I finally finished off the sailor automaton...Sometimes I spend a lot of time faffing in the final 10% of a piece. I spent a lifetime doing the gold titling, the final set of varnish, the covering of the silver screws in his joints. I no way should I have faffed for so long. He doesn't look that much different but in person he's a lot smarter looking.



I started a painting of a fox last week to sit inside the front of a clock i'd ripped off, no shots yet but here's the sketch for it


I think the painting itself has a long way to go, fur is the devil itself ot get right and since the painting is quite large it is doubly problematic for me....I think a coating of oil over the acrylic is the only way to do it properly, we'll see!

Meantime i've been researchig for the next big theatre I want to make and in my studies i've come across some of the oddest stories...Since it's nearly Burns night i'll be literary and relate to you this odd tale called the Red Barn....Bear in mind this is a true story.

In 1826 in Suffolk, England a young woman named Maria Marten (the daughter of a mole catcher) got romantically involved with a local well-to-do rogue called William Corder. Maria had had lovers before including William's older brother whom she'd had a child by. In any case Maria became pregnant with William's child and wanted them to marry while Corder wanted the relationship to remain a secret.

Eventually Corder relented and told Maria to meet him in the Red Barn so that they could elope, she was never seen again. Corder also dissappeared for a time but when he eventually resurfaced he claimed maria was alive and well. He sent letters to her family giving all kinds of reasons why Maria couldn't write back or visit. Her family of course grew suspicious and one night her stepmother had a dream that maria had been murdered and buried in the Red Barn. She told her husband to go and dig in the barn where they found her remains hidden in a sack in a grain bin.

Corder was unbelievably easy to catch, he'd married someone else and was running a women's boarding house, and had all manner of incriminating evidence such as pistols bought on the day of the murder. Clearly not the sharpest tack. He was tried and convicted of her murder. His sentence of course was death - He was hung and his chest was slit open to reveal his muscles - how strange - and then he was displayed for the public to see.

I thought perhaps the story would end there, but actually the oddest part comes next. Corder's body went through all kinds of strange things. Firstly he was dissected as an example for trainee surgeons, then later his skull was examined by phrenologists (His personality was found to be secretive and destructive). The skeleton was then put back together and exhibited as a teaching aid at a hospital while his skin was cured and used to bind an account of the murder (You can still see this book in Moyse's hall museum I think).

The story actually has numerous side-stories and alternative plot lines. For example Maria's step mother was possibly having an affair with Corder (her dream came about only days after Corder married the other womans) and helped to plot the death of Maria. You can read the full details here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Barn_Murder

It's an unbelievable mess of a story with all of the traditional elements at work. A wicked step mother, a murderous bridegroom, an iconic building, dreams and portents.

The theatre itself is not related to the story but since i've been scouring local histories of places around britain it seems like there are hundreds of fantastic tales like this.

Christmas time, whatever else it is (Excuse for last-days-of-rome style drinking) is a time when generally I work on something more substantial. Actually this christmas I didn't do that right away, instead I went on holiday - well I went and stayed with my mum. I saw my nan and family, met up with lovely old freinds, went to a gin and mince pie party, went to a party at a nursing home which was surprisingly ok once I started in on the brandy shots.

Now i'm back home and after 2 days in my pyjamas with this as my view


I got off my arse and started priming some wood. It's for a jumping jack bigger than the usual size. I decided to try a large one after reading about the french courts of olde were they used to make super-sized puppets. It's not gigantic but you can see the size of the parts next to a normal sized jumping jack below.


Also, large puppets seem to be becoming very popular over here... In the last 2 years Britain has been treated to 2 amazing spectacles by french events company Royal De Luxe involving enormous automated puppets. One of them took place this year in Liverpool, I didn't get to see either of them but the photos are stunning. The ones below are taken from 'The Sultan's Elephant' which took place in 2006.


On a much smaller scale, I ended up making a tiger to go with the tamer - no clear photos as yet, the weather is awful here. But you can get the idea



Now I think it's time to get back to view #1 and read some Angela Carter - I got a selection of her journalistic writings for christmas and it makes wicked reading.

Happy holidays!

Here's some shots of the automaton. Various things need doing like covering up joints and cleaning things up and maybe an extra layer of sea etc, but the mechanics are fine.






Well, I should get to bed, i'm up past my bed time on a school night.

Well, the clock now lies in a heap, partially abandoned. I don't mind saying it wasn't the most logical way to build a clock, it came in many layers of card so that you had to glue (up to 21!) layers of card together to make one cog! There are about 15 cogs! However, it did give me an idea so I set about making an automaton, after inspiration from this great book:




I decided to do a really simple mechanism based on the Devillish Sweet and Cake Maker, you pull a cord, his mouth opens (you put a sweetie inside) you let go and his mouth closes. After a few minutes of jumping up and down while you wait, you can now open his mouth again and eat the sweet in the firm knowledge that you deserve it!

Below are the original drawing, in progress shots and the final version.









I'm quite happy with the way it turned out, although the photographs aren't great. I need a new camera really. But anyway, it's for sale in my Etsy shop here.

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