler”, such as cotton. Once you have your poppet, you’ll need to tie the doll to the person you want to be represented by it. After that, it’s completely up to you to decide how involved the spell should be. It could be for a week, or over in minutes. It’s your decision. So exactly how can a poppet be used in a working? Here’s an example.Say you wanted to banish a certain person from your life. You could make your poppet out of black cloth, and possibly put rue, birch, and/or garlic in it. Then you could bind his hands to stop him from meddling and toss him in a river or in a current that would carry the poppet away from you, which would symbolize him being carried away from you and your life.” http://www.everythingunderthemoon.net/spells/all-about-poppets.htm

It also had a chart based on what sort of fabric you should use based on what you wanted to use the poppet doll for. 

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Mike Lenz and Mike O’Shaughnessy Presentation Feedback.

After completing my embroidery, the class and I were asked to male presentations to show how our work had progressed from day one to now. We were told to treat it as though it was the real thing, (our summative presentation is on January 8th) and we would be given some written feedback in the coming weeks.

After finishing my presentation, which I might add I was extremely nervous for, I was ready for questions and feedback. Mike O asked me, “What did you mean when you said you dropped an idea because it wasn’t neat enough?” He was referring to a doll I had made which I didn't want to use in my project because of its untidy appearance. The doll is based on “Poppet” dolls from the book “The Daylight Gate”, which were made to put spells on unsuspecting victims. I explained my thinking and both Mikes said that they really liked this idea and it had a rawness that they liked. I should think about keeping my work in keeping with the time. This meant using no machines, using thread colours they would have had and the end result not being as neat as I might like. They also explained that I should stop apologising for my work and have more pride in it. Therefore leaving the embroidery idea behind and beginning to explore the “poppet” doll idea. Below is my first attempt.

I was extremely happy with the feedback I received, although I am now back to the drawing board and in need of doing some further research to finish this project and make it something I am proud of.

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I completed an embroidery as a practice and to show my tutor based on a scene from “The Daylight Gate”, where they describe the work space of “Alice Nutter”. The case of Alice Nutter is real and she was a witch who was tried and executed in the Pendle Witch trials. Her and her family were all burned at the stake. 

I wanted to embroider something that wasn’t too obvious for the reader and gave them something to do and thinking about. After talking with people in my class and explaining to them what my side was, they made me realise that scanning something like this in would make it lose its charm. So I had decided to make a tapestry, on what yet I’m not sure.

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Studio Practice

For my Postgraduate Level project, I decided to complete a project based on the Medieval practice of Witchcraft. 

I began with looking for a text to inspire my work. That was when I came across the book “The Daylight Gate”. It is a novel based on the Pendle Witch trials and although is a fictional book, it uses the names and identities of real people from that time.

It quickly became apparent to me that this book was full of amazing descriptions and imagery and this would be something I would love to illustrate. It also is able to really show how the lives of the people accused were completely robbed of them, even when they were innocent. 

I set to work finding imagery from the book and drew an image of a witches table and the items that they might use. Also having a love for embroidery, influenced by the work of Sarah K Benning, I realised that this would be a prefect scene to embroider.