Thursday 24th May

I have decided to carry on with the Blog. After feedback from my course tutor and other teaching staff I feel as though the continuation of the diary would both help inform and support my practice. After all, I do need to keep better notes. The blog line will now be more broken as I will soon have other things in my life to contend with other than those already discussed. The Situation Leeds show went well, although at the end of the week Rona encountered some problems with local kids who smashed up the bell tower and threw everything down on to the floor below. Luckily I had already moved my work. I have since welded the door to the bell tower shut. Now I just need to get rid of the pigeons once more. What was all that stuff I wrote about history repeating itself?

I received my marks back yesterday for the practice in context. One examiner gave me 72 and the other 30. Of course I am not meant to know this. I was quite shocked at first and then later once I had assimilated this information I realized that I was quite proud to have caused such a difference in opinion. Written work has never been my strong point as I have noted in this, and by this blog. at least the work was controversial in its own small way. Hammam likened the work to Marmite. I responded by saying "at least you can taste something". He laughed. Hammam had proof red the draft copy and we both agreed it was not a high academic paper, but then that was the point. I just tried to be honest. I could have been a lot more honest but that may well have been a little too much for even the most broad-minded tutor. I suppose my mistake was trying to be creative within the Fine Art degree. (joking) I may well add this (joking) caveat every time I am having fun from now on as some people don't seem to understand my humour.

What was it Mchlulen said "the medium is the message" or some such thing. I did make a critical error. I assumed that all of the markers would be aware at least of my practice and would therefore be able to take the written work for what it was, an expression and example of the same thing, hence the opening quote from Lawrence stern. Read "The life and opinions of Tristrim Shandy, gentleman" and you will see what I was driving at about the way I had decided to contextualise my practice. Despite the title of the book our hero is not born until somewhere near the end and even then his life is not directly discussed in any great detail but rather the emphasis of he book is placed on conception, chaotic delivery, pregnancy, parsons, midwives local characters and connecting stories and points of interest. Stern uses the very style of writing to convey all you need to know about the character of which we are told little direct information. Circles within circles.

I should have written the piece like a child instead. (not joking)

Here is a history of the church, written by my friend and Vicar of Rangthorne. David Calder

St Marks is a “Waterloo” Church, a “Commissioners” Church, a “Million Pound” Church. To celebrate the victory at Waterloo parliament appointed Commissioners to oversee the spending of a million pounds on new urban churches. Initially around 100 churches were built and more money was subsequently voted through. Three of the initial 100 churches were built in Leeds, now only St Marks survives.

Waterloo Churches tended to be of a similar design, using a square tower to support the West end of the church. The churches were all built in new urban areas that lacked their own Parish Churches. Parliament wanted value for money, as many seats as possible, and as you look at the South wall you can see where the south galleries used to be – this crowding led one vicar to liken the church to “darkened pig pens”.

The church was originally designed for hearing the preacher, as the main part of the service was the sermon. The original pulpit, where the preacher would have stood was on the North side of the church. Later, in the 1880s, the church was re-ordered to provide a clear view of the service that now centred around the Holy Communion and was a visual feast, with brightly robed clergy, a robed choir, candles and ritual.

In the early days of the church Woodhouse had a number of large houses with armies of servants. These would have been the original congregations. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the wealthy factory owners moved out and their houses were pulled down to make room for terraced houses which survived until the sixties, some still remain. There was a huge social shift as the wealthy patrons were replaced by humbler craftsmen, the church wardens were no longer mill owners but local business men such as butchers. There are two churchwardens’ seats just below the pulpit, this is unusual as the church wardens would usually sit near the back, help latecomers and organise bell ringing. My assumption is that wealthy men were elected as church wardens and paid other men to do the actual work. The Churchwardens seats are extra wide, were they men of girth?

The windows were originally clear glass and have been replaced with pictures, most of which are in memory of someone. The Whall window in the North West corner is a pre-Raphaelite depiction of the death of St Stephen, the first Christian Martyr. The three pictures (known as lights) at the bottom of the window show him speaking to the Sanhedrin, the council of elders, who close there ears to what he says, he is then dragged out, and lastly stoned to death. On the right hand light there is a man looking directly at your, he has a coat over his arm, this is St Paul before his conversion. Above is Christ (face damaged) surrounded by angels, he is wearing a chasuble, which the priest would have worn while taking a service of Holy Communion. Stephen is pictured wearing a dalmatic, the appropriate dress for a Victorian deacon. This window is best seen on a cold clear January afternoon just before sunset, the light changes quickly and the colours change with it. The windows on the South Wall are from St Michaels Church, Buslingthorpe, demolished in the 1960s. The windows are a set and one is a copy of the famous Holman Hunt “Light of the World”.

The great organ was built by bins of Leeds and was said to be Jimmy Binns masterpiece, it was electrified in 1917. The March sisters paid both for its installation and electrification in memory of their father. The acoustics in the building are almost perfect. The Buslingthorpe war memorial was brought to St Marks when St Michaels,

Buslingthorpe was demolished in the 60s. It is unusually large, 270 names are recorded on it from the First World War. The Rangthorne memorial is big but only has a third of the number of names. Because men were recruited into local battalions which were then sent into action together, and because in some areas casualties were extremely high, it is possible that many, even most of them, died on the same day. I am intrigued by the man whose rank is Sgt Farr (Sergeant Farrier)was he perhaps an older man who was drafted in purely to work as a Farrieir? Were the high casualties a reflection of the fact that Buslingthorpe was a working class area? We hear a great deal about the “Leeds Pals” and their heavy losses in July 1916 and March 1918, yet very few of the men on this memorial were in the Pals which recruited from the middle classes.

Work on St Marks was started in 1823, it was finished in 1826 and finally closed in 2001. The congregation at 9.30am on the 15th July 2001 was 25, at the evening service there were in excess of 400 people. At that service the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds preached the sermon, there was a choir of over 50. In its heyday St Marks had a church hall, a school, a soup kitchen, a daughter church (St Gabriel Woodhouse), an institute (rather like a club), church lads brigade, scouts and various other off shoots. In the 1960s the mass destruction of Woodhouse started and the church was at one point almost the only building left in the area.

Since the churches closure in 2001 it was opened up the following year, cleaned and polished for the funeral of Mel Davidson, a popular local man, one year after this a wedding blessing took place, it has also been used by a local band and featured in the TV drama “The Beaderbeck Affair” which also depicts the destruction of this area of Leeds in the 1970s. The graveyard was closed several decades ago and contains some interesting gravestones. One of them, in the form of a pillar, describes the diseased as “useful but inconspicuous”. By the time of the First World War the graveyard was almost full and the church suffered as a result of falling income from the graves.