Jo Lawrence - Artist in Residence

My intention before I leave the studio in two weeks is to make various props for the film,
including one giant glove 4 metres high, resolve Glover’s mask, make a few reptilian gloves
and a world map which shows the edge of the world. This is for the scene where Glover falls
asleep (in storyboard below).
For the huge four metre high glove I needed a snakeskin or image at the highest resolution,
it was more difficult to find than I imagined. I tried every imaginable source for a real
snakeskin, from zoos, museums, faux snakeskin suppliers, without success, and I was
just contemplating contacting snake owning societies when Diane Hofmeyr dropped into the
studio by chance and just happened to have a small snakeskin bag at home.
Very kindly, she went home straightaway to get it for me.
It was just a little too real for the glovebeasts, but it gave a great reference point.
In the end I generated my own orange skin image in Photoshop using layers of found imagery.

Ariadna Fatjo Vilas, the editor, is working on an animatic for Glover, and I have found some
brilliant soundtracks as a starting point for music for some of the scenes.

Selection of storyboard images from ‘Glover’.

I have also been auditioning for a new ‘Glover’ as Amit Lahav is not available when I need to film
in February. It means that the Glover mask will need reworking around a new face. I contacted the
Central School of Speech and Drama. There were a surprising number of actors with faces and hair
that were appropriate for the period, and I have chosen Stephen Pucci. Visually he appears to fit
something of Glover’s qualities as I see them, and could belong in the early 1900s once his
hair is slicked and gelled.

Stephen Pucci

My visit to the Dents Factory and Museum in Warminster felt like a step back in time. John Cundick (Quality controller at Dents) showed me the glove collection, and presented me with lots of extraordinary curiosities, much of it stored in dark plans chests, and every glove had a story attached. There were the smallest gloves in the world, a bit larger than a stamp, the blue suede gloves belonging to the joker (Jack Nicholson) in the 1988 batman film that were so popular that they were mass produced several times in numerous colours, gloves that fitted into a walnut shell, numerous photos of glovers at work, and glove moulds, hand measuring devices and glovers sewing machines.

Images from the Museum
clockwise from top left

Vesta Tilley’s glove shown by John Cundick (Curator of Dents Glove Museum)
Nelsons gloves, still with the bloodstains from the battle of Waterloo
Gloves and pattern made for Michael Keatons Batman in 1988
Cream lace armlength glove 1880-1900 (French)
Assorted glove moulds and glove irons
Striped glove (one from a range of brightly coloured leather gloves from 60/70s)

Below are some gloves made for a joke, only covering the fingers ends.

Afterwards I was given a tour of the factory by Roger Brett, and I have decided to film part of ‘Glover’ there. I will have to film around the florescent lighting but the racks of glove templates and gloving machines are very evocative of a past era. The close ups of Glover’s hands will be actual glovemakers from the factory dexterously stamping out glove leather and cutting it with shears. This will be composited with the stop motion footage of Amit as ‘Glover’.

Gloves from the V&A collection

I made an appointment to view the glove collection held by the V&A. The curator Louisa Collins unwrapped glove after glove from its protective tissue from inside dark oak drawers. Some gloves were very unusual, some with graphic bold shapes and patterns, some miraculously stitched miniature leather gloves for dolls and children, even a pink nylon arm length glove, which had what appeared to be a rippled spine, it could have been a creature from the ocean bed.
I will probably use some of the photos as a basis for film credits for Glover.

Now I am focusing on gloves, it seems they are everywhere. I am also gaining a collection of real gloves and images. Some of them have stories attached. One small brown glove has only four fingers, shown to me by a friend who had repeatedly bitten his little finger through his leather gloves when he was five. Another friend, the artist Clare Goddard had boiled some gloves and gave me a shrunken tiny glove, which contained the lining still at its original size, like a ghost of an adult past.

Finding someone to play the role of Glover meant for a time I had to scrutinize potential male faces wherever I went. In previous films I have mainly used faces of friends or copyright free photos Personality is so important even with still images, so I had to also watch people at a distance for a time. So, apologies to the barista in Prêt, who must have been mildly disturbed when I stared at him for so long trying to consider if it was entirely fair to ask him to cut his shoulder length hair. Also, I would like to apologise to the cyclist with red hair and a beard who I briefly ‘stalked’ in the Euston Road. It was dusk and it is hard to observe someone at close quarters when the light is fading.

Glovers

At last I discovered Amit Lahav, through his mother who works at the museum. Amit was perfect, he works in physical theatre and even uses puppetry in his shows. I think he will bring a very particular quality to Glover, he has an elastic and expressive face, there is something watchably Buster Keatonish about him and to work with him using stop motion animation will be an interesting process.

Link to Amit Lahav in The Race by Gecko

Test masks for Glover

I decided that to make a complete film was ultimately a more rewarding use of my time at the V&A. I can’t seem to help my enthusiasm for working with narrative. Storytelling is something I find completely absorbing.
The process of developing an idea into a film for me is very much like producing the ideal environment for a chemical reaction in a laboratory.
The Ebstorf map, the gloves and the bestiary animals were my chemicals. I was mixing a serious theme with a lighthearted one. I hoped that a story would somehow coalesce from all these elements.
I made drawings of every possible association of ideas between the themes that I could think of in my sketchbook and left them to fuse to see if the elements would spark a reaction. Eventually, after filling one and a half sketchbooks a rich theme emerged from all the thoughts which had the right balance of humour and seriousness. I drew a very rough storyboard, and an unexpectedly satisfying and cohesive story emerged which took me by surprise.

Essentially, the film is the story of a glovemaker. He travels in his dream to the edge of the world and encounters a series of ‘glovebeasts’.
Just as in the Ebstorf map they are a departure from the familiar and they are contemporary versions of the extraordinary creatures imagined in medieval times. They are part beast, part human, part glove. After his nocturnal wanderings the glover wakes up and finds he has brought something real from his imagination back into his everyday existence.
In the film I wanted to show the representation of our individual psyches and projected fear of the unknown as an external situation, and mix it with the potential absurdity, theatricality and humour suggested by the gloves.
The use of gloves, and therefore the hands are an extension of our own bodies, ….and so our fears of the unknown are only the unknown aspects of ourselves. Like shadows on a wall assuming a fearful shape which on closer inspection can show our fears to be unfounded or even ridiculous. The story is also about the value of creative imagination in everyday life. Most of all this film is a chance to play with scale changes and experiment with puppetry.

These bestiary creature images came from The Pierpoint Morgan Library

The web links to these amazing sources were introduced to me by Dr.Catherine Yvard who worked with medieval imagery at the British Library. The images were so vital and intriguing that I was virtually immobilised when I saw them. This image from of the snake creature using the gateway as a means of casting its outgrown skin was so directly relevant to my story I was even unable to leave my computer to go to lunch. The story of ‘Glover’ incorporates a conflict between a hero(a glovemaker) and a glove creature. They fight to the death and the skin of the beast is appropriated by the glovemaker.

Snake casting skin

This next image was again extraordinary. The image of the knight attempting to overcome his sinful nature as represented by a number of devils wearing a variety of woolly suited and winged outfits was so unusual I had to include it here.

Seven sins

Winged Barbie

I will be drawing a range of glove designs for the glovebeasts for the film. I plan to refer to bestiary images, medieval patterns and animal images. I added new wings of chicken feathers to the winged Barbie which was a strange find at a charity shop. The Barbie was really just an aside, and won’t be used directly in the film.

Since I have been at the V&A I have been following a kind of trail. I have always been drawn to the curious or odd aspects to inanimate objects and their stories. The prospect of finding starting points for film-making was daunting, there are 4.5 million objects in the museum and I could make a film about anything. A random walk through the galleries became potentially hazardous, often resulting in yet another object apparently clamouring for attention from it’s display case. Each one seemed to say, ’make a film about me!’ For a few days I took short cuts and avoided the galleries - I was beginning to feel over-saturated with potential ideas.

My initial interest was to explore a number of themes for films which could be part of a small collection of animations for inclusion in an animated cabinet of curiosities. Each film would be based on ideas developed from a single object and it’s stories or associations.
I decided to make a selection from the other way round, and begin by viewing the collections through a more personal lens. I thought about themes and some as yet un-aired pre-occupations that had surfaced repeatedly in previous sketchbooks. I knew I wanted to work further with puppetry as well as other animation techniques. Photography would continue to play a large part as it effectively blurs the boundaries between the real world and an imaginary one. I also wanted to play with perceptions of relative scale.

I discovered that the Gamble Room at the V&A was the perfect place for ideas generation. Lulled by the coffee into believing that it was just a leisure moment, ideas almost jumped onto my sketchbook pages. This doesn’t happen as easily for me in the studio, ideas often have to be approached sideways on, it seems they often need time spent in a cafe, a bath or on a train journey so you can catch them obliquely. My studio wall has quickly become like a sketchbook page, a large scale extension of my thoughts, preoccupations and influences. The continuous thread of connections is so obvious when everything is viewed collectively.

While exploring various objects as starting points I came across the image of a pair of gloves in the British Galleries. Just as a powerfully engined car can suddenly appear from nowhere on a motorway, my previous interests were overtaken, and almost blown off the road by the sighting of these gloves. They had gauntleted cuffs elaborately embroidered with animals and seed pearls and had delicate cream kidskin fingers.

Pair of gloves
museum number 1506&A-1882

Like a chemical reaction, the initial thoughts I had had about the visual potential of bestiaries began to fuse with the gloves. I also found I had an unexpected and forceful appreciation of medieval imagery, particularly illuminated manuscripts, previously this period had never caught my imagination, in fact I had even avoided it. I read a little about bestiaries and I was particularly intrigued by the distorted reports from medieval travellers of sightings of strange creatures seen at the edge of the world. There are tall tales of creatures, of vegetable sheep and monopods, cinnamon trees, and men with heads in their chests.

Creatures from The Medieval bestiary

Link to The Medieval Bestiary

I had recently watched ‘The Medieval Mind’ (Professor Bartlett-bbc4) and had been struck by the stories told by early travellers to distant lands, sightings of fish men caught off the coast of Suffolk or Green men discovered in Essex. Also mentioned were stories of travellers who were astonished to find that the rumours of dog-headed men living in Peru were untrue. In fact the inhabitants they encountered were equally puzzled as they had thought the dog-headed men originated from the travellers own far distant homeland.
The programme referred to the unacknowledged and imaginary as really being parts of ourselves. This chimed with ideas I had about some experiments I wanted to try with puppetry and animation. In the animated world everything is possible.

I arranged to meet Stuart Frost. He is part of the Concept team who steers the development of the new Medieval and Renaissance galleries opening at the V&A in November 2009. His breadth of knowledge of medieval history was inspiring and he suggested relevant sources which sparked further ideas.
He introduced me to the Ebstorf map from 1300. The original was destroyed in 1943 during the bombing of the Hanover State Archives. A replica will be installed in the V&A’s new galleries. The map is extraordinary, it is 2.5 metres square, and shows Jerusalem at the centre with Christ’s head at the top, and his feet and hands reaching to the edge of the world. The Ebstorf map appears to introduce a fourth continent on the periphery - ‘terra incognita’ - the unknown world. It is inhabited by imaginary creatures, such as gigantipedes, monopods and noseless men.

Ebstorf map 1300
link to Wikipedia entry

Stuart also recommended the book,’Image on the Edge’ by Michael Camille. Camille discusses the nature of the images found in the margins of illuminated manuscripts, where the resistance to medieval constraints found startling originality and expression in the form of visual comment.

It was perfect for my line of thinking… In a section titled’ The world at the edges of the word. I came across this quote by
Camporesi (1989):

People’s fears were exorcised by dumping them on those who inhabited the edges of the known world, who were lesser in some sense;whether troglodites or pygmies…..the outskirts are felt to be infected zones, where all kinds of monstrosities are possible, and where a different man is born, an aberrant from the prototype who inhabits the centre of things.

I want to apply the notion of the unknown existing just out of sight of our rational thought, and represented by these imaginary beasts. There are extraordinary creatures - the stuff of dreams or nightmares featuring in the world of cryptozoology. Current fears about scientific development leading to aberrations echo the views of the medieval world. The periphery has changed location, now it is outer space or a laboratory where the strangeness is expected to exist.

The idea that these imagined beasts are also part of us, the inside of ourselves perceived in the world out there is something I find fascinating. I found this quote (sourced from alchemical writings) which neatly encapsulated this idea.

“Understand that thou hast within thyself herds of cattle
. . . flocks of sheep and flocks of goats
. . . understand that the fowls of the air are also within thee.
Understand that thou thyself art another world in little,
and hast within thee the sun and the moon, and also the stars.
Thou seest that thou hast all those things which the world hath.”

And so I am currently exploring connections found between all these ideas. It never ceases to amaze me that when you start following a single train of thought through research you find unexpected links between apparently unrelated elements. The presence of the hand at the edge of the world on the Ebstorf map was serendipitous for the direction of my ideas for an animation, as I want to base the film I will be making on gloves and glovemaking.

The hand at the edge of the world
(detail from the Ebstorf map)